Perhaps it was because of the nature of the dream, but Xin Hexue’s perception of everything, including the changing of seasons and the passage of time, seemed like it was separated by a layer of hazy fog.
Time in the dream followed the dreamer, so only when he was with Du Zhi did the flow of time around him feel normal.
Sometimes, if he didn’t go out with Du Zhi, then in just a few breaths, day and night would switch places.
Fortunately, even if a long time passed within the dream, only the time it took to burn two sticks of incense would pass in the real world.
So would not have his memories wiped just because of staying too long in the dream.
It seemed that just a moment ago, it was still spring.
And in the next, a golden wind arrived, and autumn rain poured down like a waterfall.
The sycamore trees in the courtyard were half green and half yellow. A few rounds of light rain and slanting wind sent the chill of early autumn through the rolled-up bamboo curtains, seeping into the skin little by little.
Xin Hexue tilted his head, the white and slender line of his neck stretching as he leaned back. The back of his head leaned back until it rested against the window. His azure lotus robe was half undone, revealing skin as white as jade.
The path of the man’s lips left behind a lingering heat on his skin, and the jade white gradually took on a pink hue.
Peeking through the slit in the rolled bamboo curtain, it looked like the man had him pressed against the window, occupying him.
Xin Hexue’s lowered eyelashes trembled with the rhythm of his disordered breathing, and the small mole at the corner of his eye quietly adorned him.
He lowered his eyes, slid his fingers through Du Zhi’s hair and gently curled his knuckles, “That’s enough.”
Du Zhi straightened from where he had buried his head, “You want to rest now?”
“Mm.”
Xin Hexue responded absentmindedly.
He loosely gathered his already disheveled clothes and covered up the kiss marks left on his collarbone.
The young man’s lips had always appeared light due to a lack of blood color, but now they had been ground over many times, crushed into a more decadent red.
But the complexion of his cheeks still remained a faint pale.
Du Zhi reminded him, “The weather is getting cooler, you should wear a few more layers.”
Xin Hexue glanced at him and suddenly thought of something. He reached both hands behind Du Zhi’s neck and locked his fingers together, hanging limply on Du Zhi like he had no bones. He said, “If your elder brother wakes up, you won’t be able to kiss me like this anymore.”
Du Zhi’s eyes darkened, and he asked solemnly, “Why?”
Xin Hexue looked at him in amusement, “Why so many questions? Don’t tell me you forgot, your elder brother Zhou Shanheng and I are husband and wife?”
Once the words left his mouth, Xin Hexue felt something was wrong.
This sentence sounded like he had automatically and consciously placed himself in the role of the wife.
For a moment, Xin Hexue couldn’t think of another word to replace the words “husband and wife”, so he simply didn’t care and continued.
Du Zhi lowered his head in thought and murmured, “Only husband and wife can be this intimate?”
Xin Hexue: “Mm.”
Du Zhi raised a question, “But last time, you told me only people who love each other can kiss. Do married couples necessarily love each other?”
A cool breeze blew in through the window. Xin Hexue gathered his wind-blown black hair and replied, “Not necessarily.”
Du Zhi consciously led him to the bronze mirror and used a wooden comb to help Xin Hexue tidy his hair as he asked, “Then why is it that my elder brother can kiss you just because he’s married to you, but I can’t after he wakes up? Does he love you?”
Xin Hexue looked at the figure in the bronze mirror. As it hadn’t been polished for a long time, the reflection was not very clear.
One was thin and delicate, the other tall and robust. Du Zhi was about a head taller than him, his figure more like that of a martial monk, with lean and firm muscled, but not exaggerated.
Xin Hexue spoke softly, “Whether he loves me or not doesn’t matter. Just like how you and I can be this intimate…so, do you love me?”
The words poked at some unresolved matter in his heart, and Du Zhi’s hand suddenly grew heavier.
Xin Hexue’s eye twitched, and he showed a slightly pained expression, “Be gentle.”
Du Zhi loosened his hand. A strand of hair has been accidentally pulled and it clung to the wooden comb. He murmured an apology.
Then added, “I still don’t understand.”
Xin Hexue lazily leaned against the desk, his body tilting forward as he looked out the window.
He wasn’t in a hurry. Once Du Zhi understood, this dream would probably be over.
