Chapter 69: 56

[Extra] 56 - Ye Lan x Ye Xiao - «Daytime Sleep» 03

In order to look after Bing Xu and make sure his injuries recovered as early as possible, he fed him, kept the fire going, and never treated him harshly. Bing Xu didn’t mind taking the trouble to push all the non-vegetarian dishes in front of Gui Mao, which he tried declining twice, but he was defeated and so turned to eating heartily with no trace of politeness.

Having drank and eaten his fill, with new clothes and new quilts, Gui Mao absent-mindedly thought that he had truly celebrated the year.

“Out of the two of us, I really don’t know who is taking care of who.” Gui Mao rubbed his belly and picked his teeth as he spoke.


Bing Xu’s physical condition was very strong, so after a few days of being loosely but comfortably looked after, he was almost fully recovered. Gui Mao’s usual habit of waking up by the fifth watch of the night1 had been nearly destroyed in just a few days, sometimes he would accidentally sleep until the first crow of the rooster, feeling a comfortable sense of loss of purpose, as though the weathered flesh on his thighs was being regenerated2 .

Their brief period of rest and relaxation came to an end, and regular training resumed. Gui Mao saw that Bing Xu’s complexion was already back to normal, and said: “Your injuries are almost completely healed, so we don’t need to add more charcoal to the fire. I need to return to arrange and take stock of my concealed weapons and daggers, so I won’t be coming over tonight.”

During these past few days of being in contact, Bing Xu was already able to understand a lot more, and he nodded seeming as though he understood what he meant.

Gui Mao tested it out as he left the room, turning his head to see that Bing Xu had not insisted on frantically crawling towards him like the first time, and was instead still calmly sitting on his original spot, staring at him.

It seemed that the results of his care had been pretty good, Gui Mao smiled gratefully: “Go to sleep.”

Bing Xu nodded, and obediently laid down.


After the Great Trial, the number of places in the cycle had almost stabilised. The Nightrunner’s vacancies were not filled in by newcomers, instead, they were merging people from elsewhere in the same cycle and having them come over. The dispatch orders had not yet been arranged, so for a short period of time there were only a few dozen people participating in the training.

Gui Mao returned to his room and slept alone, then woke up and finished washing up before the sound of the whistle. He twirled a dagger around to test its feel and, seeing he fortunately didn’t feel out of practice, took his time as he made his way to the training grounds.

Different training grounds were focused on different things. Speed, concealment, endurance, accuracy, drug-resistance, and many other kinds. Today’s course was set in a dark room, densely covered in various mechanisms, and the aim was to avoid the random stream of arrows while hitting all of the black mice that were scurrying about. Gui Mao was naturally unorganised, and his ability to react to crisis was very low, so hiding from concealed attacks was his main weakness, but fortunately his eyesight was excellent and the accuracy of his throwing knives was the best in the cycle, so although he couldn’t avoid getting injured, he was actually the first one to complete the task and come out of the dark room.

Gui Mao’s butt and knees were covered in flying arrows but, as he made his way out of the training grounds, he let out a deep breath: He’d survived today too!

Thinking about it again, would that idiot be able to survive?

Gui Mao didn’t know anything at all about him, and since he didn’t know his strengths or weaknesses he was unable to tell whether today’s course would be easy for him or not. Gui Mao turned his head and looked at that tightly-closed stone door for a moment, thinking to himself that worrying was useless, so he should just forget about it and let him go.

Gui Mao, still with arrows sticking out of him, turned around and headed back to his residence, and right away heard the distant sound of fighting. No one had even returned yet, how could there be people fighting in there? Gui Mao stepped through the door of the large courtyard and saw two sides facing off, on one side there were three Seniors wearing the outfits of the Nightrunner’s high-level disciples, with waning moon tablets hanging from their waists, and on the other side was an unarmed Bing Xu, who had transformed from that foolish idiot he’d seen a few days ago, and now moved with crimson eyes and what seemed like murderous intent.

