After the two of them took turns bathing and changed into clean clothes, the sky had already begun to pale with the first hint of dawn.
Su Ying found a few medicinal herbs in the corner of the room, added water, and set them to boil over the stove. Then she took the medicated oil and went back inside.
Pei Xiu sat sideways on the edge of the bed, his lips pressed into a faint line as he faced the doorway.
Only when the familiar sound of footsteps reached him did the furrows between his brows slowly ease.
“Su Ying,” he said hesitantly.
Su Ying swept him a cold glance. “Stop calling me.”
“Where are you hurt?”
“Worry about yourself.” Su Ying’s tone was indifferent. “If I hadn’t gone several years without fighting and grown rusty, that bunch wouldn’t have been worth mentioning.”
Pei Xiu’s lips moved several times before closing again.
“Take off your clothes,” Su Ying said.
“…What?”
As if he hadn’t understood, Pei Xiu slightly widened his sightless eyes.
“Take them off. I’ll apply the medicine.”
There was a little more impatience in her voice. Though Pei Xiu felt an indescribable awkwardness, he still slowly removed his upper garment.
Normally, they didn’t light lamps in the room.
Pei Xiu couldn’t see, and Su Ying had no need for one. It saved them the cost of lamp oil.
This time, however, Su Ying lit an oil lamp so she could treat his injuries.
The dim yellow light spread through the cramped room. Su Ying looked at the bruises covering his body. Fresh wounds overlapped old ones, and there wasn’t a single uninjured patch of skin.
Though Su Ying had been injured as well, her wounds were nowhere near as horrifying as his.
Something stirred in her heart.
That was right.
Pei Xiu had once been a nobleman raised amid silks and splendor, with a body of gold and jade. How could he compare with someone like her, who had struggled through the muck since childhood?
Her callused palm, coated with medicated oil, pressed against the worst bruise at his waist and rubbed it with measured force.
“Hiss—”
The pain made Pei Xiu flinch away.
Su Ying looked at him with amusement. “You didn’t make a sound while taking those blows just now. Now you know it hurts? Delicate.”
“…”
Pei Xiu was rendered speechless. A faint blush spread across the tips of his ears, but he stubbornly said, “Your hands are cold.”
Hearing that, Su Ying brought the back of her hand to her face. It was indeed cold.
The next time she rubbed his bruises, she warmed her hands first before placing them against him.
The warmth generated by the medicated oil’s friction carried an almost unbearable dull pain that spread all the way to Pei Xiu’s chest.
It transformed into an inexplicable itch that settled heavily in his heart.
What a strange feeling, he thought.
“All done.”
By the time she had worked all the bruises loose, a layer of cold sweat had gathered at Pei Xiu’s temples.
Su Ying fetched a cloth to wipe it away. She had never been good at caring for others, and her hands were heavy; she wiped Pei Xiu’s head this way and that until it lolled from side to side.
Several times, Pei Xiu wanted to say, “I can do it myself,” but for some reason, he swallowed the words each time.
After each of them drank a bowl of medicinal meal to dispel the cold, Su Ying removed her cloth shoes and climbed onto the bed.
Pei Xiu, who had been hesitating for quite some time, finally spoke in a small voice. “Su Ying, aren’t you going to apply the medicated oil?”
She hadn’t slept all night and was terribly exhausted. Su Ying didn’t feel like answering him.
She had already used the medicated oil. Although she couldn’t reach the wounds on her back herself, could she really expect a blind man to help?
Just as she was drifting off, she sensed the curtain between them being gently lifted.
Su Ying impatiently raised her eyelids. She was about to ask what he wanted now when she saw the little Xiazi holding his breath and leaning toward her.
Not knowing what he intended to do, Su Ying remained silent and made her breathing even lighter.
Pei Xiu’s expression tightened slightly. He tilted his head and leaned a little closer to her.
Only then did Su Ying understand what he was doing. She said irritably, “Stop listening. I’m not dead.”
Pei Xiu froze. “…You weren’t asleep?”
“I was just about to fall asleep before you woke me.” Su Ying turned over, presenting her back to him. “If you don’t want to sleep, sit there and space out. Stop bothering people.”
Pei Xiu retreated to his side and muttered, “How did I never notice before that your breathing was so shallow?”
