Nie Siran X Su Ruhe (8)
The heavy snow came down savagely, and the crying in Tianzhong Quarter shook the heavens.
The blizzard had fallen through the entire night, and by the next day it still showed no sign of letting up.
“Quickly, come here! There is movement beneath the rubble on this side!”
“Bring two shovels! Another group of men as well, and hot water, quickly!”
“How many people are still buried underneath?”
“Most of them have been rescued. Looking at the list, there are still four missing.”
“There is someone over here, quickly come help.”
“Coming!”
The clamor of shifting wood, tiles, and broken bricks crowded together with cries and wailing, so noisy that it made one’s head spin. Still less could one ignore the collapsed stones and fallen beams strewn everywhere across the site, mixed together with rain, snow, sludge, and mire so that there was nowhere to place one’s foot.
“Young Master, Young Master, please rest a while.” The servant scrambled over, rolling and crawling, his whole body covered in dirt, snowmelt, and slush. Weeping, he dropped to his knees on the ground. “Young Master has not rested through the whole night, not a drop of water nor a grain of rice has passed your lips. Even an iron body cannot bear it. There are already yamen guards and common people helping here. Young Master, please rest a little.”
Nie Siran acted as though he had heard nothing. Both his hands were smeared with snow and mud. He bent down and moved aside a fallen plank before him. There was an inconspicuous nail in the wood that tore a bloody gash across his palm. It was as though he could not feel the pain at all. He let the blood drip from his long fingers and went on shifting other bricks and tiles.
“Young Master!” The servant was one of the Nie family’s own household-born servants and had followed Nie Siran for many years. Never had he seen his young master in such a wretched state. At once his eyes reddened with anxiety.
With lowered head, Nie Siran searched on all sides. He had not spoken all night, and when he opened his mouth now, his voice was already hoarse. “Have the men from the city patrol camp been transferred over?”
“In reply to Young Master, they have. Master Liu is busy arranging them now.”
Nie Siran said, “Good. Go look to the south side. If there is any news, come and tell me.”
The servant was so anxious that he was sweating even in the cold and was on the verge of crying. “Young Master, have pity on yourself. Lord Su is blessed with great fortune and a great life. Perhaps he is not even buried underneath. Young Master has searched through the whole night, your clothes are soaked through, and your hand is still bleeding. You should first go back to wash and change into a clean set of clothes and let this humble one bind your wound as well.”
“Go quickly.” Nie Siran’s face darkened.
“Lord Su has been found!” A shout rose from afar, and the crowd was at once thrown into commotion. Quite a few people ran over with hoes and shovels on their shoulders.
Nie Siran pushed through the crowd. Spots of mud clung to his handsome face, and his gaze burned bright as a torch. “Where is he?”
“Young Master Nie, right here.” One of the soldiers pointed at the ground beneath their feet, excited beyond measure. “The man rescued just now said that last night he saw Lord Su go into this house. He himself had meant to go help as well, but by the time he turned away to fetch something, the house had already collapsed. He is certain Lord Su is underneath.”
Light flared in Nie Siran’s eyes. Without another moment of hesitation, he dropped to one knee and began scraping away dirt and stone. Seeing that both his hands were bloody, everyone was startled. “Aiyo, Young Master Nie, you are already injured! Quickly go have the wound treated. We will rescue Lord Su.”
“It is only a minor wound, it matters little. If we do not rescue him more quickly, the man will freeze through.” Nie Siran’s jaw was drawn firm, and the movements of his hands only sped up.
The others also picked up their tools one after another and began helping clear the rubble.
The snow had piled too deeply. Brick and stone and fallen beams were removed one piece at a time. At last, within the heap of piled bricks, a narrow opening appeared.
“Su Ruhe?” The opening was pitch-dark, and nothing could be seen within. Kneeling on the ground, Nie Siran bent over and called into it twice.
No one answered.
Nie Siran’s mind tightened sharply, and the bad foreboding in his heart only grew stronger. He shouted, “Call for more men. Keep digging!”
Someone stopped him. “Young Master Nie, it cannot be done. Beneath these bricks there are support beams. Only after this whole section of brick and stone is fully cleared away can we continue. If we rashly remove only this one small section, that side is very likely to fail under the weight and collapse again.”
Bloodshot lines had appeared in Nie Siran’s eyes. He stared at the man. “How long?”
