Having been bedridden for more than a month, Li Fengqi was well aware of the poison in his body. It was inevitable to be injured and poisoned when in a war, so he was quite accomplished in the art of medicine. Although he couldn’t remove the poison, it was not impossible to fight poison with poison.
The poison he was exposed to was yin and cold. After the poisoning, his muscles and veins were sluggish and blocked, making it difficult to do anything. His internal organs suffered as though locked in frozen state. At the moment, he was only unable to move due to blocked meridians. Any longer and his internal organs would become eroded by poison and turn necrotic. In the end, the only thing ahead of him would be death.
The medicinal herbs he asked Wu Geng to prepare all exuded extreme heat. Extreme heat was used to combat extreme cold. Some of them would be used to soak the body, while others would be boiled into medicine to be taken orally. Then the poison could be gradually suppressed from the inside out.
After nightfall, he took the medicine and soaked in the liquid.
The medicinal material was naturally hot and greatly potent. The internally-taken decoction worked very quickly under the stimulation of the external liquid, colliding with the toxicity in his body.
The two powerful medicinal forces collided in his body, and Li Fengqi felt as if he were between an iceberg and a sea of fire. He felt like his muscles and veins were about to burst due to the heat and cold.
The pain was severe and long-lasting, and he relied solely on his willpower to support himself. His hand braced against the wall of the bathtub twitched in pain. His originally-insensate hand left deep scratches on the edge of the tub under the severe pain.
Even so, he still clenched his teeth tightly and did not make the slightest sound. Bright red blood snaked down from the corners of his mouth and dripped into the brown liquid.
When Ye Yunting woke up, this was the sight he saw.
His heart was rather shocked. Seeing that the corners of Li Fengqi’s mouth were still bleeding, he quickly found a piece of cloth, rolled it up, and held it up to his mouth. “Bite on the cloth.”
Li Fengqi struggled to open his eyes and saw him looking with a worried look on his face. He loosened his clenched teeth and managed a smile. “Many…thanks.”
“Hold it well, don’t bite your tongue.” Ye Yunting didn’t say much to him, only putting the rolled up cloth in his mouth to prevent him from biting himself in extreme pain.
Li Fengqi bit the cloth, feeling extremely exhausted, but he still managed not to close his eyes. His aimless gaze moved to the young man in front of him, watching him try to think of something else to distract him.
Ye Yunting still stood over him, staring at his right hand.
Li Fengqi turned to look in a daze and realized that his right hand was also injured – earlier, he had held on too hard, and his nails had scratched the smooth tub wall. The wooden splinters had pierced into the flesh under his fingernails.
It was said that fingers were connected to the heart, but perhaps because his body was in so much pain that he didn’t even notice.
“Your hand will have to be treated later, too.” Ye Yunting looked at the injury on his hand and couldn’t imagine the kind of agony it would take to make him completely ignore the pain in his fingers and heart, to make him unaware that his hand had been injured.
He reached out, held Li Fengqi’s right hand tightly and said, “If it hurts, just hold onto me.”
Li Fengqi looked at him intently, only to feel how his hot hands were wrapped by a pair of slightly cold, soft palms. His body was too hot, and heat rushed through him, making him extremely greedy for this slight touch of coolness. He clutched at the young man’s hand and squeezed it tightly, like a traveler thirsty for water, desperately trying to absorb the cold.
His hand was too strong, and the grip on Ye Yunting was painful, but he held back from wincing.
He tenderly raised his sleeve to wipe the beads of sweat from the man’s cheek, and said warmly, “Just get through this.”
Li Fengqi looked at him, and in his heart, he thought: Just get through this.
This little pain couldn’t break him.
…
Li Fengqi didn’t leave the bathtub until the medicine had cooled down.
He didn’t know how much he had sweated. His tied-back long hair looked as though it had been washed, and some messy strands dripped wetly down the side of his face, making him look less sharp and more fragile.
Ye Yunting took him out of the water, and when he saw his pale and fragile profile, he felt his heart clench again.
He himself was someone who was very afraid of pain, and also hated to see others suffer. Seeing Li Fengqi’s exhausted appearance now, it felt like something was tugging at his heart.
Li Fengqi was at his weakest right after soaking the medicinal solution. Ye Yunting helped this person sit on a chair, helped him take off his soaked underwear, dried him with a towel and wrapped him up before carrying him back to the bed. The strong pungent odor of medicinal herbs still permeated the room. He helped Li Fengqi pick out the wood splinters from the gaps between his fingernails, and after applying medicine and bandaging them, he opened the windows for ventilation.
After doing these things, he himself was sweating from exhaustion. When the cool night air blew, he couldn’t help but sneeze. He finally remembered that he himself was also a patient, hurriedly found a robe to put on, and then slowly went outside to look for Ji Lian.
Ji Lian was in the outer room looking out.
He heard the sound of the door opening and closing in the inner room, and guessed that Li Fengqi had finished taking the medicinal bath. Just as he was about to get up and go to the inner room to check, he saw his young master first.
He subconsciously wanted to say a few words, but when he saw that Ye Yunting was wrapped in a thick robe, he swallowed his words and asked, “Is Wangye done soaking?”
“Mn.” Ye Yunting asked him to dispose of the medicinal liquid so as not to be discovered in the daytime.
Ji Lian let out an, “Eh,” and said, “I’ll go and pour the water.” Before leaving the house, he recalled something and said, “I still have the fire burning on the stove. Young Master, do you want to wash up?”
