TRCT_05
Chapter 5: Running In — Drawing Boundaries
After dinner, Xie Yu'an was called by his mother to have his measurements taken, so Ji Qingzhou returned to his room alone and took a bath.
In this era, professional shampoo and body wash had not yet appeared, and they still used soap. Fortunately, before leaving, Ji Qingzhou had packed two bottles of his usual personal care set in his luggage, and they were newly purchased.
After bathing and drying his hair, wearing the pure cotton pajamas he brought, Ji Qingzhou also took the opportunity to wash the dirty clothes he had changed out of.
After scrubbing and wringing out the clothes, he thought of a problem.
Where should he hang these clothes?
Ji Qingzhou held the basin of clothes, opened the bathroom door, and was about to ring a bell to call A' You over to ask.
Upon stepping out, he saw a black figure sitting quietly on the sofa, motionless, seemingly lost in thought.
"When did you come back, without making a sound."
He muttered to himself as he went to the door and pressed the bell. When Huang Youshu came running over, he handed him the entire basin of clothes except for his underwear.
"You don't need to wash them yourself," Huang Youshu explained, "There's a laundry room downstairs and laundry workers. You can just leave them and I'll come collect them."
Ji Qingzhou considered for a few seconds and said, "In that case, from now on I'll wash and hang my intimate clothing myself, and I'll leave the rest for you to collect. Later you can bring me a clothes hanger."
His arrangement wasn't really about privacy concerns. The key issue was that the concept of modern underwear hadn't appeared in this era yet, let alone briefs.
How could he hand those out for someone else to wash?
Hanging them outside for everyone to see, what would they think of him!
"Alright, no problem." Huang Youshu nodded very smartly, then glanced into the room and said, "Young Master will need to bathe later too. Just ring the bell if you need my help."
Ji Qingzhou nodded calmly, but inwardly he grumbled that the young master didn't even know if he'd be willing to let him serve him, and he'd probably suffer some grievances during the process.
With the mindset of solving things early to get them done, Ji Qingzhou went to the wardrobe and found a set of pajamas for Xie Yu'an.
Black silk, nothing particularly special in style, just ordinary collar shirts and long pants.
After folding the clothes and placing them on the shelf beside the bathtub, and filling the ceramic bathtub with its four carved metal claw feet with hot water, Ji Qingzhou called for Xie Yu'an to come in and bathe.
There was a small five-centimeter slope at the door gap between the bedroom and the bathroom. Ji Qingzhou was worried he might fall and had planned to go to the door to support him, but Xie Yu'an steadied himself with his cane and came in smoothly on his own.
His mind seemed to contain a detailed floor plan of the room. Through using his cane to probe the way this afternoon, he had already become familiar again with the placement of every piece of furniture in this bedroom, and he knew clearly how many steps it took to get from one place to another.
If not for the black cloth blindfold covering his eyes, judging solely from his composed appearance as he walked, Ji Qingzhou would truly suspect he was just pretending to be blind.
"I put your clothes on the shelf next to the bathtub. The soap and towels are in the basket on the lower shelf. Can you wash yourself?"
Ji Qingzhou looked him up and down, and it couldn't be denied that he was very curious about the body hidden beneath the other's black robe.
Xie Yu'an didn't know if he felt the excessive scrutiny in his gaze, but he said coldly, "Get out."
Ji Qingzhou smiled disappointedly and shook his head. Before leaving, he reminded him, "Don't lock the door. If something happens, I'll need to come in and help you."
Closing the bathroom door, Ji Qingzhou, who now had the large room to himself, let out a weary sigh and flopped back onto the bed.
But immediately after, he bounced up like a live shrimp that had been scalded.
"What the hell, why is this bed so hard!"
Ji Qingzhou rubbed his sore back and lifted the sheet to look, discovering that the padding between the bed board and sheet was only a thin layer of cotton the thickness of half a fingernail.
How did Xie Yu'an manage to fall asleep on this in the afternoon? Wasn't he an injured patient?
Ji Qingzhou found it quite puzzling. Without further ado, he immediately called Huang Youshu and asked him to add a thicker mattress to the bed.
"But," after hearing Ji Qingzhou's request, Huang Youshu rarely showed a troubled expression, "the young master has always been accustomed to sleeping on a hard bed."
