Sparks drifted and curled above the charcoal brazier.
Inside the sleeping quarters, the pale green curtains hung low, covering the room in a quiet veil.
Mo Xi sat at the edge of the bed, his dark eyes fixed on Gu Mang.
He said:
“Kneel.”
Kneeling was a posture Gu Mang had learned long ago at Plum Blossom Residence.
But he did not like this action.
Not because of pride.
It was because he did not understand what those people who demanded that he kneel actually wanted from him.
Why was it that every time he did exactly as they taught and knelt down, the viciousness on their faces did not disappear?
Instead, the angry blood-colored fury only surged even higher?
He did not know what he was doing wrong in this posture.
Gu Mang hesitated for a moment.
Then he looked at Mo Xi and simply knelt down.
He knelt beside the bed of the master of Xi He Residence.
He knelt at that man’s feet.
In the past, he had never cared much whether others were satisfied with him.
But the person in front of him was his source of food.
He was connected to whether there would be chicken, duck, fish, and meat on tomorrow’s table.
So Gu Mang always hoped that this person could be happier.
But Mo Xi did not seem particularly satisfied either.
“Has anyone ever told you what kneeling means?”
Mo Xi suddenly lowered his eyes and spoke coldly.
Gu Mang shook his head.
“Kneeling means submission, humility, and respect.”
Mo Xi stared at his face.
“But none of those things appear on you.”
“You only bent your knees, but your back is still straight.”
Gu Mang said nothing.
It seemed he also did not know what he should say.
He simply remained kneeling like this, blinking in confusion and helplessness.
Honest to the point of being almost rude.
Yes.
That was exactly why every person who forced him to kneel became enraged.
Because although he knelt, there was no trace of humiliation on his face.
Over the past two years, countless people had wanted to see him become pathetic.
They wanted to see him suffer.
They wanted to see him wish he were dead.
But not a single person had succeeded.
Gu Mang was like a blank sheet of paper.
He calmly accepted every curse and every insult.
His ignorance had become his greatest barrier.
Suddenly, resentment surged inside Mo Xi.
He grabbed Gu Mang’s face and leaned down, forcing him to look directly into his eyes.
The aggression radiating from his body was like a sword leaving its sheath, almost piercing straight through Gu Mang.
“Gu Mang, do you really think I can’t do anything to you?”
But after staring at him for a long while, Gu Mang’s response was:
“Did you drink alcohol?”
“……”
Mo Xi froze.
Then, as if he suddenly realized something, he released the two fingers holding Gu Mang’s face as if they had been burned.
His strength had been too great.
Two clear red marks had already appeared on Gu Mang’s porcelain-like cheeks.
Mo Xi turned his face away and said darkly:
“What does it have to do with you?”
Gu Mang touched his cheek.
“There were many people drinking at Plum Blossom Residence. They drank a lot, and then they all became very bad.”
“That is called getting drunk.”
Mo Xi answered coldly.
“Then are you drunk?”
Mo Xi turned back and glared at him.
“If I were drunk, would I still be able to talk to you properly like this?”
“Then have you ever been drunk?”
“I—”
Outside, snow fell softly.
The northern wind howled.
For a moment, Mo Xi was speechless.
Only the charcoal crackled.
I have never been drunk.
I only drank a little too much once.
That one time.
You saw it.
You teased me.
You tolerated me.
From then on, I became strict with myself as if holding a ruler against my own hands.
I never allowed myself to indulge again.
How could you forget?
How could you forget?
How dare you forget!!
Those words boiled violently inside his heart.
Steam rose.
But when they left his mouth, they became merciless words.
“My matters are not something you have the right to control.”
Gu Mang fell silent.
The two of them stared at each other in silence.
Mo Xi kept looking at Gu Mang, as if he could see straight through those clear blue eyes and into his heart.
Then Mo Xi thought—
If only he really could see straight through.
If only he could tear him apart.
Pierce through him.
Break him open.
See every secret hidden within his bones, every direction his blood flowed, and his filthy soul.
If only he could clearly see how dirty the man kneeling before him truly was.
Then he would no longer have any attachment.
Gu Mang moved his bare toes slightly.
Then he suddenly asked:
“You wanted me to accompany you… does that mean we just stare at each other?”
Mo Xi glared at him.
“You’re thinking too beautifully.”
“Then what do you want me to do?”
So Mo Xi began seriously—and maliciously—thinking.
And he deliberately stopped looking at Gu Mang.
“Tonight, you stay with me.”
Those words clearly carried a hint of intimacy.
They sounded somewhat improper.
Yet neither of the two people in the room thought in that direction.
Mo Xi truly only could not sleep and did not want Gu Mang to sleep peacefully.
