This was a very young man, handsome and tall, wearing a light yellow-brown hemp robe with a cross collar. His hair was covered in mud and sand, and he lay face-up on the shallow water’s stone beach. The river water submerged his mouth and nose, and he had several wounds on his body. Under the impact of the water flow, the wounds were swollen and pale, showing a morbid appearance of a dead person.
Gu Jun didn’t know if the other person was dead or alive. Once he regained his senses, his hands moved faster than his brain, dragging and pulling the person onto the shore. This small task had already exhausted all his strength. After all, since he had crossed over, he hadn’t had a full meal. Not only had he lost more than ten pounds, but he was also seriously injured.
He didn’t have time to rest, panting heavily, he raised his hand to lightly pat the other person, but there was no response. He leaned over to check, and there was no pulse or breath.
No matter, he decided to give it a try. Gu Jun gritted his teeth and immediately began CPR. Just as he was about to give up, feeling dizzy and faint, he suddenly heard a low groan. His mind instantly cleared a bit, and he continued with CPR until he was completely out of strength, his vision going black before he stopped.
Life and death are determined by fate, wealth and honor are in the hands of heaven. Gu Jun weakly reached out to check the other person’s breath and pulse, but before he could, a violent coughing sound erupted, and a gaze as sharp as a knife or sword shot up from below.
Gu Jun was startled and looked down, realizing that the person had woken up. He had pulled him back from the gates of hell. A great joy surged in his heart, and his tense nerves instantly relaxed. Gu Jun didn’t care about the stones on the riverbank poking into his flesh, he clutched his chest where his heart was pounding wildly, sat down heavily, and gasped for air, a smile unconsciously appearing on his face.
Once his breathing was even and his heartbeat returned to normal, he remembered the hostility the other person had shown earlier. He wanted to tell the other person that he was a good person and had just saved him. But he could barely understand the language of this place, let alone speak it well. Rather than stammering and spitting out a few awkward words like a fool, it was better not to speak at all.
Gu Jun closed his mouth and looked at the other person harmlessly. The young man looked at him for a while, his gaze softened, and he surveyed the surroundings. After a moment, in a hoarse voice, he said, “Thank you for saving my life. I will repay you someday.”
The words he spoke had a slightly different accent from what Gu Jun had heard before. He probably wasn’t a local of Nanling Prefecture. Between states, there were naturally some differences in accent due to the large geographical span.
After Gu Jun arrived in another county and inquired about his location, he found out he was currently in Zhuyang County. The county magistrate who had captured him was the magistrate of Yanlin County. Zhuyang and Yanlin were neighboring counties, not far apart, both under the jurisdiction of Nanling Prefecture.
In the Da Xuan dynasty, the local administrative levels were mainly divided into four: province, prefecture, state, and county. Counties were subordinate to prefectures or directly to states. Gu Jun silently recited this in his mind, finally understanding what the young man was saying. He was about to nod when the young man, seeing his prolonged silence, spoke again before he could nod.
He said, “Miss, do we know each other?”
In just one sentence, Gu Jun was shocked twice. Miss? Did he look like a girl? Although he did have somewhat feminine features, he was a real man. What kind of eyesight did this person have? Know each other? That was even more absurd; they had only met for the first time today.
Gu Jun deeply suspected that the other person had a mental problem. Could this be a side effect of walking through the gates of hell? Gu Jun’s expression didn’t look good, and the young man, who had been watching him, naturally noticed this.
He secretly pondered, judging from the other person’s reaction, that he knew this young lady and had a close relationship with her. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be angry at his earlier words. From a stranger’s perspective, his words were not inappropriate, but from an acquaintance’s perspective, they were extremely inappropriate.
In fact, he remembered nothing. Name, identity, family… everything from the past had vanished like smoke in his mind. Now that he was sure the other person was harmless and familiar with him, he no longer tested her and directly and frankly said, “I have amnesia.”
Gu Jun was slightly stunned and managed to squeeze out an “oh” after a long time. The young man asked, “Who are you? What’s my name? Why are we here?”
The barrage of questions left Gu Jun a bit at a loss. He thought for a moment and was about to answer honestly when he noticed the other person’s strong body perfectly displayed by his wet clothes, and a thought struck him.
He lowered his gaze, fiddled with the edge of his sleeve, and shamelessly stammered, “…I’m your wife.”
“?”
“My name is Gu Jun.”
Gu Jun originally wanted to use idioms to explain which two good characters his name consisted of, but recalling that the language of this era was different from his own, and perhaps there were no idioms he had learned, he gave up. The other person could interpret his name however they wanted; it wasn’t an important matter.
The more pressing issue was… Gu Jun touched his stomach, which was growling with hunger.
The young man scrutinized Gu Jun. His mind had been even less clear earlier, probably due to drowning, as if a thousand long needles were piercing his brain, causing his entire forehead to throb with pain. So even though he had stared at the other person for a while, he hadn’t seen clearly, only concluding that the person in front of him was a young lady.
Now, looking seriously, he saw that the other person’s skin was as white as snow, with a good appearance. Her eyebrows were thick but not messy, her nose was straight and delicate, her lips beautifully shaped, neither too thick nor too thin, and her eyes were large and round, with the pupils occupying half of the eye sockets, the corners slightly drooping, bright and clear, full of spirit.
However, the other person’s condition didn’t look good. His complexion, along with his lip color, was pale, his cheeks slightly sunken, and upon closer inspection, there was a hint of worry and illness between his brows.
The exposed skin had some fine, long scars, as if something sharp had grazed it. His palms had several blisters, distributed in a way that suggested they were caused by some task.
He was dressed in men’s clothing—a patched indigo short jacket paired with brown trousers. Thin and weak, he looked like he could be blown over by the wind.
The young man judged that the person claiming to be his wife was a child raised in a wealthy family, now having suffered quite a bit.
This judgment gave the young man a strange feeling, vaguely sensing that he used to often judge people through various details.
He was about seventy to eighty percent convinced by the claim that she was his wife.
Given her appearance, it wasn’t surprising if he had taken a liking to her and married her in the past.
If she had an ordinary appearance and said the same thing, he wouldn’t believe it at all. He didn’t think his past self lacked taste.
As for why she spoke with a stutter and had a strange accent… could she have a condition?
He hesitated to think, but other speculations lingered in his mind, so he remained silent, waiting for more information.
While the young man’s mind was constantly turning, Gu Jun’s mind was also racing.
He said to the young man, “Your surname is Lin, and your given name is Yue. Do you have any impression of why we are here?”
The young man replied, “I’m listening to you.”
Gu Jun racked his brain to come up with a reason.
“We… we… are… are…” Gu Jun furrowed his brows. He didn’t have much experience and wasn’t steady enough to immediately fabricate a convincing reason under the other person’s sharp gaze.
But the other person was too clever, and somehow filled in the gaps himself. Or perhaps he misheard Gu Jun’s stammering and mistook “are” for “eloped.”
The young man said, “…Eloped?”
Gu Jun: “…”
Gu Jun: “Mm-hmm.”
The young man: “…”
The young man closed his eyes briefly and said, “Look at me and say it again, and also explain carefully why we eloped.”