RMACAUH Chapter 1
by VolareChapter 1 Chapter 1 My face now is very ugly, don’t look at it. (……
Beichuan is a bitterly cold place where it is difficult for grass to grow. Most of the residents are unpardonable villains or family members of disgraced officials who have been exiled.
Because there are seven months of cold snow every year, it is impossible to grow food and can only be sustained by chiseling ice and catching fish.
Feng Yue leaned against the small couch, his ink-like pupils staring blankly at the white snow outside the window. He didn’t feel cold even though he was wearing thin clothes. Beneath the quilt, his legs were empty, which was disturbing. Because he couldn’t see the sun all year round, the snow reflected his handsome face even paler.
Until a thin and tall figure outside the window braved the wind and snow to rush home, his eyes finally showed a bit of life, and there was a smile on his handsome face.
Wei Xiaofeng pushed open the door, put down the fish he was carrying, squatted in the yard to untie the bandages on his hands, which were completely dyed red. He rubbed his blood-stained hands in the snow until the blood stains were taken away by the snow water.
He quickly turned around and bolted the door to prevent the cold wind from entering. Then, he wrapped clean bandages around his hands before lifting the heavy animal skin curtain and walking into the narrow bedroom, revealing a cheerful smile to the husband on the bed.
“A-Yue, I’m home.”
That originally beautiful and bright face was crisscrossed with dark brown, ugly scars. When he smiled, it tugged at the flesh on his face, like wriggling centipedes, making people afraid to look a second time.
Feng Yue looked at him with incomparable heartache and pity. Although there was still no expression on his face, his tone was as gentle as could be, “Come here, let me hold you to warm you up.”
“Okay.” Wei Xiaofeng took off his worn and damp boots, burrowed into the thick quilt, snuggling tightly against Feng Yue for warmth, and then, as usual, talked about what he had seen and heard today.
“Today the ice is exceptionally thick. I took an ice chisel and smashed the ice for a long time, but I couldn’t even make a small hole. The aunts who passed by caught a lot of fish and kindly shared one with me. Although it’s not big, it’s enough for us to cook a fish soup for today!”
The truth was that his hands were chapped from being frozen all year round, and some cracks were so deep that the bone could be seen. With a little force on the ice chisel, his unhealed hand cracked again, and blood flowed down the ice chisel onto the ice surface. He looked at the small hole that took him two hours to smash open, thinking that the two of them would go hungry today, and he was so anxious that he sat on the glacier and cried.
An aunt who passed by saw that he was too pitiful and threw him a small fish, advising him to go home early because the wind and snow were too heavy today. Only then did he carry the fish and cry all the way back.
“Let me see your hands.” Feng Yue looked serious, making Wei Xiaofeng dare not refuse.
He handed the hand tied with a white bandage to Feng Yue’s eyes. It had only been tied not long ago, but it was already bleeding again.
Feng Yue carefully unwrapped the bandage, watching his rough, cracked hands, his clear eyes stained red, and asked in a hoarse voice, “Didn’t you put on medicine?”
“I did, I did, it was almost healed before… It doesn’t hurt, it just looks serious.”
How could it not hurt? The cracks were so deep that the bone could be seen.
Feng Yue took off a jade pendant from his neck and handed it to him, “Exchange this for some silver to buy medicine. Tell me next time the medicine is gone.”
“No, I can’t!” Wei Xiaofeng reacted violently and stuffed the jade back, “This is the last valuable thing you have. You haven’t pawned it off all these years. It must be very important to you. I can’t pawn it off.”
“What’s the use of these external things when your life is about to be gone? Just take it and pawn it off.” As he spoke, he handed the jade pendant to him again.
Wei Xiaofeng’s face was full of guilt, his eyes misty as if he was about to cry. Feng Yue reached out and touched his head, “Xiaofeng, don’t cry. You’ve already done enough. You haven’t let me down anywhere. On the contrary, I owe you too much.”
Wei Xiaofeng silently wiped away the tears in his eyes, reaching under the quilt for the hot water bottle, choking, “The hot water bottle is getting cold, I’ll help you change it.”
