HE With the Cold Male Protagonist C64

Chapter 64: Casting Aside Restraint, The Flood Diversion Canal

Upon Song Haocheng’s face there lingered the gentle smile of a courteous gentleman. The inn itself was of venerable age and no small renown; its second floor housed many chambers. Thanks to the good offices of his companion, he had secured a quiet room deep within, little disturbed by the comings and goings of others, intending to return to the town upon the morrow.

As the two conversed merrily, they passed by a door left half-ajar.

Fei Hongyu, wholly preoccupied with his desire to seek Master Yi as his teacher, chattered on without cease. Song Haocheng, however, seemed to glimpse something within—and in that instant he froze.

Though his body had already moved beyond the threshold, his step halted sharply.

“What is it?” asked Fei Hongyu in surprise.

“It is nothing.” Song Haocheng’s face coloured faintly, and he shook his head with deliberate force. “Come, let us go.”

Within the chamber, the fervour had in no way abated. Rather, the battle of lips and breath had become all the more fierce.

Only now, Jiang Baiye found himself pressed into defeat.

For at the very instant he thought to withdraw, feigning nonchalance, Lizhi, as though provoked to ire, refused to yield.

Not only did he not retreat, he displayed a persistence hitherto unseen. His hands, once merely encircling, pressed with force upon Baiye’s shoulders, seating himself upon him with sovereign bearing, as though his very person were a delicacy to be tasted.

And tasted he was—without restraint, heedless whether sound or sight betrayed them to those without…

A tremor passed through Jiang Baiye’s chest; he gathered the man into his arms and bore him toward the door.

From his vantage he espied the inn-boy approaching with a bucket of steaming water. Before the lad could lift his head, Baiye slammed the door shut and bolted it fast.

The loud thud startled Fei Hongyu, who happened to be loitering nearby exchanging farewells with Song Haocheng.

Song Haocheng’s countenance deepened in hue.

In truth, he had not discerned who was upon whom. Yet that single glimpse of a robed scholar’s figure was already no small shock to him.

Had not Scholar Lu already departed this inn?

“Scholar Lu? Do you still require water?” called the boy, knocking upon the door in puzzlement.

Song Haocheng: “?”

“No need.”

A low, husky voice, unmistakably not that of Lu Lizhi.

Within, Jiang Baiye deftly removed the jade pin from Lizhi’s hair, letting the dark silk tumble down in waves, beautiful and tempting. Seated behind him, he worshipped as though before an altar, hands reverent as incense, and slowly divested him of his robes.

Perhaps owing to the fright just passed, Lizhi seemed now excessively calm—so calm as to drift into languid repose, eyes closed, as though an old soul receiving homage.

Baiye mused inwardly: Aye, such is the mien of a hero—the air of one born to command the world. And here am I, reduced to a servant attending his lord.

Yet what servant dared, at the bare reveal of a shoulder, to bend and kiss it?

Bit by bit, his lips traced the fine, sinewed lines of a scholar’s form, lingering in devotion.

Suddenly Baiye murmured, “Do you know what I would truly give you as a token of our bond?”

Lizhi gave no reply. A moment before he had been angry; yet, whether wearied by endless concealment or swayed by Baiye’s reckless passion, he abandoned restraint, casting himself adrift.

Thus it was now.

He strove to free his hand from his sleeve.

But the man behind pressed it down. “Leave it so.”

“This time, no further.” Baiye himself was astonished at how far matters had gone; though deeply pleased, he feared reprisal later, and so held himself with “gentlemanly” restraint.

A beautiful back—how could he not linger there?

Lizhi, wrought half-mad by his torment, longed for more.

Baiye, however, turned the moment aside, speaking of sundry affairs to cool his own fire.

At last he whispered, “We cannot always be thus, stealing chambers in inns. Should we not purchase a residence of our own, here in the prefectural city?”

Lizhi’s heat shifted into another kind—yearning, tender and fierce. A house, ours alone…

“Will you enter the prefectural academy to study?” Though familiar with the tale, Baiye could not help but ask.

Lizhi nodded. The Xuānhe Prefectural Academy was where his father had once studied.

Yet as his mind turned toward sober matters, a warm kiss brushed his ear. “Lizhi, pray… help me.”

A hand closed upon him.

He had taken it forth!

Lizhi’s pale eyes widened, his breath scattering.

That which he had once imagined with shame was now truth. Never had he felt a moment so perilous, so exhilarating.

Baiye’s words faltered; all his attention drawn to that point, as though his soul might depart his body from so little as a clumsy grasp.

He demanded nothing more; merely that Lizhi did not release him was already beyond expectation.