"...Even so, you should consider his body."
Ji Qingzhou knew some people liked sleeping on hard bed boards, but with his lean build, without the cushioning of a mattress, it was just bone colliding directly with the bed board. He truly found it difficult to accept.
So he persuaded gently, "Think about it, he's just returned from war, who knows how many injuries he has on his body. Wouldn't it hurt to lie on something so hard? If he won't mention it to save face, we should consider it for him, right?"
Huang Youshu scratched his shaved head and after thinking for a few seconds, nodded and said, "You're right, you think more thoroughly. I'll go get the mattress right now."
So when Xie Yu'an finished bathing and came out, he heard two sets of footsteps moving back and forth around the bed.
A sense of foreboding flashed through his mind as he asked, "What are you doing?"
"Young Master." Huang Youshu looked up and answered ingratiatingly, "Mr. Ji said you can't sleep on a hard bed because of your injuries, so we're adding a mattress for you."
"Did I allow you to move my things without permission?"
He directed this question toward Ji Qingzhou's direction.
Clearly, he could discern people's positions through their footsteps.
Ji Qingzhou wasn't intimidated at all, "This bed is as hard as a steel plate. How are you supposed to sleep on it?"
"If you can't sleep, go straight down the corridor, the second room on the left is the guest bedroom."
"Don't threaten me with that. Actually, I'd like to sleep in the guest bedroom. Would your family give me the chance?"
After Ji Qingzhou finished speaking, he noticed Huang Youshu's face had gone pale, seemingly afraid of causing a conflict, so he softened his tone and suggested, "How about this, since this bed is quite large anyway, we can each compromise. Fold the mattress in half and lay it on half the bed, alright? We each sleep on our half, and I absolutely won't cross the line."
"And if you do cross the line?" Under Xie Yu'an's black cloth blindfold, his face showed not a trace of a smile, "Chop off the part that crosses?"
"Ha, how brutal. I'm so scared!" Ji Qingzhou half-closed his eyes, his tone becoming increasingly flippant.
"Don't worry, everyone who's slept with me says my sleeping posture is the best in the world. I don't snore, I don't grind my teeth, I don't talk in my sleep, and I don't even toss and turn. So I definitely won't bother you.
"As for you, sir, based on my observations this afternoon, your sleeping posture is quite changeable.
"I was actually puzzled at the time. When Commander Xie was in the military fighting wars, didn't he sleep on campaign beds? Wouldn't tossing and turning like that cause him to fall?"
As the words fell, the room suddenly fell into silence. Even the flies passing by outside the window could feel the tension in the air inside the room.
After more than ten seconds of silence, Huang Youshu, who had inexplicably broken into a cold sweat despite the April weather, let out a dry laugh and weakly called out "Young Master" to Xie Yu'an.
"Lay it on half," Xie Yu'an commanded in an icy tone.
"Yes, yes." As if receiving a pardon, Huang Youshu, who had been frozen in place for a while, quickly and deftly folded the mattress in half and, following Ji Qingzhou's eye signals, laid it on the left half of the bed.
While laying the bed, he sighed inwardly: This Mr. Ji is really bold!
He had served the young master since childhood, from the old residence in Taohua Wu to the Western-style mansion in Shanghai. There were only a handful of people capable of controlling his young master.
The old master's older brother, the late elder old master, counted as one. Dr. Shen, cultured and refined, skilled at overcoming rigidity with gentleness, counted as one. The old madam and the Madam together counted as one. He couldn't think of anyone else.
He didn't know how long Mr. Ji would stay here. If he were to remain long-term, the implicit power dynamic between the masters of this mansion might shift. Who would be stronger and who weaker would probably change...
After finishing the bed and seeing Huang Youshu out, Ji Qingzhou found a bound collection of last month's newspapers from the dresser to pass the time before sleep, and also to familiarize himself with the current situation.
He had thought that after losing the verbal sparring, Xie Yu'an would behave himself for a while.
But just as he spread out his own quilt and lay down in bed, he saw Xie Yu'an bring over a thread-bound book, walk to the bedside, and accurately hand it to him.
Ji Qingzhou glanced at the cover without understanding and raised his eyebrows to ask, "You won't have me read you a bedtime story, will you?"
