Gong Ze had to admit that the flicker of affection he felt for Lu Youling in that moment came from his teacher.
The memory of his teacher was the softest part of Gong Ze’s heart—the best years, the gentlest guide, the unspoken secret crush he loved but could never confess…
It had left too deep a mark deep inside Gong Ze. Just the thought of it made his very soul tremble.
When Gong Ze looked at Lu Youling, he couldn’t help but look past his appearance to see the familiar soul hidden beneath his flesh and blood.
It was a contradictory topic.
You were still alive, but the person you loved had already died and been reincarnated as someone else—and he had happened to appear right by your side.
Moreover, he clearly had feelings for you…
Gong Ze didn’t want to treat Lu Youling as a substitute.
Especially since Lu Youling truly wasn’t one.
“He is still the person I love. My teacher, and Sang You as well… each one of them is him. He just lost his memories. So no matter how many times it takes, I will pursue him all over again.”
But no matter how many times he started over, he couldn’t change the fact that the first time around, he hadn’t had the courage to say “I like you.”
He’s gone, but I’ve been left behind.
Gong Ze thought.
…
In the room, Gong Ze taught Lu Youling to read and write.
At the door, Shuisheng sat outside the threshold, his cheeks bulging with a milk candy, keeping watch for the two of them.
The days passed. The silk handkerchief embroidered with the little deer was also given by Gong Ze to Lu Youling.
The look in Lu Youling’s eyes at that moment became even more vivid and fervent.
When Gong Ze taught him to read, Lu Youling always liked to secretly stare at Gong Ze’s face, wearing a slightly smitten yet incredibly cute expression.
Because of the years of begging, Lu Youling’s body was deeply depleted. On top of that, he was at that age where a growing boy eats his parents out of house and home. He often lay awake at night from hunger, clutching his aching stomach and rolling around on the bed.
So Gong Ze developed a bad habit of feeding him.
The milk candies, oranges, and little trinkets he bought outside—he would spread them all over the table when teaching Lu Youling to write, and stuff them into Lu Youling’s pockets.
Usually, Gong Ze would take a stroll by where Lu Youling was working. The two would exchange a knowing glance. A few minutes later, the corner of the man’s lips would curl up slightly as he hid around a corner.
Before long, the young man in the floral-print fabric would dash out. His recently grown, fine, slightly yellowish hair was tied up in a small bun. Like a little country mutt, he would pop his head around the corner of the wall. When he saw the familiar figure, his face would break into a radiant smile.
“Gong Er~”
Gong Ze couldn’t help but smile back. Leisurely leaning against the earthen wall, his hands hanging at his sides, he let Lu Youling press close to him affectionately.
Then, like a little bandit robbing a landlord, Lu Youling skillfully and joyfully rummaged through his own two pockets and sleeves. When he found the food, his eyes would widen with delighted surprise, while Gong Ze—quietly watching him with downcast eyes—would have a soft glow in his gaze.
“There’s roasted chicken today!”
Lu Youling opened the paper package, revealing a chicken leg wrapped in lotus leaves.
He looked up in disbelief, his eyes shining with adoration as he gazed at Gong Ze. But then, after a moment, a worried frown creased his face.
“Don’t bring me food anymore, okay? The cooking woman said I’ve been getting chubby lately… I’m afraid they’ll figure it out…”
“It’s fine.”
Gong Ze lowered his gaze, a smile on his face, and took out his handkerchief to wipe Lu Youling’s mouth as he said softly, “You’re not fat.”
Under Gong Ze’s gaze, Lu Youling couldn’t help but grin goofily. “Hehe.”
When Lu Youling went back inside, he kept his head lowered and covered his mouth furtively, terrified that someone might see the grease on his lips.
The variety of things Gong Ze fed him was extensive.
Boiled eggs, a handful of dried nuts, a few pieces of candy, small wrapped pastries.
And where did these things come from…?
Gong Ze smiled: I stole them from the old woman.
The old woman: …
Damn!
Not only had her power been taken away, but now her good food was being stolen too. The old woman’s heart, liver, spleen, and lungs were all in turmoil. Especially when she heard from one of the old serving women—who secretly reported to her—that Lu Youling and Gong Ze were getting too close.
That was her son’s wife!
Even if she hadn’t married into the family, even if there was no bride price—if it weren’t for her, Lu Youling would have starved to death long ago.
Even if her son was dead and Lu Youling was now a free person, Lu Youling still belonged to her son!
The old woman paced anxiously in circles, seething with rage, cursing Gong Ze as a “little beast” nonstop.