“Will you not help?” Baiye asked hoarsely, worried by Lizhi’s restraint.

Lizhi: “…” Instinctively, his hold tightened.

Whether this resolve might yield at the next time or the time after, the truth he had meant to confess was swallowed, for he could not bear to mar Baiye’s joy.

Yet that his joy should rest upon such indulgence made Lizhi, in the end, both helpless and amused.

Exhausted, though in body they had done little, they slept entwined, hearts utterly joined.

The night deepened.

Next door, Song Haocheng tossed and turned. He told himself he had seen naught, yet knew it a lie. He burned with curiosity: who was this man for whom Lord Qingyuan would so bow his head?

A thought struck like lightning. “Tiqiu!?”

Truly, the world lacked not for keen minds. Song Haocheng had long suspected the characters of Asking Wind and Passion were drawn from life; else why would Lord Qingyuan write with such depth of feeling?

Now, imagining that Tiqiu was indeed real, he quailed. If the man fell short of the tale, would that not tarnish both the beauty of Lord Qingyuan’s vision and the affection all held for the figure?

He must see him with his own eyes, learn what manner of man he was!

At dawn, before the sky had lightened, Baiye and Lizhi departed—for his neck bore Baiye’s marks in profusion, and Baiye’s own throat was no less branded.

No one seeing them thus could think them blameless.

And besides—the village now faced troubled times.

“Have you not noticed?” Baiye asked as their cart rolled from the city’s bustle into the sparser countryside. “Since the examination ended, unrest stirs in the streets. The nearer we draw to the poor villages, the clearer it becomes.”

His brow furrowed. Qing Shui Village had been the place of his former life, the root of his fortune. Its people had become kin in all but name. Especially Magistrate Wang, who had aided him beyond counting—though his wife had quarreled bitterly over it.

Baiye could not deem such aid a mere matter of duty.

What Wang treasured most was the village itself, passed down through generations, shaped in part by Lizhi’s grandfather when he had been village head.

Lizhi, too, thought of this. Alas, as a licentiate, he could exempt only himself from corvée. He could not even shield Baiye.

As for silver—such levies were a bottomless pit. Should they pay in the villagers’ stead, repayment was doubtful, and Qin the merchant might yet devise worse traps.

When they reached Qing Shui Village, they had not yet returned home when Magistrate Wang summoned them urgently.

In but a few days, the man seemed aged by years. Only yesterday, when word came that Lu Lizhi had placed first among the licentiates, his spirits had been lightened.

The whole village had rejoiced; inspired to dream of schooling their own children.

Yet none knew that calamity loomed.

“What has happened, Uncle Wang? What tidings have you heard?” Baiye asked, seeing his sighs.

Though he knew the tale’s course, he also knew that a butterfly’s wing might alter fate entire. And he himself was such a butterfly. Thus he made ready on every side.

Oft when peril seemed distant, by the time it fell, there was no time left to prepare.

“I know not if it be true, yet my old connections yielded this news—from the prefecture itself.”

Wang rubbed his face. “The price to pay silver in lieu of labour is ruinous—twenty taels at the least. I thought to call upon favours, to ease the villagers’ burden…”

Before he could finish, Madam Feng burst in.

“Twenty taels? What is that? Does not Jiang Er’s workshop fetch several taels for but a single silver ear? Let him lead the villagers to harvest—none shall suffer!”

“Silence!” Wang thundered, striking the table. “Is this the time for your foolish clamour? You know not how you may die! Be gone!”

Never before had he treated her so. Once he had cherished his wife as much as Jiang Dazhu did his. Yet unlike Madam He, Madam Feng’s sharpness had no bounds. Today he would brook no more.

Feng’s mouth worked soundlessly, stunned at his anger. At last, with her pride wounded, she stalked away.

But Wang thought only of the village’s doom.

Baiye interjected, “I can lend the villagers silver—but only to some. To others, lending would bring naught but endless trouble.”

Wang waved this aside. “That may wait. The matter most pressing is this: do you know what the Flood Diversion Canal is?”

Baiye and Lizhi exchanged a glance.

Baiye knew too well. In his former life, for want of silver, he had been taken as labour. Only by his strength had he survived, even earning small merit. Midway he had returned home once—only to find his mother near death from plague.

Lizhi, too, had read of such canals in books—volumes brought by his grandfather, who, despairing of the examinations, had devoted himself to deeds.

That man, once a mere licentiate, had led wandering refugees to settle, founding Qing Shui Village.

Together they had cleared wilderness, tilled fields, dredged rivers, built homes—each effort strengthening the village step by step.