……
The provincial examination was held in the golden month of September.
Every autumn rain brought a chill, and by the time the results were announced in October, the cold wind was already piercing to the skin.
Du Zhi saw the posted honor list.
Written in black and on red paper, the first name written was Zhou Jiangkuo. This was within his expectations, so he didn’t show any sign of joy, and was still calm and unruffled like a deep pool of water.
Unlike the scholars beneath the list who wept with joy, or were experiencing wild ups and downs of emotion, he was truly strange and unusual, as if all seven emotions and six desires had been stripped away, along with all normal feelings like joy, anger, sorrow, and fear.
Du Zhi had always believed it was just his nature, that he lacked the basic ability to feel joy, anger, sorrow, or happiness.
Even his heartbeat remained constantly steady and calm.
This calm expression lasted until he turned around a bend on the mountain path and took in the scene before the sycamore tree grove.
The entire courtyard was shaded by sycamore trees, but the autumn wind was bleak, and the wooden leaves faded in color and fell gently.
A scholar in green robes was draping a furry cloak over Xin Hexue.
The heavy fur cloak weighed down the young man’s half tied up hair. The whole person looked like he was piled together from glazed crystal, too delicate to withstand the weight of the clothing.
The green-robed scholar lowered his head and said something to Xin Hexue. The two of them looked at each other, their atmosphere seemingly harmonious.
The scholar leaned in closer, lifted his hand and placed it on the young man’s shoulder.
This action was very familiar to Du Zhi; first placing the hand on the shoulder, then gently cupping the back of the head afterward, allowing for a deeper kiss.
From this angle, the side of the scholar’s face looked somewhat like his bedridden older brother at home.
Du Zhi’s expression turned cold, as if shrouded by a layer of dark clouds, and he strode over to the two.
Xin Hexue had already noticed Du Zhi the moment he appeared at the bend of the path, so he naturally accepted the concerned fussing from the unfamiliar scholar before him.
When the scholar, whose face was blurred by fog, draped the cloak over him, he also went along with it and didn’t refuse.
Before Du Zhi could speak, the scholar beside him said first, “Zhou Jiangkuo, so your home really is here. I thought I must’ve asked the wrong way.”
Du Zhi turned his gaze toward him. “What is your business?”
It turned out this scholar had come to offer his congratulations on the way. His name was listed just one spot below Du Zhi’s, and he had come to inform Du Zhi that tomorrow, the local officials of the prefecture and county would be holding a Luming Banquet to celebrate with the candidates. He invited him so they could attend together, and he wouldn’t feel too lonely without any familiar faces.
Du Zhi’ “I understand.”
He neither refused nor gave a definite answer. It seemed he didn’t take the scholar seriously at all. He merely turned his head to look at Xin Hexue, “Are you waiting for me here?”
Xin Hexue squeezed out a sound from his throat, “Mm.”
Du Zhi: “… Let’s go home?”
Xin Hexue handed the fur cloak back to the scholar, not paying much attention to the look of regret on the other party’s face as he received it, only saying, “Thank you.”
When the scholar took it, he noticed the cloak seemed to carry the cold fragrance from the young man, and his tone turned a bit shy, “You’re welcome.”
Du Zhi’s expression was calm as he walked forward. Afraid Xin Hexue couldn’t keep up, he slowed his pace slightly after a while.
Xin Hexue asked knowingly, “What’s wrong with you?”
Du Zhi’s sword-like eyebrows furrowed tightly and he pressed his chest in confusion, “It feels like there’s a sour swelling in my heart. It’s very uncomfortable.”
The unfamiliar feeling overwhelmed him, and his mind was filled with the way Xin Hexue and that scholar were looking at each other.
Xin Hexue gave a flat conclusion, “You’ve eaten vinegar.”
Du Zhi repeated, “… Vinegar? No. When I left home this morning, I ate a sesame flatbread with only a little pepper and salt.”
His response left Xin Hexue speechless.
Xin Hexue said, “Well, eat more.”
‘It won’t kill this stupid donkey anyway.’
………
The next day was the Luming Banquet.
Du Zhi had to go to the county.
Xin Hexue didn’t go with him and even deliberately had someone spread some false rumors halfway along the way.
At the banquet, Du Zhi drank a bit of wine.