"Can't read? Then ring the bell and have Huang Youshu come over," Xie Yu'an said with a hint of provocation.
"Give him a break. He's run back and forth over a dozen times tonight," Ji Qingzhou accepted the book resignedly.
So Xie Yu'an placed his cane on the bedside table, removed his shoes, and lay down on the right half of the bed, resting against the pillow.
The stack of books on the dresser was brought over by Huang Youshu after dinner, presumably to give Xie Yu'an something to read during leisure time to relieve boredom.
When Ji Qingzhou took the newspaper, he had glanced at them roughly. There were poetry, novels, essay collections, all sorts of things inside, but Xie Yu'an specifically took a copy of "Zhuangzi Collected Annotations".
Ji Qingzhou opened the pages, feeling a bit anxious.
As for traditional Chinese characters, Ji Qingzhou, who had come through various pirated DVDs since the millennium era, was fairly confident. But the problem was that classical Chinese was different from vernacular Chinese, with complex and obscure characters, and often he couldn't guess characters from context.
Moreover, many characters and terms weren't commonly used in modern times, which meant that as soon as Ji Qingzhou opened volume one, he discovered several characters he didn't recognize.
He paused, decisively closed the book, and seized the initiative before Xie Yu'an could speak, saying, "This book is a bit too profound, not suitable as a bedtime diversion. Let me go pick another one for you."
With that, he got out of bed and walked to the four-drawer dresser. He stuffed the "Zhuangzi Collected Annotations" in his hand beneath the two copies of "Plant Illustrations" and "Animal Illustrations" that served as decoration, then began selecting other books that were easier to read.
"Bibliographic Records," "History of Economics," "Forensic Psychiatry," what was all this jumbled mess...
"Wait, is this 'Tartuffe'?" Ji Qingzhou pulled out a thin volume, and after flipping through a couple of pages, he couldn't help but smile. "Hey, it's the original French edition!"
For him, who had once studied abroad in France, reading French was much easier than reading traditional Chinese characters. He immediately decided, "This one then."
Ji Qingzhou returned to bed with the book in hand, and along the way he conveniently turned off the main light and turned on the tea-red bedside lamp.
As he lay back down on the bed, Xie Yu'an caught a faint fragrance drifting from beside him.
The scent was fresh with a hint of subtle woody notes. Oddly enough, though there was no fruity note, it inexplicably reminded him of the clean sweetness of nearly ripe honeydew melon.
Applying perfume before sleep, how theatrical and affected...
Xie Yu'an thought, not without stereotyping.
"You fought in Europe, so you should speak French, right? Can you understand?" Ji Qingzhou asked while opening the pages printed with large blocks of French typography. "Not answering me? Then I'll assume you can."
"Starting now," he said, slightly squinting his eyes, scanning the first few lines of text, then clearing his throat and beginning to read:
"Act One, Scene One, is a conversation between Madame Bernelle and her maidservants.
"Madame Bernelle says..."
The warm glow of the bedside lamp fell on one corner of the bed. In the spacious room, only the young man's clear voice and the rustling sound of turning pages could be heard.
Though Ji Qingzhou had never seen a performance of "Tartuffe," during his time studying abroad, he had watched several theatrical performances.
So, to increase the interest of the reading, he deliberately pitched his voice and read the lines according to the tone of the characters in the play, quite pleased with his emotional delivery.
After one act ended, Ji Qingzhou picked up the teacup beside him and took a drink of water.
Just about to ask the audience for their opinion, he lowered his head and slightly widened his eyes.
Beside him, Xie Yu'an had at some point removed the cloth blindfold from his eyes.
He lay flat on the bed, his eyes closed, his long eyelashes naturally hanging down, casting subtle shadows over his eyes.
His complete face was both indifferent and serene, captivating the soul.
"Your eyes don't have to be blindfolded, do they?" Taking advantage of no one knowing, Ji Qingzhou gazed openly at his face, unaware that he had shifted the topic.
"Cannot be exposed to strong light," Xie Yu'an explained briefly.
"Oh." Ji Qingzhou let out a light cough and forcibly redirected his attention back to the previous topic.
"Give me your critique. How was my reading?"