Gu Mang truly was only following the friendly principle of:
If one person sleeps, both sleep.
If one person stays awake, both stay awake.
He was accompanying his food provider.
“Fine. You read, and I’ll sleep.”
Mo Xi searched through the bookshelf for a while before throwing a scroll toward him.
《Records of the Heavenly Calamity During the Day》
“I don’t know the characters…”
“Hasn’t Li Wei taught you for a month already?”
Mo Xi waved his hand impatiently and lay down on the bed.
“Read the ones you know.”
“Oh.”
Gu Mang accepted the scroll and loudly read the title:
“Dog day one strength warrior.”
Mo Xi almost threw the pillow at his face.
After listening to Gu Mang read all night, Mo Xi came to a conclusion:
The 《Records of the Heavenly Calamity During the Day》 that he had been able to recite backward since he was five years old—
Gu Mang had not understood a single sentence.
He had somehow turned it into a completely unfamiliar book that Mo Xi had never even heard of.
By the second half of the night, Mo Xi still could not sleep.
With dark circles under his eyes, he got up and stared at Gu Mang with a murderous expression.
Then suddenly, he reached out and pulled him up.
Gu Mang asked:
“Where are we going?”
“Study room.”
Gu Mang had been kneeling for a long time.
When he was suddenly pulled up, his legs were numb and could not move.
After stumbling two steps, he fell back onto the ground with a thump.
When he fell, his instinct was to grab onto something.
The closest thing was Mo Xi.
So he reached out and hugged Mo Xi around the waist.
Although it was the middle of winter, the sleeping quarters were heated by strong charcoal fires.
Mo Xi was also a man with warm blood and a strong body.
His clothes were very thin.
That hug from Gu Mang was almost directly against his narrow, powerful waist through only a thin layer of inner clothing.
Mo Xi’s abdominal muscles rose and fell beneath Gu Mang’s palm with his breathing.
His normally neat robe had also been pulled crooked, faintly revealing his evenly toned chest.
Mo Xi turned around.
His expression became dark and unreadable.
If this had been any ordinary woman—or even certain men—standing in Gu Mang’s position, they would have already been overwhelmed by Xi He Jun’s powerful presence and physique.
But Gu Mang’s old feelings had already disappeared.
And his wolf-like instincts seemed not to have awakened emotionally at all.
So he felt nothing about the male body before him being attractive.
If he had to describe his impression, he would probably say:
It was hard.
It was warm.
And it vaguely made him feel dangerous.
Mo Xi squeezed two words out through his teeth:
“Let go.”
Gu Mang hugged his waist and looked up at him with blue eyes.
“I can’t stand.”
He pointed at his legs.
“They’re broken.”
Mo Xi’s expression became even darker.
“They are numb, not broken.”
“I told you to let go!”
Seeing Mo Xi’s unfriendly expression, Gu Mang thought:
This person really gets unhappy too easily.
He does not know how to take care of his companion at all.
He is not even as good as Fan Dou.
Thinking this, Gu Mang silently released him.
He struggled to stand up from the floor.
The moment Gu Mang let go, Mo Xi immediately turned around, pushed open the door, and walked toward the study beneath the corridor.
The study was quiet on all four sides, with very little decoration.
As for a brazier—
That was completely out of the question.
Mo Xi originally had a fire-element spiritual core.
Combined with his naturally warm blood and abundant vitality, he did not care about the cold at all.
Wearing only a single layer of clothing, he walked to the desk.
He glanced at Gu Mang lingering uncertainly at the doorway and said:
“Get in here.”
Gu Mang hesitated for a moment.
Then he lay down on the floor.
“……”
Mo Xi stared at him.
“What are you doing?”
Gu Mang began rolling from the doorway.
One circle.
Two circles.
……
Mo Xi’s handsome face twisted with anger.
“I told you to get in here, and you’re actually rolling?”
Gu Mang sat up from the floor and sighed.
“Then what do you want me to do?”
If it were not for the calm and peaceful expression on his face, along with that sincere look of asking for guidance, Mo Xi would almost have thought this was the same shameless military rogue from the past joking around with him.
Mo Xi suppressed his irritation and said:
“Come here.”
Gu Mang seemed unwilling to provoke this easily ignited and explosive companion, so he carefully asked:
“You don’t want me to roll over anymore, right?”
“……Walk over.”
Gu Mang got up from the floor and walked to Mo Xi’s side.
He quietly looked at him, waiting for what came next.
Mo Xi searched through the bookshelves.
He could not find anything suitable for teaching someone how to recognize characters and read.