One day, when it was time for Gong Ze to teach Lu Youling characters again, the old woman secretly followed behind Lu Youling. After Lu Youling entered Gong Ze’s room, she threw open the curtain like a woman catching adulterers and stormed in furiously, pointing at the two of them and cursing.
“Shameless little whore! If you were a decent girl, you’d have the decency to hang yourself and be buried alongside my son! You eat my food, wear my clothes, and now you’re sneaking around with another man? Bah!”
Then she cursed Gong Ze: “You little bastard born from a whore! You’d touch your own elder brother’s wife? That’s your sister-in-law! You vile creature who defiles the natural order—you little beast!”
Lu Youling was stunned by the tirade, then clenched his fists in anger, his face darkening.
When he heard her cursing Gong Ze, his eyes went wide. A surge of fury shot straight to the top of his head, and his brain buzzed.
He stopped holding back and roared back at her: “What the hell are you talking about?! Your son died of a sexually transmitted disease! If we’re talking about who’s shameless in this household, your son takes the crown!”
“Oh, you brazen little wretch! You dare talk back?!” The old woman’s eyes widened as she prepared to lay into him again.
Lu Youling kept going: “And what’s this about a ‘decent girl’ having the decency to hang herself and accompany your son? Who do you think you are?!”
“Are you Cixi? Is that why you’re so unreasonable?”
“You say you gave me a bite to eat and saved my life, like you’re so kind-hearted—”
Lu Youling shouted through gritted teeth.
“I traded myself for that! It wasn’t your charity!”
“Every day you go on about how you saved me, how my life belongs to you… If I go to the store and buy a bag of rice, and because I eat that rice I don’t starve to death, does that mean the shopkeeper saved my life?”
“Did I not spend money? Did I not pay a price?!”
“Don’t lie so smoothly that you end up believing your own lies!”
No kidding.
The only reason Lu Youling got that single cornbread bun was because he agreed to the chongxi forced marriage—it was essentially bought and paid for. What did she mean by “saving his life”? What the hell did she save?!
If anything, he was the one getting the short end of the stick.
Lu Youling had been bottling all this up for a long time.
With just one bite of food, the old woman expected to buy a wife for her rotten son.
She agreed. But then her rotten son happened to die, and the old woman still expected that wife to be buried with him.
What kind of bite of food was that?
Even the immortal elixir of Tai Shang Lao Jun wouldn’t dare command such a price!
“No bride price, no nothing—one cornbread bun and you wanted me to be your son’s chongxi bride? Go ask anyone in this village if they’d agree to that! And while you’re at it, go ask around—between the two of us, who got the better deal and who got screwed?”
Lu Youling kept attacking relentlessly: “And I held up my end of the chongxi bargain. I did what you asked. Your son died first—he died before we could even perform the ceremony. I am a free person now.”
“Who I choose to be with is my own business! And another thing—”
Lu Youling took a deep breath, his eyes red with guilt as he looked at Gong Ze. “What right do you have to curse at him? Gong Ze has been teaching me to read and write. We have been perfectly proper. You have no right to curse him. You’re the one who’s rude and foul-mouthed! A nasty old woman like you—no one will ever like you!”
The old woman instantly flew into a humiliated rage. “You shameless little fox spirit!” She raised her hand to strike him, but Gong Ze blocked her arm.
The old woman dared to lay hands on Lu Youling because he was dressed like a woman and looked frail. But when faced with the tall, imposing Gong Ze, the old woman immediately cowered.
She blustered, trying to cover her fear: “I am your aunt! By ancestral law, that makes me your mother! What are you trying to do—hit me?!”
“That’s not going to happen.” Gong Ze’s good mood had been thoroughly ruined. He looked at her coldly. “But get this straight, Auntie. I am the head of the Gong family now. Everything he eats and drinks, I pay for. What does that have to do with you? What’s this ‘eating your food and wearing your clothes’ nonsense?”
The old woman said matter-of-factly, “I’ve been in the Gong family for decades. I am the Gong family’s old matriarch! The Gong family naturally includes me. I’m just thinking of the family’s best interests.”
Gong Ze found it amusing. “The portion of the Gong family that belongs to you—didn’t you already take it out long ago and hide it away in your room? You’ve even helped yourself to my share more than a few times.”
The old woman choked on her words.
Gong Ze pulled the agitated, red-eyed Lu Youling behind him and slowly advanced toward the old woman, forcing her to retreat in fear.
Gong Ze was utterly disgusted with this old woman who constantly stirred up trouble and wanted everyone around her to be just as miserable as she was.
“Your daily meals, pastries, clothes—not a single cent has come out of your own pocket. Every bit of it has been taken from my accounts. Lu Youling at least does chores around here. What about you?”
