THE CANDLE'S FLAME crackled softly, and the charcoal fire on the ground hissed and smoldered. Shen Jue's fingertips had turned pale, his mind a storm of tangled thoughts.
Meanwhile, Xiahou Lian remained calm and composed. "As you command," he said in a low voice.
Four pairs of eyes were fixed on him. Beneath those intense gazes, Xiahou Lian pulled the blanket down, revealing a smooth right shoulder. No scar marred it. The skin was a little bumpy, but the guards stood at a distance. With only dim candlelight to judge by, none noticed anything unusual.
His suspicions dispelled, the guard told Shen Jue, "We insisted on the inspection only to ensure that the assassin wasn't hiding here. Please don't take offense. Rest well, both of you. We'll take our leave."
Shen Jue escorted them out of the courtyard, then finally let out a long sigh of relief. He had no idea how Xiahou Lian could've hidden such a severe injury. Rushing back into the room, he found Xiahou Lian shivering, his shoulder already drenched in fresh blood. To Shen Jue's shock, Xiahou Lian appeared to be slowly peeling a layer of skin from his shoulder. His actions tore the wound wider, and blood gushed out as if from a spring.
"What are you doing?!" Shen Jue cried in alarm, running over. On closer inspection, he realized that the "skin" was some sort of prosthetic. Xiahou Lian had used it to deceive the guards.
"Help me peel it off," Xiahou Lian said through gritted teeth, his face drenched in sweat. He felt as if half his body was about to give out.
Shen Jue took over. "I'll tear it off in one go. Brace yourself."
Xiahou Lian stuffed a piece of cloth into his mouth, closed his eyes, and nodded.
Shen Jue pressed down on Xiahou Lian's flesh, then—with a forceful tug—ripped the prosthetic off. Xiahou Lian spasmed violently in agony, nearly passing out.
Struggling to remain conscious, he said weakly, "Get a needle. I need you to stitch up the wound."
"I'm not a doctor!" Shen Jue said through clenched teeth. "I've never stitched a wound before. And I don't have any catgut. If I do it wrong, it could kill you!"
"There's no other way, Shaoye. If you don't stitch it, I'll die anyway. Think of it like mending clothes. You've mended clothes before, haven't you?"
"Xiahou Lian!"
"I trust you," Xiahou Lian said, his gaze firm. "Just do it."
Xiahou Lian had always been like this—he trusted spontaneously and always acted without considering the consequences. Life and death were never part of his calculations—not back when they barged into Wangqing Pavilion, nor the night of the Xie family massacre, and not now either.
How could he be so indifferent to life and death? Had he never felt afraid?
Shen Jue looked at him, his gaze dark. "All right," he finally said.
He fetched a needle and thread, holding the needle in a candle's flame to sterilize it. Then he cleaned Xiahou Lian's wound. With the needle pressed to the gaping gash, he said, "I'm starting."
Xiahou Lian stuffed the cloth back into his mouth and nodded.
Xiahou Lian's back was to Shen Jue's face. Crisscrossed whip scars stretched across his skin like grotesque centipedes. The sight was horrifying.
When had Xiahou Lian become an assassin? And how many times had he come face-to-face with death?
Shen Jue steadied himself and pierced Xiahou Lian's flesh with the needle, making him shudder. "Don't move," said Shen Jue sternly.
The charcoal fire crackled. The room was stiflingly hot—both Shen Jue and Xiahou Lian were drenched in sweat. Xiahou Lian's fingers dug into the bedframe, clawing deep marks into the wood. Gripped with agony, he lost all feeling in his shoulder, and his vision went hazy; his surroundings distorted as if shimmering in a heat wave. His senses became sluggish, and sounds seemed to drift in from afar, muffled and indistinct. Insects' faint chirping, the guards' armor clinking—every noise seemed to come from someplace thousands of palaces away.
His mind drifted far away. He recalled lying on a narrow bed in a mountain hut two years prior, his back covered with wounds, listening to the pine trees rustle in the wind. The temple bells had tolled day after day, their echoes seeming to summon spirits from afar. He remembered his mother guiding him into the temple. There, the Shixin Buddha had stood on the steps. He'd placed the long, pitch-black saber known as Jingtie into Xiahou Lian's hands. Suddenly, he was overcome by fatigue.
Shen Jue made the final stitch and tied it off. He wiped the blood from Xiahou Lian's skin, applied some medicinal herbs, then bandaged his shoulder. Only after finishing that did Shen Jue have a chance to wipe the sweat from his own face. "It's done."
Xiahou Lian was completely drained. Sprawled on the bed, he breathed weakly but managed a strained smile. "See, Shaoye? I knew you could do it."