The man hesitated, estimated for a moment, then said, “Roughly two hours.”
“No.” Nie Siran rejected it in one breath.
Su Ruhe could not wait two hours.
He stared at that opening. It was black and bottomless, as though it meant to swallow a person whole. The young master Nie, ever able to plan and scheme, calm in all things and ready with an answer for every move, felt fear for the first time in his life.
Wind mixed with snowflakes swept past, jolting him awake all at once. Only then did he realize that a layer of cold sweat had already formed over his back.
He stood up. His tall frame swayed slightly, then steadied again at once. “Find three or five sturdy men and pry the opening wider.”
“What does Young Master Nie intend to do?” the patrol-camp general asked.
Nie Siran removed his outer robe. “General, send men to keep clearing the rubble. The weather is bitterly cold, and the situation below is unknown. Rescuing Lord Su should not be delayed.”
Four strong men worked together and shifted one huge beam at the mouth of the opening by a few inches. They did it with utmost restraint, afraid that if they moved too much, the bricks above would slide and cause a second collapse.
Once the opening had become large enough for one person to pass through, Nie Siran thrust one leg inside without the slightest hesitation.
“Young Master Nie!” Cries of alarm rose from all around. None of them had expected that Nie Siran actually meant to go down personally to search for Su Ruhe.
The city-guard commander was so terrified his very courage nearly split apart. At present, Lord Su’s life or death was still uncertain. If this noble young gentleman from Ye Jing were also to meet with disaster... then they would truly be finished.
“You absolutely must not go down. There is danger of collapse here at any moment. Let us do it instead.”
Yet no one could persuade this young gentleman to stop. Nie Siran’s servant wept as he handed him gauze and medicine, and even stuffed the cloak in after him.
Once Nie Siran had gone inside, his sight became wholly dark. The place below was cold, damp, narrow, and cramped. Bending his back, he groped his way inward.
“Su Ruhe?” he called again. There was still no answer.
The damp here was too heavy for a fire-stick to be lit at all. Worry showed upon his face. Around him, one could not see one’s hand before one’s face. He forcibly pressed down the emotions in his heart and kept calling Su Ruhe’s name.
The space inside was not large. Bricks, stones, and beams lay across one another at random, greatly obstructing his movements. Suddenly, his foot stepped on a loose stone, and when he drew back he accidentally knocked into a plank.
“Mm...”
A faint cry of pain came from the darkness.
Nie Siran’s breathing stopped for an instant. He turned sharply and, following the sound he had just heard, felt his way over.
“Su Ruhe? Ruhe?” He used his hands to move aside the bricks. In the darkness, one ice-cold hand reached out and lightly touched the back of his hand.
Without the least pause for thought, Nie Siran turned his hand and seized that hand, gripping it tightly.
“Ruhe?” He stared into the darkness before him, and his voice became very soft and very gentle.
“It is dangerous here... go out...” Su Ruhe’s consciousness drifted. His voice was like wind and sand grinding past. Had it not been for the plank pinning down his injured shoulder, he would still have been unconscious at this moment.
Nie Siran refused to let go of him. With his other hand, he took a water flask from the bundle. Carefully, he brought it to Su Ruhe’s lips. “Here, drink a little water.”
“Where are you hurt?” In the darkness, Nie Siran moved carefully to his side. He wanted to touch him and yet feared brushing against a wound. The smell of blood drifted to his nose, so heavy that it assaulted his mind.
Su Ruhe’s head was heavy and dizzy. After a long while, some measure of awareness slowly returned. In a voice as faint as a thread, he said, “My arm is broken.”
Su Ruhe’s hand was too cold. With the damp and freezing weather and the great loss of blood, almost his entire body had gone numb.
Nie Siran wrapped him in the cloak, his face grave. He poured the wound medicine powder over Su Ruhe’s right arm, then let Su Ruhe lean against his own shoulder while he groped downward to feel for Su Ruhe’s legs. His hand met nothing but dirt and broken stones.
Su Ruhe’s legs were buried beneath the rubble. Half his body was pinned down, and there was simply no way for him to get out.
“Hold on a little longer.” Nie Siran fed him another half bun to keep up his strength. His voice held a steady force that could calm the heart. “Do not be afraid. Once they clear away the bricks above us, we will be able to get out.”
Su Ruhe was in no state to hear his words clearly.
He was very cold.
