Xie Yan grabbed his hand and wouldn’t let him keep working.
“It’s fine. I’ll lean here for a bit. I’ll sleep after dinner.”
One of Lu Yang’s hands was caught, but he kept working with the other, answering with a soft “okay.” “Close your eyes.”
Xie Yan reached out and caught his other hand too.
Xie Yan leaned against the kang cabinet, Lu Yang sat at the edge of the kang, both of his hands trapped. The two of them could only stare at each other.
Xie Yan looked at him—at his face, then at his pregnancy mark.
People said a little ge’er’s pregnancy mark reflected their health. Lu Yang’s mark was a bit redder now, and his face had filled out some. He was no longer skin and bones like when he had first been ill, all sharp angles and hard lines. Now there was softness to him.
Xie Yan asked him for silver. “I might need fifty or sixty taels. Prepare it for me—I have an important use for it.”
He did have silver on hand, but it was all for buying medicine.
Lu Yang asked what he needed it for. Sure enough, it was to buy ginseng again.
“I’ve already spoken with Li Feng,” Xie Yan said. “He dug up ginseng and will sell one root to me.”
Afraid he would be disappointed, Lu Yang spoke very gently. “Mm. I used a ginseng root a while back to compound medicine. My younger brother gave it to me out of filial piety.”
Xie Yan was sleepy, his thoughts sluggish. He blinked, and only after a moment did it register—it was Lu Liu who had given Lu Yang a ginseng root.
He wasn’t disappointed at all. A smile spread across his face as he pulled both of Lu Yang’s hands to his lips and kissed them again and again.
“He gave his, I’ll buy mine. That way you’ll have two ginseng roots to eat. No need to use them for medicine—I’ll brew them into tea for you, stew them into soup.”
Lu Yang tried to persuade him. “Don’t be stubborn. Ginseng is expensive. I’ve already eaten quite a bit. After this round of medicine, just gentle nourishment will be enough.”
Xie Yan wasn’t being stubborn. He said, “Someone loves you. That makes me very happy.”
He really was something—talking like that, suddenly making people tear up.
Lu Yang pulled his hands back, turned, and sat at the edge of the kang, refusing to look at him.
Xie Yan got up and hugged him, arms wrapped around his waist, his forehead tapping against the back of Lu Yang’s head, again and again.
Both grown men, acting like children. He even said, “I’m kowtowing to you.”
Lu Yang didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Why are you kowtowing to me?”
Xie Yan said, “One person’s head won’t make a sound. This is called husband-and-husband kowtowing together.”
All crooked logic.
His mouth had gotten sharp.
Lu Yang asked, “Is this what you talk about with people at the prefectural academy?”
Xie Yan quietly told him, “In the quiet study there are many bookshelves. Only the one closest to the door has carefully selected writings. The others are a mess—you can find good books, but you have to search carefully. There are play scripts, storybooks, chess manuals. Once, when I was finding a chess manual for Old Master Cui, the book was probably a pirated print. The front was chess manuals, the back was a storybook. I was reading when he got angry and threw the chess manual at me, telling me to read it properly. I didn’t understand at the time and really did read it carefully. In that storybook, there was husband-and-husband kowtowing.”
Lu Yang was actually more curious about Old Master Cui’s reaction back then, but seeing Xie Yan’s bright eyes, he went along with it. “What was the kowtowing like in the book?”
Xie Yan said, “When they got married, the husbands bowed to each other. They were too close and knocked foreheads together. Isn’t that stupid?”
Lu Yang said, “They went forehead to forehead. You went forehead to the back of my head—didn’t you knock the wrong door? Who do you think is stupid?”
Xie Yan thought about it for a moment, then grew unhappy and insisted on knocking foreheads properly with Lu Yang. They messed around until they rolled onto the kang, bumped foreheads, then went on to bump mouths. Kissing led to clinging, clinging to tangling together.
Xie Yan’s hair was long and thick. Lu Yang always found it itchy, and it often got pressed on. The kissing wasn’t smooth. Xie Yan wasn’t satisfied either, but he reluctantly climbed off Lu Yang. He grabbed at his hair a few times, gathering it into a bundle. There was no hair tie at hand, so Lu Yang undid his own and handed it to him. Xie Yan tied his hair and came back to kiss him again.
Lu Yang lay there, twisting his body, moving his head, spreading his hair out. He rarely let his hair down. Xie Yan usually only caught hurried glimpses. Today, seeing his hair black as ink, his skin white as snow, lying there obediently and letting himself be taken, Xie Yan lost control for a moment. The sun hadn’t even set when his hand reached for Lu Yang’s belt—and Lu Yang smacked him.
