Chapter Thirty-one, Abyss

“Old Fourth’s inside too?” He Yang’s horse carriage was stopped in front of the ducal residence, He Xuan saw it from a distance, and felt that the heart that hurriedly wanted to rush here to see Xiao Zuo just before seemed to be completely dampened by icy water. In an instant, he seemed like he was choked abruptly on a sickeningly sweet cake, and made him suddenly bear the thought of wanting to turn the horse.

He Xuan stopped at the corner for a long time, up until the outside’s whistling cold winds comforted the anger and irritation continuously rising, hard to contain, coming up for unknown reason in his heart, then got down from the horse, and went into the residence with a sunken face.

After that day Xiao Zuo fell into the water, He Yang especially instructed his subordinates to carefully pay attention to Xiao Zuo’s circumstances. Seeing how he constantly had a high fever, he was worried there might be something wrong, and then rushed over to look.

When He Yang came in through the door, Xiao Zuo just woke up. He did not have any appetite the entire time, and at this time, was leaning on the back of the bed, holding up a bowl of diluted porridge, and stirred it from time to time with the spoon, but he did not see him eat it at all.

Seeing He Yang come, Xiao Zuo originally planned on bowing, but with this look of his, anybody would no longer play airs, He Yang also stopped him, and let him properly rest, and sat to the side and randomly asked a few things.

“What did the doctor say?”

“They said it was a wind chill, but it hasn’t been seen to get better.”

“Rest more then.”

The two looked at each other for a moment, unsure what to say, and Xiao Zuo also slightly weakly closed his eyes. Just as He Yang was about to go, he saw He Xuan draped in a cloak, rushing straight into the room while carrying cold air in, like he was caged by ice crumbs on his body, and very ruthlessly lifted his eyes and glanced between He Yang and Xiao Zuo for an instant, and instead laughed in his extreme anger, “Hoh, looks like it was the wrong time for megu to be here.”

He Yang was normally spoiled by Empress Liu to the point he became wilful, and when hearing these words, he also ambiguously returned the words, “What does Brother mean? Can I not go to the duke’s residence?”

“Your Highness.” Xiao Zuo was worried the two would get into a fight here, and hurriedly opened his mouth to persuade them, but got choked by the porridge in his mouth immediately, and coughed so much his entire face turned red, then the corners of his eyes faintly seeped with a few teardrops, like the spots on mottled bamboo.

“What did you say?” He Xuan seemed to get colder after hearing those words, he seemed like he was wearing an icy-cold armour standing outside the frontier’s big winds and snow, where fine and dense frosty flowers attached to his back, beating away at the iron top on him through a crevice- that frosty snow then bore into his bones from there, and congealed his entire body into a bone-seeping frosty winter.

He Yang did not know how he actually bore some cowardice to retreat from underneath his gaze. In a while, he still had to go into the palace and watch over [the emperor’s] sickness, and merely came to Xiao Zuo’s residence along the way to look, he did not know what this fellow He Xuan was going crazy about. Besides, these two days, Empress LIu and He Heng’s relationship just got slightly relieved, it was not good of him to make a mistake here, and no longer looked at He Xuan, and only lowered his head and said a few courteous words to Xiao Zuo about taking care of the body and such, then got up and walked towards the door.

“Brother, take your time to speak with him.” He Yang cupped his hands, and before leaving, his gaze paused for an instant on He Xuan, “Everyday Father does not see me, he would miss me so, I will be leaving first.”

“Beat it.” He Xuan expressionlessly shut the door on him with a loud thump, Xiao Zuo got scared into a jump from the sound of the door being flung, and blankly lifted his eyes, his eye sockets were slightly seeping with a red colour due to the heat, and looked to be a bit in a daze.

“You are quite skilled.” He Xuan leaned on the side of the bed with some slight ridicule, and crossed his arms while looking at him.

