He grabbed the folded clothes from the dry ledge without checking whose they were, Hu Bai’s or his own, and pulled them on with more haste than grace, fabric clinging awkwardly to still-damp skin. Somewhere behind him, Hu Bai said something, low and amused, but Li Yan did not stay to catch the words.
He fled the bathing area entirely, bare feet slapping quick and uneven against the stone floors, not stopping until several turns of the corridor stood between himself and whatever ground that conversation had been drifting toward.
Only once he reached the safety of his own room did he allow himself to stop, back pressed to the closed door, breath coming faster than the short distance should have earned.
"Xiaoxiao." He pressed a hand to his own overheated face. "Say something. Anything. Distract me."
"Shall I remind you that you were the one who asked to wash his hair, Master? Or would you prefer I note that your face has not been this red since the beating earlier?"
Li Yan groaned and slid down the door until he sat properly on the floor. "That is not distracting. That is worse."
"Then perhaps I should mention how unusually gentle you were with him. I do wonder where such patience came from, given how little of it you spare for me."
"Xiaoxiao."
"Yes, Master?"
"Stop talking."
Li Yan bent forward, burying his face between his knees, mortified by how effortlessly Hu Bai kept slipping past the walls he tried to hold up.
A single evening, and already the man had wormed his way into moments Li Yan had no business allowing. He had faced death, faced his own family’s cruelty, and none of it had unsettled him half as much as a stranger bending down so their eyes met.
He sighed, straightening after a long moment, and reached up to unbind his hair as he pushed himself to his feet, crossing the room toward the bed.
Warmth hung thick in the air, far more than he had expected; it had been cooler when he left.
Someone had clearly set a fire somewhere beneath the floor, or the walls themselves held heat in some manner he did not yet understand. Whatever the cause, the chill he had braced for never came.
A single lantern burned low near the window, casting soft light across the silk sheets he felt vaguely undeserving of.
He tugged the borrowed robe off before settling onto the mattress, the fabric too warm against skin already flushed from the bath, and set it aside without much thought.
The room held more than enough heat without it. He flopped down bare-chested onto the bed without ceremony, the mattress giving in gently beneath him, and reached over to set the hairpin carefully on the small table beside it, the pale jade catching the lantern’s glow for a moment before he let his hand fall away.
There was no strength left in him to think through anything more tonight.
"Xiaoxiao." He kept his eyes closed, voice already thick with exhaustion. "Wake me if anything requires my attention before I rise. Otherwise, let me rest."
"Of course, Master." Something almost fond colored the reply, softer than her usual teasing. "You have more than earned it, after the day you have survived."
Li Yan did not answer beyond a faint hum of acknowledgment, sleep already pulling at the edges of his thoughts, dragging him down before he could form any further response.
The last thing he registered, distant and half-formed, was the memory of dark eyes watching him closely and the low, unhurried voice that had called him gentle.
Then even that slipped away, and the room settled into quiet.
Time had drifted into the deep hours of night when the door cracked open, quiet enough that it barely registered against the stillness of the room. A moment later, something tapped lightly against his thigh.
Li Yan ignored it at first, some distant part of him dismissing the sensation as nothing more than a trick of half-formed dreams.
The tap came again, followed by his name, low and clear enough to cut straight through sleep.
His eyes flew open. He sat up too fast, the words already spilling free before conscious thought caught up to them.
"I am awake. Please do not hit me."
A pause followed, long enough that Li Yan’s sleep-fogged mind finally registered the figure standing over the bed. Hu Biyan, composed as ever, pursed his lips slightly at the outburst before stepping back to allow him room to sit up properly.
"I have no intention of hurting you, little Li." Something almost patient colored his tone, though it carried none of Hu Bai’s usual warmth. "Arrange your clothes. I will wait outside."
He turned without further explanation and withdrew, the door clicking shut softly behind him.
Li Yan sat there a moment longer, heart still hammering from the abrupt wake, and pressed a hand to his own chest as though that might slow it faster.
"Xiaoxiao." His voice came out rough with sleep. "What hour is it? Why would he wake me now, of all times?"
"Difficult to say precisely, Master, though the depth of the quiet outside suggests a time few would choose to rise willingly." Xiaoxiao’s tone held a note of genuine curiosity. "Though if I were to guess, given what Hu Bai mentioned earlier regarding his attendant’s methods, I suspect this marks the beginning of whatever training was promised."
Li Yan groaned and dropped his head back against the pillow for exactly one breath before forcing himself upright again. Training that began in the dead of night, apparently, with no warning and no mercy for a body that had barely finished healing from the day before.
He reached for the borrowed robe discarded at the foot of the bed and pulled it back over bare shoulders, fingers clumsy with the lingering fog of interrupted sleep. Whatever Hu Biyan intended, the man had not seemed inclined toward patience, and Li Yan had no particular wish to test how long that patience might stretch if kept waiting too long.
He tied the sash with quick, practiced motions, years of dressing himself without aid in the Li household finally proving useful for something beyond survival, and crossed to retrieve the hairpin from the table, twisting his hair back into some semblance of order before he allowed himself to consider the door.
"Any final thoughts before I face whatever this turns out to be?" He kept his voice low, mostly out of habit rather than any real concern for being overheard through solid wood.
"Only that you should eat something before you go, if the opportunity presents itself." Xiaoxiao’s tone turned faintly wry. "Training on an empty stomach rarely ends well, Master, and I would rather not watch you collapse."