He slowly let go of my hand. “Did Instructor Ming set a specific subject for the painting?”
Hearing his words, I stood there dazed.
He actually agreed.
Lin Chongtan gently flicked his finger against my forehead. “Why are you still daydreaming? Weren’t you in a hurry just now?”
I quickly let go of him. “He didn’t say it had to be anything specific.”
Creating a piece like Night Tour on Qixi would take a lot of time. Since it wasn’t a holiday period, Lin Chongtan had classes during the day and went out in the evenings; he usually only had free time to paint after 10:00 PM when he returned.
During the days he worked on the painting, I stayed by his side to help. I poured tea, prepared the ink, and handed him towels—doing whatever I could.
One night, he painted very late. Even though I had splashed water on my face to stay awake, I couldn’t fight off the exhaustion and unknowingly fell asleep at the desk. Later, I was startled awake by a sudden crash of thunder outside.
Boom! It felt as if it had exploded right next to my ear.
I sat up in a panic, looking around in confusion before realizing a torrential rainstorm had begun outside.
Lin Chongtan was still painting. Baichi walked in from outside. “Young Master, Young Master Chun, it’s pouring out there.” As he spoke, he closed the windows. With the wind and rain, I noticed the weather had turned cold tonight.
“I didn’t bring an umbrella. Baichi, please prepare one for me,” I said.
Baichi readily agreed.
However, the rain only got heavier. I waited for a long time, but the storm showed no signs of letting up. Seeing the sand in the hourglass piling up, I decided to head back anyway.
Just as I opened my umbrella, a bolt of white light seemed to tear the sky apart. I even heard the sound of something outside being blown over by the wind. The noise was so loud I couldn’t help but take two steps back. At that moment, Lin Chongtan walked out of the room.
He frowned at the sky and turned to me. “The rain is too heavy. Stay here for the night.”
I wanted to politely decline, but then another bolt of lightning struck. At the same time, the lotus lantern I was holding was blown out by the wind.
It was at least a fifteen-minute walk from Lin Chongtan’s dormitory to mine. My lantern could go out at any moment, and with the heavy rain and thunder, the night path would be treacherous.
In the end, I stayed. But one issue made me feel very awkward: Lin Chongtan didn’t have a spare room. If I didn’t sleep with him, I’d have to sleep with Qiongqiu or Baichi—and neither of them dared to share a room with me.
The moment Baichi met my gaze, he said, “Young Master Chun, I’ll prepare the bedding for you.”
He was quick and efficient, soon laying out a second quilt on Lin Chongtan’s bed. Qiongqiu went into the washroom to serve Lin Chongtan for his bath. Since I had already bathed before coming over, I had nothing to do but stand by the bed.
Once the bed was ready, Baichi dimmed most of the lights, leaving only one lamp by the window to faintly illuminate the room. Having finished, he withdrew. After a while, I heard Lin Chongtan coming out of the washroom.
He whispered something to Qiongqiu, who soon left carrying Lin Chongtan’s discarded clothes. Only Lin Chongtan and I were left in the room.
Lin Chongtan walked to the bedside. Seeing me still standing, he asked with a neutral expression, “Why aren’t you sleeping yet?”
I glanced at him, then at the bed. “Do you want to sleep on the inside or the outside?”
“The outside.”
“Then I’ll sleep on the inside,” I said. I quickly climbed onto the bed and burrowed into the quilt. Not long after, Lin Chongtan also lay down.
Even though Lin Chongtan and I spent time alone, he was usually busy painting. Now, lying in the same bed, the scene from the carriage that night kept surfacing in my mind—
Me sitting in Lin Chongtan’s lap, licking and biting his lips.
I shook my head, forbidding myself from thinking about it and forcing myself to fall asleep. But the wind and rain outside wouldn’t stop, making the windows rattle. Coupled with the occasional thunder, I wasn’t just wide awake—my body actually trembled slightly at the noise.
Back when I lived with Fan Wu, on one stormy night, he had drunk too much. He beat me first, then grabbed me by the collar and threw me into the cowshed, refusing to let me back inside.
The big yellow ox knew me, so it didn’t trample me, but I huddled in the corner, breaking down in tears from the terrifying thunder.
At one point, I ran out into the rain to pound on the door. “Father… hic… I was wrong. Let me in, Father…”
I pounded for a long time, but Fan Wu never opened the door. My foster mother wasn’t home that night; a woman in the neighboring village was in labor, and she had gone to help.
Later, I learned that shortly after Fan Wu threw me into the cowshed, he had fallen into a deep sleep and couldn’t hear my knocking at all.
By the time my foster mother returned, I had developed a high fever.
Fortunately, she wasn’t harsh to me and immediately carried me to see a doctor. That was the longest I had ever spent in her arms. My eyelashes were soaked with tears, and a look of heartache appeared on her face as she stroked my cheek. “Chun Di, don’t cry anymore. Mother will make your favorite red bean buns when we get back. Be good, stop crying.”
I used to love my foster mother dearly, until the truth came from her own mouth.
When she was dying, I was the one by her side. She didn’t look at me; she only stared fixedly at the doorway. I still loved her then. I held her hand, calling her name repeatedly. “Mother, Mother, don’t go to sleep.”
She ignored me. With her last breath, she called out Lin Chongtan’s name and said, “My son—”
With a mournful cry, she left this world forever.
“Scared?” Lin Chongtan suddenly spoke from beside me. I hadn’t fully pulled myself out of the past and was stunned for a moment. While I was dazed, he reached out his hand. Instinctively, I grabbed it. Looking at the hand before me, my emotions suddenly spiraled out of control.
The person who should have been abused by Fan Wu was Lin Chongtan.
Yet even on her deathbed, he refused to come see her.
I was the one who stayed by her side for thirteen years, and I was the one there when she died, but in her final moments, all she thought about was her biological son.
I grabbed Lin Chongtan’s hand and bit down hard. It wasn’t until I heard him let out a muffled groan that I realized what a stupid thing I had done. My body went stiff as I let go, seeing a clear teeth mark on the back of his hand.
Looking at that mark and remembering how he had been helping me by painting under the lamp, I felt incredibly guilty. For some reason, I actually used my tongue to lick the teeth mark a few times, as if doing so could make it disappear.
After licking it, I was completely stunned.
Because Lin Chongtan took medicine year-round, his fingertips always carried a faint medicinal scent. That scent now swirled around my nose.
Coming to my senses, I quickly let go of his hand. Not daring to even look at his face, I hid my head under the quilt like a turtle.
After huddling under the covers for a long time, the quilt was gently tugged.
“Don’t smother yourself.” Lin Chongtan’s voice was calm, as if he didn’t care at all that I had bitten him.
I couldn’t help but think of the carriage incident. I had kissed him, yet afterward, he never mentioned it and treated me exactly as before, as if it had never happened.
After a thought, I peeked out from the quilt and turned to look at him. I wanted to ask if he remembered that night, but the moment I met his gaze, I lost my nerve.
I could only turn my face back toward the wall. Fortunately, the thunder finally stopped, and I drifted off to sleep. When I woke up again, the sky was just beginning to brighten. I discovered I was once again sleeping in Lin Chongtan’s arms—one of my legs was even bent over his waist.
What was most embarrassing was that Lin Chongtan’s hand was resting on my foot.
He wasn’t awake yet. I tried to sneakily pull my leg back. Because I was afraid of waking him, I moved extremely slowly. Just as my foot was about to completely slip away from his hand, his grip suddenly tightened around my foot.