Just now when he was passing by the corridor, through that layer of veil on the window, he hazily saw silhouettes of the two. He did not know why he suddenly had some strange emotions, the heart seemed like it was seized by a giant invisible hand, tightened, and strangled so much he could not breathe, just like when he was young when his most favourite wooden doll accidentally fell on the ground and broke, just like…… that kind of fear of being unable to do anything when He Yang was born, and he watched He Heng hold He Yang while coaxing him merrily.

Xiao Zuo did not have the power to argue with him, right now, he was tortured by the high fever to the point his brain all turned into mush, and only wanted to lay down and have some peace. He did not pay attention to him, and shrunk back into the blankets and closed his eyes.

He Xuan got even more angrier when he saw him like this, and he went in a few circles to and fro in the room- even though he understood that this was all the thing that Xiao Zuo long schemed inside, he did not know why he could not pass by that pit.

In the end, He Xuan looked at Xiao Zuo in the bed, [Xiao Zuo’s] eyebrows were knit, and his lips were all dried and cracked, and immediately, the irritation and heartbreak emotions intermingled and mixed together in He Xuan, with none that could get the upper hand. His deep eyes rolled with black giant waves, as though it was going to immediately uncontrollably wash away everything in the surroundings in the accumulated tidal waves.

He Xuan stared just like this at the pale, frail Xiao Zuo who seemed like he would break with a single touch, and the hand hung to the side tightened then let go, and after a long time, he took a deep breath in, then turned to push open the door.

This time, his actions were very light, Xiao Zuo, in his half-dreaming state, only felt a sliver of cold gust leaking in.

“Doctor, how is the duke today?” Zi Wan wrinkled her eyebrows, and the handkerchief grabbed in her hands got wrinkles from her nervous clutching, and asked with some unease.

The doctor finished checking pulses from Xiao Zuo on the bed, shook his head and sighed, then turned his body seeming like he was pondering what to say. Xiao Zuo coughed a few times, lifted his eyes and sent a pacifying gaze at Zi Wan, then pulled at the corner of his mouth and said, “Doctor, I have here a folk remedy from Nan Liang…… keh keh…… can you take a look if it can be tried?”

“Since this heat cannot dissipate, I’m afraid it would be no good if it goes for long.” The doctor brushed his beard, and went silent for a while, then nodded his head, “Let’s have a look at it.”

Zi Wan answered, and found a letter from the table, took out a prescription from within, then made a small run to hand it over.

“White Ears?” The other herbs in that prescription were all often-seen ingredients in normally treating wind chills, only White Ears was used as a guiding drug, and was not commonly seen. White Ears liked humidity, was rarely seen in Jin, and mostly grew in the comparatively warm and humid mountains of Nan Liang, hence why Jin had few who would use White Ears in medicine.

That doctor looked at it a few times, the prescription had no problems with it, and seeing how the one he prescribed was always ineffective, he did his best like how one would treat a dead horse like a living one, “I’ll have a boy go fetch the medicine, let’s concoct one and try it.”

Once the doctor’s servant to the side with two tails tied heard this, they very smartly took the prescription and went out the door. The servant’s pace was very quick, and in the time Xiao Zuo napped for a small while, that servant held a few bags of medicine and came back.

The White Ears was used as an enhancer, and after being grounded into powder, it was made into a small pouch, to be consumed along with the medicinal concoction. Zi Wan handed the cooled medicine over, while the paper packed with powdered White Ears was on the side.

Once Xiao Zuo finished drinking the medicine, he laid back down, and heard the doctor instruct, “If the fever is able to retreat tonight, he will be much better.”

❀

Ever since that day coming back from the ducal residence, He Xuan had always been absent-minded. He was copying a scripture and connected the lines a few times in irritation, making him even more angry to the point he crumpled those few papers into a ball and threw them to calm down.

“These again……” Just when he took up a few memorials that were sent here and saw it was about all those cut and dry things like fixing dikes and lowering taxes, after reading two lines, He Xuan already felt like there was a bunch of old stubborn men lining up in front of him clamouring around. He knitted his eyebrows and closed the memorial, and wearily rubbed the temples, and reached out to randomly flip open a book on the absolutes of a country placed to the side. He Xuan stared at it for a long while before realizing he held it upside down, then he directly tossed the book, and leaned on the chair and called out, “Someone!”

