Chapter 4: Sleeping on the Floor
Birds and beasts, all living things, are driven by the instinct to seek advantage and avoid harm, to flee from their natural predators.
Her late husband, Cui Ze, had been a robust hunter, tall and sturdy from his years in the wild. Although Cui Jingkong was a “frail scholar,” he was every bit as tall as his elder brother, if not taller.
As he stood before her now, Feng Yuzhen’s slender body was completely obscured by his, not even a corner of her clothes visible. Fully enveloped in the young man’s shadow, she was like a lost lamb, separated from its flock and exposed to the fangs of a wild beast.
A chill ran down her spine. Feng Yuzhen subconsciously took a step back, only coming to her senses when her back hit the cold wall. She turned her face away, not daring to look at the person before her, and stammered, “There’s… only one bed in the room…”
They were so close that Cui Jingkong could look down and study her in detail.
Crimson lips, delicate teeth, and a red mole at the corner of her mouth. Right now, her teeth were nervously biting her lower lip, causing the red mole to disappear into the fine lines of her mouth.
Her eyelashes trembled nervously, and her hands were clasped tightly together.
After studying her for a moment, he sneered inwardly. Aside from that peculiar quality and her inexplicable fear of him, this widowed sister-in-law’s personality was dreadfully dull.
Cui Jingkong was a little disappointed. He took the initiative to pull away, retracting the sharp edge he had just revealed. He lowered his eyes and said, “It was my oversight. Sister-in-law can sleep in the side room. I’ll sleep in the main room.”
“But the weather is still too cold…” Feng Yuzhen hadn’t even had a chance to breathe a sigh of relief. Hearing his words, she hesitated, her expression uncertain. “What if you catch a cold?”
“According to Sister-in-law’s wishes,” Cui Jingkong had lost his patience for this back-and-forth, his tone turning cold, “are you suggesting you sleep on the floor while I take the bed? Or perhaps…”
His voice slowed, laced with hidden malice, “Sister-in-law and I share a room?”
“…”
A bomb went off in Feng Yuzhen’s head. Her face burned, and her eyes widened in disbelief that someone with such a refined, celestial appearance could utter such brazen words.
In the village, most women her age were already mothers. Had they heard such a remark, they would have spat back without a second thought, each one fiercer than the last, ensuring no one could take advantage of them.
But Feng Yuzhen was different. Although she was a married woman, it had only been for a short time, so she still retained much of a young maiden’s innocence.
It was also due to her soft, yielding nature, compounded by her fear of Cui Jingkong. She could only pretend she hadn’t heard the last half of his sentence and force herself to remain calm. “I’ll sleep on the floor. You’re a scholar. Getting sick would delay important matters.”
Feng Yuzhen’s shy appearance had a charm of its own. Her skin was fair, and her face, along with her neck and earlobes, flushed a fiery red. Her originally elegant features were tinged with peach, like a rhododendron blooming on a branch—pitiful and lovely.
Cui Jingkong’s gaze lingered on her face for a moment. Without saying whether he agreed or not, he turned and walked away, leaving Feng Yuzhen to secretly guess his meaning, assuming he had tacitly consented.
*
As dusk fell, the two of them, having worked without rest except for meals, had finally managed to tidy up the inside and outside of the house enough to get a decent night’s sleep.
Feng Yuzhen brought the quilt, which had been airing in the sun all afternoon, into the main room. In that short time, the floor space had already been taken. The bedding, judging by its pattern, was the set that had originally been on the bed. Cui Jingkong was sitting at the desk, reviewing his books. The dim, yellow candlelight traced a golden edge around his features, making him look surprisingly gentle.
He offered no explanation, merely nodding at her. “It is late. Sister-in-law should rest early.”
This was not a suggestion, but a firm decision. Feng Yuzhen stood frozen for a moment but didn’t dare argue with him. The darkness had swallowed most of the little courage she possessed. In the end, she clutched the quilt, politely said a few words, and walked into the side room.