“Pei Xiu!”
“…Got it.”
She slept so deeply that she lost all sense of day and night. Su Ying hadn’t slept that long in years.
When she awoke with aches throughout her body, it was already getting dark.
She lifted the curtain, but the other side was empty.
A quick glance around showed that Pei Xiu was nowhere in the room either.
Su Ying put on her shoes and went outside. She immediately saw Pei Xiu sitting on a low stool beneath the corridor.
With nowhere to put his long legs, he had curled them up in front of himself, resting his chin on his knees. His expression was blank, as though he were lost in thought.
Yet the fingers gripping his white cane had gone pale, clearly showing that every nerve in his body was tense.
For some reason, he looked rather pitiful.
“They were injured too. They won’t be coming back anytime soon, so you don’t need to stand guard,” Su Ying said.
Pei Xiu lowered his eyes without answering.
“Are you hungry?”
He slowly nodded.
Su Ying had barely stepped into the kitchen when he followed her to the doorway.
“Su Ying.” Pei Xiu held onto the doorframe. “Are you going to cook?”
“Mm.”
Although she answered, Su Ying felt at a loss as to where to begin.
People said that children from poor families learned to take care of themselves early. In theory, cooking such a small matter shouldn’t have been difficult for her.
But Su Ying’s family had been poor in the most literal sense—utterly destitute. At home, getting the cooking fire going meant boiling thin gruel so watery one could see the bottom of the pot. And even with that, they had still managed to produce a whole heap of children.
Su Ying was the seventh in line.
Before entering the Pei Residence, her name had been Su Qi.
The name Su Ying had been given to her by Pei Xiu.
It had been winter in the twenty-first year of Chengguang. Fierce winds drove the snow, yet the tea room in the East Garden of the Pei Residence was as warm as spring.
At the time, Pei Xiu’s eyes had not yet gone blind. Dressed in fine robes and a jade belt, with red lips and pearly teeth, he had been a handsome young man as graceful as a jade tree facing the wind.
He propped his cheek against one hand beside the couch, idly turning a jade necklace over in the other.
“Su Qi…” Pei Xiu frowned. “How can that count as a name? If you don’t mind, I could give you another one. What do you think?”
He held the necklace between his fingers, his beautiful, translucent phoenix-shaped eyes lowered slightly. “Long tassels brush the dew, plain hues cut the wind… Su Ying. Do you like this name?”
From then on, Su Qi changed her name to Su Ying.
Su Ying gently stirred the porridge with a ladle, adding a spoonful of water to the somewhat dry, sticky gruel. Her gaze fell on Pei Xiu outside the kitchen.
As usual, he sat there quietly with his legs curled up and his arms around his knees.
In Su Ying’s few memories of him, Pei Xiu had always been gentle and quiet.
Once the center of everyone’s attention, he had never possessed the reckless arrogance of other sons of noble families. His handsome face had always carried a warm smile, and his manner had been refined and proper.
Now that all his former glory had vanished, his eyes blind and his life adrift, he remained calm and accepting, never making a fuss or voicing a complaint.
When Pei Xiu had been the Young Master of the Minister’s Residence, his gentle, considerate nature had been the natural dignity instilled by his upbringing. But in his current perilous circumstances, that same temperament had become a burden, making it difficult for him to survive.
Su Ying withdrew her gaze and looked at the white porridge simmering perfectly in the pot. After a moment’s thought, she added a handful of dry grass to the stove opening, and the fire suddenly flared.
Before long, the smell of burning rose from the pot.
“Su Ying!”
Pei Xiu’s face went pale. He hurriedly got to his feet and rushed toward the kitchen. “Be careful. Don’t rush. Don’t hurt yourself…”
He had moved too quickly and hadn’t taken his white cane. His foot caught on the threshold, and he pitched straight forward.
The pain he expected never came. He barely managed to crash into a slender shoulder.
The unpleasant stench of charred food was suddenly replaced by the bitter, clean scent of medicinal herbs. For an instant, Pei Xiu’s mind went blank.
“You have time to worry about other people, but not yourself.”
Su Ying let out a helpless sigh. “Pei Xiu, the porridge is burnt. We’ll go eat outside.”