"Don't celebrate too soon. If the wound gets infected, it'll still kill you," Shen Jue said, tossing the cloth into the basin. The water inside was now deep red, as if the basin were full of blood instead.
Xiahou Lian caught his breath and struggled to put on his clothes. "I need to go. But someday I'll repay you for saving my life."
Shen Jue pushed him back onto the bed, frowning. "Where do you think you're heading in this state? Stay here and rest."
"If the eunuch who lives in this room comes back, we'll both be caught. I can't drag you into this."
Shen Jue raised an eyebrow. "How do you know this isn't my room?"
"Your room wouldn't smell this bad," Xiahou Lian said with a weak laugh.
"Well, don't worry. He's not coming back," Shen Jue said coldly, tucking the blanket around Xiahou Lian. "Get some rest. I'll fetch you medicine."
Xiahou Lian could tell that something bad had happened but didn't press further. Instead he asked, "Is there a portrait of him? Can you give me a copy?"
"What for?"
Xiahou Lian smiled mysteriously. "Have you heard of the Kinnara of Qiye Garden?"
Shen Jue shook his head.
"He's my shifu and a master of disguise," Xiahou Lian explained. "I've learned about eighty percent of his techniques. If you give me this eunuch's portrait, I can make a mask. No one will be able to tell the difference unless they get up close."
The Garden housed many secret techniques—Shen Jue had heard that himself. After agreeing to draw Sixi's portrait, he went to the kitchen to prepare Xiahou Lian's medicine.
A bit later, Shen Jue brought him the medicine. Xiahou Lian drank it in one gulp, seemingly unfazed by the bitterness. Unbeknownst to Shen Jue, Xiahou Lian had spent two years steeped in bloodshed, forging an extraordinary tolerance for pain and suffering. He'd undergone the stitches earlier without any anesthetic—such a procedure would've caused most people to faint.
After cleaning up the mess in the room, Shen Jue was drenched in sweat. His earlier bath had been rendered pointless by now. Xiahou Lian lay quietly on the bed, observing him. His calm face exuded a peace and poise that hadn't been there before.
The two boys sat in silence. The iron wind chimes beneath the eaves swayed in the breeze, tinkling.
Staring at the flickering candle flame, Shen Jue suddenly asked, "Xiahou Lian, aren't you afraid of death?"
Xiahou Lian was taken aback. "Of course I am—terrified. Each time I go on a mission, I'm on edge, afraid that every moment might be my last."
"Then why did you save me that night? The scars on your back..." Shen Jue's mind was sharp; he'd already guessed that he was the reason for the scars on Xiahou Lian's back.
"It was just a few lashes—I survived," Xiahou Lian said with a nonchalant smile. "But why'd you save me, Shaoye? You could've ignored me or handed me over to the guards."
Shen Jue turned his face away. "You saved my life. It was only right that I save yours."
Xiahou Lian sighed deeply, staring at the ceiling. "Fate never gives us many choices. Either spend my life as a prisoner in the mountains or become an assassin flirting with life and death. Either watch you die at the hands of Qiye Garden assassins or take a few lashes and hope to make it out alive. I didn't want to be a prisoner—and I didn't want you to die, so I chose the lashing." He grinned slyly. "Luckily, I've made it out alive every time."
"Your luck won't last forever," Shen Jue said quietly. "What about your mother? Doesn't she care what happens to you?"
Xiahou Lian's eyes flashed. He managed a bitter smile. "I'm already fourteen. A man must stand tall on his own. How could I keep hiding in my mother's arms like a child?"
Outside of murder, Xiahou Pei—his mother—was totally unreliable. Most of the time, she barely acknowledged her son, leaving him to grow like an untamed weed. After returning from the Western Regions and rescuing Xiahou Lian, she'd vanished again. Left to his own devices, Xiahou Lian had healed his wounds on his own and picked up the art of assassination from others. He would have been lying if he'd said that he didn't resent her. Taking a few deep breaths, Xiahou Lian forced back the moisture in his eyes.
A real man wouldn't cry.
Noticing how dark it was outside, Shen Jue said, "It's late, and I have duties tomorrow. I should head back to my room."
"Can I sleep in your room, Shaoye? This place reeks," Xiahou Lian said, grabbing Shen Jue's sleeve with a tormented expression.
"I can't let you."
"But look at me! What if the smell winds up suffocating me? Or my stitches burst, and I bleed to death?"
"I think you'll live to be a thousand-year-old scourge," Shen Jue sneered.
Xiahou Lian struggled to sit up. "Have some mercy!"
"Fine," Shen Jue sighed. "Stop moving. I'll help you."