Ten years ago, Feng Yue’s legs were cut off at the knees by today’s emperor. After that, he was escorted to this bitterly cold land. The area where his knees were cut off ached every day, and Wei Xiaofeng could only apply hot water bottles to relieve the pain.
Wei Xiaofeng boiled hot water, filled the bottle, and carefully applied it to Feng Yue’s severed knees.
Remembering the past, he raised a glass and looked at the blue sky with scorn, as radiant as a jade tree facing the wind.
This most famous young master in the capital, now, can only huddle in this small place, struggling to move.
“It must hurt a lot, right?” Wei Xiaofeng stroked his severed knees, his heart aching and tears falling like rain.
Feng Yue’s heart tightened, tugging at the corners of his mouth, and said in an extremely light tone, “I don’t remember, you, you, are you made of water? Why are you crying again?”
That night, the two of them ate fish soup, and Wei Xiaofeng fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, exhausted.
Feng Yue got up, found a clean white cloth, bit his fingertip, and using the dim light of the white snow outside the window, wrote a letter with blood, trembling.
The letter read: “Yesterday the mountain had news, now is the time for cultivation. Remotely convey to the village elders, blaming me for returning to the mountain late. Alone I drink on the pond, no one to meet under the forest. Remembering you at East Creek, idly lying opposite the cormorant.”
Early the next morning, Wei Xiaofeng washed up and was about to go out to find some work.
Feng Yue stopped him, “Xiaofeng, come here.”
“Ah?” Wei Xiaofeng lifted the curtain and walked into the bedroom.
Feng Yue handed him the cloth folded into a square, “Take this letter to the official escort at the post station. Just report my former title of Guangling Prince. If someone is willing to send it to the capital, someone with a heart will present it to the emperor. If not, then throw it away.”
Wei Xiaofeng didn’t ask anything, just nodded, “Okay, A-Yue, I’m going out.”
“Right, Xiaofeng…”
“Ah?” A-Yue is exceptionally talkative today?
Feng Yue moved his pale thin lips, full of guilt, and said with difficulty, “I just feel sorry for you, sorry for you… When I was successful, you didn’t get any benefits. Now that I’ve fallen to this point, I have to make you suffer these hardships.”
Wei Xiaofeng’s eyes were red, and he shyly pursed his lips, a smile spreading like the spring water of April, “It’s okay, A-Yue, I’m very happy to be with you.”
He liked him, even if it was a mountain of knives or a sea of fire, as long as he was by his side, he could endure any kind of hardship.
“Come a little closer, let me hug you.”
Wei Xiaofeng’s heart pounded like a drum, and crimson quietly spread to the tips of his ears, twisting his fingers and obediently walking over.
Feng Yue held his face, but it made him want to dodge, “My face now is very ugly, don’t look at it.”
“Not ugly, my Xiaofeng is the most beautiful.”
“You’re lying.”
“Only then I knew that tying clothes is not as good as tying hearts. Sitting I tie, walking I tie, tying for a hundred years.”
Wei Xiaofeng blinked his eyes in confusion, and said in disappointment, “You know I don’t like to read, I don’t understand these poems and odes.”
“It’s a love poem, meaning I want to be with you all the time, to tie this feeling with you, for a lifetime.”
Wei Xiaofeng’s heart pounded, his eyes widened in disbelief as he looked at him, “You, you said… you like me? How could you possibly like me? Are you lying to me?”
“I’m not lying to you,” Feng Yue thought of his past teasing of him, his voice hoarse, “Xiaofeng, I will never lie to you again.”
Wei Xiaofeng revealed a bright and pure smile, overjoyed and at a loss, “Then, then are we liking each other now?”
“Yes, we are!”
“Then, then can I call you… husband in the future?” The voice disappeared, lacking confidence.
Feng Yue actually suddenly remembered their wedding night, when Xiaofeng called him husband and was severely reprimanded by him, scolding him, “Where are you worthy, this useless good-for-nothing?”
“Of course you can, if you don’t mind.” Feng Yue didn’t easily shed tears, but at this moment, tears of remorse and heartache couldn’t stop flowing down.
“I don’t mind, I don’t mind!” Wei Xiaofeng hugged him tightly as if he had found a treasure, smiling foolishly, “I like A-Yue, I like A-Yue the most, but how dare I like you? I feel like I’m not so useless, because A-Yue, you said you like me!”
The bravest thing he had ever done in his life was to like Feng Yue, to marry him when he was at the height of his fame, and to spend ten years making him fall in love with himself.
Feng Yue’s kiss gently landed on his lips, and he whispered, “Go, come home early.”
Wei Xiaofeng was too excited to be sensible, nodded blankly, and walked out happily, holding the cloth towel with the blood letter, his face red.
Thinking that A-Yue’s spirit had been gradually improving recently, he would buy some meat for him to nourish his body after he exchanged the jade pendant for some money.
Feng Yue leaned against the window, watching Wei Xiaofeng’s figure fade away in the wind and snow, the light in his eyes gradually dissipating.
Perhaps because the obsession of unwillingness was too deep, Feng Yue knew that his physical body had already died, but his soul was still conscious, floating in this house, unwilling to leave.
Wei Xiaofeng sold the pendant, and went to the post station to report the name of the Guangling Prince as Feng Yue had said. To his surprise, an official who thought of their old relationship in the army accepted this letter written in blood.
Coming out of the post station, Wei Xiaofeng originally wanted to go to the hunter to buy meat, but suddenly felt a burst of dull pain in his chest. Something was being stripped away from his body, and the nothingness and loneliness made him shiver.
He vaguely had a bad premonition, and only focused on rushing home.
The heavy snow had already passed his knees, and he didn’t know how deep it was with each step. Wei Xiaofeng fell countless times because of this.
As he ran madly in the snow, he cried out in a hoarse voice, “A-Yue! A-Yue! Don’t, don’t go… A-Yue, I’m back! Don’t leave me, sob…”
With a loud bang, Wei Xiaofeng crashed through the door and stumbled two steps before falling to the ground. He got up in a panic, walked to the curtain, but was too timid to go in. He lowered his head to tidy up the clothes and messy hair that were still stained with snow.
“A-Yue, I’m home. The snow is so heavy today, I suddenly miss you very much. I walked too fast when I came home, and I fell many times, it hurts so much!”
“Are you asleep? I’m coming in, oh. I secretly kissed you when I came in because you weren’t awake.”
As he spoke, he tiptoed in.
He saw Feng Yue lightly close his eyes, his handsome face leaning peacefully against the window, as if he was fast asleep.
Wei Xiaofeng held his breath and climbed onto the small couch, touching him with his hand, but found that his body was ice cold and he was already breathless.
Helpless sobs gushed out from his hoarse throat. He was like a child who had lost everything, crying his heart out.
“A-Yue, A-Yue, A-Yue…”
“A-Yue, it hurts so much, my feet hurt, my hands hurt, and my heart hurts too. Can you hug me? It won’t hurt if you hug me.”
“Husband, I like you, I only like you. In this life, in the next life, in the next next life, I want to be with you.”
Feng Yue watched him cry so sadly, and subconsciously wanted to open his arms to hug him, but his spirit body could only pass through his body again and again, unable to touch him at all.
“Xiaofeng, don’t cry, I’m by your side.”
As if sensing something, Wei Xiaofeng raised his tear-stained face and looked into the air, reaching out his trembling hand towards the air. Feng Yue interlocked his fingers with his, wanting to hold on, but he couldn’t hold on no matter what.
Wei Xiaofeng hugged his cold body, hugging him for a whole night. The little young master who had no opinion and only knew how to cry ten years ago could now handle his funeral alone.
He burned his body into a handful of ashes, put them in a wooden box, and carried them with him. As if all the tears had been shed on the night he left, Feng Yue never saw him cry again.
Five months later, people came from the capital. As Feng Yue expected, he was dead. The emperor, thinking of their old relationship, pardoned his husband. The mighty Imperial Guards took Wei Xiaofeng and Feng Yue’s ashes away from Beichuan.
And his spirit followed Wei Xiaofeng all the way back to the capital.