Shang Yinyu led Nineteen into the imperial study and first sent An Dezhong off to rest.
When only the two of them were left in the study, Shang Yinyu’s gaze swept over Nineteen and saw the marks of cat claws tearing his clothes at the chest and arms.
Shang Yinyu wanted to build the image of a wise ruler who respected worthy men in front of Nineteen. Pulling Nineteen toward the chair behind the desk, he said sincerely: “Nineteen was injured because of me. I should personally apply the medicine for Nineteen.”
When I sit side by side with Nineteen on the chair and take out the imperial wound medicine, Nineteen bares his vital places before me and entrusts all his trust to me. What a good way to advance our feelings.
The idea was beautiful, but the first step could not be carried out in real time: Nineteen was unwilling to sit.
Shang Yinyu had already sat down and had made enough room. He looked up at Nineteen and pulled Nineteen’s hand again. “Nineteen?”
Nineteen bent and knelt on one knee, head lowered. “This subordinate dares not.”
Dares not what?
Shang Yinyu looked at the top of Nineteen’s head. Nineteen kneeling beside the desk felt especially awkward to him.
In the past, when he had made Nineteen be with him, he often summoned Nineteen when he was nearly done reading memorials, and Nineteen would kneel just like this under his desk and serve him.
Shang Yinyu restrained himself from recalling that absurd picture again and looked at Nineteen intently. “Are you worried that I will take the chance of applying medicine to do what I did last time?”
This was indeed something he had overlooked. Although Nineteen probably didn’t resent him now, having been treated that way once, it would be hard for Nineteen not to have a shadow in his heart.
Nineteen’s body trembled, and his head lowered even more. “Nineteen does not dare to wish.”
This reaction, in Shang Yinyu’s eyes, confirmed his guess.
Nineteen is still afraid. Afraid I will do that to him again, afraid I will insist on humiliating him, afraid of misplacing his loyalty and trust.
Nineteen, I am willing to be ruler and minister with you for a lifetime. If you do not betray me, I will absolutely not betray you.
Shang Yinyu reached out and made a gesture of helping Nineteen up, explaining with great patience, “Although touching between close people is common, since Nineteen doesn’t like it, I won’t touch you. Besides, I’m awake now, and I don’t pinch people.”
“I don’t dislike it.” Nineteen refuted in an extremely low voice.
Shang Yinyu was about to pull Nineteen into the seat again when he suddenly heard this and was stunned. He asked: “What did you say?”
Nineteen still would not sit. His lowered eyelashes trembled slightly, as if he had summoned the courage of a lifetime, and he guided His Majesty’s hand to press it against his own chest.
In the usually cool voice was a trace of a nervous tremor. “This subordinate does not dislike it.”
“This subordinate likes it. Likes it very much. No one has ever touched this subordinate like this.”
Nineteen was experiencing for the first time the feeling of being touched by someone, not the life-and-death fighting when crossing blades with an enemy, not the pulled blows of martial sparring; the feeling of being embraced and touched was so vivid.
Body heat mingled, breaths entangled, the blood boiled, the heartbeat went wild, the mind was bewitched.
Shang Yinyu’s mind was a bit confused. He was startled by Nineteen’s words, and amid his disbelief, he felt that these words sounded a little familiar.
This description of Nineteen’s… why was it so like Nineteen’s reaction in the past after he had toyed with him?
Longing for him, unable to be without him, and as soon as he came close, going from proud bones to a pool of water, letting him do as he pleased.
Shang Yinyu had always thought it was he who had toyed Nineteen into this state, but now it seemed Nineteen might have had some such tendency from the start.
A shadow guard’s identity is extremely secret, unnoticed and unknown, and even among shadow guards there is little exchange, so psychological problems arise very easily.
Every year he had the shadow guard commander conduct a survey of the shadow guards’ mental condition. Many old shadow guards had been transferred to other posts, and many new people had joined.
Nineteen had become shadow guard commander in his second year as his shadow guard, and by the time he was bullied in the Begonia Bath, Nineteen had been his shadow guard for ten years, and had lived ten years of a ghost-like life.
In those ten years, besides the other shadow guards and the targets of missions, the only one Nineteen came into contact with was him, his master.
Ten years of shadow guard life, Nineteen had very little close contact with people, lacked skin contact, and his skin was in a state of hunger.
Afterward he had given Nineteen the touch he craved, and once Nineteen was satisfied he had pushed him into the abyss.
—He had not only given Nineteen what he needed; he had also bullied Nineteen.
Physically satisfied, psychologically humiliated, Nineteen had spent five years with him in this distortion.
Until Nineteen became Guardian General with the power and position to oppose him and no longer needed to submit to him, and only then did Nineteen show him the sharp parts.
Shang Yinyu had some realization and felt he understood Nineteen’s past struggle and despair.
He looked at the Nineteen beside him, clean and never bullied by him, feeling somewhat sad and guilty, and also somewhat fortunate.
This time I did not bully Nineteen. Perhaps Nineteen trusted me more, or perhaps he could not suppress his craving, and so chose to confess his craving to me.
This did not mean Nineteen was in love with him; it was only that Nineteen’s skin was in a state where need went against fulfillment, like a body feeling hungry or thirsty.
He had told Nineteen that such touching was normal between master and servant and between ruler and minister, and Nineteen had believed it. Nineteen now saying his craving to him was Nineteen asking him for help.
Nineteen needed him this much. As long as he gave a certain response, he could make Nineteen more loyal to him and devoted to him.
It could also… let him correct the earlier mistake. Although the harm he had caused was already hard to make up to the Nineteen of the past, at least it could make himself feel a little better.
Nineteen, I rarely show kindness. If you betray me again in the future, I will destroy you even at the cost of both of us being ruined.
Shang Yinyu stood up, pulled back the hand pressed to Nineteen’s chest, and began to tidy the memorials, brushes and ink on the desk.
If Nineteen didn’t want to sit in the chair, then he wouldn’t. They would change to another place.
In the past he had also, in the imperial study, laid Nineteen on the desk and been with him. This time he was clearing the desk not to bully Nineteen but to satisfy Nineteen’s need.
After clearing the desk, Shang Yinyu turned and saw Nineteen with a tight face, his half-lowered eyelashes trembling, uneasy and at a loss.
“Sit here. I will give you what you want.”
Nineteen’s eyes went wide with shock. For a moment he could not help looking directly at the Heavenly face, saw neither joking nor disgust on His Majesty’s face, and lowered his eyes again with a tremble, slowly moving to the front of the desk.
Shang Yinyu waited until Nineteen had slowly and reluctantly sat down before reaching out to him.
Setting down gently to one side of the desk the belt that bound the shadow guard’s body and held his hidden weapons, Shang Yinyu looked at Nineteen, who was trying his best to relax, and suddenly asked:
“Nineteen, in these years, have you embraced anyone?”
Nineteen shook his head instinctively, paused, and then, blushing, hesitantly nodded, his voice low and light: “Master has embraced Nineteen. Last night in Master’s bedchamber, the other time in the Begonia Bath, and also at Shangwu Hall…”
The bedchamber and the Begonia Bath he remembered, but Shangwu Hall…
Mm, Nineteen was the shadow guard commander, and Shang Yinyu often had Nineteen spar with and instruct him in martial arts, so some bodily contact on the training ground was inevitable.
Only these contacts, and all of them from him.
Skin gets hungry too. Suppressed to this degree, no wonder that in the past Nineteen, while feeling humiliated, had still given himself up to him completely and let him bully him.
Shang Yinyu reached out, put his arms around Nineteen, pressed him into his embrace and held him tightly.
“Nineteen, does it feel good?”