“Huh…? Where did this beauty reminiscent of the ancient times come from…?” the sickly man asked.
Ugh. What a pervert. Lu Wancheng was almost on his deathbed, but he still remembered to call Lin Qingyu a beauty.
“You’re awake?” Lin Qingyu responded coldly.
Lu Wancheng seemed dazed for a moment. Then he asked hoarsely, “Who are you?”
Surprise flashed in Lin Qingyu’s eyes. “You don’t know who I am?”
It was the first time they’d met in person. Still, if Lu Wancheng had a brain, he would’ve understood as soon as he saw the wedding robes on Lin Qingyu’s body.
Lu Wancheng shook his head, coughed twice, and said, “It’s a bit clichéd, but I still want to ask… Where am I, and what am I doing here?”
Lin Qingyu didn’t reply. Was this invalid so sick that it had made him stupid, or did he not know about the marriage at all?
Before the wedding, Lin Qingyu had heard his father mention Lu Wancheng’s illness. It was said that he’d been in a stupor, delirious, for the past month. If that was the case, Lu Wancheng might actually be unaware of the marriage.
Lin Qingyu’s expression softened. “My family name is Lin, and my given name is Qingyu.”
“Lin Qingyu? Lin…Qing…yu…” Lu Wancheng repeated, as if he’d remembered something. “The beautiful imperial physician who died in the Eastern Palace?”
Lin Qingyu frowned. “What?”
Lu Wancheng stared at him unblinkingly, his expression startled, then suddenly struggled to get up.
Out of professional habit, Lin Qingyu pressed him back down. “What are you doing?”
“The mirror.” Covering his chest with one hand, Lu Wancheng pointed with the other toward the bronze mirror on the cabinet, his hair flowing across the pillow. He coughed. “Hand me the mirror.”
Mirror?
Lin Qingyu did so, asking, “Is something wrong with it?”
When Lu Wancheng saw himself in the mirror, his eyes widened as if he’d seen a ghost. His expression held a thousand words, but after a moment of breathless hesitation, he only uttered one: “…Fuck.”
The maid on night watch heard the commotion inside the room and knocked, asking, “Young Lord, has something happened?”
Lin Qingyu glanced at Lu Wancheng, who looked as if he’d been struck by lightning, then calmly said, “Tell the marquess and his wife that the young master is awake.”
The maid immediately sent someone to report that news to the marquess and marchioness of Nan’an, then summoned a physician. Soon after, the bridal chamber filled with people; Lin Qingyu stood like an outsider at the edge of the room.
Physician Zhang—who wasn’t an imperial physician, but was renowned in the capital—felt Lu Wancheng’s pulse. He stroked his beard, saying incredulously, “I have practiced medicine for decades, but this is the first time I’ve seen such a development.”
“Physician Zhang,” the marchioness said anxiously, “is Wancheng…?”
“Don’t worry, Lady. The young marquess awakening was fortuitous. But his pulse… I took it just yesterday. It was weak, and he wasn’t far from death, but now it’s like he’s a different person.” Physician Zhang clicked his tongue in wonder. “It’s miraculous—as if new life was breathed into him.”
Lin Qingyu mulled that over silently. Strangely enough, Lu Wancheng had suddenly gotten better, and it wasn’t the surge before death. He’d never seen anything like it in the medical literature.
The marchioness paused before asking, “Is he going to get well, then?”
The physician didn’t dare promise too much. Instead he said, “He at least has a sliver of hope now.”
This moved the marchioness to tears. “Good, good… Wancheng, did you hear that? You’re getting better.”
But Lu Wancheng didn’t react much. “I heard him.”
“Marchioness, the young marquess just awoke,” the physician told her. “He still needs rest.”
The marchioness wiped her tears. “Then I won’t disturb you any longer, Wancheng. Where’s Qingyu? Where did the young lord go?”
Everyone looked around, and Lin Qingyu stepped forward. “Marchioness?”
The marchioness held his hand in her own and smiled. “Qingyu, Wancheng’s illness improved as soon as you married into our family. The imperial preceptor is truly miraculous; you are Wancheng’s savior. In the future, he will be under your care.”
Lu Wancheng raised his head to look at Lin Qingyu.
Lin Qingyu had something of a smile on his face. “Don’t worry, Lady. I’ll take good care of the young marquess.”
“Ah, don’t call him ‘the young marquess’ like we do, Young Lord,” the auntie beside the marchioness teased. “You should call him ‘my husband.’”
Everyone laughed, not noticing Lin Qingyu’s fists clenching in the sleeves of his wedding robes. Then the crowd dispersed, and the bridal quarters found peace again. The red candle was about to burn out.
Lu Wancheng lay on the bed silently. His brow tightened occasionally, as if he was trying to remember something.
Lin Qingyu couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to him. He stood next to the window, staring at the unfamiliar moonlight outside as it spilled onto his body.
After a while, Lu Wancheng heaved a long sigh. “Brothe—wait, no. Beautiful, come here.”
“Who are you talking to?” Lin Qingyu asked coldly.
Lu Wancheng smiled. “Is anyone else here?”
Lin Qingyu turned around, the flickering candlelight flushing his cheeks with a hint of crimson. The teardrop mole at the corner of his eye looked even more charming in that light—as much so as a peony blossom.
The man was beautiful—but seemed short-tempered.
Lu Wancheng coughed a couple of times, then gestured for Lin Qingyu to sit. Lin Qingyu simply stood next to the bed, however, staying an arm’s length from Lu Wancheng.
“I was just thinking through things,” Lu Wancheng said. His tone was calm, a stark contrast from his flustered demeanor when he’d just woken up.
“What you were thinking about has nothing to do with me,” Lin Qingyu said neutrally.
“It does, a little—because I was thinking about you.” After speaking only a couple of sentences, Lu Wancheng already looked exhausted and pale. “If I’d come to a few days earlier, I wouldn’t have agreed to this marriage—to you becoming a widow after taking care of me.”
Lin Qingyu felt numb. “What’s the use of saying this now?”
“You’re right. Now that we’re married, and we’ve even prostrated ourselves to heaven and earth, the whole capital knows that we’re husband and wife.”
Lin Qingyu sneered. “No.”
“Huh?”
“We didn’t prostrate ourselves to heaven and earth,” Lin Qingyu taunted. “You were unconscious the whole time, so I knelt alongside a rooster.”
“They had you do that?” Lu Wancheng scoffed. “Forget it. Well, it’s fine that I didn’t kneel. You don’t have to take the marriage seriously. I won’t live more than half a year, so you’ll just have to bear with me for a bit. After I’m dead, you can take your inheritance from me back to the Lin residence and be free. It’s not too bad.”
Lin Qingyu was surprised. Suspicious, he asked, “You’ll make such a generous deal?”
“Yes. But how much you bring home is up to you,” Lu Wancheng said in a relaxed tone as he leaned against a soft pillow. “I’m not going to fight over your inheritance with this weak body of mine. The waters of this manor are too deep—I can’t control the tide. I just want to muddle along and lie around like a salted fish.”