As expected, only a bare bed frame remained in the side room. A single clay basin held a couple of burning logs, radiating a cozy warmth.
She unfolded the quilt and spread it out. The elm wood bed was not narrow; another person could have fit. Feng Yuzhen lay on her back on the bed. The quilt was soft and warm, and the firewood crackled softly as it burned. It was quiet, peaceful. For a moment, she almost thought she was in an unreal dream.
In the last three years of her previous life, Feng Yuzhen had been locked every night in a room filled with junk, with less than half a body’s width of floor space to stand on.
She could only curl her already small body as tightly as possible to get through the night. In winter, she often couldn’t sleep, her lips turning purple from the cold, her eyes staring numbly at the pitch-black night through the crack in the door.
But now, although the side room was old and drafty, and she still had nothing, and there was a moody brother-in-law outside, at least she was no longer confined to a tiny space.
It really has started over… I really have escaped my original fate.
Tears streamed down her face, falling straight into her heart. Feng Yuzhen burrowed into the quilt and had a good, long cry. After venting all her emotions, exhausted from the day’s journey, drowsiness washed over her, and she fell into a deep sleep.
*
When only a faint glow remained in the clay basin, the window that Feng Yuzhen had latched shut was pushed open from the outside. A slender figure propped itself on the windowsill and vaulted inside with swift, agile movements.
The intruder’s face was obscured against the moonlight. He walked to the bedside and stood silently for a while, staring at the woman’s sleeping face for a long time. Only after confirming she was sound asleep did he reach out a hand.
He lightly touched her right hand, which lay at the edge of the bed.
Soft, smooth.
He lowered his eyes. In her sleep, the hem of her inner garment had unknowingly ridden up, revealing a sliver of soft, delicate skin. His fingers moved back to it, tracing her fingertips, her palm, then moving up her slender wrist, stopping at her elbow, which was tucked inside the quilt.
As if he had found some rare amusement, the intruder opened his palm to compare their sizes, then easily wrapped his hand around her thin forearm, holding it completely without any effort.
After making solid contact with her, the pain that had been ravaging his body rapidly subsided, and even the prayer beads grew quiet for once.
Ever since he turned fifteen, Cui Jingkong had not gone a single day without suffering this punishment, which clung to him like a gangrene. The only difference was the intensity of the pain.
On nights with a waning crescent moon accompanied by floating clouds, the pain would intensify a thousandfold, never ceasing until it had tormented him to the point of bleeding from all seven orifices.
After Abbot Faxuan’s passing, his cremated sarira relics were divided into twelve small pieces according to his final wishes, embedded within the amber prayer beads, and fused as one.
From the age of ten, Cui Jingkong had been unable to remove this string of beads, which was impervious to fire and water. It could not be cut or torn. Every time an evil thought arose in his mind, the beads would suddenly heat up, and the skin beneath had formed a thick callus from the constant burns.
He had thought he might have to endure this for the rest of his life, but he had unexpectedly found an antidote. It was no different from finding a way out of a desperate situation.
And this “antdote”—was the widowed sister-in-law now sleeping soundly in the bed.
Perhaps his hand was too cold. The woman whose forearm he was holding frowned uncomfortably. She pulled her hand back, tucking it into the warmth of the quilt, mumbled a few words, and turned over.
She had loosened her hair bun before sleeping, and now a stretch of fair, long neck was revealed beneath her dark hair.
In the darkness, only the sound of Feng Yuzhen’s shallow breathing could be heard. A look of determination flashed in Cui Jingkong’s eyes.
He needed to make this widowed sister-in-law stay obediently by his side.
How does one keep a woman, or rather, bind her? There have always been only two strategies for dealing with women, and winning her heart was undoubtedly the superior one.
Whether in the poems of talented scholars or in operas and plays, love was the most talked-about subject. It seemed that once a person, man or woman, was struck by love, there was no cure.