Xie Yan pulled his hand back, looking stunned and a little aggrieved, as if he also knew where he’d gone wrong.
He opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but Lu Yang hooked an arm around his neck, used it to lift himself, pulled Xie Yan down, and kissed him hard. The kiss deepened and deepened. Positions reversed; Lu Yang kissed him until he fell back on his side, lit a fire in him—and then ignored him.
Lu Yang patted his face. “Look at you, kissing yourself into a daze. If you fall asleep on top of me later, I’ll never get over it in this lifetime. Go sleep first. When you’ve got energy, I’ll accompany you to take first place in the imperial exam.”
Xie Yan lay sprawled out, breathing heavily.
“Jingzhi, you’ve kneaded me into a crumpled ball of waste paper.”
Speaking of taking first place—right now, they were like an unqualified exam paper, a discarded draft. Written, unsatisfactory, crumpled up, and tossed into the wastebasket.
Lu Yang said scholars always liked to use strange metaphors.
Listen to him. Listen to him. He hadn’t accused them wrongly at all.
Lu Yang was unmoved. He tucked him in properly, patted his hair—it was mostly dry now.
“Sleep. I’ll wake you tonight to drink some porridge, eat steamed buns.”
Xie Yan was truly exhausted. He didn’t even pull his arms back, just closed his eyes like that and fell asleep.
Lu Yang put his arms under the quilt, got up to straighten his clothes, tied his hair with another ribbon, patted his face, breathed slowly, then went out to the kitchen to stir-fry filling.
The porridge could be started first. There were plenty of buns and mantou. The porridge could be thinner, more like rice broth.
He wrapped fifteen big meat buns and steamed another fifteen mantou. He took five of each to the private school for Wu Pingzhi.
Dinner at home was a bit late. After night fell, when Xie Yan’s sleep turned restless, Lu Yang finally woke him.
After sleeping once, he still wasn’t fully rested. Xie Yan felt heavy-headed and light-footed, ate in a daze. He said he wanted mantou and buns, but once they were in his mouth, he tasted nothing. He went back to lie down and slept again. In the middle of the night, he woke, felt the warm body in his arms, felt at ease, closed his eyes, and drifted back to sleep.
This time he truly slept enough. In the morning, when he got up and saw leftover buns and mantou in the kitchen, he felt deeply ashamed. He’d asked to eat, but hadn’t eaten properly.
So in the morning, they reheated the buns and mantou and ate them again.
Lu Yang got up with him. Seeing him busy in the kitchen, Lu Yang finished washing up and came over to help.
Breakfast was simple. Xie Yan wanted to do it himself.
Lu Yang watched him for a moment, then went out, wandered around outside the kitchen, and quietly came back, leaning against the doorframe, secretly watching Xie Yan.
This kind of “openly sneaking” angle was something Lu Yang had never experienced before. It was his first time watching Xie Yan like this. Xie Yan clearly hadn’t noticed—he steamed the buns and mantou, then picked out a few kinds of mushrooms by the bamboo basket and soaked them.
He was hiding well enough, until the little dog Wei Meng came over to rub against his leg, barking with a very un-mighty “woof woof.”
Xie Yan heard the sound and turned around. Seeing his husband peeking around at the doorway, he couldn’t help laughing. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
Lu Yang wasn’t afraid of being caught. He even teased him back.
“Oh my, oh my—whose top scholar is this, so handsome? I’m completely dazzled.”
He didn’t look dazzled at all.
Xie Yan laughed, went over, and leaned on the doorframe too. They stood there together, you looking at me, me looking at you, and before long they were both laughing.
Xie Yan wanted to paint. He wanted to paint Lu Yang’s cute peeking look, and also paint the silly way the two of them stood by the doorway looking at each other.
The lampshade on the table had been changed. Xie Yan hadn’t noticed when he came home yesterday. Today, sitting at the desk, he finally saw the picture pasted on the lampshade—a Mid-Autumn Moon-Gazing Scene.
He reached out and touched it. Since coming home, he hadn’t seen any letters from Lu Yang, nor heard him say he missed him. Yet the softness Lu Yang showed, and this lantern before him, said everything.
His husband was strong-willed, always doing more than he said. Xie Yan had long known this. Every time he was with him, his heart was still moved beyond measure.
He put down the brush and went to the kitchen to eat breakfast.
The buns at home had thin skins and generous filling. The mantou were firm, fragrant, and soft. The porridge was glutinous and fragrant, filling the mouth with warmth. Every single thing was good.