So cold that his face had gone pale, and even the breath leaving his mouth no longer seemed to hold any warmth.
Feeling his body trembling, Nie Siran reached out to touch him and frowned so deeply that the lines between his brows drew tight.
He loosened the cloak, leaned down, and embraced Su Ruhe, then wrapped the cloak around the two of them together.
With the two of them held close, the heat of the human body continuously passed over. Feeling that source of warmth, Su Ruhe leaned into his arms almost greedily, drawing on the only warmth there was.
Nie Siran then fed him a medicinal pill. It was a secret formula devised by Jiang Ni, one that could protect the heart channels and preserve the body’s vital essence. He had only this one pill, and he wished only to save the person before him.
“Cough, cough, cough...” Su Ruhe began coughing in a low, muffled way.
Dust constantly sifted down from above. The air inside was thin. Nie Siran shielded his head and tucked him deeper into his own embrace, blocking the falling dust and debris for him.
“The others... have they all been rescued?” Su Ruhe kept his eyes closed. Even covered in wounds, what he still carried in his heart was the common people.
Nie Siran said, “Mm. The injured have already been sent to the medical hall for treatment, and the others have been temporarily settled in the schoolhouse not far away. You need not worry. I am here for everything.”
Afraid that he might lose consciousness, Nie Siran kept him talking. For the most part, Nie Siran was the one speaking, while Su Ruhe listened and occasionally answered with a sound. His voice was not loud, yet it was enough to put a person at ease.
In those intervals, Nie Siran also took the chance to feed him water and pieces of steamed bun.
Nie Siran rubbed his fingers. Gradually, warmth returned to those hands. The skin in his palm was fine and smooth, while the joints were somewhat lean.
He thought of the way this man had always conducted himself in the past. Alone in the darkness, he smiled once. “Back in Ye Jing, you concealed your sharpness and drew in your edge, never showing the mountain and never revealing the water. I thought you would go on concealing yourself. Yet now that you have come here, you are so intent that you do not even care for your own life.”
“Su Ruhe, are you truly so unafraid of death?”
The fingers in his palm moved slightly, and Su Ruhe opened his eyes.
At the instant the house came down, there had in truth not been much fear in his heart.
Su Ruhe said, “When I was little, if not for... the neighbors in Wutong Lane taking pity on me, I would have starved to death before the age of three.”
Nie Siran held him quietly and listened to him continue.
Su Ruhe said, “I was raised on the rice of a hundred families. They let me live more than ten extra years. That already... is great good fortune.”
Listening to his weak voice, Nie Siran let out a low sigh. “So the salary you earned all these years as an official, and the silver you made from writing storybooks, was almost all given to them, in repayment for the kindness they showed you in those days.”
Before leaving the capital, he had long since learned from that bookboy about the circumstances of Su Ruhe’s life all these years.
“Mm. Wealth and silver are but things outside the body. One does not bring them at birth, and one does not carry them away in death... If I keep them, they are of no use.”
Nie Siran listened to the movement overhead and fell silent for quite some time. Lowering his head, the gentleness between his brows and eyes hid itself away in the darkness.
“That night, you said you did not understand what it meant to live freely to the utmost.” He lifted his eyes slightly, and there was a smile in them. “To live for oneself and feel no shame before one’s own heart, that is freedom to the utmost.”
Bearing the pain in his arm, Su Ruhe said, “To seek benefit for the common people, I too feel no shame before my own heart.”
Nie Siran said, “Yes. You have considered all of them, yet you have not considered yourself.”
“Su Ruhe, you ache for them. Then who is there to ache for you?”
It seemed Su Ruhe had never once thought about that question. These past years, he had always gone on alone, long accustomed to bearing everything by himself. For a while, the question left him stumped, and for a long time he could give no answer.
“And what of you?” he suddenly asked Nie Siran in return.
“Mm?”
“You are filled with talent, yet refuse to enter official service. Has Young Master Nie ever considered his own future?” Su Ruhe thought of all the matters Nie Siran had helped him handle during this stretch of days. This man at his side clearly possessed the talent to order the world, yet had chosen instead to bury that talent and drift here and there.
“Before, I never thought of it.” In the past, Nie Siran had disliked the struggles of officialdom and had seen too many corrupt officials, leaving him without the slightest interest in becoming an official. But at this moment, as he held the person in his arms, a different thought suddenly arose in him. “But now, I think that becoming an official is not without merit.”
