Xingyuan had never suffered like this before; the dazzling blood made him dizzy. His forearm throbbed with pain, and panic and helplessness gnawed at his heart.
Xingyuan instinctively ran “home.”
In his mind, that familiar tent had become the little den where he hid.
The boy panicked and scrambled into the tent, and the shocking red spread across Aisley’s pupils.
He restrained his smile, and his expression turned serious. His brows knit tightly together, and dark undercurrents surged in his slightly narrowed eyes.
He knew clearly that no one could see Xingyuan.
This must have been something the child accidentally did to himself.
Aisley had fought in battles for so many years and had suffered wounds big and small. A wound like the one on Xingyuan’s forearm was, to him, like an ordinary person breaking a fingernail…
Aisley understood this wouldn’t kill anyone — it was just that the child hadn’t seen much of the world and was terrified by this small injury.
Though his heart tightened slightly, he wasn’t truly on edge. Still, the seriousness never left his face.
Xingyuan, who had always had smooth sailing since childhood, was facing this kind of hardship for the first time.
His forearm trembled, and blood dripped down.
Even though he knew he wouldn’t die, faced with so much blood, he still felt the shadow of death looming over him.
The pain pierced to the bone, and Xingyuan’s expression twisted with suffering.
In a daze, loneliness enveloped him — in this unfamiliar place, he had to face all of this alone.
The pampered young master could no longer hold back. He sniffled, glanced around furtively, and once he confirmed “no one” could see him, he finally let his guard down.
This place was like a warm, pitch-black blanket, where the young master could let his emotions pour out freely.
Xingyuan’s eyelashes trembled, and his eyes reddened.
He supported his bloodied arm as he walked to the corner and crouched down, his sniffling growing from soft to loud.
He lowered his eyes to look at his forearm without saying a word, but tears kept falling, “pat, pat.”
The sight of the boy’s utterly wronged expression fell into Aisley’s eyes; his eyelids blinked slowly, and his heart couldn’t help but ache in waves.
Wronged as he felt, Xingyuan never once thought of running from it. However hard it was, what needed to be faced still had to be faced.
As it happened, Aisley was injured, and Xingyuan found some leftover medicine and bandages nearby.
He brought these things to the corner and, relying on memory, bandaged himself alone.
The moment he touched the wound, piercing pain swept through his mind. Xingyuan’s face turned pale, and he bit his lip, breaking into a cold sweat as he continued bandaging.
As he bandaged himself, his tears fell even harder.
Xingyuan sniffled, and whimpering sounds escaped his mouth.
At last, the bandaging was done, and the bleeding was stopped.
Xingyuan’s eyes, blurred with tears, looked around; his curled-up figure looked utterly helpless.
Xingyuan crouched there, shoulders twitching, his eyes sore and unable to open from crying too much.
Whether it was from blood loss or not, Xingyuan’s spirit grew more and more listless. His sobs turned into steady breathing, his head resting against his knees, as if he had fallen asleep.
Once his breathing had steadied, sounds began coming from the bed, mixed with a man’s suppressed groans as he moved.
The footsteps on the ground were sometimes light, sometimes heavy, because the man’s injuries were severe and his walking was unsteady.
Aisley’s face was pale, drained of color; the intense pain made him cold all over, cold sweat rolling down his forehead, and a damp, warm sensation spread from his back.
Even though the pain on his body was tearing at his nerves, Aisley’s expression showed more helplessness than anything else.
He walked slowly to the small huddled figure, crouched down, and gently scooped the boy up into his arms, horizontally, with careful movements.
Under normal circumstances this would have cost him nothing, but now that he was injured, every movement came with tearing pain.
The boy settled steadily into his arms, his fair face still creased with unresolved pain, dried tear stains still at the corners of his eyes.
As if sensing the warmth, Xingyuan curled further into the embrace, his face rubbing against the bandages.
Aisley lowered his head and gazed at him quietly.
He thought, an ordinary person’s nail breaking into the flesh would hurt too.