The two sides emitted a ruthless aura as they attacked each other, but Gui Mao entered the courtyard as though nothing were happening, and asked in bewilderment: “What are you guys playing?”

When Bing Xu heard his voice, he was shaken and rushed towards him, pulling him behind himself and standing firmly in front of him.

Gui Mao saw that the three Seniors didn’t seem like the had come to pick a fight, which was even more baffling. He patted Bing Xu on the shoulder: “Don’t be impulsive, I’ll ask.”

The Seniors saw Gui Mao’s clothes, and asked: “Are you a disciple of this cycle?”

Gui Mao nodded: “Has my colleague offended you, Seniors?”

The Seniors’ facial expressions didn’t change, and one spoke calmly: “Bing Xu didn’t participate in the training today, he should be punished according to the rules, but he dared resist.” He paused, looking at Bing Xu’s expression as though he were looking at a silent corpse, and said, “A disobedient person cannot be allowed to remain at the Nightrunner.”

Gui Mao was stunned when he heard this, tugging at Bing Xu and frowning: “You didn’t go to the training grounds this morning?”

Bing Xu tilted his head and thought for a moment, confused: “Training grounds?”

When he spoke, Gui Mao realised that he simply didn’t remember about training from the start. He was forced to talk it over with the Seniors: “There might have been a small misunderstanding, is there still time to receive the punishment now?”

The Senior looked at the shadow of a tree on the ground, and responded: “Actually, there’s still time.”

Gui Mao knew that the punishment was whipping, in his early years when he had first arrived, he couldn’t wake up so early, and so received many whippings as a result. Taking advantage of this opportunity to make up for the mistake, he hurriedly arranged a bench in the courtyard and said towards Bing Xu: “Go up and lie down on your stomach.”

Hearing this, Bing Xu obediently lay down on the bench.

The Seniors looked at each other in dismay, this person who just a moment ago was unwilling to be punished no matter what, and who had endlessly fought them as they pulled him out of his room, was now suddenly obedient. It was all a little strange.

Although there were doubts in their hears, they couldn’t ignore the rules. The Senior in charge of distributing the punishment took out a long whip that had been soaked in saltwater and, just as he lashed downwards, Bing Xu suddenly put his hand behind his back and caught the whip, turning over and pulling at it, wanting to tear it from his hands.

Gui Mao hurriedly stopped him: “Bing Xu! Don’t fight!”

Bing Xu stopped.


“Seems like he’s unwilling to receive punishment.” The Senior sneered as the threw away the whip and withdrew his hand, pulling out a sharp blade tempered with potent poison from his sleeve.

Gui Mao hurriedly pulled the whip out of Bing Xu’s hands and spoke with an apologetic smile: “How could that be, isn’t he just afraid of tiring Senior out? I’ll do it, you all please rest.” He worriedly pressed Bing Xu against the stool, and whispered between clenched teeth, “You mustn’t move! Be good and lie down!”

Gui Mao didn’t wait for the Seniors to react as he brought the whip down, but he suddenly thought of a good idea, he could press on his acupoint before distributing the punishment again, that way he wouldn’t have to be afraid that this fool would cause an offence again. However, as the whip came down, Bing Xu didn’t seem to be resisting like before, and he really lay down obediently without moving.

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Gui Mao was stunned for a brief moment, but after calculating the time, he couldn’t guarantee he’d have enough time to complete the punishment, so he had no alternative but to ruthlessly continue the whipping.

The thirty lashes were completed quickly, and even though his flesh had been lacerated, Bing Xu didn’t move again from start to finish. Gui Mao stuffed the whip back into the Senior’s hands and apologised once more, then hurriedly escorted the people out of the courtyard.

He wiped the cold sweat from his head: At last he had saved his life.

Turning his head to look, he saw Bing Xu still laying down on the bench in the same position as before.

Gui Mao nervously asked: “Bing Xu?” He didn’t beat him to death, right?

Bing Xu faintly answered: “Uh.” But he still didn’t move.