Su Ruhe said, “Young Master Nie has come to understand it?”
“More or less.” Nie Siran gave a soft laugh.
The place he had once despised in every possible way, he could now see within its rot a flower of new life and smell the fragrance of dawn.
The ruins all around were bleak and desolate. Su Ruhe had become much clearer in mind. “In the future, Young Master Nie will certainly become a good official, one who carries the common people in his heart.”
“That is not certain.” Nie Siran raised a hand and touched his face, feeling the faint chill of the skin beneath his palm. “My purpose in becoming an official is not a pure one.”
Su Ruhe made a sound of puzzlement.
Nie Siran said, “You may become an official for the sake of the common people of the world. I may also become an official for the sake of one single person.”
“For the sake of... one single person?” Su Ruhe repeated slowly.
Nie Siran said, “Mm. For the sake of a certain fellow whose heart is filled with countless common people.”
Su Ruhe did not react. “Is there truly such a person in this world?”
Hearing his dim-witted and adorably foolish words, Nie Siran very clearly saw that the little fool before him had not, in the least, connected those words with himself.
Raising a hand, he pinched his cheek and gave it two light squeezes. “There is indeed. That person is right before my eyes, and has even learned to play the fool.”
It took Su Ruhe the time of half a cup of tea before he finally linked the person of whom Nie Siran spoke with himself.
Utter astonishment broke over him, and he blurted out, “You, for my sake?”
Once the words left his mouth, he felt an inexplicable shame. Yet the person beside him had already heard them and even gave a soft and gentle laugh.
“I want to stand shoulder to shoulder with Su Su and join you in guarding the common people.”
Su Ruhe’s lashes trembled violently. Though he had lost so much blood, he suddenly felt as though all the blood in his body had rushed to his face, burning hot from ear to cheek.
“Y-you, what nonsense are you calling me by?”
“Then give me a proper standing, and I will call you so openly and rightly.”
Su Ruhe said, “You are still speaking nonsense!”
Nie Siran held him tighter. “I speak the truth. Look, the two of us have now, as they say, shared life and death together, and in hardship true feeling is seen. These days, I have chased after you every day, showing all possible diligence and devotion. Since I have worked so hard, will you grant me a chance, little Lord Su?”
In the darkness, Su Ruhe’s face burned red enough to drip blood.
He was very puzzled. Nie Siran was bright as moonlight and wind, gentle and courteous. Since when had he turned into such a rogue?
“If you do not speak, I shall take it as your agreement.”
Su Ruhe’s fingers were numb, and his scalp was numb as well. “I...”
“I like you very much.”
One gentle, smiling sentence from Nie Siran blocked all of Su Ruhe’s words back down again. When he had been buried beneath the rubble, he had not panicked. Yet now he panicked so terribly that he did not know what to do.
“Originally, I had not meant to tell you now. I always thought there was no harm in waiting until the time had ripened, but this time you frightened me. I do not wish to wait any longer.”
For the latter half of the time, Su Ruhe was almost entirely silent.
He had always been slow and gentle in nature. When he encountered a problem he could not untangle, he often trapped himself within his own thoughts for a very long time.
Nie Siran did not press him either. Fearing that he would grow cold, he only kept him tightly sheltered.
Above them, the people had finally cleared away all the bricks, stones, and beams, and also swept away the broken earth and rubble pinning down Su Ruhe’s legs. The physician first gave him a rough examination. His legs were all right and had not suffered grave injury. They had only been pinned too long, leaving the flow of blood and qi somewhat obstructed. The most serious wound was his arm, where flesh and blood were mangled, and bones and tendons had been injured.
Nie Siran bent down and gathered him up in his arms across the body.
He wrapped him up tightly in the cloak, not letting even a thread of light leak through.
Su Ruhe could not see the outside. Footsteps rose and fell one after another. He heard Nie Siran speaking with the physician, his tone calm and gentle. At his ear there beat a strong and steady heart, each thud carrying over a power that calmed the soul. At his nose drifted the faint woody fragrance from Nie Siran’s body. Without realizing it, the tightly drawn nerves in him slowly relaxed.
Like this...
It did not seem bad at all.
Thinking thus, he stretched out the one hand that had escaped all injury and quietly tugged at Nie Siran’s clothing.
✧ A Word from the Author ✧
Thank you very much for everyone’s support. I will continue to work hard!
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