Coincidentally, Xingyuan had made himself a little nest in the gap by Aisley’s bed, and it happened not to have been folded away that morning.
Aisley still walked steadily and properly; he bent down to gently place Xingyuan on the bedding, but when he tried to straighten up afterward, he found it difficult.
He braced his arm against the edge of the bed and paused for a while. Once feeling gradually returned, his waist slowly straightened.
He lay back down on the bed, settling into position, and only then, amid the pain wracking his entire body, did he call out calmly toward the tent entrance in a low voice.
“Go call someone. This lord isn’t going to make it.”
A flurry of commotion woke Xingyuan up. He opened his eyes in a daze and saw quite a crowd gathered around Aisley’s bed.
The physician cursed and scolded. “Aren’t you satisfied unless you work yourself to death?! You weren’t even allowed to move around, and yet you dared get out of bed — you really deserve to suffer for this.”
The physician was so angry he was trembling, but still steadied his hands as someone brought scissors and needle and thread.
He was so furious his eyes nearly rolled back, cursing as he worked, “Injured like this, knocking you out wouldn’t even help — if it hurts more, you’ll just have to bear it while conscious.”
The haze cleared from Xingyuan’s eyes, and as he looked at Aisley, unease crept into his gaze.
Xingyuan gripped the edge of the bed with one hand, his other arm aching faintly.
He slowly stood up, walked around the bed, and pushed through the gaps in the crowd to reach the bedside.
The bloody water in the basin left Xingyuan stunned. He looked at Aisley, trembling, and the ghastly wound on the man’s back made his pupils constrict, his face turning ashen.
Such a bloody sight was something Xingyuan had never seen before. The wound was deep, cutting straight to bone, a long blade-cut running from shoulder to mid-waist — and that was just one of them.
The needle and thread pierced through the stretched flesh, sewing the two sides together; Xingyuan’s nerves went taut, his scalp prickling.
Aisley frowned, enduring the intense pain, sweat blurring his vision.
His nerves felt as if someone had gripped and yanked hard on them; his consciousness nearly scattered.
In the midst of this endless, agonizing ordeal, Aisley saw that familiar hem of clothing draw near his bedside.
Aisley finally relaxed, and he smiled too.
This time, he no longer tried to hide his body from view; instead, he lay there openly, exposing himself for Xingyuan to see.
His body wasn’t smooth and fair like the young master’s. Aside from this ghastly new wound, his body was covered in countless scars, all over.
Some of the shapes were quite terrifying — just from their appearance, one could imagine how severe those injuries had been at the time.
Xingyuan’s gaze swept over them, and his body trembled.
He suddenly caught sight of the bandage on his own arm, and in that instant he felt that his earlier self had been foolish and silly. Compared to Aisley’s wounds, his was like nothing more than a light scratch.
He had actually shed tears in secret just now. For a moment, Xingyuan felt utterly useless.
Xingyuan instinctively refused to look away.
Even though Aisley’s wound was terrifying, he forced himself past the fear and stayed there, lying down, watching until it was done.
Aisley knew he had achieved his goal.
Wanting to be good to someone was never about shielding them from darkness, clearing away every hardship, and letting them live safely in a comfortable little nest.
He wanted that person to become strong, to learn and grow, to have wings of their own that could soar freely across the sky.
After some unknown amount of time, the crowd dispersed, and quiet returned to the tent.
The lamp flickered, and inside Aisley’s mind it felt as if a mountain had been pressed down upon him — his head ached and his consciousness grew hazy.
Suddenly, he caught a familiar, soothing scent, and his eyes opened the faintest, barely visible sliver.
What came into view was a chubby little face pressed against the bed’s surface, with round, sapphire-blue eyes.
That face was very close to him, even leaning further and further toward his own.
The boy opened his mouth and asked softly, “Does it hurt?” His voice was very small, like a breeze brushing past willow branches.
Aisley closed his eyes; his eyelids twitched, and he made no further movement, only his breathing grew a bit heavier.
The boy’s last words lingered, drifting in the air.
“I feel awful.”
