Chapter 79: Nian Yuzhuo
Last night in the cave… wasn’t it the demonic Sect Leader the one above and Third Junior Brother beneath?
Zhang Junluo thought of that unbelievable possibility and looked at Nian Yuzuo repeatedly with astonished eyes.
As for the man being scrutinized, the Sect Leader himself, his thoughts never strayed from the one beside him. He had no mind to bother with the shock of an old letter-friend and once-secret crush. What others thought of him mattered little. He cared only for Li Dong’s opinion.
“Sect Leader, wipe your hands.” Li Dong had not changed the form of address, only omitted the surname.
“Mm.” Nian Yuzhuo took the damp cloth Li Dong handed over and wiped his long fingers, all crisscrossed with old scars. “If we are finished eating, then let us be on our way.”
“Come with me.” Zhang Junluo led ahead with all the bearing of an eldest senior brother.
Trailing them, Li Dong wore an awkward look. What should he do in a moment? Both Zhang Junluo and Nian Yuzhuo were masters of lightness skill. Once they soared up the cliff with a breath or two, was he supposed to inch along beneath them?
“What is it, Lingya?” Nian Yuzhuo’s attention never left Li Dong, and he immediately sensed something amiss.
“Nothing severe,” Li Dong said. “Only that my body feels somewhat unwell.”
“Where?” Nian Yuzhuo’s face tensed at once.
“It seems I cannot muster my inner strength.”
“That is no great matter.” Nian Yuzhuo let out a quiet breath. “Once we are above, I shall take a look.”
As they spoke, Zhang Junluo called from ahead, “Here we are.”
Li Dong walked over and looked up. Only one thought: High.
“I will go first.” Zhang Junluo gathered his qi and vaulted upward, feet skimming from rock to rock.
“We go as well.” Nian Yuzhuo circled an arm about Li Dong’s waist. Their bodies rose light as a paper kite and rode the wind aloft.
“Your lightness skill is superb, Yuyu,” Li Dong said in admiration.
At the sound of “Yuyu,” Nian Yuzhuo very nearly lost his breath mid-leap. Of all moments to be intimate, why choose the dangerous ones?
“The matter of you deceiving me, I have yet to settle accounts,” he said through his teeth, studying Li Dong’s profile.
“Didn’t you say there was no point in settling them?” Li Dong’s voice dwindled smaller and smaller; he was not without a healthy respect for the Sect Leader’s authority.
“Hmph.” Nian Yuzhuo snorted softly and let the matter drop.
It suited his brisk nature, never one to dawdle or nag.
From the cliff top, Zhang Junluo saw Nian Yuzhuo arrive with Li Dong in his arms, and his chest tightened again. The sight was… intolerably uncomfortable.
“Third Junior Brother, come.” He reached to pull Li Dong by the arm. “We return to the Zixiao Sect.”
“Hold.” Nian Yuzhuo took Li Dong’s other arm. “Did I say he could go?”
Standing between them, Li Dong despaired. He feared these two martial experts might tear him in half. “Release me, both of you. I am a free man. Where I go is not for either of you to decide.”
Did neither of them understand the meaning of freedom?
“Even if you wish to leave the Zixiao Sect, you must go back and inform Master,” Zhang Junluo said, letting go.
Nian Yuzhuo promptly drew Li Dong to his side and held on hard. “I fear that once he returns, you will not let him leave.”
Having shared a bed for a night, the Sect Leader now regarded Su Lingya as something that belonged to him.
“Senior Brother also has a point.” Li Dong patted the arm cinched at his waist. “Let me return to the Zixiao Sect once.”
“Out of the question.” Nian Yuzhuo only tightened his hold.
“That is uncalled for,” Li Dong said. “Are you afraid I will run?” Why did this feel like he had “deflowered a maiden” who now feared he would shirk responsibility?
“No.”
He really meant not to let go. Li Dong was forced to play his trump card. “Very well. Then come with me to the Zixiao Sect. Will that satisfy you?”
He met the Sect Leader’s suspicious look and continued, “I shall take you to meet my master and mistress. I have no father or mother. Master and Mistress are my parents.”
A flush rose to Nian Yuzhuo’s face. He opened and closed his mouth, flustered. “Very well. I will go with you.”
Zhang Junluo raised his head 45 degrees and stared at the sky.
“Senior Brother, let’s go.” Li Dong tugged the Sect Leader along.
“Very well…” Zhang Junluo answered, voice dull.
