Wu Ruo saw that Hei Xuanyi ate one piece after another, and hurriedly stopped him: “We’re about to retire for the night in a while, if you eat too much, you’ll get indigestion. Just have one bite of everything and leave everything else for tomorrow.”
Hei Xuanyi ate one bite out of every plate of dimsum, then put his chopsticks down. After resting for a moment, Wu Ruo got Shi Yuan and Shi Yi to give him a relaxing massage so that he could release some of the tension in his body.
When it was time to sleep, Shi Yuan helped Wu Ruo to remove his outer robes and then left the room.
Wu Ruo didn’t immediately lie down on the bed, turning around to say to Hei Xuanyi who had just walked in: “I’ll help you undress.”
Hei Xuanyi looked at Wu Ruo’s rounded belly over his abdomen without batting an eyelid. Then he looked again at the way Wu Ruo was stretching his fat hands out, clumsily and strenuously helping him to take his clothes off. The corners of his lips raised slightly.
Wu Ruo helped him to remove his clothes until Hei Xuanyi’s upper body was only left with his innerwear, huffing out: “My body is too fat, I can’t squat down, take off your pants yourself.”
When he finished saying that, he laid down on the inner side of the bed.
Hei Xuanyi took off his pants without speeding up or slowing down, and laid down on the bed. He shifted to his side to look at Wu Ruo and said plainly: “Spit it out.”
Being so thoughtful for no obvious reason1The original full idiom is 无事献殷勤，非奸即盗 which means “one who is unaccountably solicitous is hiding evil intentions”. The usage in the Chinese text is just the first half of the idiom that says “one who is unaccountably solicitous”. I used “unaccountably solicitous” in the title, but decided to use simpler phrasing in the translation text., Wu Ruo definitely had something to ask of him.
Wu Ruo’s gaze brightened, he’d been waiting for these words from Hei Xuanyi.
He instantly flipped his body around to ask: “I heard from Shi You that you know how to make weapons?”
The him from the previous lifetime had never even known that Hei Xuanyi knew how to make weapons.
“Hn.” Hei Xuanyi remembered that a few nights ago, his wife had complained that he spoke too little, so he asked another question: “You want to make weapons?”
“Yes.” Wu Ruo happily asked: “Do you have time to help?”
“I do, how many do you want to make?”
Wu Ruo’s eyes flashed with a little bit of sheepishness: “Quite a lot.”
Hei Xuanyi didn’t probe further, waiting for Wu Ruo to continue.
“I want to use up all the materials from the betrothal gifts and those gifts you sent from a while ago.” Wu Ruo flipped onto his back: “Lest the people from the Wu family remain hung up on the things that you sent.”
And those rare medicinal herbs, he also wanted his master’s help to make them all into dan pills.
Hei Xuanyi raised his eyebrows. He had given quite a lot of materials, if they only relied on him alone to make them all into weapons, it would take at least until after the new year.
Wu Ruo saw that he wasn’t replying and asked: “Is it too much? If you can’t do so many on your own, I’ll look for another weaponsmith to help.”
Hei Xuanyi said: “I can only finish cultivating2Remember that the word for ‘making’ these weapons is actually 炼制 (lian zhi) which specifically refers to “making by cultivation”. They’re using their spiritual energy to cultivate the materials into weapons. Actually, as a side note (because I’m not sure if I ever said this before), 法器 (fa qi) doesn’t literally only mean weapon. It’s more like… magical equipment. These are not necessarily for offensive/attack purposes. all the materials after the new year.”
“There’s still more than two months before it’s time for my dage to leave for his internship. As long as it’s done before he goes for his internship, it’s fine.”
Hei Xuanyi didn’t speak again, putting his hand onto Wu Ruo’s abdomen, rubbing, pushing a sliver of spiritual energy into Wu Ruo’s body.
“Thank you.” After Wu Ruo thanked him awkwardly, he cleared his throat uneasily and asked: “I heard from the Wu family that Xishan Theatre has turned into ruins. Was it done by your people?”
“Hn.” Hei Xuanyi patted Wu Ruo’s stomach that was full of elasticity.
Wu Ruo ignored his actions, praising him: “Well done. Next time, if they dare to use our private matters to write an opera, we’ll dismantle their theatre again.”
Who told those people from the theatre to use their private matters as they pleased to write a story to entertain people? What was excessive was that the contents of the story were not only over-exaggerated, it also harmed their reputations. And what made him happiest was that after Xishan Theatre had been turned to ruins, a huge sum of money would be deducted from the accounts of the Southern main estate to rebuild the theatre.
His uncles would definitely be so distressed about the money matters that they wouldn’t be able to sleep at night. It was a pity that he couldn’t destroy things often, the way that they had destroyed the theatre. Otherwise, his dad, as the Southern main estate’s third master, would also suffer.
Hei Xuanyi withdrew his hand, closing his eyes to sleep.
Wu Ruo turned to his side to look at him.
The dim candlelight fell across Hei Xuanyi’s face, making his face full of black scales especially eerie and terrifying. But Wu Ruo didn’t know why, it made him want to touch this face.
Wu Ruo stared at him for a long time, and as if he had been possessed, he reached out with his hand to poke at the scales on Hei Xuanyi’s face. The stiff scales were especially unpleasant to the touch.
Suddenly, Hei Xuanyi opened both his eyes.
Wu Ruo got a shock, hurriedly retracting his hand, and flipping around so that his back faced Hei Xuanyi.
Hei Xuanyi: “…”
Notes: Progress! I love that Hei Xuanyi knew something was up right away and we don’t have to go through him thinking Wu Ruo was really just being nice and then being disappointed when it was actually just part of a scheme. Xuanyi is absolutely realistic about his expectations of how Wu Ruo sees him and that’s one of the good things about him. Also, Wu Ruo being completely oblivious about his feelings again. Two bros, sleeping on the same bed, right next to each other, cause they’re not gay!
Yelling about my feelings aside, updates will probably slow down to every alternate day with Sundays off. Chinese New Year is coming up and that’ll be a lot of prep, COVID or not.