He had never touched alcohol before, so even just two cups in, though his face appeared normal, the tips of his ears were already flushed red.
But he still looked calm and composed, so no one noticed anything strange about him.
Even his walking remained a steady straight line.
On the way back, the setting sun glowed like molten gold, but Du Zhi’s ears picked up hushed whispers.
There were black, gray, and white human shadows, with densely packed words coming out of their red mouths and white teeth, and floating in the air.
“I heard the top scorer of the provincial exam is entangled with his sister-in-law. Truly, people can’t be judged by their appearance…”
“Without a sense of propriety or ethics, what’s the use of reading all those books? One might as well have stuffed the sages’ teachings into a dog’s stomach!”
“Didn’t the eldest son of the Zhou family wake up? Let’s see how those two deal with each other from now on.”
“If you ask me, what is the use of fame and success? Since they’ve committed adultery, the authorities should drag both of them down to the bottom of the river!”
Du Zhi turned his head. Normally, he wouldn’t care at all. But this time, he caught a few key phrases from the dense red words.
‘Woke up…?’
The aged osmanthus wine numbed his mind, so for a moment, Du Zhi didn’t react.
‘He… actually woke up?’
A malicious voice echoed in his mind: “Your sister-in-law doesn’t want you anymore.”
Du Zhi’s heart trembled violently.
He sluggishly realized that, according to Xin Hexue’s logic, he could no longer get close to Xin Hexue in the future.
That indescribable sour and bloated feeling surged up in his heart once again. Du Zhi, his mind muddled, hurried home in quick steps.
By this time, it was already…
Night had already fallen, and the willow tips at the edge of the eaves lifted a round, orange-red moon into the sky.
Du Zhi was so muddled he didn’t even notice that his elder brother’s room was still quiet. The elder brother rumored to have awakened was clearly still unconscious on the sickbed.
He just rushed straight into the side room where Xin Hexue was.
The young man seemed to have just finished bathing in orchid-scented water. He was leaning lazily on the beauty couch, his damp hair cascading over his back, soaking the thin shirt and tracing out the fine lines of his spine.
The light robe veiled white jade skin. The collar hadn’t been fully closed, revealing part of his collarbone.
A water-like sheen still lingered in the hollow of his collarbone.
Xin Hexue turned back and was stunned for a moment, “Du Zhi?”
He had only released a piece of false news, but he never expected Du Zhi’s reaction to be so intense.
Du Zhi stepped forward. At this moment, he looked more like a husband whose love had been stolen by his brother, rather than a brother-in-law sent to escort the bride and perform the ceremony for his brother.
“Did Zhou Shanheng kiss you?”
“Does he love you?”
He asked word by word, as if eager to know the answer, yet not entirely wanting to hear it and his attitude was very contradictory.
Xin Hexue lifted his eyelids and gave him a cold look. The thin edges of his nose flared slightly as he sharply picked up the scent of alcohol on the approaching man, “You’ve been drinking?”
Du Zhi nodded honestly, “I drank two cups at the banquet.”
Xin Hexue was slightly repelled by the smell of alcohol.
But since it was osmanthus wine, it wasn’t unpleasant just yet.
Du Zhi lifted Xin Hexue up and placed him on the bed, then brought a cloth to gently wipe the damp black strands, “So does Zhou Shanheng love you? Can he kiss you?”
Xin Hexue brushed him off, “Of course. Your elder brother and I are husband and wife.”
Du Zhi seemed to catch a loophole in the logic, “So, a husband and wife love each other and kissing is allowed. In that case, since we’ve kissed many times, does that mean we already have the reality of being husband and wife?”
‘Damn it.’
‘This stupid monk actually learned something.’
Xin Hexue’s previous words were all just meant to muddle Du Zhi.
This was Du Zhi’s dream and the only one who could truly break the dream was Du Zhi himself.
As long as Du Zhi achieved what he really desired in his heart, the dream would naturally dissolve.
Xin Hexue could infer Du Zhi’s subconscious desires through the symbols and reflections from the people around in the dream.
The scholar corresponded to the monk. The moral ethics corresponded to the monastic precepts. What Du Zhi truly wanted was the ability to love and be loved.
