“Nineteen, do you resent me?” Shang Yinyu asked the most important question.
“Thunder and rain and dew are all the ruler’s favor. This subordinate does not resent Master. It is this subordinate who differs from ordinary people, whose body is unsightly…”
Nineteen’s lips trembled slightly, as if he could no longer bear the emperor’s gaze. Slowly he closed his knees together, knelt on the brocade quilt, and bowed down to kowtow.
With the words “do not resent,” Shang Yinyu got the answer he wanted most, but he did not feel glad. Nineteen kneeling silently prostrate like this made him uncomfortable.
Nineteen did not resent him, but he felt bad.
Nineteen said he did not resent him; he had only looked, and Nineteen did not resent it.
What had once led to his opposition with Nineteen was that he had taken Nineteen and forced Nineteen, who was already especially sensitive about his body being different from ordinary people, to submit, and this made Nineteen, who defined himself as male, feel humiliated.
And after this rebirth, his reaction in Nineteen’s eyes was that he was shocked and terrified, even disgusted, on discovering that Nineteen differed from ordinary people, and this was likewise a kind of humiliation to Nineteen.
“Nineteen, I do not think you are an oddity. Being born with both yin and yang is not being an oddity.”
Shang Yinyu explained gently to Nineteen: “At that time I was just a bit dizzy and couldn’t stand steady. The stones in the hot spring pool were too slippery, and because you saw me in a sorry state, I was annoyed and left…”
Seeing that Nineteen did not react after he had said so much, Shang Yinyu knew this matter could not be rushed. He picked up the inner garment Nineteen had set to one side. “Put it on first, so you don’t catch cold.”
“…”
Still no response. Shang Yinyu was puzzled. Nineteen was not the kind to deliberately ignore him, and he involuntarily raised a hand and patted Nineteen.
Nineteen slowly turned over, still in the kneeling posture, lying on the brocade quilt. His eyes were closed and his breathing was even.
Shang Yinyu: “???”
He had actually fallen asleep?
Probably drunk and muddled. Shang Yinyu sighed, helpless and amused.
He did not know whether Nineteen, when he woke up tomorrow, would still remember what he had said.
Listening to Nineteen’s even breathing, Shang Yinyu used the inner garment in his hand to gesture over Nineteen a few times.
Dressing a sleeping person was really too hard, so he gave up.
Shang Yinyu pulled at Nineteen and changed him into a more normal posture.
Nineteen was always in black and looked extremely thin. Only after truly feeling it would one know how much firm, springy muscle was on Nineteen’s body.
Now all this had nothing to do with him.
Shang Yinyu felt a little regret, but did not dare use too much force. He feared waking Nineteen up, and that scene would certainly be awkward.
He pulled the bedding over Nineteen, quietly got off the couch, and walked toward the Nine Dragon Pool in the east side room.
Warm water had already been run in the Nine Dragon Pool, and there were attendants on night duty who all bowed in unison when they saw the emperor come.
Shang Yinyu soaked in the bath pool for a good while before his body and mind both calmed.
After putting on a sleeping robe with the attendants’ help, Shang Yinyu returned to the bedchamber, and as he passed the desk he glanced at the mechanical clock placed on it.
The first quarter of the Yin hour, half past three in the morning.
Sigh. Every time Nineteen shows up, I have to stay up like an immortal cultivator. Fortunately tomorrow is a rest day.
When we were together, I craved him, so naturally I wouldn’t sleep early. After we broke apart, I had to guard against his night raids. Now that I’m reborn, I still can’t get a peaceful night’s sleep.
But it was only this one night; there would be no more chances to be troubled by this matter in the future.
He drew back the silk gauze curtains and saw Nineteen sunk in the brocade quilt, with only his face exposed.
Nineteen was sleeping very comfortably. This realization made Shang Yinyu a little sour: I haven’t slept yet, and you’re sleeping so sweetly on my couch.
Shang Yinyu lay down on the couch and poked Nineteen’s exposed face with a well-trimmed finger.
Although he and Nineteen had had countless nights with temples pressed together, he had rarely seen Nineteen’s sleeping appearance.
At the beginning, when he got together with Nineteen, as soon as it was over Nineteen would get up and dress, bow to him, leap up onto the beams, and leave Shang Yinyu alone on the empty couch, utterly baffled.
