“Arm?” Wang Dian subconsciously repeated, then said casually, “Just scratched it earlier by accident.”
Although Liang Ye knew everything that happened in the capital, all letters leaving the palace had to go through Wang Dian’s hands, and he usually filtered out some trivial matters.
Like this knife wound he received.
The two hadn’t seen each other for a long time, and in their passionate state, they hadn’t even had time to remove their clothes. Liang Ye probably hadn’t even noticed it.
“Let Zhen see.” Liang Ye tried to roll up his sleeve, but Wang Dian swatted his hand away.
“Nothing to see.” Wang Dian laughed.
He wasn’t worried about Liang Ye being concerned – this minor injury probably wouldn’t even catch his eye. The main issue was that this fellow had a strange obsession with any wounds on his body. If he saw them, he would either bite or gnaw at them. This ancestor wouldn’t be satisfied until he added injury to injury, and he didn’t want to suffer through that.
Wang Dian turned to leave, when he heard a splash behind him. He turned to see Liang Ye emerging naked from the hot spring. He hissed in annoyance, “Can’t you mind your appearance?”
“Which part of Zhen haven’t you seen before?” Liang Ye moved extremely quickly and forcefully, directly lifting up his sleeve to reveal the bruised scar. His previously smiling face instantly darkened.
Wang Dian feared he would bite it, tried hard to pull his arm away but couldn’t budge it. He watched him warily and said, “In a few days, I’ll apply some scar-removing ointment. It won’t be visible.”
“Poison?” Liang Ye pressed his wet fingertip on the somewhat frightening scar, his chilling voice making one’s scalp tingle.
“A bit, but it’s mostly cleared now.” Wang Dian frowned and said, “Hurry up and put on your clothes. What kind of appearance is this?”
Liang Ye threw him a dark glance, and without drying himself, pulled on his clothes. Wang Dian clicked his tongue.
Too unparticular.
Outside, dawn was breaking. After a night of exertion, Wang Dian was exhausted and urged him to return to the tent.
Liang Ye wrapped him in a thick cloak, put on his hood, and helped him onto the horse. He then mounted behind Wang Dian, his arm possessively around his waist, making him lean against himself as they slowly rode toward the tent. “How did you get injured?”
Liang Ye spoke menacingly close to him. “Zhen gave you authority not for you to hide things from Zhen. Wang Dian, you’d better not make Zhen unhappy.”
Wang Dian disliked being threatened. While he could remain composed with others, he usually couldn’t contain his temper with Liang Ye. He said impatiently, “Do I need to write to you even if rats make a few holes in the palace? I couldn’t care less about your petty authority!”
“The palace has so many fat cats there aren’t any rats.” Liang Ye rested his chin on his shoulder. “If you don’t tell Zhen, Zhen can still find out.”
“Someone wanted to kill Tan Yishuang. She tried to commit suicide with a poisoned dagger. Chong Heng saved her, and she nearly attacked him.” Wang Dian frowned, not really wanting to mention this matter.
Sure enough, Liang Ye behind him fell silent for a moment, then reached out to squeeze his arm. “Why didn’t you kill her?”
Tan Yishuang was still alive.
“Your family matters can wait until you return to the palace,” Wang Dian said flatly. “I don’t like to overstep my bounds.”
Liang Ye affectionately pressed his face against the soft hood, restraining his urge to tear off the fabric, and said softly, “Haven’t you overstepped your bounds plenty of times? Zhen heard about your reputation even in Ningming County, the all-powerful Regent of Northern Liang.”
Wang Dian let out a cold laugh. “If you want to settle accounts with me, fine, let’s settle them properly.”
“Zhen was just asking about your wound.” Liang Ye’s hand gripped his forearm and said coldly, “Just looking at the color, one can tell how potent the poison was. You deliberately withheld the news – even if you had died, Zhen would have known days too late.”
“Perfect, didn’t you already plan to give me a grand funeral anyway?” Wang Dian smiled mockingly.
Liang Ye’s breathing grew heavy for a moment, “Zhen has truly spoiled you to the point where you don’t know your limits.”
The wound on Wang Dian’s arm hurt from his grip. Liang Ye suddenly reined in the horse, dismounted, and hoisted him over his shoulder as he walked forward. Wang Dian was caught off guard by the pain from his shoulder. “Liang Ziyu, what madness are you up to now! I’m not fucking dead!”
“You almost were.” Liang Ye seemed to suddenly remember he didn’t like being carried, so he put him down, then dragged him forward without explanation. He pulled at the corner of his mouth and said, “Zhen knows you’re unhappy being confined in the capital, and don’t care about your own life. You told Qi Ming you don’t want to stay in this wretched place. Wang Dian, where do you want to go?”
Wang Dian cursed under his breath, knowing he must have had people watching him.
Liang Ye dragged him forward for who knows how long until finally finding a tree. Wang Dian watched him warily, “What are you going to do?”
“Zhen has been thinking, and still feels uneasy.” Liang Ye pressed him against the tree trunk and tied him to it, smiling as he kissed the corner of his mouth. “We’ve played with the mother-child gu before, this time Zhen will plant a love gu in you. It only hurts once, and you already love Zhen desperately anyway, so why not just live well for Zhen’s sake.”
He frowned, reaching out to touch Wang Dian’s face, murmuring, “You might become more obedient too.”
“Liang Ye, you’d better think this through carefully.” Wang Dian stared at him expressionlessly.
Liang Ye caressed the scabbed wound on his forearm, then cut open the newly healed flesh with a sharp willow leaf knife. Blood trickled down his arm, and the fine, minute pain made Wang Dian furrow his brows. His extreme anger instead made him calm down, and he just coldly stared at Liang Ye.
