Chapter 48: Gu Yan, You’ve Lost Your Mind
Yan Xuerui lifted her head, her voice resolute: “I’m asking you, where is my Bi He?”
The early summer breeze carried a restless warmth, unlike the biting cold that would chill her to the bone. Gu Yan closed the door behind them and went straight behind the rosewood screen to change his clothes.
“Gu Yan!”
Yan Xuerui followed him step for step. Gu Yan unfastened his belt, revealing a powerful chest and torso. His muscles were firm and taut, crisscrossed with several scratch marks on his back and faint bite marks on his shoulders—barely visible, given her lack of strength.
“Someone, prepare the bathwater.”
He spoke calmly, with no intention of answering Yan Xuerui. She quickened her pace, blocking his path.
“Gu Yan, speak to me.”
Gu Yan stopped, his gaze dark and heavy as it settled on her.
He suddenly scoffed, “Rui’er, did your trip to the palace today muddle your senses?”
In this entire marquisate, even she belonged to him, Gu Yan. What did she mean by “her Bi He”?
When a master errs, if servants not only fail to dissuade them but actively encourage it, shouldn’t they be punished?
Gu Yan stepped past her. Yan Xuerui’s heart grew even more frantic at his words. She seized his powerful forearm, demanding, word by word:
“I’m asking you, where is Bi He?”
Her persistence made the smile vanish from Gu Yan’s lips. “Are you questioning me?” he retorted.
Over a mere maid?
Gu Yan pried her fingers open one by one, his expression darkening as he replied:
“The servant suffers the master’s punishment—I thought you understood that.”
He couldn’t bring himself to harm her, but if he let this slide lightly, what would become of the rules? She needed to learn a lesson.
Though she had suspected it, hearing the confirmation made Yan Xuerui’s vision go black. She nearly fainted from the shock.
“Gu Yan, you—”
“Wait, what is that scent on you?”
A faint scent of sandalwood drifted from her hair, so subtle that only Gu Yan’s sharp senses detected it.
The emperor usually summoned people to the Qianyuan Palace or the Qinzheng Palace, neither of which burned sandalwood. Gu Yan’s mind raced, and his previously indifferent expression suddenly turned grim.
Through gritted teeth, he said, “You went to see that wild man again!”
Yan Xuerui was equally furious. “Give me back my Bi He!”
Gu Yan was tall and imposing, while Yan Xuerui only reached his chest. She glared up at him, her eyes exceptionally beautiful, the corners tinged red as if brushed by crimson clouds, and her dark, jade-like pupils burned with a hidden fire—stunningly beautiful.
It stirred a sudden flutter in Gu Yan’s heart. In the past, she had been demure and obedient, gentle but lacking a certain spark. Now, in her anger, she was like a winter plum breaking through the snow, bursting with breathtaking vitality.
It inexplicably reminded him of the girl in Yangzhou who had leaned against the railing, laughing brightly and radiantly at him.
Several sturdy maids carried in buckets of hot water and cautiously opened the door, only to be met with the Marquis’s low voice.
“Get out!”
The maids didn’t dare look up, bowing as they retreated and carefully closing the door behind them. Gu Yan’s face was stormy. Without a word, he grabbed Yan Xuerui’s slender arm and dragged her toward the bed.
He rarely lost control, but now he needed proof—proof that she was his.
“Gu Yan, you scoundrel!”
Yan Xuerui clenched her teeth, but she was no match for his strength. Her fair arms were bruised where he gripped her, and with a rough shove, the two tumbled into the gauzy curtains.
Compared to Yan Xuerui’s panting, his breathing remained steady, and his eyes showed no trace of lustful indulgence. Impatiently, he tore off her white undergarments.
He wasn’t driven by desire today.
But only inside her could he truly feel that he possessed her.
Yan Xuerui pushed against his chest repeatedly, her voice suddenly sharp. “I don’t want to!”
After sharing a bed for so many years and raising three children together, Yan Xuerui had no reason to be prudish. But now, she didn’t want to, she refused!
She knew many maids and servants in the estate had met untimely ends. She wasn’t a bodhisattva; she couldn’t mourn each one. But this was Bi He—the chattering, thoughtful, cautious Bi He who had been by her side. She had done nothing wrong, all over a single bowl of medicine!
That girl had once cheerfully talked about saving up a large sum of silver, leaving the estate in a couple of years, and becoming a wealthy lady.
Now, all of that was gone.