Later Shang Yinyu spent some effort to make Nineteen understand that serving His Majesty meant serving the whole night, and only then did Nineteen change that bad habit of going up to the beams as soon as it ended.
But Nineteen still did not sleep beside him. Every time he lay with his eyes open until dawn, and quietly got off the couch when the shadow guards changed shifts in the early morning.
At first Shang Yinyu thought Nineteen was just too dedicated, and when he had Nineteen lie on the couch, Nineteen changed his night-duty post from the beams to the dragon couch.
Later Shang Yinyu learned that Nineteen had someone in his heart, and was forced to serve him, and even after it was over had to guard close beside him like this. Who knew how much unwillingness he felt in his heart; how could he sleep?
Now this Nineteen, half his face sunk in the brocade quilt, with a peaceful and comfortable air about him, made Shang Yinyu a little sad and a little amazed.
The slender, jade-like finger moved to Nineteen’s lips. He knew that on the inside of Nineteen’s lip there was a bite mark, left today at the Begonia Bath.
When he had treated Nineteen like that in the past, had Nineteen also bitten his own lip, bearing everything without a sound?
What had Nineteen been thinking at that time?
Was it a blank he did not want to think about, or boundless humiliation and hatred?
“Tell me. If you don’t say, how would I know you were unwilling…”
This was an unsolvable problem.
If the ruler wants the minister to die, the minister must die; if the ruler wants to favor the minister, the minister must comply.
It was just that Nineteen’s silence and endurance had been mistaken by Shang Yinyu for consent.
He knew Nineteen was a block of wood. Asking him to say, of his own accord, a word expressing admiration was probably harder than asking him to wipe out Jin ten times.
So he took Nineteen’s obedience for agreement as a matter of course, and took his efforts to please for affection.
Shang Yinyu withdrew his hand, lowered his eyes and pulled at the brocade quilt on himself, moved to the outermost side, kept enough distance between himself and Nineteen for two more people to lie down, and only then closed his eyes.
…
The Mid-Autumn Festival gave three days of rest, but this had little to do with the palace attendants who served the emperor’s daily life. They took turns every three to five days, and had far more holidays than the emperor and ministers.
An Dezhong signaled the attendants to move more quietly, found a chair for himself, sat down and rubbed his legs.
A young eunuch crouched beside An Dezhong and, with practiced technique, kneaded his legs, saying softly: “Godfather, wasn’t it just fetching a physician? With such a big rain last night, why not leave it to the people below? Why did you go yourself?”
An Dezhong rapped the young eunuch on the head with his whisk and scolded: “Watch more, do more, talk less.”
Last night he had been in the inner hall and had seen with his own eyes how nervous His Majesty was about Shadow Nineteen. Would he dare to hand a matter like that to anyone else?
The eunuch on night duty last night had already reported to him that His Majesty had gone to the Nine Dragon Pool at the Yin hour, and that the relieving shadow guards had entered the hall, yet Shadow Nineteen had still not left. With all this, An Dezhong could not but take it seriously.
Shang Yinyu had only fallen asleep at the Yin hour last night, but his years-long routine still made him gradually wake at the Chen hour.
This was a body clock he had adjusted after changing the morning court time; when he first took the throne, he had to get up every day before dawn.
His not very clear mind remembered only that today was a rest day, so Shang Yinyu was not in a hurry to get up. Without even opening his eyes, he rubbed the person in his arms a few times at random and fell asleep again.
Shang Yinyu slept groggily, and faintly felt the person in his arms slipping outward.
He knew this feeling.
When he and Nineteen were together, every morning Nineteen would quietly leave. Sometimes he could feel it, but most of the time he was completely unaware.
As the number of times increased, Nineteen’s technique for slipping away grew better and better, making it harder for him to notice. Shang Yinyu gradually became easygoing about it, and did not care whether Nineteen wanted to stay or go.
But this time Nineteen’s technique had regressed a bit.
No, it wasn’t a matter of technique at all. Nineteen, now the Guardian General Qiao Beiji, why would he be on my couch?
This dream was not real at all.
But Shang Yinyu did not want a real dream either. That would surely be the one where he and Qiao Beiji had broken, and the two were carefully probing and guarding against each other.
Shang Yinyu, somewhat muddled, pressed the person down and murmured softly: “Don’t move. Let me… once more.”
The person in his arms indeed stopped moving.