Within the Zixiao Sect, the disciple who had been knocked unconscious the previous night awoke and reported at once. His words were that someone had trespassed into the sect and attempted to abduct Third Junior Brother.
Sect Leader Wang Muxin immediately sent men to Jingzhe Tower. The place was empty as was the eldest disciple’s quarters.
Just then, a disciple reported from the forecourt, “Master, First Senior Brother and Second Senior Brother have returned, and they bring with them the demonic Sect Leader!”
“Let us see,” Wang Muxin said.
In the hall, three young men stood wan and travel-worn.
“Junluo. Lingya.” His brows knit. “And this is?”
“Nian Yuzhuo.” The former Sect Leader cupped his hands. “Sect Leader Wang, I have long admired your name.”
“So it is Sect Leader Nian.” Shocked yet courteous, Wang Muxin returned the salute. “To what do we owe this honor?”
“Master,” said Zhang Junluo and Li Dong together.
“It is thus,” Li Dong spoke first. “Yuzhuo has already left the demonic sect. He is no longer the Sect Leader. He is now merely a man of the jianghu.”
“For whom did I ask?” Wang Muxin’s expression cooled. “I addressed Sect Leader Nian. Why do you answer in his stead?” He had no wish to see his beloved disciple entangled with a demonic leader.
Still, Nian Yuzhuo had left the demonic sect? That was an affair to shake the martial world.
“It is no matter,” Nian Yuzhuo said. “Lingya knows my affairs best. Besides, given the bond between us, his words are mine.”
That was plain enough.
“What do you mean by that?” A heaviness settled in Wang Muxin’s chest. “Lingya, speak clearly to me.”
“Master.” Li Dong dropped to his knees with a thud. “My past is lost to me. I no longer recall former days. Hereafter I wish to leave the Zixiao Sect and live as I see fit.”
“You—” Wang Muxin was taken aback.
“Yuzhuo has left the demonic sect as well. We would live as ordinary people of the rivers and lakes.” Li Dong’s gaze softened; his longing had never changed, quiet days, plain and steady.
No more ‘righteous’ and ‘demonic,’ only firewood, rice, oil, and salt.
He was not the only one startled, so were Wang Muxin and Zhang Junluo, and even the man at Li Dong’s side.
“Lingya,” Nian Yuzhuo called softly. He, too, knelt. “Since Lingya regards you as parents, then I ought to kneel as well.”
Li Dong almost choked. One phrase cycled through his mind: incurable romantic.
“Master.” Zhang Junluo also dropped to his knees. “Junior Brother’s mind is set. Please grant them leave.”
Let the two of them wander freely. If they would not involve themselves in sect matters, then so much the less for him to worry over.
“You…” Wang Muxin was shocked and sour at once, like a father watching his daughter be carried off by a boar. He sighed. “Very well…”
“I beg Master to grant permission.” Li Dong bowed his head to the floor carefully, lest the fool beside him start kowtowing as well.
“Rise and speak,” Wang Muxin said, lifting a hand. “This matter is no small thing.” Though Nian Yuzhuo had left the demonic sect, the label clung to him, and his ways would not change overnight.
The righteous factions would never accept that he had washed his hands of the past.
Old grudges would be repaid, and old debts collected. If Su Lingya followed him, there would be no end to storms and bloodshed. Had his beloved disciple weighed these matters?
“I dare not implicate the Zixiao Sect’s good name,” Li Dong said. “Therefore I ask leave to depart. What I do henceforth has nothing to do with the sect. Still, I will remember Master’s kindness all my life.”
“I also ask Sect Leader Wang to grant it,” Nian Yuzhuo added, heart aching at each of Li Dong’s kowtows.
“So be it.” Wang Muxin’s heart ached as well; he had watched this child grow up, and his feelings were no small thing. “But know this, if you follow him, you walk into peril at every step.”
They might not even make it past the mountain gate before enemies struck.
“Be at ease, Sect Leader Wang.” Nian Yuzhuo said, “I will stake my life to keep Lingya safe.”
“Third Junior Brother’s martial arts are not lacking,” Zhang Junluo added.
“Senior Brother speaks true,” Li Dong said.
“Must you go at once?” Wang Muxin could not bear it.
“Not at once… We can remain a few days with Master.” Li Dong lifted his head and smiled. “We have yet to decide where to go, in any case. Is that not so, Yuzhuo?”
He turned and smiled like a flower.
Nian Yuzhuo answered, dazed, “Yes.”
