TL: Hua
The wooden hairpin felt smooth and plain, without any embellishment, but it had a pleasant texture. Xu Yanqing placed the hairpin on his body, then laboriously propped himself up with his weak arms, raising himself slightly.
Now he finally saw what the person he had spent the night with looked like. The man was still asleep, with a handsome and noble face and fair skin like a precious jade. He had a faint mustache and very short stubble on his jawline.
Xu Yanqing turned his head and secretly pondered. This man was no longer a naive young master; he possessed the refined elegance that only comes with age.
Coupled with the man’s somewhat disheveled topknot and his cold, detached clothing, Xu Yanqing thought this person might be a Taoist priest.
At this realization, he panicked a little. As soon as he transmigrated, he had slept with an ethereal, unworldly Taoist. Regardless of who had seduced whom, Xu Yanqing felt a sense of blasphemy.
Mainly, this man, with his precious and brilliant appearance, looked like big trouble. He hadn’t even figured out his own identity after transmigrating, so how could he afford to provoke someone he probably couldn’t even afford to upset?
So, Xu Yanqing rested for a long while until the pain in his body subsided slightly before hastily reaching for his clothes on the ground, pulling them into his embrace, and then clumsily putting them on.
Afterward, he glanced back at the Taoist priest who had been “slept with” on the bed, then swiftly turned and fled the scene.
“Young Master, Young Master.” Seeing Xu Yanqing walk out of the room, the servant boy who had been waiting in the corner quickly approached him.
Xu Yanqing’s injured area was a sensitive spot. Every step he took was like a “mermaid” dancing barefoot on sharp knives. When he saw the servant boy come to help him, he leaned against the boy, his face pale.
At this moment, he didn’t care about asking questions, fearing that the man in the room would wake up. So, he quickly urged the servant boy to help him leave the courtyard under the cover of night.
“Young Master.” Mu Yu helped Xu Yanqing into the carriage. Then he stared in horror at the large patches of purple and green marks on Xu Yanqing’s neck. “Your cousin has already left the manor, Young Master…”
The young man, with his red lips and white teeth, nestled weakly in the carriage, slumped against the servant boy. His face showed a pale, fragile vulnerability, and his long, crow-feather-like eyelashes were slightly moist from pain. His clear, grape-like eyes were slightly swollen, looking indescribably pitiful.
Mu Yu looked at his young master’s miserable state, his eyes filled with heartache. His young master was usually arrogant and domineering; he had never looked so pitiful. Mu Yu wondered what his young master had gone through.
The pain in Xu Yanqing’s body had lessened a bit while he rested, but then he was busy escaping and completely disregarded his bruised body. Although the servant boy supported him, it didn’t help much. The pain intensified, reaching a point where it could almost make him faint.
Drowsily opening his eyes, Xu Yanqing used his last bit of strength to say, “Don’t go back home…” Then he fainted.
Mu Yu was startled. He nervously stretched out a finger to check his young master’s breathing and touched his forehead. He then quickly told the coachman outside to drive in a different direction.
Xu Yanqing had a dream. He dreamt that in the year of his college entrance exam, he was buried in his test papers inside the room, while outside the door were the hoarse arguments of his parents.
Listening to those endless, daily quarrels, Xu Yanqing felt utterly exhausted, so tired that he couldn’t even catch his breath. Then he let himself sink into a complete darkness.
Mu Yu was terribly flustered. He shouldn’t have allowed his young master to do such a despicable thing. As a result, not only did his young master fail to achieve his wish, but he also got himself into trouble.
Since his young master was practically known by everyone in the capital, Mu Yu dared not call a doctor. He had to sneak to a pharmacy, endure the doctor’s scrutinizing gaze, get the medicine, and then rush back to the manor.
After all that fuss, his young master developed a high fever. To prevent anyone from discovering the marks on his young master’s body, Mu Yu had to ask the servants to heat water and leave it outside the door. Then he carried it in and gave his young master a simple wash.
The clean inner garment was torn. Xu Yanqing’s body was covered in purple and green marks, which looked frightening but weren’t actual wounds. This high fever wasn’t entirely due to physical pain; perhaps it was more due to his heavy anxieties.
—
That night was too chaotic.
At the beginning of the mao hour (5-7 AM), Yin Yanjun woke from his sleep, rubbing his aching forehead. A rare look of bewilderment appeared on his jade-like face. As he sat up from the bed, his topknot, no longer secured by the wooden hairpin, slowly came undone, and his long black hair cascaded over his shoulders.
Recalling the events of the previous night, Yin Yanjun lowered his eyes, his gaze as sharp as a cold sword. He reached for the disheveled clothes by the bed, but his Taoist robe was terribly wrinkled and stained. So, he had to get up and take out another set of clothes from the wardrobe to put on.
“Your Majesty.” Two knocks sounded from outside the door.
Yin Yanjun sat on the edge of the bed, his hair loose, and said coldly, “Come in.”
The person who entered the room knelt directly before Yin Yanjun. “This servant failed to protect his master. Please punish me, Your Majesty.”
“Then kneel!” The Taoist priest in green, with two or three fresh red scratches on his neck, as if someone had clawed him with their fingers, calmly stood up and took a wooden hairpin from the writing desk to tie up his loose hair.