Xie Yu'an was silent for a moment, then said, "Truly befitting a theatrical performer."
"Hmm," Ji Qingzhou nodded in self-affirmation, "fair assessment. You do have some taste."
"Then I'll continue reading."
Ji Qingzhou believed that his comment of 'theatrical performer' was praising his emotionally expressive reading technique.
But in fact, what Xie Yu'an was describing was his voice itself.
Ji Qingzhou's voice was a textured young man's tone. In normal conversation, one would only notice his Mandarin was standard, his enunciation clear, and at times could be called eloquent.
But this time he was reading a foreign language, and the longer Xie Yu'an listened, the more distinctive it became.
Within the constantly changing intonations, or deliberately pinched and lowered voice seemed to contain a kind of vibrant youthful spirit, charging in without explanation and rushing into his mind, vaguely sketching out an image of a spirited young man.
Xie Yu'an had originally intended to catch his pronunciation errors, but as he listened, he became absorbed instead, as if truly watching a stage play, and at times even found himself unable to suppress a knowing smile.
But often at such moments, he would immediately pull himself out of the emotion, flatten the arc of his lips, to avoid giving the other person any opening to exploit.
"Tartuffe" was not a long work, yet Ji Qingzhou still spent over an hour reading it, until his mouth was dry and parched.
By the later stages, not only was the emotion gone, even the tone had disappeared. It sounded like chanting scriptures.
After the last sentence ended, he drank water and turned off the bedside lamp, then lay down in the covers to sleep, completely ignoring what state Xie Yu'an was in.
Today had been eventful for him.
Not only was his body exhausted, but his spirit was also weary from prolonged tension.
Yet when he closed his eyes, longing for family and friends, as well as confusion and worry about his future life, all came flooding in, tormenting his thoughts.
After lying there for a while, unable to fall asleep, Ji Qingzhou reluctantly opened his eyes, preparing to find someone to chat with to redirect his attention.
He turned his body toward the right side, looking at the blurred outline of Xie Yu'an's face in the darkness, and softly asked, "I heard you used to study at a military academy in America?"
Thanks to Ji Qingzhou's bout of scripture-chanting, Xie Yu'an's consciousness had become somewhat hazy. Now hearing him suddenly speak, his mind jolted back awake.
After a few seconds of silence, Xie Yu'an, patient despite himself, calmly responded.
"So how did you end up fighting in Europe later?"
"Military research."
"Oh, so like a graduate school recommendation, right?"
Ji Qingzhou offered his own interpretation of his answer, then asked again, "So how did you get injured? Hit by a bomb?"
Xie Yu'an didn't answer, but certain images flashed through his mind.
Some...
Piles of twisted limbs, heads shattered like watermelons, thick blood and flesh, dirty crowded stretchers, vacant lifeless eyes...
Not receiving a response, Ji Qingzhou assumed he was unwilling to recall painful memories, so he changed the subject, "Actually, I've always wanted to ask, why does your family call you Yuanyuan?"
"Is it because 'Yu'an' pronounced quickly sounds like 'yuan'*?
*t/n; Xie Yu'an (解予安 / Xiè Yǔ'ān), when "Yǔ'ān" is said quickly, the sounds naturally run together: the "ǔ" and "ān" blend into something close to "Yuán" (元). This gives rise to the affectionate nickname Yuanyuan (元元 / Yuányuán).
"Xie Yu'an, Yu'an, Yuan?"
"Ji Qingzhou," Xie Yu'an said, his voice tinged with impatience, "if you're really that bored, go find the guard at the door and take his shift."
"Are you tired? Sorry, I thought since you slept this afternoon, you wouldn't be able to sleep now."
Ji Qingzhou apologized sincerely, though his words sounded like he was teasing Xie Yu'an for sleeping nonstop like a pig.
Xie Yu'an turned his body, facing away from him, and said no more.
The air in the room immediately returned to silence.
Newlyweds, tender bride at his side, yet the husband slept like a dead pig.
Ji Qingzhou, looking at the back of his head, inexplicably had this thought flash through his mind.
Then he felt somewhat lonely as he lay flat, staring blankly at the pitch-black ceiling with wide eyes, until his eyes began to ache from the staring, then closed them again and attempted to sleep.
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