Xin Hexue guessed that the other party might be different from ordinary mortals. That difference didn’t lie in Du Zhi’s cultivation, but in the excessive indifference and lack of emotions in him.
Maybe there was some secret method that could strip a person of the seven emotions and six desires from a young age.
However, now wasn’t the time to think about that.
“The reality of being husband and wife…” Xin Hexue gave a faint smile, “Why would you think that? What married couples can do goes far beyond what you know.”
His hands reached behind Du Zhi’s neck, interlocked his fingers and tilted his head slightly, “Do you want to kiss?”
After the bath, the cool fragrance rising from the young man’s skin grew even more lingering.
Maybe it was the alcohol taking effect, but Du Zhi’s head felt heavy, and he was unable to ignore the dull ache at his forehead.
Outside the window, the orange-red moon became even clearer. The moon halo expanded, and silver moonlight shone through the high, thin clouds and into the room.
Du Zhi moved slowly and gently, and kissed Xin Hexue’s lips accurately.
At first, it was a restrained and gentle kiss, but once consciousness began to sink, it turned increasingly muddled. The kiss gradually changed into a circling lick, then evolved into a devouring frenzy, swirling up, down, left, and right. His distinct Adam’s apple tightened, bobbing up and down visibly.
Xin Hexue had initially tried to lean back, but the grip behind his head forced him to stop. Now that force slowly loosened, and Xin Hexue was laid down into the layers of bedding, his body sinking slightly.
The thin inner garment was easily lifted and fell apart, and what met the eyes was a large area of snow-white skin and two spots of cherry blossom pink.
Du Zhi’s lips brushed past the corners of the lips, and then moved downward from the jaw and collarbone. Wherever they passed, the skin bloomed with a faint blush.
“Mm…”
Xin Hexue’s fingers, buried in Du Zhi’s hair, curled slightly.
This movement seemed to become a signal encouraging someone to do something even more outrageous.
The white underwear was so thin it could be easily pulled down from the ankles and peeled away, fluttering softly to the floor.
Xin Hexue’s hand loosened.
A dark head burrowed between the young man’s firm, white thighs.
It took some effort before the flexible and nimble tongue finally reached deep inside.
“Uh…!”
The gasp was short and stifled, as if squeezed out from the depths of his throat.
Xin Hexue couldn’t grab Du Zhi’s hair, and he bit down on the knuckles of his curled hand. His dark lashes were clumped together with moisture, and his snow-white body flowed like warm goat’s milk.
His long legs rested on Du Zhi’s shoulders, and even the flesh at the base of his thighs trembled slightly from the overstimulation, and the toes turned pink and curled up uncontrollably.
The two jade bangles on Xin Huexue’s right angle clinked together with a jingling sound with each movement.
Physiological tears of pleasure welled up from the corners of his eyes and silently slipped down. Xin Hexue looked at the moon halo outside the window that was growing larger and larger and narrowed his eyes.
The long legs slowly tightened, wrapping around Du Zhi’s neck.
With a sudden force from his legs and waist, in an instant, the jade bangles chimed lightly, the world spun, and everything flipped upside down.
Xin Hexue straddled Du Zhi’s chest, his hands mercilessly gripping the man’s neck. He looked down from above like a beautiful serpent, glaring coldly, “…Who are you?”
That stupid donkey wouldn’t be able to find the entrance to the key point without someone guiding him.
The man lying on his back suddenly grinned.
His sword-like eyebrows and phoenix eyes no longer held the calm and indifference of the former Du Zhi. Instead, they brimmed with malicious and wicked energy.
Blood red swallowed the black in his eyes.
Hen Zhen looked up at the young man straddling him.
He saw the young man’s indifferent and wary eyes, the smooth and beautiful jawline, and the thin chest exposed from the loose clothing.
The soft, red tip on the chest had just been bitten and tugged in his mouth earlier, and there were still teeth marks on it.
Hen Zhen said in a low voice, “Ah Xue, your water flowed onto my heart.”
Traces of moisture still lingered on the corners of his lips from the earlier activity. As if extremely thirsty, Hen Zhen licked his lips with a dry tongue, “It’s sweet.”
The taut string in Xin Hexue’s mind suddenly snapped, and his hands, which were pinching the other person’s neck, even trembled with force.
He warned with gritted teeth: “Shut up, you pervert.”