Shen Jue assisted Xiahou Lian to his room and onto the heated bed, then headed to the bathhouse to wash once more. Xiahou Lian curled up in Shen Jue's blankets and breathed in his scent, clean and pleasant. It was a vast improvement on the suffocating stench of the other room, which had almost knocked him out. That, coupled with the unbearable agony in his shoulder, had been practically the ultimate torture.
Shen Jue's sparsely decorated room contained only a few simple pieces of furniture and a lone bed. It was so austere that it almost felt icy. For his part, Xiahou Lian was better suited to a livelier environment. His room always brimmed with plants; their brilliant colors served to lift his spirits. Shen Jue, however, favored simplicity; he lived like an ascetic, tending toward the cold and bare.
Shen Jue had found the Fourth Qianxi Courtyard quite to his liking. Its greatest—although perhaps only—advantage was that it didn't require Shen Jue to share a crowded dormitory, like eunuchs elsewhere in the palace did. This courtyard was quiet and underpopulated, with more rooms than occupants.
Shen Jue returned from his bath with his hair loose. The dark strands gleamed against his white underrobe like ink on paper, and Shen Jue's porcelain face appeared even paler in contrast.
Xiahou Lian scooted aside in the bed, and Shen Jue climbed under the blankets next to him.
Xiahou Lian looked at him. Shen Jue's long eyelashes fluttered gently, like a butterfly's delicate wings.
"What do you want to ask?" Shen Jue said softly. "Go ahead. You're about to bore holes into my face, staring like that."
Caught off guard, Xiahou Lian awkwardly burrowed deeper beneath the blankets. "How did you end up in the palace, Shaoye?" he mumbled.
Shen Jue opened his mouth but hesitated as something occurred to him: If Xiahou Lian could disguise himself as Sixi, why couldn't he remain in the palace living as Sixi? That way, he could escape Qiye Garden and stay by Shen Jue's side, ensuring that they would never be parted again.
The idea took root in his heart, choking it like a vine and making it flutter in his chest. After a moment of silence, Shen Jue said, "I ended up wandering the streets. A pawnshop owner stole the earrings you gave me; I lost my dagger there too. When I had no money, an old beggar took me in and fed me. There was a famine in Shandong that year, and we followed refugees to the capital, hoping to find food. But..."
"What happened?" Xiahou Lian asked.
"The old beggar sold me to the palace," Shen Jue continued. "Maybe he'd planned to do that all along."
Xiahou Lian's eyes widened. "What...?"
Shen Jue spoke with indifference, as if recounting someone else's story. The more placid he was, the more it pained Xiahou Lian. This boy had spent his life sheltered within the manor. Could he possibly have understood the dangers of the outside world? He would've innocently followed anyone who'd offered him candy, oblivious to their hidden intentions. He'd likely seen the elderly beggar as kindhearted and let his guard down. He hadn't realized that the wicked eventually grew old too—for instance, the Shixin Buddha.
Xiahou Lian sighed, unsure what to say.
"Don't call me Shaoye anymore," Shen Jue said, looking down at his fingers. "I'm no longer a young master of the Xie family. Now, I'm just a eunuch, and my name is Shen Jue, not Xie Jinglan. If I kept the Xie family name, then I'm sure my ancestors would be ashamed to see me as a eunuch in the afterlife."
"The Xie family treated you abominably. Who cares about their opinions?" Xiahou Lian said bitterly. "Whether you're Xie Jinglan or Shen Jue, you'll always be my shaoye."
"By the way, aren't you curious about what happened to Sixi?" Shen Jue looked up at Xiahou Lian, a cold smile on his lips. "He tried to defile me. He was like a toad lusting after a swan, pursuing something beyond his capabilities. He expected me to submit, but I killed him instead. He's lying in the dry well outside."
"What?!" Xiahou Lian was shocked. He knew the palace was a cesspool of rampant same-sex exploitation, but he hadn't expected Shen Jue to face such depravity. Then again, Shen Jue's beauty was bound to attract unwanted attention.
Shen Jue's cold expression in the dim light gave Xiahou Lian the sense that something about him had changed. The hardships in his life, and the filth of the palace, had transformed him. Gloom hung heavy in his eyes, like a shadow, impossible to shake. Xiahou Lian touched Shen Jue's fingers. "It's been hard for you, Shaoye."
"Yes, A-Lian." Shen Jue's eyes darkened, becoming deep and unfathomable as an ancient well. He leaned close to Xiahou Lian's ear and murmured, "Stay here and protect me, okay?"
"I..." Xiahou Lian hesitated.
Shen Jue's voice held an unyielding determination. "I saved your life. It belongs to me now."