As he moved, the collar of his clothing inevitably brushed against the scratches on his neck, causing him faint pain. Yin Yanjun sat down rigorously and sternly before the writing desk; his hand, which was about to open a book, paused slightly as he lowered his eyes, falling into a rare moment of daze.
Wen Jing knelt on the ground, not daring to move. He had a selfish reason for not stopping the young master who had broken into His Majesty’s room yesterday, but this selfishness could never be mentioned to His Majesty.
Yin Yanjun’s face was stern, his eyelids lowered, exuding a coldness that kept people at a thousand miles’ distance. He threw the book on the table and finally spoke indifferently, “Come and kneel here.”
Wen Jing stood up and moved to another spot, kneeling below Yin Yanjun.
“Where is the person?” His words were abrupt, but Wen Jing understood that His Majesty was asking about the young master who had entered the room last night.
“The young master left during the night. Your subordinate didn’t have time to chase him.” In this courtyard, His Majesty had only brought him, a palace attendant. He naturally couldn’t neglect one for the other, so he had no choice but to let the young master leave.
Yin Yanjun rubbed his fingers for a long while before raising them to touch the scratches on his neck. The burning warmth of the young man’s palm surfaced in his mind, along with the faint sounds of pain he had made.
Wen Jing looked up, carefully observing His Majesty’s expression, but saw Yin Yanjun lower his eyelids and say calmly, “Go back to the palace and accept your punishment.”
Wen Jing bowed his head. “This subordinate accepts the order.”
—
In the small courtyard, Xu Yanqing did not sleep peacefully. He was woken up by an indescribable soreness in his body in a state of half-sleep, half-wake. His mind was a tangled mess, like a ball of yarn scratched by a cat, impossible to sort out.
Because of the high fever from last night, he felt as if he had just been pulled out of water, his hair clinging to his face in strands and his body uncomfortably sticky.
What was even stranger was that he felt a dull, burning sensation at the back of his neck, which, though not unbearable, was impossible to ignore.
Lying on the bed, Xu Yanqing hid his head under the pillow. After a long time, he finally sniffed and woke up from the misty feeling.
If he wasn’t mistaken, he had transmigrated. Now, the memories of the original body were gradually becoming clear in his mind.
The original body was also named Xu Yanqing, the second son of the Marquis Wu’an in Daliang, a young master who had grown up with a silver spoon in his mouth. He had an older brother who had already been granted the title of Prince Wu’an[mfn]Heir apparent of a duke or marquis is granted the title of prince, but that doesn’t mean they have royal blood.[/mfn] and who doted on his younger brother.
This led the original Xu Yanqing to be somewhat unrestrained in his actions, or rather, to put it nicely, uninhibited; in reality, he was mischievous and arrogant.
The original Xu Yanqing had a person he deeply admired: his cousin, a distant cousin from his mother, Madam Su’s, side of the family. However, this cousin had another person he loved, so the original Xu Yanqing did some very unsavory things. Some time ago, after reading some scandalous storybook, he even tried to drug his cousin to force a marriage.
That cousin had already been exhausted by the original Xu Yanqing’s various schemes. Finally, unable to bear it any longer, he used a trick and made the original Xu Yanqing drink the drugged tea.
This was the root cause of last night’s events. He just didn’t know who this Taoist priest was.
“Mu Yu, come in.” Xu Yanqing raised his hand and scratched his slightly warm and swollen neck. He finally managed to sit up from the bed and called out to the outside.
Mu Yu, who had been waiting outside the door, quickly came inside. He nervously looked his young master up and down, left and right, and only relaxed after seeing that his young master seemed to be fine.
If anything had truly happened to his young master, the marquis, the madam, and the prince would probably flay him alive.
“Go get some hot water; I want to bathe.” Xu Yanqing felt uncomfortably sticky all over, and his clothes clung wetly to his skin, making him unable to bear it for another moment.
Mu Yu nodded, scurried out, and instructed the servants outside. Soon, servants carried bucket after bucket of hot water and placed them outside the door.
After sending the servants away, Mu Yu effortlessly lifted one bucket of hot water after another and poured them into the bathtub behind the screen. After several repetitions, he finally helped the weary Xu Yanqing into the tub.
Lying in the hot water, Xu Yanqing finally felt comfortable. Behind him, Mu Yu was washing his jet-black hair and saw a red scratch mark on the back of his neck, so he asked, “Young Master, is your neck uncomfortable?”
The mark looked like it had been scratched by the young master himself, so Mu Yu didn’t suspect it was from the man his young master had slept with last night.
When his neck was mentioned, Xu Yanqing seemed to feel that tingling and swelling sensation again. He casually took a washcloth that was soaking in the hot water and applied it for a while. “Perhaps it’s an allergy. Apply some medicine for me later.”
Last night, Mu Yu had gotten some swelling medicine from the doctor and applied it to all of Xu Yanqing’s visibly bruised areas. He naturally dared not touch the private areas, so when Xu Yanqing had finished bathing, he mysteriously slipped the medicine into his young master’s hand.
Xu Yanqing coughed softly, avoided Mu Yu’s gaze, took the medicine, and then silently hid under the covers, applying the medicine himself with a blushing face.
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Seems like a fun story! Looking forward to more chapters, thank you translating!!
this seems interesting