'I’ll Definitely Make You Better.'
The next morning was one where Su Yang and Gu Feidi had a rare lie-in. They slept until the sun was high in the sky, but still not at its peak. Gu Feidi suddenly opened his eyes when there was a knock on the door outside the courtyard.
Su Yang was also woken from the noise as he mumbled sleepily, “Who’s that…”
Gu Feidi glanced at the bright sky. “...Since it’s already late, maybe the herbal soup is ready, and they have come to deliver it.”
Then he turned over and got out of the bed, quickly dressed, effortlessly straightened his hair, and went to open the courtyard door.
Luo Yu stepped inside with a medicine pot. He glanced at Gu Feidi and asked, “Why the delay today?”
Gu Feidi didn’t expect Luo Yu to be here personally. At first, he was surprised until he heard the question. He wavered and didn’t know how to answer.
Without waiting for an answer, Luo Yu went into the warm pavilion and placed the medicine pot on the table.
Seeing that it was Luo Yu who was at the door, Su Yang was also in shock. He quickly sat up on the bed, sorted out his disordered clothes and greeted, “Senior.”
Luo Yu didn’t respond. His eyes landed on Su Yang’s face for a moment, surveyed the surroundings, and finally gazed at the folding screen at the corner of the room. There was a wooden basin beside the folding screen. Inside was a mess of sheets and soiled clothes.
Luo Yu turned to Gu Feidi with a raised eyebrow.
The atmosphere was too awkward. Gu Feid’s ears were immediately covered in a thin layer of red, as he unwittingly avoided Luo Yu’s sight.
“My apologies for the delay this morning.” He whispered. “And troubling the senior to come himself.”
Luo Yu still said nothing.
He filtered the herbal soup in the pot into a bowl, took it to the bedside and handed it to Su Yang, who was sitting up against the bed’s headboard.
Su Yang accepted the bowl, glanced at Gu Feidi, and carefully looked at Luo Yu.
Luo Yu snorted, but unbeknownst to the juniors was whether it was mocking or something else. The senior asked Su Yang, “You’re still holding on?”
Su Yang toughened up and murmured a quiet “Yes”, buried his head at the edge of the bowl, and took tiny sips slowly and attempted to hide his embarrassment.
“You’re acting like a pampered lady just from one night?” Luo Yu urged. “Finish it quickly so I can check your pulse.”
Su Yang: “...”
Su Yang obediently drank the contents in the bowl and handed it back. He didn’t have the courage to ask Gu Feidi for a kiss with Luo Yu in the room, and quietly extended out his wrist.
After checking Su Yang’s pulse, Luo Yu frowned slightly and turned his head to ask Gu Feidi, “Did you use your internal energy during the act yesterday?”
Seeing the senior’s serious face, Gu Feidi couldn’t dodge the question. He immediately nodded and replied, “Yes, I was afraid that he would feel cold, so…I used my internal energy to help warm him up.”
Luo Yu slowly sucked in a deep breath with his eyes closed and released it out as a long sigh.
“Do you know what sharing a room and using each other’s internal energies as support is called?” He questioned Gu Feidi.
Gu Feidi blankly met the senior’s eyes, not knowing the answer to such a question.
Luo Yu’s eyebrows didn’t relax and his face seemed to sink slightly.
“In terms of mental skill, the action is called unified dual cultivation.” He explained. “Although you two have learned none of the mental skills that require dual cultivation…intertwining internal energy during harmonisation is considered the threshold into dual cultivation.”
Watching Luo Yu’s complicated expression, Gu Feidi asked nervously, “Is it harmful to him?”
“No.” Luo Yu pondered for a moment. He continued after he glanced at Su Yang, “Dual cultivation…is not harmful to him.”
Su Yang was not surprised by this answer.
In fact, when he woke up this morning, he felt much more energetic than before. He seemed to have recovered some strength. The cold wasn’t affecting him as much either. He thought it was from sweating a little yesterday, since he had more or less done a round of exercise. So he thought this was why he felt that his body had recovered some of its life…But he didn’t expect that it was related to Gu Feidi’s internal energy warming him up last night.