Ye Yunting had sweated all day and night, and soon fell asleep from his fever after waking up during the day. He was indeed feeling sticky and uncomfortable at the moment, so he nodded when he heard this.
Ji Lian finished handling the medicinal solution and brought back a bucket of hot water.
After Ye Yunting finished wiping himself, he remembered that Li Fengqi also had sweat all over his face just now, so he took a basin of water to the inner room to wipe his face as well.
As a result, when he opened the door, he saw a smooth-textured arm extending from the curtain. Perhaps it had been too long since it had been exposed to daylight, so that arm was a somewhat-sickly white, with blue veins clearly visible.
The hand first fumbled to push up the hanging curtain, and then tried to prop itself against the edge of the bed, raising half of his body.
“Wangye?” Ye Yunting’s hand trembled and he almost dropped a basin of hot water. He narrowly grabbed the copper basin, striding to the bed somewhat uncharacteristically and looked at the panting man half-leaning against the bed. “It actually worked?”
There was great joy in his eyes, and even his lowered voice was shaking. He seemed even more excited than Li Fengqi.
Li Fengqi looked at him sideways, curved his lips and smiled. “We won the bet. This method is effective.”
“As long as it works.” Ye Yunting put down the water, paced a few steps in the room to calm his excitement, walked around twice, and couldn’t help but approach Li Fengqi, eyes full of anticipation. “How long will it take for Wangye to be completely detoxified?”
He was so excited that he didn’t notice that he was too close: his face was less than two fists away from Li Fengqi. At such an intimate distance, those clear eyes full of excitement and joy directly looked into Li Fengqi’s, catching his gaze completely.
Li Fengqi looked at him fixedly, his eyes lingering from his eyebrows to his ears, and noticed that there was a small red mole on his left earlobe, like a bright red dot of cinnabar on the white and plump earlobe.
He suddenly realized that the eldest son of the Duke of Qi was not only smart and decisive, he also had a beautiful face.
“It is not yet possible to completely detoxify the poison.” After being dazed for a moment, Li Fengqi coughed lightly, stopped his wandering thoughts, and answered Ye Yunting’s question seriously. Probably fearing his disappointment, he paused and added, “But it won’t affect our plan. After I adjust the dosage of the medicine and soak it three more times, we can proceed to the next step.”
Ye Yunting nodded repeatedly: “Of course, I believe in Wangye.”
He looked certain and answered without hesitation.
Li Fengqi raised his eyebrows and looked at him with something unclear in his eyes. “Why do you trust me so much?”
Of course, it’s because I’ve been reborn and know that you'll fight back and become the emperor.
But he couldn’t say that.
Ye Yunting blinked, looked at him innocently, and said the standard answer he had already prepared: “I and Wangye are dependent on each other. If I don’t believe in you, who else can I believe in?”
When Li Fengqi heard this, his eyebrows rose, his upturned phoenix eyes showed a slight smile, and he solemnly said, “Then I will not let you down.”
…
The liquid medicine had taken effect, and Li Fengqi’s hands could now move freely. Ye Yunting handed him the wrung-out cloth, and after he finished wiping his face, he put out the candle and prepared to rest.
He took off his outer robe, shoes and socks, then climbed into the inner side of the bed in a casual manner, shook off the quilt and prepared to sleep.
Li Fengqi watched his series of skillful movements. His brows twitched, he pursed his lips, and said nothing.
The deeper the night was, the better time to sleep.
Next to him, Ye Yunting quickly fell asleep. His face was serene and his breathing was shallow. It seemed a little cold, as half of his face was snuggled into the quilt, while on other the half of his face that was exposed, his long eyebrows were slightly furrowed, as if he was also cold in his dream.
Li Fengqi had soaked the medicinal liquid, and the medicinal power in his body was still slowly dissipating. It was so hot that he couldn’t close his eyes at all.
He turned his face sideways and stared at Ye Yunting in boredom.
Ye Yunting was really well-born. It was no wonder that so many noble girls in Shangjing wanted to be his wife regardless of their family background. Before, he was in so much pain that he didn’t have the mind to pay attention to anything else. Now that he had found a way to suppress it, his worries had decreased a little, and he could finally focus on taking a good look a this nominal Wangfei.
The peach blossom awakens nature, while the stars sleep in the river. The wind and the moon are all condensed between his mountain eyebrows and sea eyes1.
There was nothing about Ye Yunting’s body that was not exquisite, nothing that was not natural.
Li Fengqi held a high status and had seen many beauties, but he still had to admit that Ye Yunting was superior. There was no one else like him, a beauty so pleasing to the eye, like polished smooth white jade, translucent and warm, drawing one’s gaze in and making them look a hundred times.
Even someone with a hardened heart like Li Fengqi was not immune.
He gazed at the person for a while, then came back to his senses and narrowed his eyes.
But when he stopped looking, the person near him became restless.
Ye Yunting felt that there was no warmth at all in the quilt, that it was cold. He wrapped the quilt over his body over and over again, but he still felt cold. He curled up and frowned in his sleep, trying to find a warm place to sleep well.
Li Fengqi watched him toss and turn, toss and turn, and finally roll to his side, right next to him.
===Translator’s Notes===
Watching Li Fengqi fall in love in real time is such a treat. They are the cutest.
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Huuuggg himmm
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