Chapter 74

Chapter 74

Qiao Ying glanced at the young man on the floor. “Making friends?”

“No one else is willing to acknowledge this lowly creature,” the boy said. “We speak and play with him. He should weep with gratitude.”

The girl added, “If we didn’t take him out for walks, he would never even see daylight.”

Only then did Qiao Ying notice the rope around the young man’s pale neck. If someone held its other end, he could only crawl upon his hands with both legs broken. Though human, he was treated like a cat or dog.

She remembered Shen Qingyu introducing him as his Sworn Younger Brother.

Seeing nothing wrong, the boy smiled invitingly. “Yingying, would you like to make friends with him too?”

The girl smiled as well. “Yingying, will you join us?”

Qiao Ying lowered the boy to the floor. “I have no interest. Go play somewhere else.”

The children exchanged a glance, took each other’s hands, and smiled together. “All right.”

They turned and skipped away. Perhaps they ran too quickly, for the heads upon their necks began to wobble loose. That seemed only natural.

The young man called Shen Chunqiu pushed himself into a seated position. His legs remained horribly twisted, but he seemed unable to feel pain. Raising his pale, doll-like face, he displayed the same smile as everyone else.

“Yingying.”

Qiao Ying crouched and untied the rope around his neck.

Shen Chunqiu remained motionless and let her handle him. Perhaps he would not resist even if she did something far crueler.

Why did he not resist?

Looking into his smiling face, Qiao Ying asked, “Why didn’t you fight back when they treated you that way?”

“Why should I?” Shen Chunqiu asked.

“They were hurting you. Didn’t it hurt?”

“They were willing to look at me, speak with me, and take me out to play. That is because they are making friends with me. Pain is a reward. It tells me I am still alive in this world.”

Qiao Ying’s breath caught.

The young man had no idea how abnormal his words were. Perhaps that was because his very existence was abnormal. His eyes lifted involuntarily toward the figure approaching under everyone’s adoring gaze.

“Qingyu has returned.”

“Qingyu has returned.”

“Qingyu is home.”

Everyone in the manor seemed to gather, watching the approaching figure with fanatical eyes.

He too was a young man, but unlike the pitch-black figures, his clean blue robes carried the vibrant green of spring. White hair reached his waist, as pure as fresh snow and moonlight, untouched by mortal dust. His jade-like face held no flaw.

Even the white silk blindfold that signified his blindness no longer suggested imperfection. Beneath his gentle demeanor, it became mysterious and alluring.

Carrying a food box, the young man stood above the enthusiastic crowd like the moon among stars: lofty and perfect, a being ordinary people could only admire from afar.

Qiao Ying looked back at the young man in black on the ground.

Shen Chunqiu watched Shen Qingyu like a blazing sun, his eyes equally fanatical. Though his smile matched everyone else’s, envy seemed to force its way through.

Then he said, “Qingyu has returned.”

Shen Qingyu stopped beside Qiao Ying, smiling with impeccable kindness. “Yingying, are you playing an interesting game with my Sworn Younger Brother?”

“I noticed that he was hurt and came to see.”
“There is no need for concern. Everyone is making friends with him.”

Qiao Ying’s throat tightened. “Making friends?”

Shen Qingyu smiled. “Yes. Everyone in the manor likes making friends with him.”

“Yes,” the black-clad figures said from several orderly rows, smiling in perfect unison. “We all like making friends with him.”

Shen Chunqiu smiled too. “Everyone likes making friends with me.”

Shen Qingyu extended a hand toward Qiao Ying. “Yingying, your legs will go numb if you crouch too long.”

Taking her hand, he gently drew her upright.

Now everyone stood, except the young man in black with two broken legs.

Cruelly shorter than everyone else, he sat alone upon the cold floor, unaware of the horror of his situation. His eyes and lips remained curved in that fixed, gentle smile.

Shen Qingyu’s voice was clear. “Enough. Return to your work. I must have breakfast with Yingying.”

The black figures immediately dispersed.

One pulled the weeds overrunning the courtyard, unearthed a buried bone, and calmly buried it again.

Another scrubbed stains from the wall that resembled old blood. When the cloth could not remove them, he discarded it and scraped with his fingers. Flesh wore away until white bone showed, yet he felt no pain.

Someone else leaned a broken ladder beneath the eaves and tried to repair a rotten window lattice. The instant he touched it, the wood crumbled to ash. Without stopping, he snapped his own arm and inserted the exposed white bone into the empty frame as a new support.

Cold wind blew, heavy with blood.

Shen Qingyu gathered Qiao Ying into one arm and bent to murmur beside her. “Yingying, your hands are cold. If you fear the cold so much, you should wear more.”

He had learned to care for someone. He was becoming more human every day.

Qiao Ying looked back and saw Shen Chunqiu still on the ground.

The man Shen Qingyu called Second Uncle placed the rope around his neck again and smiled. “Today it is my turn to make friends with you.”

Shen Chunqiu raised his lips mechanically. “All right.”

Shen Qingyu accompanied Qiao Ying back to the room. He opened the food box and arranged breakfast upon the table: wontons she had once taken him to eat, complete with a fried egg; osmanthus cakes she had bought him; even the steamed bun she had given him when they first met.

Everything was still warm.

Shen Qingyu sat beside her with a faint smile. “Yingying, eat.”

She had the illusion that their positions had reversed. Now he was feeding her.

He sat perfectly straight, always facing her. Without the white silk blindfold, perhaps his eyes would have sparkled as they watched her.

He had traveled far at dawn to buy breakfast for his future wife and considered himself a qualified mate. He expected Qiao Ying to eat until her belly rounded so he could touch it.

Yet she did not lift her chopsticks. Perhaps she had grown too lazy recently, for her body leaned farther and farther until she collapsed into his arms.

Sensing her low spirits, Shen Qingyu looked confused. Still, he instinctively embraced her, stroked her back, and hooked a lock of black hair around his finger.

“Yingying, don’t you like what I bought?”

His straight back bent. He lowered his face in disappointment. “I failed at being human again today.”