“Good good it’s all right, you can move.” Gui Mao hurriedly said.

As though he had been granted amnesty, and unable to maintain his strength, Bing Xu loosened his hands and fell down from the bench into the ground.

When Gui Mao saw that he had fallen on his open wounds, his heart skipped a beat. He carefully supported him to stand up and saw that his recently-healed wounds had split open again, so he hurriedly carried him back into the room and placed him back on his bunk. He applied medicine on him while he thought about the situation from a moment ago. Bing Xu had unexpectedly been able to compete against three Seniors unarmed, his strength really was astonishing. But when the Seniors wanted to punish him, he was simply unwilling to accept it, so why was it that, when he himself went to hit him, he just obediently received it……


As he let his thoughts run wild, he heard Bing Xu’s weak voice: “Gui Mao….. you’re hurt…..”

Gui Mao remembered in retrospect that he still had a few innocuous arrows sticking out of his body, so he hurriedly pulled them out and threw them away, but his heart was moved: “All this time, you still care about me?”

Bing Xu saw that the wound on his knee had started to bleed, and he unexpectedly went to pick off some of the herbal medicine on his own wounds to cover it with.

Gui Mao was amused: “There’s no lack of medicine, I can treat myself, you shouldn’t cause trouble.”

Bing Xu: “Oh.”

Gui Mao bandaged him as he thought about how to voice his questions. Should he ask “do you know why I hit you?”, or ask “I hit you, don’t you hate me?”, or maybe “Why did you not retaliate when I hit you?”…..

He had a lot of things on his mind, so he wasn’t as chatty as usual, and although Bing Xu almost never opened his mouth, he could sense that the atmosphere was different from the past, so he carefully asked: “Gui Mao, are you angry?”

Gui Mao was dumbfounded: I wasn’t the one who was beaten, how is it my turn to be angry.

Bing Xu asked again: “Did I…. do something wrong?” He buried himself in his pillow, his voice coming out muffled as he meekly apologised, “I’m sorry…..”

Gui Mao’s heart felt a little complicated for a while: “I was the one that beat you, what are you apologising to me for?”

Bing Xu said: “I made a mistake, it’s what you were supposed to do.”

Gui Mao sighed in his heart, secretly saying: You don’t even know if you were wrong, why are you so confident.

He stroked Bing Xu’s head, looking at his weak and helpless appearance, and his heart momentarily hurt, so he asked: “Bing Xu, why do you trust me so much?”


You and I are clearly not familiar with each other at all.

From the start I didn’t even know you didn’t live in the same room as me, I never spoke more than a few words to you, I didn’t even remember your name.

And you?

Why did you always spent the whole night sitting alone at the door of my room, why did you hide away that sugar I gave you on a whim as though it were a treasure, why are you afraid I’ll be angry at you, why don’t you question me, why do you rebel against other people, why do you only only treat my orders as though they were precious.

You forgot everything, why do you only remember me?


When Bing Xu heard that, he blankly asked: “Why shouldn’t I?”


Bing Xu’s trust in him was natural, like Heaven’s laws and Earth’s principles3 , as though it was an instinct that seeped out of his bones.

Gui Mao had always been glib, but he didn’t know how refute him.


Gui Mao’s mind became agitated, and he didn’t dare delve into the reason behind these words, this person, or this trust he’d placed on him. He was a heartless person, how could he possibly understand someone who was completely different from himself?

He could only helplessly say: “That’s fine. In the future, I’ll just sleep in this room and call you in the morning to go to training together, then you won’t miss it again.”

 

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1 Between 3:00 and 5:00. Top.

2 髀肉復生 lit. thigh meat reborn. An idiom used to refer to a comfortable and easy period of life where one doesn’t do anything, it comes from the idea that, for those who ride horses (esp. to go to war and the like), not riding for a long time can feel like the flesh on their thighs is growing back. Top.

3 Refers to something that is intrinsically true, right, and unalterable. Something that can be taken for granted and not be doubted. Top.

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