There were thunderous sounds outside the window. Rong Tang felt relieved when he heard Su Huaijing's frank admission.
He raised his eyes and was about to agree, but then he glanced at the bedding on the bed. He hesitated for a moment, then his eyes fell on the cabinet in the corner and said, "Then bring another quilt and pillow. I might kick off the quilt when I sleep at night."
Actually, no, he just knew that Su Huaijing was a very cautious and vigilant person. He had to agree to sleep in the same bed with him because of his physical fear. If he slept in the same bed with him...
Rong Tang was very worried that Zi Zi might not be able to sleep well all night.
He thought he was kind, considerate and clever, and he found a good excuse and a way out for Su Huaijing. However, the latter lowered his eyes when he heard this, and glanced at the quilt covering Rong Tang with great regret and reluctance.
Why can't we sleep under the same quilt
They're married, aren't they
What decent couple hasn’t slept in the same bed for half a month after getting married
It's really a bully.
Su Huaijing had a little bit of resentment, but he still obediently opened the cabinet, took out a quilt and pillow, bent down and spread them on the bed, and asked: "Can I go wash up now?"
—It means I will go to bed after washing up! It means I will sleep in the same bed with you!
Rong Tang listened to the rumbling thunder outside the window and nodded. Seeing Su Huaijing turning around, he couldn't help but call him, "Do you need me to accompany you?"
Su Huaijing's heart softened.
He had been feeling confused these days. On the one hand, he thought that Prince Ning Xuan must have some ulterior motive by deliberately approaching him, but on the other hand, he felt that it was a great fortune to meet Rong Tang after returning to the capital.
If the harsh treatment he encountered in Shu was for the purpose of meeting such a person in the future and cherishing him in his heart, then Su Huaijing felt that even if it were a little harder, it would not be a big deal.
It would be nice to have Tangtang.
Wherever he is, I have home.
Su Huaijing curved his eyes and shook his head: "No, it's windy and rainy outside, be careful not to get cold, I'll be back soon."
Rong Tang was still a little hesitant, but the wind and rain in the yard were indeed very loud, and the leaves were blown against the eaves with bursts of rustling sounds. With his body, if he was exposed to the rain at night, he would easily fall ill.
So he frowned and said, "Then hurry up." He said this with no other intention, he was just simply worried that Su Huaijing would be scared by a sudden thunder when he was washing outside alone.
But the room was lit with warm yellow light from lanterns and candles. The not-so-wide stepbed was against the wall, with bed curtains gathered and hung on both sides. Rong Tang was leaning against the head of the bed, with the quilt covering his lower body and a thin blanket draped over his upper body. He held a storybook in his hand, and when he raised his eyes and said to people obediently and lazily, "Then hurry up," he looked particularly attractive.
He was like a mountain spirit that had just entered the world. His every move was captivating, but he was completely unaware of it. He exuded a contradictory feeling of purity and bewitching, which made people want to peel off his outer coat and see what the beating heart under his skin looked like.
Su Huaijing's eyes darkened, his Adam's apple rolled slightly, his fingers dropped to his side and tapped the badge on his waist, he curled his lips and smiled: "Okay."
He turned and went out, and Rong Tang sat on the bed waiting for him. While he was still not back, he rolled his quilt inward and pressed the edges neatly to draw a line between Chu and Han for Su Huaijing.
The beds in Dayu are all very small. Even though the step beds in the courtyards of Songyuan are designed for double persons, they are actually not much bigger than modern single beds. Even if two people sleep together without being crowded, they still have to sleep close to each other. Rong Tang wanted to reduce his presence as much as possible and make room for Su Huaijing.
As a result, he waited for a long time, until he was almost asleep, Su Huaijing came in.
As soon as Su Huaijing entered the room, he saw that the bed was almost divided into three equal parts, and Rong Tang and the quilt only occupied one third. He was stunned for only half a moment and then burst into laughter.
He took off his coat and walked slowly to the bedside. He did not go up to the bed, but bent over, supported the bed with one hand, raised his arm with the other hand, and held his wrist in front of Rong Tang. His voice was hoarse and a little sticky: "Tang Tang."
Rong Tang: “Hmm?”
Su Huaijing said: "I smell good."
Rong Tang was stunned for a moment, blinked, and didn't react.
The villain gained some weight after marrying him, but his wrists were still thin, and his bones were covered with skin, which looked white and hard at first glance, a bit like White Rabbit milk candy.
Rong Tang swallowed shamefully.
Su Huaijing tilted his head, lowered his voice, and said very obediently: "I was afraid of dirtying your bed, so I just went to take a shower."