Once she fell in love with someone, she was no longer independent but completely dependent on another person, from soul to body, from this life to the past. No matter how heartless the other person was, she could only follow them devotedly.
Cui Jingkong was a monster born without emotions. When his father died, he felt neither sorrow nor joy, only finding the sound of crying noisy. Birth, old age, sickness, and death were all part of the natural cycle of all things. Why make such a fuss with tears and wails?
So-called love was the most potent poison in the world, the most effective tool for taming people. To some extent, it was even more effective than swords and blades.
Although he couldn’t understand it, it didn’t stop him from learning. He was extremely intelligent; otherwise, he wouldn’t have passed the county examination with the highest rank after only three or four years of study.
Pretense had become as common for him as eating and drinking. Through the facade he created, he had transformed from an abandoned child rejected by the Cui main residence to a much-envied scholar, all in the span of a decade or so.
As for the inferior strategy, Cui Jingkong thought nonchalantly—lock her up, keep her under close watch, confine her like a pet cat or dog for amusement, and use her when needed.
But that would be too crude and prone to mishaps. People were fragile. If, by some misstep, Feng Yuzhen decided to take her own life, it would be disastrous.
Regardless, he would not fail this time, just like every other time.
*
Feng Yuzhen always woke up early. The sky was still a cold, crab-shell blue. Although she had been falling asleep quickly these past few days since moving here, she always woke up with some discomfort. Today, her neck felt a little prickly and itchy.
The first two days, it was her arms and wrists that ached. She thought it might be lice from an unclean bed and had taken the bedding outside to sun. She had even asked her brother-in-law if he had a similar problem, offering to sun his as well.
Unexpectedly, he had just curved his lips into an inscrutable smile, glanced at her, and refused.
She tied up her hair, her hand touching her empty hair bun. In a daze, memories flooded back.
When Cui Ze was alive, he especially loved to give her hairpins. He would either polish them himself or buy them at the market. Though none were expensive, she loved them all. What she looked forward to most was when her husband would clumsily put them in her hair for her.
Passing through the main room, she saw the bedding was neatly folded in a corner, but Cui Jingkong was still nowhere to be seen. Feng Yuzhen pushed open the main door, which was much sturdier after being reinforced, and the morning mist clung to her.
Cui Jingkong was in the yard. He was holding a sharpened piece of wood and driving it deep into the ground. Beside him was a pile of freshly chopped firewood from the forest. Looking around, she saw that the man-high wooden fence was already more than half complete.
The brick house was on the edge of the village. Not many villagers lived nearby, but merchants and travelers often passed through. Without a courtyard wall, the house was exposed, naturally increasing the risk of robbery.
But Cui Jingkong had lived here for so many years without adding one, which showed he didn’t think it was necessary when he was alone. This time, the effort he was expending was surely for her sake.
Feng Yuzhen felt uneasy, feeling that she was truly troubling him too much. Setting aside his character, in her mind, Cui Jingkong was already a high and mighty “official.” There seemed to be a natural chasm between officials and common people, classifying the former as a more noble species in the world.
Even though she was illiterate and knew nothing of the Grand Secretariat or powerful ministers, she knew that the future Cui Jingkong would be a hundred times more powerful than the county magistrate, who was the greatest official in the villagers’ eyes.
To have such a noble person, who would one day have countless maids and servants, accommodate her was unthinkable. Not to mention him sleeping on the floor and building a fence. The day after they returned, Feng Yuzhen had woken up a little late. Her arms were sore, and as she walked out rubbing them, she saw Cui Jingkong actually standing at the stove, starting a fire to cook.
His posture was surprisingly skilled. The white steam billowed around his refined face, adding a touch of worldly, domestic warmth.
Hearing her footsteps, he only glanced back, seemingly not noticing the astonished look on her face. He just gave her a casual greeting and told her to sit down and eat.
And Feng Yuzhen, holding the porridge personally cooked for her by the treacherous chancellor who would one day hold immense power and live in extravagant luxury, for the first time, truly could not swallow a bite.