Dual cultivation, this term didn’t sound like a good thing, but maybe…it was a good thing for him? If that was the case, he wouldn't mind…doing it a few more times...
However, Luo Yu’s next explanation made Su Yang immediately abandon the idea.
“But doing dual cultivation with him will harm you.” Luo Yu said, facing Gu Feidi with a serious expression. “His extremely cold internal energy will affect you. There will be no issue after once or twice, but the more you do it, the more your lifespan will be affected.”
Gu Feidi met Luo Yu’s eyes, but he was not frightened by the truth.
“In the rule of heaven, if there's a gain, there must be a loss.” He murmured. “If it’s harmful to me, then…It’s helpful to him?’
Saying that last sentence out loud, there was a ray of hope in his dark eyes.
Luo Yu said after a moment of silence. “Just a drop in the bucket…The frozen Apparition in his body is extremely deadly, not to mention the Half-Withered Crimson, which can’t be suppressed using your internal energy. Even if you continue with all of your might, the loss will still outweigh the benefit.”
The light in Gu Feidi’s eyes dimmed a bit, but it was not completely extinguished because he finally caught a glimmer of hope.
“Even if it’s just cups of water in a bucket, it could at least slow the burning cart.” He insisted.
Luo Yu slapped his hand on the table, frowned and said, “You brat!”
The gears in Gu Feidi’s mind turned quickly as he immediately grasped the key points in Luo Yu’s words. “The deadly chill of the Apparition, the cold nature of the mental skill that my internal energy can’t suppress…Would it work if I learn a type of heated nature mental skill?”
Luo Yu closed his eyes, gritted his teeth and hissed out most of the words from his nose, “...You are practically indulging yourself in fantasy!”
Gu Feidi didn’t argue with Luo Yu anymore but stood in place facing the ground. But the visible part of his face still showed the determination to explore his idea.
Luo Yu didn’t want to challenge Gu Feidi’s determination. He turned to Su Yang. “You’re young and vigorous. Some urges are just too difficult to control, but…remember not to use internal energy to help, otherwise, you might implicate Gu Feidi.”
Su Yang nodded right away. “I know, I won’t let him act recklessly.”
Luo Yu gave a few more words of advice before he took the medicine pot out.
Once their senior disappeared outside the courtyard, Gu Feidi grabbed clothes from the shelf and handed them to Su Yang. He kissed the other gently and smiled. “You look so much more energetic today. Are you hungry? I’ll get some food.”
Su Yang nodded as he put on his clothes.
When Gu Feidi came back with breakfast, Su Yang was standing at the door waiting for him, wrapped in a coat made from fox fur.
“You’re not cold?” He quickly walked forward and pulled the man back into the house. “It’s winter, so it’s even colder on the mountain. You’d better not stand where the wind can reach…”
Su Yang sat down at the table and said with a smile, “I don’t feel cold today.”
Gu Feidi placed today’s food on the table from the lunch box and displayed it in front of Su Yang.
“So dual cultivation is really helpful to you, isn’t it?” His eyes were as bright as if fallen stars had taken refuge inside. “...I will definitely find a way to cure you. You will not leave, I won’t let you.”
Su Yang smiled, picked up his chopsticks and said, “Food first.”
After their breakfast together, Gu Feidi cleaned up the dishes and brought the sheets and clothes he removed from last night out to the courtyard to wash and dry. When he returned to the room, he found that Su Yang was not sleeping, but sitting on the daybed with the fox fur draped over his shoulders and humming their new lyrics.
Seeing such a scene, an uncontrollable smile appeared on Gu Feidi’s face and his eyes were full of joy. Together, they made incomparable happiness.
“What do you want to do today?” He sat down next to Su Yang and put his arms around his waist. “Seeing that you’re in good spirits, maybe loosen up your muscles by dancing together?”
Su Yang put down the page with the lyrics, pondered on the suggestion before asking for something else, “How about—let’s build a snowman together?”