There was only hot water for drinking in the yard, and he wanted to sleep with Rong Tang as soon as possible, so he took a cold shower. The exposed wrist, which was as frosty as snow, was emitting a slight chill, and it also had the scent of soapberry and flowers, which was indeed fragrant.
Rong Tang frowned, and just when he was about to say that he didn't take care of his body, how could he take a cold shower on a rainy day, he saw Su Huaijing blinking and acting coquettishly to him: "So, Tangtang, can you please not stay so far away from me? I will feel that you despise me."
He was like a small vendor standing on the long street, trying his best to sell his products. He raised his arm, as if he wanted Rong Tang to smell it carefully, and then said seriously: "I really smell good."
Rong Tang was stunned for a while, then he looked at the boundary between Chu and Han that he had just divided on the bed, and his earlobes inexplicably turned a little red.
Rong Tang pulled the quilt, and pulled it again, and the two quilts were put together with a "click". He raised his head and looked at Su Huaijing.
Hey! I don't hate you!
Su Huaijing's smile deepened, and he put his hand down. Before he stepped back from the bed, he struggled again with some regret: "Really don't want to smell it? I even put a few gardenias in the bathtub. I smell so good now."
The more he talked about how fragrant he was, the redder Rong Tang's ears became. The feeling of receiving letters with "Tang Tang, my husband" written on them before marriage came back to her mind, and she especially felt guilty of abducting a minor.
Rong Tang forced himself to turn his head away: "Don't listen!"
"Oh." Su Huaijing lowered his head and responded sullenly, with a hint of regret in his tone.
He took off his clothes and got on the bed. Rong Tang put the two quilts together. He was afraid that the wind would leak in and make Tang Tang cold, so he raised his hand to tuck in the corners of the quilt, moved his bed forward, and leaned it against the head of the bed.
He didn't feel anything when he asked the questions, nor did he feel anything when he moved inside on his own initiative. Even when he leaned inside waiting for Su Huaijing, Rong Tang still didn't feel that there was anything wrong.
But when there was really another person on the bed, Su Huaijing stuck to his side and leaned against the head of the bed with him. Even if he did nothing but lowered his head and flipped through an ancient book, his presence could not be ignored.
Rong Tang had always regarded him as a teenage villain, and also as his own child who had been raised with his own money. Moreover, Su Huaijing liked to act like a spoiled child with him, so Rong Tang naturally looked at him with some pity. But when they were so close to each other on the bed, he suddenly sensed the masculine aura of the villain that could not be ignored.
Mixed in with the scent of gardenia and soapberry, it was not prominent, but it still reminded Rong Tang that he was actually an adult man in this world.
Rong Tang inexplicably felt a sense of vigilance based on biological instinct - in nature, when two males stay together, they will usually fight for territory and mates.
But before he could feel this emotion carefully, there was a sudden thunder outside the window. Su Huaijing seemed startled and quickly reached into the quilt and grabbed Rong Tang's fingers.
"… "
The wariness disappeared instantly. Rong Tang was stunned for a moment, and realized again that this was his thunder-fearing, spoiled child. He did not pull his hand away, but patted the back of his hand with his other hand. His voice fell in the rainy night with an indescribable tenderness: "It's okay, I'm here."
Su Huaijing was stunned for a moment, his eyelashes trembling. Shan Hezhi couldn't bear to watch it any longer. He lowered his eyes and his gaze fell on the pair of folded hands covered by the quilt.
The sound of thunder and rain in early summer often brings new life. Su Huaijing listened to the sound of rain outside the window for a while. Rong Tang patted him slowly without saying a word, comforting him patiently.
Su Huaijing was silent for a moment, then suddenly laughed.
"Thank you Tangtang." He said, "I'm really afraid of thunder."
But not now.
If a person has never been afraid or has never seen others being afraid, it is difficult for him to develop a fear of a specific thing or worry about whether others will panic because of it.
The reason why he came to Rong Tang's room on a night with thunder and lightning was because he was worried that Tang Tang would be awakened by the thunder and would not be able to sleep all night.
The reason he had this worry was because he had been afraid before.
Very scared.
Raindrops penetrated the roof and fell onto the dirt ground bit by bit. Rats squeaked in the corners, one after another, as if they were moving. They were bold enough to run past the foot of his bed, and would even stop and look at him when they noticed his sight. In the dark night, the sound of thunder and lightning was like a death warrant, and the vision of the non-human creatures was clear and dark. The moment of looking at each other would give rise to countless unknown fears in people's hearts, which would almost swallow them up.
The young Seventh Prince had never seen such a situation before.
He has never been afraid of thunder.
When he was in the palace, on rainy days, a nanny would gently guard his bedside. The lights in the room were dim but not so dim that he couldn't see. The thunder, lightning, wind and rain outside the window would not penetrate into the room at all. The candlelight was steady and would not tremble at all. The nanny's singing to lull him to sleep was also particularly gentle and moving, as if she had placed a sleepy child on a cloud, clapping the beat to lull him to sleep slowly. Even if the world outside was turned upside down, it would not disturb him at all.