“Your Highness.” The small servant boy standing at the door answered and came in, then saw He Xuan use a hand to prop his cheeks, and gloomily ask, “How is Xiao Zuo these two days?”

“Your Highness, I hear it is not too good, today, the doctor went to look again.”

“What use is he anymore? A single wind chill made him like that!” He Xuan did not know where this nameless fire came from, he stood up quickly, and agitatedly circled around the study like a headless fly for a long time, but in the end, still put on his cloak while angry, “Prepare the horse, Ig will be going out.”

Riding horses in Jin during the winter really was not something that made people happy. Icy winds like knives scraping by poured into the stomach, while that taste of the cold the entire way stirred the organs like they were going to cramp. He Xuan made a mad dash towards the ducal residence, and when he got down from the horse, he felt like his entire body collapsed- the two cheeks were so cold they ached, and a single breath made him feel like his lungs were filled with crumbs of ice.

“Your Highness.” Zi Wan stood at the door of the bedchamber, “The duke just had medicine and slept.”

“What did the doctor say?” He Xuan was about to push the door in, and when he heard this, he paused, and heard Zi Wan say, “If the fever subsides today, then it will be much better.”

“Mm.” He Xuan nodded his head. The inside of the bedchamber was lit with candles, while charcoal was burning fiercely, jumping like a tender flame in a scamper. He seemed like he could imagine Xiao Zuo’s deeply sleeping profile, reddened cheeks, slightly shaking eyelashes, with eyebrows still knitted into a bundle even in dreams.

This time, he finally recalled he was still bearing this iciness from outside, Xiao Zuo was still sick…… it would be better to not see him.

“That will be good, take care of him, Ig …… will go back first.” He Xuan tightened his hat, turned to look at Xiao Zuo’s bedchambers, then turned to get on the horse.

Xiao Zuo felt like he had a very, very long dream.

In the dream, he was holding an umbrella, walking on a stone staircase grown with moss, all around was lusciously green tall bamboo, he was able to hear the lonesome sound of rain dripping onto the bamboo leaves, he reached his hand out, and caught a bead of water sliding down from the umbrella.

[Like] the rains of late autumn illuminated by the sunset in the deep of the mountains[1].

Xiao Zuo went up the stairs, that staircase was spread full with deep and shallow ravines, he lifted his head to look and could see, hidden within the mountain, was a corner of a temple with incense coiling up, as though there was a monk striking the bell, sound after sound, with unceasing echos sounding.

He recalled, he came here to pray to Buddha, but as for what he wanted to pray for, he could not remember.

He walked in the tails of the sunset, that shadow falling on the ground slowly extended, and concealed inside the darkness. The sound of rain still was continuous, all pitter patter, carrying concerning solitude and grievances, neither hurried nor slow, falling down at an appropriate pace.

He walked from the day to night, yet got further and further away from that temple, he slowly was almost about to lose sight of the roof of the temple. The surroundings entered an indescribable darkness, the evil spirits and monsters prostrating within it were staring at him menacingly, as though prepared to tear him into pieces at any time.

Just at the time he was all weary and was about to give up, he faintly saw a person. He was dressed in black, and half his body was hidden in the darkness.

At this time, the moonlight suddenly broke through the dark clouds, and past the dim moonlight, he saw what that person looked like. He had a face that was just like He Xuan’s, smiling at him as he reached towards him.

Xiao Zuo got happy, and he quickly went up. Once he got close, even closer, just at the time he was going to put his hand on He Xuan, he abruptly realized one more step would be a deep abyss. Xiao Zuo raised his head up in astonishment, and his eyes turned pitch black, where was there a He Xuan.

“The duke- the duke has woken up!”

Xiao Zuo, with a body full of cold sweat, suddenly opened his eyes.