So he frowned and simply took out ink, brush, paper, and inkstone, spreading them across the huanghuali wooden desk.
“How many characters has Li Wei taught you?”
Gu Mang counted on his fingers.
After using all ten fingers, his bare feet moved slightly.
He actually began counting with his toes as well.
After calculating once, he realized that the number of characters he knew was actually greater than the combined number of fingers and toes he had.
He immediately became rather proud.
“A lot.”
Mo Xi pulled out a chair.
“Sit.”
Gu Mang sat down and looked at him blankly.
Mo Xi crossed his arms and leaned against the edge of the huanghuali desk.
Looking down at him from above, he waved his hand.
The flames in his palm ignited every lamp in the study.
“I’m testing you.”
“What does testing mean?”
“It means I say it, and you write it.”
The bad habits left from Plum Blossom Residence still remained somewhere inside Gu Mang.
He awkwardly picked up the brush.
He dipped it into a large amount of ink.
Then he asked:
“If I write well, is there a reward?”
“If you write badly, there is punishment.”
Gu Mang’s originally expectant eyes immediately became nervous.
He asked uneasily:
“No food?”
“……”
Mo Xi looked at him.
Under the warm yellow candlelight, Gu Mang’s thin face was so close.
Those blue eyes, washed clean like the ocean, stared directly at him.
After spending these days together, the numbness and distance that had filled those eyes when they first reunited at Plum Blossom Residence had already become much harder to see.
A person’s spirit was slowly returning to Gu Mang’s eyes.
But no matter how many times Mo Xi searched, he still failed to capture even the slightest trace of Gu Mang’s remaining memories.
Mo Xi said:
“We’ll talk about it later.”
Gu Mang insisted:
“There has to be food. Otherwise I’ll be hungry.”
Mo Xi glared at him.
“What qualifications do you have to bargain with me?”
“Write.”
The clumsy handwriting spread across the rice paper.
Mo Xi spoke one character.
Gu Mang wrote one character.
When he wrote correctly, Mo Xi said nothing.
When he made a mistake, Mo Xi scolded him for being stupid.
At first, he had Gu Mang write:
One, two, three, four, five.
Then he made Gu Mang write his own name.
And Mo Xi’s name.
Later—
Perhaps because his heart was greedy and his thoughts were wandering—
He made Gu Mang write:
“Though alive, we shall return together;
Though dead, we shall forever yearn for each other.”
And:
“If asked when longing will ever end,
Only when we meet again.”
By the end, the words were things Gu Mang absolutely could not possibly know.
Yet Mo Xi stubbornly refused to let him go.
He stubbornly kept him pinned to the chair.
Gu Mang was almost feeling wronged.
“I don’t know…”
The lamp flickered.
Snow fell in sorrowful silence.
Mo Xi looked at the crooked and scattered characters on the paper.
One sentence of longing.
A thousand mistakes.
He closed his eyes briefly.
Then he walked behind Gu Mang and took the brush from his hand.
“I’ll teach you.”
Snow struck against the window.
Gu Mang sat on the chair.
Mo Xi’s tall figure bent down.
His hand moved with the brush.
Each stroke was sharp and powerful, yet elegant and graceful.
Gu Mang followed his movements, copying stroke by stroke.
Halfway through, he suddenly could not hold it back.
He let out a quiet sneeze.
Mo Xi stopped writing.
He looked down at him.
“Cold?”
Gu Mang did not want to trouble others.
Besides, the other person was male, and he was male too.
A competitive instinct rose within him.
So he shook his head.
But then he sneezed again.
Mo Xi said:
“Go back and put on another layer of clothes. If you freeze to death, I’ll only have to waste effort taking care of you.”
Gu Mang rubbed his nose.
“It’s just a little cold. Not serious.”
Since Gu Mang said that, Mo Xi had no reason to insist.
If he forced the issue, it would almost seem as though he cared about him.
So he continued teaching Gu Mang characters.
But as they continued writing, Gu Mang gradually became unable to endure the cold.
He did not think about it.
His body simply moved instinctively toward the only source of warmth nearby—
Mo Xi.
Closer.
And closer.
Mo Xi was absorbed in the words and did not notice at first.
By the time he realized it, Gu Mang was already leaning beside him like wolves huddling together for warmth.
He was only a few inches away.
With the slightest movement, he could fall directly into Mo Xi’s arms.
“……”
Mo Xi’s eyes darkened.
He put down the brush.
Then suddenly grabbed Gu Mang’s chin, forcing him to raise his head and look at him.
His eyes narrowed slightly.
There was something gloomy and narrow-minded in his expression.
“Earlier, I told you to go back and put on more clothes, and you refused.”
“Now what are you trying to do?”