By the next morning, the plants and flowers in the imperial garden were full of life. After school, the third brother brought the fourth sister all the way to his palace, and smiled and teased him with a grasshopper: "Seventh brother, seventh brother! Let's go dig some bugs for fun!"
The Seventh Prince used to be afraid of nothing.
She was not afraid of insects, darkness, thunder and rain, or lotus flowers. She was not even afraid of the tiger, which everyone in the world feared, because the fourth princess kept saying that when she grew up she would ask her aunt to teach her how to fight tigers.
At that time, he even thought that this lady was so amazing, and when he grew older than his fourth sister, he would also learn from her.
Growing up in an ivory tower, protected and loved by everyone in the palace, he never knew what fear was.
But when something unexpected happened, flames engulfed the ivory tower where he grew up in the summer night. His wet nurse desperately sent him out of the palace and then spat out a mouthful of black blood and fell on the palace road. The eunuchs and palace maids who were running back and forth to escape stepped over her body. In the Qinzheng Hall, the eyeballs of his father and his mother were bulging out from their bodies due to the strangulation. A loud thunder exploded in the sultry sky, as if a Pandora's box had been opened.
Fear began to grow and confusion spread.
For a long time, he felt that this was actually a nightmare. When he woke up, his third brother would still take him to play around the imperial garden, and his fourth sister would still give him sweet cakes. His brother the Crown Prince might blame them for leading his younger brother astray, but he would put down his authority as the heir apparent when no one was around, squat on the ground and use a rattle to make him laugh.
He dotes on his younger brother, who is from the same mother, more than anyone else.
Su Huaijing thought, it would be good if he could just wake up.
However, there were many thunderstorms in Shu in summer, and the thunder kept him awake all night. The rain fell from the roof onto the bed in a large wet and sticky mass. Mudslides and collapses occurred from time to time on the mountain roads, and the cries of the people seemed to pass through the sky and fall accurately into his ears.
In his heart, he was thinking of his third brother, fourth sister, eldest brother, nanny, father, mother... but no one showed up.
Xingfeng didn't find him at the beginning.
Su Huaijing stayed alone in Li's house in Shu. In the thunder and rain, he looked at the water droplets in the house and the mice moving. Then he finally realized a fact:
He has no home anymore.
Many years later, he was no longer afraid of thunder or mice, and he didn't know what else in the world he would be afraid of.
Sometimes Xingfeng would feel scared when he saw Su Huaijing looking like he didn't care about anything, but Su Huaijing was really not afraid of anything.
When he was a kid, he would always go to his mother to complain when he got hurt, but now he can remove bones from any part of his body and put them back together without batting an eyelid.
When I was little, I would cry and call for my brother when I saw a mouse. Now, when I see a mouse eating his medicine and foaming at the mouth and dying, I even laugh out loud.
When I was a child, I wanted to poke my ears out when I heard thunder, but now I am only worried whether Rong Tang will be afraid of such sudden and annoying noise, and whether he will have a nightmare and wake up.
But Rongtang asked him in return: Are you afraid
I would take the initiative to move carefully and leave half of the bed for him, and would hint to him: If you are afraid, you can stay with me.
His Tangtang is really the kindest little Bodhisattva in the world.
Su Huaijing laughed softly and read the storybook with Rong Tang for a long time. When the thunder died down and it was very late, he finally got out of bed, blew out a few candles, and lay down on the bed with Rong Tang to sleep.
Rong Tang always felt sleepy and wanted to sleep as soon as he got into bed, but when he heard thunder outside the window while half asleep, he almost instinctively moved forward, and his hand slipped from his own quilt into Su Huaijing's quilt. He grabbed Su Huaijing's hand and squeezed it gently, saying in an unclear voice: "Don't be afraid, this is all normal weather phenomena, don't be afraid..."
The fragrance of gardenia lingered on the entire bed. Su Huaijing lay there for a while, then heard the regular and long breathing coming from his side. He sighed softly, and finally couldn't control his impulse. He turned around and hugged his little Bodhisattva with both the body and the quilt.
"I really smell good." Su Huaijing said softly, his slightly hoarse tone falling into the long night, like the music played by a guqin.
He rubbed his chin against the top of Rong Tang's head, somewhat fiercely, as if he was giving an order, but also as if he was carefully and anxiously begging: "You said you like gardenias, so you have to like me too, okay?"
"If you don't say anything, I'll take it as your agreement." Su Huaijing started to think carefully and closed his eyes with satisfaction.
(End of this chapter)