“Then stay a few days.” Wang Muxin hoped that, in a few days, his disciple’s mind might change. “Up with you, the three of you, such mud-caked monkeys. Go bathe and make yourselves presentable.”
“Thank you, Master.” Li Dong knocked his head once more.
From the book, he had long remembered that Wang Muxin was gentle and kind, nothing like the hypocrites of the righteous path.
That he had taught a true hypocrite like Zhang Junluo… well, that was another matter.
“Third Junior Brother, up,” Zhang Junluo said first. He addressed only Li Dong, subtly putting distance between himself and Nian Yuzhuo.
“Many thanks, Senior Brother.” Li Dong rose together with Nian Yuzhuo. “Yuyu, do you and Senior Brother have some misunderstanding?”
“None.” Fortunately, Nian Yuzhuo had no wish to curry favor. He glanced askance. “Young Master Zhang is a righteous hero. It is only proper he disdains consorting with a former demonic head such as I. I quite understand.” He paused. “From this day on, let us act as though we never knew one another.”
The story of Rongqing and Chengqi, let it be called the folly of youth and nothing more.
Zhang Junluo inclined his head without comment. He cupped his hands. “May the two of you meet with all that is favorable… Farewell.” Faced with a choice between a rootless infatuation and a bright future, he did not hesitate to choose the latter.
“Come,” Li Dong tugged the Sect Leader’s sleeve.
“You truly do not care to know what there was between your Senior Brother and me?” Nian Yuzhuo asked.
Even if the other did not run to jealousy, he was almost too calm, it set a man’s thoughts to wandering.
“I do wish to know,” Li Dong said. “Find a proper time, and tell me slowly.”
At that, Nian Yuzhuo’s brows smoothed at once. “Very well.”
On the way back to Jingzhe Tower, they detoured through the kitchen. Nian Yuzhuo shouldered two buckets of hot water and strode off.
“You bathe first,” he said, making everything ready. “When you are done, I will use what remains.”
Li Dong stared a moment and sighed inwardly. In the Xuan Yin Sect he had been served in comfort, with no need to make do with leftover bath water, no need to set aside the halo of Sect Leader and wait in the shadows like a kept man for his lover’s summons.
He stepped forward and stripped off the Sect Leader’s robe.
“What are you doing?” Nian Yuzhuo’s eyes went wide, though he did not resist.
“What kind of men are we?” Li Dong said. “How could we use another’s leavings? Come.” With a sweep of his arm he lifted the Sect Leader into the tub. “We shall bathe together.”
“You…” Perhaps the water was too warm; the steam made one blink constantly.
“If I ask whether you are injured, you will certainly say no,” Li Dong said, voice gentle as his fingers checked along the man’s back. Strictly speaking, it was not a wound so much as a scraped line of red.
“I speak the truth.” In more than twenty years of life, Nian Yuzhuo had never known himself to seek touch.
Only now, hemmed together with a younger worthy in a bath barrel, did he learn its taste.
“Nonsense, more like.” Li Dong heard a stifled groan and tried to judge how much of it was stoic restraint. “Are you more sensitive to pain than most?”
The book had mentioned it once in passing. He had forgotten, then suddenly it was clear again. Strange.
“Blaming me for being delicate?” For some reason, a tightness seized Nian Yuzhuo’s chest.
“You love overthinking,” Li Dong said, giving him a light pinch. “Own up properly. Why is it you must have me, and no one else? You already knew I was not Rongqing, and you even met the real one.”
“It was that the first time I saw you, I found you breathtaking,” Nian Yuzhuo said without shame. “Then I saw the letter on you and convinced myself you were Rongqing.”
He paused. “When the real Rongqing came, I resisted the truth.”
Because Zhang Junluo’s appearance shattered his dream, he bore the man some resentment. Liking him was out of the question.
“I see.” Li Dong twisted a towel, washing as he spoke. “You’re just a die-hard face-con.”
“…” Nian Yuzhuo blinked, not wholly certain of the term but sure it was no compliment. “And you? Why did you accept me?” For someone who claimed to have forgotten the past, he woke with such keen clarity that he had deceived everyone without ripple.
“I suppose I find you foolish, and that is endearing,” Li Dong said.
“You—” Nian Yuzhuo pressed his lips together.
“I miscalculated,” Li Dong said, and slapped the wet towel over his face. “I forgot to wash your face first… before your backside.”
“…Then finish the job!” sputtered Nian Yuzhuo.
【Author’s Note: The last day of 2017—this year is about to end. Hold me tight and don’t be afraid. Let’s welcome 2018 together.】
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