The next day, Xingyuan gave up the idea of continuing his training. He sat obediently on the little stool by the bed, seemingly lost in thought about something.
The subordinates knew how badly their superior was injured, and today they hadn’t brought any fruit either.
Though Aisley’s condition today wasn’t very good, at least he was conscious.
After Xingyuan drank a bowl of meat broth mixed in with everything else, he felt too guilty to drink any more.
He lay there obediently reading for a while, and unlike the day before, he didn’t roll around on his back.
This time, it wasn’t a matter of whether Aisley wanted to touch Xingyuan’s head — he truly didn’t have the strength to lift his arm.
After Xingyuan finished reading a chapter, he found himself restless throughout, and once he closed the book, he turned his gaze toward Aisley.
Aisley was so weak that even his breathing was faint. Xingyuan carried his stool over and sat down, then leaned his arms on the bed.
Xingyuan looked at Aisley’s pale face, leaned in a bit closer, and said quietly.
“You probably can’t hear me, but I just wanted to comfort you a little.”
Xingyuan pressed his lips together, his eyelids lowering slightly.
“Ugh, I’m not very good at comforting people. I’ll just tell you a story instead. Don’t think I’m being annoying… never mind, it’s not like you can actually hear me anyway.”
Xingyuan didn’t really know what to say, so he just rambled on about this and that, mostly about himself.
He’d been obedient since he was little, and his elders had always liked him. He’d done well in school from a young age, almost always first in his class.
Later, his father gave him a figurine factory of his own, and that was when he first got into all kinds of paper-thin character figures.
He didn’t remember exactly which day it was, but his grandfather had once taken him into the imperial palace, up to the tallest tower on the whole planet. The view up there was vast, and it happened to coincide with the imperial army’s triumphant return.
At a glance, he’d noticed the man standing at the very front, dressed in military uniform. The uniform’s design was striking, dignified and imposing on him, with countless soldiers gathered around that man…
That was when he first had the thought of becoming a general.
Later, he came to know someone.
When Xingyuan got to this part, he grew animated, his expression unable to hide his fondness.
The corners of his lips lifted slightly, his eyes curving as he murmured softly.
“Actually, it’s not that I’ve never liked anyone. To be precise, I’ve liked one person for many years.”
The fingers hidden beneath the blanket trembled; the veins on the wrist tightened, and the hand slowly clenched.
As he spoke, Xingyuan sighed and shook his head; though there was a trace of regret, the smile in his eyes remained.
“It was because of him that I made up my mind to become a general. But he’ll never like me back.”
Aisley’s head shifted slightly, and beneath the cover of his short-to-medium hair, his eyelids gradually lifted, revealing clouded, dark, lightless eyes.
He knew exactly how much Xingyuan wanted to become a general.
Xingyuan gazed up at the top of the tent, lost in memory.
“Ugh, I’ve never actually met him — I’ve only heard legends about him. Besides me, countless others where I’m from like him too.
He’s amazing, decisive and ruthless when it comes to battle, with an incredibly strong physique, almost like a god.
Even though he’s always smiling, everyone knows how ruthless his methods can be. Friends only dare joke around with him, but no one dares provoke him at critical moments — when he gets serious, his eyes become especially terrifying. There’s no one who isn’t afraid of him.”
“Oh right!” Xingyuan said, lying there and looking at Aisley with a smile. “He even has a little topknot, just like you.”
Aisley closed his eyes, blood and breath roiling in his chest. He forcibly suppressed it, but still caught the scent of blood.
“I’ll never get to meet him, though. And even if I did, someone like him wouldn’t like someone like me.
Besides, other than being rich, I don’t have anything going for me. Although, if he wanted to spend my money, I’d be happy to let him.”
Xingyuan sounded both wistful and full of longing.
“If there really came a day when I had the chance to be with him, that would truly be one of life’s great fortunes.
I really like him.”
Xingyuan’s eyes curved into crescents. “Oh right, his name is Stahl.”
Aisley: ….
Let him process this for a moment.
He swallowed the mouthful of blood in his throat.