Ahhhhh—Yan Xuerui’s heart felt as though it were bleeding. She kicked, scratched, and bit, enraging Gu Yan even further. “What right do you have to refuse?”
After meeting that wild man, had she forgotten how to be a wife?
The heat from his palm seeped through her thin underrobe. A few hairpins that hadn’t been removed yet fell out, and her jet-black hair cascaded over the pillow like a waterfall. Yan Xuerui desperately bit the fleshy part of his hand.
As he lowered his head, all the grievances and resentment she had bottled up over these days surged to the surface. Struggling, she grabbed a gold hairpin scattered near the pillow and stabbed it straight into his shoulder.
—Silence.
Both of them froze. Gu Yan had let his guard down around her. Crimson blood streamed down his muscular shoulder, dripping onto the scarlet mandarin duck brocade quilt, where it vanished without a trace.
The blood in Yan Xuerui’s veins turned cold. She stared blankly, her beautiful eyes wide like a frightened kitten, not moving a muscle.
Gu Yan glanced at the wound, a deep bloodlust rising in his dark eyes.
It was just a woman’s hairpin. Compared to the battles he had fought through mountains of corpses and seas of blood, this injury looked severe but was insignificant to him.
He was vengeful—those who dared harm him had long been turned to dust. She was the first, and the only one.
Gu Yan clenched his jaw, reached out, and pulled out the gold hairpin. Blood spurted out, splattering across her pale cheeks. Her ink-black hair cascaded beside her neck, her skin as white as snow, intertwined with vivid crimson—a mesmerizing, deadly beauty.
“Here, let me teach you.”
Gu Yan placed the gold hairpin in her palm, clasped her soft hand, and pressed it against the scar winding across his chest.
“Look carefully. This is the heart. If you want a fatal strike, you must aim here.”
“Stabbing the throat can be dodged by turning the head. A gut wound might buy a stick of incense’s time. Anywhere else is just a scratch. Only this tiny spot requires speed, precision, and ruthlessness.”
He guided her hand forward. “Only then will your target be unable to utter a single last word.”
Yan Xuerui couldn’t hold the hairpin steady, retreating repeatedly, her voice trembling. “Gu Yan, you’ve lost your mind.”
Gu Yan let out a dry laugh, his knuckled hand caressing her cheek as he leaned in closer, his voice hoarse. "If you can't bring yourself to strike, then you can only be the chopping block, I’m the fish."
...
With a clatter, the blood-stained hairpin fell to the floor. The gauze curtains lifted and floated down gently in the breeze before settling again. The candlelight flickered, and their entangled figures were gradually swallowed by the night.
***
Blood.
So much blood. The gold hairpin piercing flesh, drip... drip... Yan Xuerui slept restlessly, drenched in cold sweat. She jerked awake, her eyes snapping open.
Above her was the familiar canopy of her bed. Outside, rain had begun to fall, the droplets slanting across the carved window lattice. The sound of rain pattering on banana leaves mingled with the dripping from the eaves, each drop echoing in her heart.
"Bi He—"
She started to speak, but an overwhelming wave of grief suddenly welled up in her chest, suffocating her.
"Mother, you're finally awake."
Hearing the noise, Ming Wei hurriedly pushed aside the beaded curtain and half-knelt by the bedside.
"Here, have some water first to moisten your throat."
Ming Wei carefully helped her drink, then asked eagerly, "Mother, are you hungry? Shall I have someone bring a meal?"
Yan Xuerui had been unconscious for two days. Mr. Gao said it was due to a sudden surge of anger and that she needed quiet rest. Gu Mingwei had been summoned back by Gu Yan to attend to her mother.
Only then did Yan Xuerui realize she had been out for two days. The aroma of steaming congee wafted to her, but though she felt weak all over, she had no appetite.
She said bitterly, "Mingwei, I need you to do something for me."
"Aunt Bi He was dealt a hard lot. Her parents sold her into servitude in our household long ago, severing all familial ties. But it's important for people to be laid to rest where their roots lie. Her ancestral home is Huizhou. Have a thick coffin made for her and find a place with beautiful scenery..."
Yan Xuerui forced down the sorrow in her heart as she gave her instructions word by word. Bi He had been by her side longer than her own children. In her heart, she had never seen her as just an ordinary maid. She could hardly speak.
She had killed Bi He.
Mingwei looked at her mother with concern, her soft, pale hands resting on Yan Xuerui's forehead. "Mother, are you all right? Should I call the doctor to check your pulse?"