“Absolutely not.” Gu Feidi was gentle, but his tone was indisputable. “You are just starting to improve. It’s best for you to avoid catching a cold. Let’s just spend time indoors. If you don’t want to dance…we can do something else.”
Su Yang pouted and tried to act coquettish. “But I really want to build a snowman…”
Gu Feidi glanced at him and smiled fondly. He came before the older man and compared, “Shixiong…is really worthy of his nickname, Xiao Xiao. Acting more and more like a child.”
Su Yang rolled his eyes at the other man.
Being stuck in the room for so long and rarely having the chance to go out. Before that, he would sleep most of the day, and when he was up, he was scatterbrained, and with his low energy, he didn’t feel like leaving his quilt nest. But being in good spirits today, with white snow and green trees in full view out of the window, he had an irresistible urge to go for a walk.
But he also knew that his body had not completely passed the danger for the time being. If he wanted to stay with Gu Feidi longer, he couldn’t act as before, with little regard for his life.
“Then, let’s work on your new sword technique.” Su Yang grinned. “I don’t need my internal energy to show you my sword dance. See if they can be used as a reference, or even as inspiration.”
Gu Feidi smiled softly back and replied, “Sure.”
They studied swordsmanship indoors the rest of the morning. As noon arrived, Su Yang complained about his empty stomach, so Gu Feidi went out to the kitchen to get lunch.
When he returned, besides the lunch box, he also held a small white ball in his hand and walked along the path by the hot spring to the heated house.
“What’s that?”
Su Yang stood by the door and asked curiously when he saw a round-white ball in Gu Feidi’s hand. It looked like a large rice dumpling.
Instead of stepping directly into the door, Gu Feidi went under the window and placed the little, white ball from his hand on the windowsill.
Su Yang turned his head and found that the white ball, which was about the size of two fists, was actually a small snowman. Two red beans as eyes, a peanut for nose, and two segments of holly twigs as arms.
Gu Feidi entered with the lunch boxes and asked, smiling brightly, “Do you like it?”
Su Yang…was speechless.
The burst of love he felt... Is this the legendary pink bubbles that only appeared in romance dramas?!
He took another glance at the small and adorable snowman, bit his lower lip and complained, “...This courtyard is too warm, it’ll melt away soon.”
Gu Feidi chirped, “If you like it so much, I’ll make a new one tomorrow.”
Su Yang chuckled at Gu Feidi’s adorableness. “How could I possibly love snowmen that much? I’m not a little kid…C’mon, let’s eat.”
On that day’s evening, Su Yang’s spirit stayed good. He only took a nap for half an hour in the afternoon.
As night fell, they held each other and lay down after their nightly routine. Gu Feidi extended his hand to have Su Yang closer to him, putting his jaw close to the other’s shoulder.
“Xiao Xiao…”
He called softly, “...Shixiong.”
Su Yang listened to Gu Feidi’s husky voice, noticed the slightly short breath, and immediately understood what Gu Feidi wanted to do. Both of them had a taste of the forbidden fruit, sleeping on the same bed with someone he cherished on this dark and quiet night. In fact, there was also an itch in his heart.
However, recalling Luo Yu’s words from this morning, he forced himself to calm down and refused, “I’m sleepy, I just want to sleep.”
Gu Feidi withdrew his arm and just laid it over Su Yang’s hand. Su Yang didn’t give him any response. After a long time, Gu Feidi obediently put some distance between them and didn’t force the issue.
But instead, Su Yang was haunted by insomnia.
He pretended to be asleep with his eyes closed and dared not move a single muscle. He was afraid that Gu Feidi would discover his faking sleep and pester him.
After a long time, suddenly, a gentle and cautious voice rang in Su Yang’s ears. The voice wasn’t loud but with an unquestionable tone as firm as swearing an oath.
“Shixiong, I’ll definitely make you better. That I promise.”
First novel I’m reading where dual cultivation is a bad thing.
But GFD is persistent in his idea…
Thx for the ch ٩(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )و