Li Yu had come out to relieve himself, but now he was feeling uncomfortable and impatient. He stamped his feet in the cold wind and pushed the door open. "Let me take a look."
"Hey... Wait a minute..."
The snowy wind blew in, and the gray curtains on the bunk bed were rustling. Li Yu looked at Deng Ying sitting on the couch and said awkwardly, "How about... I bring you a pot of hot water?"
Yang Wan pushed Li Yu out the door and said, "Go ahead, I know how to do it."
After saying that, she directly inserted the bolt, turned around and was about to go in, but suddenly she knelt down, and her kneecap hit the cold ground, which made her eyes red with pain.
Deng Ying was about to stand up, but Yang Wan reached out and pressed his knee to stand up. "Sit down, I just didn't stand steadily, it's okay."
As she spoke, she moved the low table at the foot of the bed, sat down with her clothes rolled up, took out a bag of nuts wrapped in oil paper from her arms, and handed it to him, "Before I came here, I took Xiaodian to peel them. He is very good at it. At least half of the nuts here were peeled by him."
Deng Ying looked at the oil paper bag in Yang Wan's hand but didn't take it.
"Aren't you afraid that the prince will kill me in the future?"
Yang Wan was startled, "How could it be?"
Deng Ying lowered her head, "If the prince knew that he had served a slave, what would he think?"
"Won't."
Yang Wan put the oil paper bag on her knees and said, "I don't know how to do that."
Deng Ying smiled and shook her head.
Yang Wan said: "But, if you don't want it, I'll take it back. When I get better, I'll peel it for you. I'll do it by myself, and no one else is allowed to help..."
She suddenly realized she had let something slip when she was talking, and quickly lowered her head to look at Deng Ying's ankle and asked, "Is the water still hot?"
"It's still hot."
"Well... How about I go find Li Yu and bring you a pot of hot water?"
"Yang Wan."
Deng Ying reached out and held her arm, "Let me see your legs."
Yang Wan sat back helplessly, rubbing her hands and saying, "I fell down by myself."
Deng Ying didn't respond to her, but bent down and gently lifted up her skirt.
She was wearing moon-white satin panties with dark patterns embroidered on the edges with silk thread.
The silk was smooth and soft, and it was gently pulled up to the knees.
Deng Ying gently pressed down her trouser legs and moved the candlelight at hand, "Are you being punished to kneel down?"
Yang Wan pursed her lips and nodded after a long while, "That can be seen."
Deng Ying dimmed the candle and looked at her seriously, "Of course. If it was Li Yu, he might be able to tell how long you've been kneeling."
Yang Wan looked down at her knees.
To be serious, the swelling has subsided a little at this point, but because the capillaries were injured, the bruises on the skin still look scary.
Yang Wan tucked her hair behind her ears and said, "So, you were also punished by He Yixian and the others?"
Deng Ying slowly untied Yang Wan's trouser legs, stood up and said, "Not yet, but when I was sentenced last year, I had to kneel for an hour or two."
After he finished speaking, he moved his legs out of the basin and put his shoes and socks back on.
Yang Wan looked at his bent back and said softly, "It was only today that I learned what punishment is."
Deng Ying stood up, took out the medicine Yang Wan had given him from the cabinet, turned around and said to her, "Come sit on my bed, the medicine will be better."
Yang Wan said "hmm" and sat on Deng Ying's bed, and continued: "I made Jiang Shangyi angry this time. She occasionally punished me in the past, but it was always to do work and never hurt my dignity. This time, she made me kneel outside the Shangyi Bureau to reflect on my mistakes..."
As she spoke, her voice was choked.
Deng Ying recalled the time when Zheng Yuejia bowed to her and she pulled at her sleeves and tried desperately to hide behind him. She couldn't help but ask, "Do you mind this?"
Yang Wan didn't answer.
After Yang Lun brought her home, she was forced to kneel in the ancestral hall for several days, but her rebellious spirit made her not regard it as a punishment. She staggered to deal with the maid who was guarding her, and confessed to a bunch of "ancestors" she didn't even know. At that time, she didn't feel humiliated or sad at all, because she could still look down on the feudal dregs in front of her, thinking they were ignorant and even a little funny.
However, after she witnessed Deng Ying's forbearance and his strict control over herself in daily life, she gradually understood that he humbly accepted the disciplines imposed on him, and he did not mind being bound by people like Yang Lun, Bai Huan, and Yi Lang because the "civilization" he vowed to protect was originally a part of those disciplines.
Therefore, these feudal ethics that later generations despised, these ethical codes that violated personal freedom, restrained emotions, and distinguished people from all walks of life, were also the foundation of Deng Ying's practice.
Yang Wan did not like these backward civilizations that suppressed human nature, but she gradually realized that since she was with Deng Ying, she could not "disrespect" these rules condescendingly, otherwise it would be "disrespectful" to Deng Ying.
This time, the punishment that had been inflicted on Deng Ying also fell on her.
Unlike the "punishment" given to her by Yang Lun in the ancestral hall, Yang Wan understood Deng Ying's situation.
At that moment, her thoughts were so absurd that even she found them ridiculous. She just wanted to hug Deng Ying, or let Deng Ying hug her.
But she didn't dare to tell Deng Ying such messy and illogical ideas.
"No, I don't mind, I just...hiss..."
Deng Ying listened to her cries of pain and quickly raised her hand, "Was my hand too heavy?"
Yang Wan smiled and said, "You might as well say that I'm too delicate."
After she finished speaking, she looked at Deng Ying who was squatting in front of her and said, "I think it's great that we are like this."
Deng Ying used her other hand to hold her trouser leg and said, "There will be better days in the future."
Yang Wan shook her head. "No, it's good as always."
Deng Ying gently rubbed Yang Wan's wound, "Don't say such things, or I will have more delusions."
Yang Wan lowered her head and said, "I have been dreaming about this kind of life for ten years. Believe it or not."
Deng Ying did not respond.
Ten years seemed to be an important period of time for Yang Wan, but for some reason, every time Yang Wan mentioned this number of years, Deng Ying would feel "vanishing", as if he was facing a deep pool and wanted to send someone to sink, or to send someone back. He would inexplicably feel reluctant.
So he did not respond to Yang Wan's words, but asked instead: "By the way, I haven't asked you yet, what did you say in front of Your Majesty today?"
After hearing this, Yang Wan finally smiled.
"I actually didn't say anything bad about Concubine Jiang in front of Your Majesty and the Queen."
Deng Ying raised her head. "What did you say?"
Yang Wan said, "I said, sister, listen to these servants and go back to hide from us and cry."
Deng Ying was stunned.
He was amazed at her grasp of human nature and her control over the degree of her actions. This kind of calmness and decisiveness of an outsider was something that neither he nor Zheng Yuejia could match.
"How did you come up with that?"
Yang Wan said calmly: "Your Majesty, in fact, has no affection for the harem. Don't look at Concubine Jiang's favor, it's just because she is pretty and has a good personality in front of Your Majesty. Even if she gave birth to a prince, Your Majesty might not make her the crown prince. He praised Concubine Jiang's mother's family, probably to make my brother afraid. My sister is prettier than Concubine Jiang, and Your Majesty likes her..."
Yang Wan didn't say the second half of the sentence.
The "male gaze" that is often criticized in modern society was just a fact in the Ming Dynasty.
Yang Wan coughed, tried to keep her voice calm, and changed the subject: "Your Majesty also likes her, but she is too gentle and too silent... She will not tell Your Majesty in person when she is wronged, and will swallow it all by herself, so I deliberately said those words in front of Your Majesty. Having said that, they can't blame me for instigating. The Queen sitting next to them must express her concern for the concubines in the harem, and everything will be natural. However, Jiang Shangyi thinks that our Shangyi Bureau is responsible for managing the etiquette in the palace, and we should not be involved in these right and wrong, so..."
She shook her knees and said, "This is it."
Deng Ying gently held her legs.
"Don't move, it's not cleaned yet."
After he finished speaking, he simply took off the robe that was getting in the way, stood up and folded it beside Yang Wan, changed his legs, and squatted again, "This medicine you gave me is for bruises. Fortunately, I didn't use it up last time. Hmm... If you don't mind the trouble, I'd better go to the imperial pharmacy to get some other medicine."
Yang Wan shook her head and said, "It's not that troublesome. I originally thought that while he was out, I would come in and steal it, and then wipe it off myself when I took it back, but I ended up being caught by him. It's so embarrassing."
Deng Ying moved the charcoal fire basin to Yang Wan's legs. The charcoal fire produced a soft and warm breeze, blowing the shirt Deng Yingyan was wearing. With the help of the candlelight, he carefully avoided the swollen area soaked in blood, and rubbed Yang Wan gently with his fingers in circles.
Yang Wan looked at his hand and suddenly called him.
"Deng Ying."
"Um."
He snorted slightly but remained focused.
"You... Will you think of what you said to my brother..."
"meeting."
He agreed and said, "So I will serve you."
"Then I'm leaving."
"Don't go."
He suddenly blurted out.
After he finished speaking, he was stunned. When he looked up, he saw her supporting her legs with her hands and leaning her chin in front of him.
"Deng Ying, do you know? She will never tell a lie."
Deng Ying lowered her head and smiled to herself, "Will you come again tomorrow?"
"come over."
Yang Wan nodded, "Anyway, I don't dare to gossip about Chengqian Palace and Wusuo. My sister will be upset if she sees me, and Jiang Shangyi and Song Yunqing will scold me to death. I'll just get along well with Li Yu and won't say anything about me."
After she finished speaking, she sighed softly and rubbed her face which was red from the charcoal fire. "Ah... But I think it's not a solution to keep going like this. At the end of the year, the court is at odds with Your Majesty, and Your Majesty is always at odds with the harem, and even with his own son."
Deng Ying raised her head and said, "Don't worry, things will get better after the spring meeting next year."
"Because the Cabinet wants to implement the New Deal in the South?"
"Yes. Before the new policy is implemented, the land in the Jiangnan area must be cleared first. This matter has a lot of implications. The Ministry of Revenue and the clan nobles in the south will have a lot of tugs of war. Therefore, before the spring, the cabinet will definitely put the matter of deciding the crown prince first. You, the queen, and the little prince will also live a better life."
"What about us?"
Yang Wan continued, "There will be a lot of resistance in clearing the fields in Jiangnan. The imperial envoys sent there may be even more miserable than those who inspected the salt and mining areas. Being hanged on a ship would be the lightest punishment."
Deng Ying put down the medicine bottle and said, "Put it down. The person you want to protect is also the person I want to protect."