Had Mother gotten confused from sleep? Aunt Bi He was recuperating in the outer courtyard, so why was she suddenly talking about preparing a coffin?
After a conversation where mother and daughter seemed to be talking at cross purposes, Yan Xuerui suddenly realized—Bi He wasn't dead.
While she was asleep, Gu Yan had ordered Bi He dragged into the courtyard and sentenced to eighty strokes of the rod as a warning to others. Eighty strokes were enough to kill a frail woman.
Before even ten strokes had been administered, Ming Lan came to pay his respects. Knowing this was the most trusted maid at his mother's side, he intervened and saved Bi He.
Afterward, Ming Lan went to Gu Yan to apologize. No one knew what passed between father and son, but in the end, Bi He was spared her life. She was fined a year's wages and demoted to a common maid in the outer courtyard.
The Eldest Young Master had given his orders: she was to rest and recover well for now. No one dared to assign Bi He any tasks; she had merely been moved to another courtyard and was lying on a bed to heal.
From extreme grief to immense relief, Yan Xuerui's emotions rollercoastered, leaving her somewhat dazed.
"Thank goodness for elder brother."
Mingwei ducked her head slightly, her tone carrying a note of lingering fear. She was fond of Aunt Bi He and never imagined it was her father who had given the order. Gu Yan had always been kind and generous in her presence. Though she had heard of Senior Tutor Gu's reputation, she dismissed it as slander. This was the first time she had truly felt her father's coldness.
Yan Xuerui silently took a sip of the congee. After a long moment, she asked, "Gu... your father, how is he?"
She had been terrified that day, the smell of blood filling her nostrils. She hadn't dared to struggle, hadn't dared to look at him.
Mingwei, like everyone else in the household, knew nothing of what had happened that night. She lowered her eyes and said quietly, "His Majesty has issued an edict ordering Father to reflect on his mistakes in seclusion."
This sudden imperial decree was perplexing. Previously, it was only "dismissal from office," but the title of Marquis remained. Gu Yan could still come and go from the residence as usual, receive guests, and the marquis's household still saw many visitors.
Now, the court was embroiled in investigations into the spring imperial examinations, yet no clear outcome had emerged. Instead, the emperor had ordered Gu Yan to "reflect on his mistakes in seclusion." No one knew exactly what mistakes he was supposed to be reflecting upon.
Yan Xuerui's heart stirred with a preposterous thought.
Perhaps the emperor's sudden decree had nothing to do with the spring examinations. Perhaps it was because of her.
Had she suddenly fallen unconscious, and the emperor blamed Gu Yan for not taking good care of her?
For the sake of this face, would the emperor really reprimand a high-ranking official?
Yan Xuerui found it increasingly strange. She temporarily suppressed the peculiar feeling in her heart and asked Mingwei, "I mean, how are your father's injuries?"
Bi He wasn't dead. She had misunderstood him.
But then again, he really had intended to kill Bi He; it was only by a happy coincidence that Ming Lan had saved her.
That unexplainable frustration rose in her heart again. Mingwei replied, "The doctor applied medication. It's a good opportunity for him to rest and recover."
Mentioning this, Mingwei clenched her sleeves, her tone indignant. "That assassin is incredibly bold! To dare attempt to assassinate a court official in broad daylight! They should be thrown into the Ministry of Justice's prison and properly interrogated!"
Yan Xuerui was taken aback. She had acted on impulse at the time. Now, thinking calmly, according to the laws of the court, a wife injuring her husband was punishable by fifty strokes or exile. Things wouldn't go that far between her and Gu Yan, but there was still a mess to deal with—how to explain his injuries to their children and his mother.
The wound needed bandage changes; it couldn't be hidden.
Gu Yan had blamed it on an assassin, completely exonerating her. Given the circumstances at the time, Yan Xuerui didn't feel she was in the wrong. Even facing Gu Yan directly, she would hold her ground.
But he was always like this—blatantly wicked, yet never hiding his kindness towards her, making it difficult to love him completely, yet impossible to hate him thoroughly.
Yan Xuerui silently finished a small bowl of congee, a healthy color returning to her pale cheeks. Mingwei, thinking she was still worried about Bi He, comforted her, "Don't worry, Mother. Once Aunt Bi He is healed, I'll have her brought to my courtyard. I won't let her suffer in the outer courtyard."
Yan Xuerui's mind was elsewhere, and she didn't respond. Mingwei was about to say more when light footsteps sounded outside. Both mother and daughter started, turning their eyes towards the door.