“Shall we plant it here?” Liang Ye asked him with a smile, covering the wound with his warm lips, then looked up with a sinister and cold smile. “From now on, your heart and eyes will be full of Zhen, your body will be dependent on Zhen. When Zhen wants you to live, you won’t dare die. How about that?”
Wang Dian was silent for a moment, then suddenly smiled, “Fine, plant it then.”
Liang Ye’s grip on his wrist suddenly tightened, his inquiring gaze falling on his face, “Really?”
“Really.” Wang Dian pulled at the corner of his mouth. “Once it’s planted, I’ll be yours. After all, I don’t love you now.”
Liang Ye’s face instantly darkened, his grip unconsciously tightening, causing more blood to flow from the wound. Wang Dian’s entire forearm was numb.
“You don’t love me?” Liang Ye turned his head to stare at him.
“Right.” Wang Dian sneered. “I gave up my peaceful life and risked death returning to the capital just for fun. I went through all the trouble of getting you food and money, transporting it from miles away just to get fucked! And still had to trouble Your Majesty to use schemes to test and guess my loyalty. I must be fucking masochistic to love you! If you don’t plant it today, you’re not a fucking man!”
Liang Ye was stunned by his outburst for a moment, still gripping his arm tightly. Blood flowed through his fingers onto the back of his hand, showing slight black contamination. The sharp knife cleanly cut away the bluish-black flesh, and he sneered, “You know best whether Zhen is a man or not.”
Wang Dian coldly watched his actions, but tied to the tree, he couldn’t move. Just as he was thinking about where to scatter Liang Ye’s ashes, the ropes were finally untied.
He punched Liang Ye in the face, “That blade just shaved your beard!”
Liang Ye covered his aching cheek and spat out some bloody saliva, saying painfully, “Zhen used a different one. This one was burned with fire and sterilized with alcohol.”
Wang Dian looked at his bandaged left forearm with medicine applied, and started kicking at him, “If you’re treating the wound, just treat it! Why make such a fuss? Are you that fucking bored? Plant a love gu? I’ll show you planting a love gu!”
Liang Ye deliberately took a few kicks before dodging, then grabbed his arm and said with a smile, “How could Zhen bear to really plant a love gu in you?”
Although when Wang Dian had said he didn’t love him earlier, he had indeed considered it.
“You clearly were tempted to do it.” Wang Dian gritted his teeth, “Don’t think I can’t see what’s going on in that dog brain of yours.”
It was true he wanted to clean out the remaining poison the imperial physicians hadn’t treated properly, and it was also true he wanted to test his loyalty. The warnings and threats were real too. If Wang Dian hadn’t cursed so viciously at the end, this bastard would definitely have planted the love gu on a whim.
“Zhen knows you’re afraid of pain, it was just a pretense to distract you.” Liang Ye said innocently, then angrily added, “When Zhen wasn’t there, those imperial physicians didn’t take proper care of you. When Zhen returns to the palace, they’ll all be beheaded.”
When Wang Dian first arrived, he had noticed his left forearm’s movement was unnatural. After entering the tent, he had felt the scar, and finding it healed, hadn’t paid much attention to it. He had only thought about using the injury to make Wang Dian more obedient. Who knew that when he saw it at the hot spring, there was still poison, with residual toxins not fully cleared – this truly angered him.
The newly treated wound began to hurt belatedly. Wang Dian didn’t bother arguing with him. Although the wound treatment was considerate, Liang Ye’s testing was irritating. He strode toward the ugly horse, mounted it, and without waiting for Liang Ye to catch up, gave it a hard whip, “Hya!”
“Wang Dian!” Liang Ye stood stunned for a moment, then hurriedly used his qi to chase after him.
Although the spotted horse was ugly, its speed was no less than a blood-sweating stallion. It took Liang Ye quite a while to catch up. Looking at Wang Dian’s furious back, he cautiously didn’t get too close, but seeing Wang Dian’s hood had fallen off, he thought for a moment, then leaped onto the horse and helped him put the hood back on.
Wang Dian’s whip flew back without hesitation, but Liang Ye quickly caught it, then wisely let go.
Wang Dian remained silent with a cold face. Liang Ye tentatively took the reins from his left hand into his own, while carefully supporting his injured left arm with his other hand. “This medicine is from my master. It can clear even poison that’s entered the bone marrow. Tomorrow your eyes should be able to see clearly.”
There was no response. Liang Ye cleared his throat awkwardly, “Hya!”
When they reached the main camp, day had finally broken. The patrolling soldiers saw Liang Ye’s eye-catching spotted horse and opened the gates directly.
The horse stopped in front of the main tent.
Wang Dian dismounted and entered the tent. Liang Ye followed closely behind to enter, but the heavy tent flap suddenly swung back, nearly hitting his nose.
The soldiers guarding the tent pretended not to see, keeping their faces straight while staring ahead.
Liang Ye awkwardly rubbed his nose, then lifted the tent flap and walked in.
TN:
Blood-sweating horse=from the poem “Blood Horse” (1986.8). It describes the process of a blood-colored horse running to its full potential, exhausting its sweat and blood, from galloping to spontaneous combustion to falling down. It is tragic and beautiful: “It only runs forward/its body steaming with blood like red clouds/in order to cross the snow-covered Osaka/and the frozen sky/its life keeps spontaneously combusting//it sheds its last drop of blood/and uses its muscles and bones to run a thousand miles//the blood horse/falls down at the pinnacle of life/and burns into a/snow-white flower.”