The old woman: “…”
Gong Ze narrowed his eyes. “So it seems there’s only one person in this household who eats without doing a lick of work—and that’s you, Auntie.”
The old woman couldn’t believe her ears. “You’re even counting every bite I eat now? But I am—”
“Even if you were the Jade Emperor, it wouldn’t matter.” Gong Ze decided to be filial to the very end. “Since you care so much about the Gong family’s interests, Auntie, I won’t have the kitchen prepare your meals anymore. If you want to eat, you’ll have to pay for your own food!”
The old woman went rigid for a moment, then collapsed onto the ground, wailing as if the sky were falling.
She spewed nothing but false accusations at Gong Ze and Lu Youling, claiming they were carrying on an illicit affair, which drew quite a few servants to gather uneasily outside the door.
Gong Ze ignored her completely. He called Shuisheng and a few maidservants to carry her out to the courtyard and sat her down right in the middle of it, letting her howl in front of everyone.
Then he revealed how, while the old master was bedridden with illness, she had stolen the treasury keys, secretly moved the Gong family’s generations of accumulated wealth into her own room, and even taken the inheritance meant for her son.
The onlookers immediately wore looks of disdain.
Once the old master passed away, according to the inheritance distribution, both the son and the wife would receive their shares. The old woman had already received a substantial portion.
After all, the Gong family had built up considerable wealth over generations, always planning ahead for their descendants.
And yet, this old woman had started stealing from the treasury while the old master was still alive.
“When an old person acts this tyrannically, they’d better hope someone will take care of them when they’re bedridden someday.”
That’s what the onlookers thought to themselves.
The woman who had always prided herself on her authority as the old matriarch was now making a fool of herself in front of the servants. Her weathered face couldn’t hold itself together.
But she couldn’t leave, and she couldn’t stay.
In the end, the old woman couldn’t keep it up. She stopped her fake crying, cursed under her breath, covered her face, and fled. The servants, seeing that the show was over, dispersed as well.
Lu Youling breathed a sigh of relief. Thinking of how the old woman had been put in her place, he felt utterly satisfied.
But Gong Ze shook his head and seriously told him that this public scene wasn’t necessarily a good thing for them.
“Even though she was spouting complete nonsense, it’s hard to wash off dirty water once it’s been splashed on you. Even if I tell them that you and I were just reading and writing in the room, between ‘studying together’ and ‘a young man rendezvousing with his former sister-in-law’—which one do you think people are more likely to believe?”
A man and a woman alone together in a room.
Especially in a rural village with no entertainment, where people are bored out of their minds. Within a day, Gong Ze and Lu Youling would become the talk of the entire village.
“I’ll be fine—I’m a man, after all.” It wouldn’t be a matter of his virtue being called into question.
Gong Ze looked at Lu Youling’s little floral-print dress and hesitated before lowering his head. “But you’re a young woman. If word gets out that we’ve been meeting in private, it could have serious consequences for you. Maybe we should put the reading lessons on hold…”
“I don’t care about that,” Lu Youling interrupted quickly, then tentatively studied Gong Ze’s expression. “What about you?”
Gong Ze: “…”
Gong Ze could see through these careful probes to the affection Lu Youling had for him. Before, Lu Youling had hated disguising himself as a woman and had only kept it up to survive. But now, Lu Youling’s face no longer showed any resistance to the female disguise. Precisely because he looked like a woman on the outside, he could express his feelings for Gong Ze so directly.
Even if, as his “little sister-in-law,” a man might shy away from his advances out of modesty.
But a woman always had an advantage over a man.
Lu Youling felt that even though he had been brought in for the chongxi marriage to Gong Ze’s elder brother, he had never actually entered the family—he was still single. Pursuing Gong Ze wasn’t completely hopeless.
If Gong Ze found out he was actually a man, Lu Youling wasn’t sure if he could accept it. Especially since they were living in this era, caught between conservatism and progress.
Because of this anxiety, Lu Youling had grown urgent.
His expressions of affection for Gong Ze became more and more direct, no longer subtle.
He was bold. He was proactive.
He probed constantly through small details.
He observed Gong Ze’s reactions to their close interactions.
Considering Gong Ze’s character, he didn’t give a direct answer. Under Lu Youling’s expectant gaze, he turned his head away.
The man’s dark eyes shifted aside. A faint blush crept up his neck. He understood Lu Youling’s hints. In a low voice, shy yet restrained, he said, “…Let’s continue with our reading. I haven’t finished teaching you today’s characters yet.”
That kind of indirect answer already said more than enough.
Lu Youling’s heart raced with excitement. He desperately wanted to rush over and hug Gong Ze, but he held himself back with great effort. Cheeks flushed, he said softly, “Okay.”
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