Chapter 29: Please Don't Carry It Alone

For three days after that, Yin Xigui never mentioned the alley. He came home later and later each night, went straight to the study when he entered the old house, and the light burned there until late before going out.

Twice, Sheng Linyou woke in the middle of the night and heard very soft footsteps in the corridor, then the study door opening and closing, the lock clicking into its slot.

They still slept in the same bed. Yin Xigui would slip into the bedroom at one or two in the morning, lift the covers carefully, and lie down with his back to Sheng Linyou, a fist's width of space between them.

Half-asleep, Sheng Linyou sometimes felt the stir of air when he turned over, the edge of the blanket tugging once and going still. In the dark there was only the sound of two sets of breathing, deliberately out of sync.

During the day, Yin Xigui was mostly out.

When Sheng Linyou walked in the courtyard and ran into Zhou Ling, Zhou Ling would give a polite nod and hurry past, as if afraid of being stopped and questioned.

Once, the gardener saw Sheng Linyou approaching, and his shears paused for half a beat. His gaze lingered on the pale scab on Sheng Linyou's face—the mark not yet fully faded—before he went back to trimming the branches as if nothing had happened.

Sheng Linyou noticed that look.

It wasn't malice. It was more like probing.

Probing whether it still hurt. Probing whether the matter had been brought up. Probing whether he would say anything he shouldn't.

He said nothing at all. The scab on his cheekbone faded slowly, from dark red to pink, until all that remained was a thin line paler than the skin around it.

But in those three days, Yin Xigui never touched him.

At night there was always that fist's width of space between them. Yin Xigui lay with his back turned, breathing evenly, like someone demonstrating how to fake being asleep.

In the dark, Sheng Linyou kept his eyes open and watched the outline of his back, pink hair spread across the pillow, a few strands drifting to the edge of his own pillow. He reached over to move them so they wouldn't be crushed—and the moment his fingers touched the ends of that hair, Yin Xigui's shoulders tensed, barely perceptibly.

Sheng Linyou withdrew his hand and laid it flat.

On the evening of the fourth day, Sheng Linyou learned from Zhou Ling that the three men had been dealt with.

Zhou Ling put it briefly: "They've been found. It won't happen again."

Sheng Linyou didn't press for details. From the way Zhou Ling hesitated, he could guess the outcome hadn't been light. He nodded and kept walking toward the kitchen.

Zhou Ling stood there a couple of seconds longer behind him, as if about to say something else. In the end he simply turned and walked away.

That night, Sheng Linyou cooked dinner.

Yin Xigui came home earlier than usual, pushing open the door with the outside cold still on him and that particular paper-and-ink smell of the office.

He was changing shoes at the entryway when he saw the table set and the dishes steaming. His hands paused before he came over and sat down.

Sheng Linyou sat across from him.

The two of them ate face to face across the table. Yin Xigui kept his head down as he picked up food, the sound of chopsticks against the bowl's rim regular and monotonous.

Sheng Linyou watched the back of his neck as he bowed his head. The skin there looked paler than before, his jawline drawn a little tighter. He was eating less than usual—half a bowl of congee, spoonful after spoonful, and it still wasn't empty.

"You're eating slowly today," Sheng Linyou said.

Yin Xigui's chopsticks paused. "Not very hungry."

"You haven't been eating much lately."

"Mm. A lot of work."

The topic ended there.

Yin Xigui spooned up two more mouthfuls of congee, set the bowl down, and stood to clear the table. When Sheng Linyou reached out to take the dishes from his hands, their fingers brushed—and Yin Xigui snatched his hand back as if scalded, too fast to be natural.

Sheng Linyou's hand hung in the air. He watched Yin Xigui's back as he carried the dishes into the kitchen, the pink ponytail swaying once in his line of sight before it vanished behind the doorframe.

That night Yin Xigui stayed in the study until late as usual. Sheng Linyou didn't sleep. He sat up against the headboard flipping through an old magazine, turning several pages without taking in a single word.

He listened to the small sounds in the corridor: Yin Xigui coming out of the study, his steps slowing for an instant as he passed the bedroom door, then continuing on.

The footsteps didn't stop at the door.

Sheng Linyou closed the magazine, set it on the nightstand, and switched off the light.

As the dark filled the room again, he heard the door of the next room open and close, then the faint sound of someone lowering themselves onto a mattress.

Yin Xigui had gone to sleep in the guest room.

The next morning when Sheng Linyou got up, Yin Xigui had already left.

The guest room quilt was folded neatly, a shallow dent in the middle of the pillow where he had lain. There was no other trace on the sheets—he'd slept with the discipline of someone who hadn't turned over once.

After that, Yin Xigui slept in the guest room three nights running.

Sheng Linyou didn't ask why.

He kept to his own routine every day: walking in the courtyard, reading, occasionally helping Zhou Ling organize files—Zhou Ling demurred at first, then let him.

But whenever they crossed paths in the old house, an invisible layer hung in the air between them.

When Yin Xigui came through a door he would nod to him, gaze skimming quickly over his face before sliding away—like checking an object for damage and, finding it intact, seeing no need for a second look.

Sheng Linyou watched him come and go, and one day noticed he had changed into a dark shirt.

Its collar sat higher than his usual style, nearly brushing his jaw, hiding most of the back of his neck.

On the fourth night, Sheng Linyou woke.

The sound of the bedroom door opening snapped his eyes wide. In the sliver of light leaking through the doorway stood a tall, thin shadow. Yin Xigui stood at the threshold without coming in, the hand on the doorknob white-knuckled, frozen in the posture of pushing the door open.

Sheng Linyou sat up. By the light from the corridor he could see Yin Xigui's face—shadows beneath his eyes, his lips paler than usual, but his eyes very bright, like two small fires burning in the dark.

"What is it." Sheng Linyou asked.

Yin Xigui said nothing.

He let go of the handle and came in, pulling the door shut behind him. In the moment the dark rushed back, Sheng Linyou heard him walk to the bedside and stop, a blurred shadow standing over him, breathing a little heavily.

"Your injuries." Yin Xigui's voice was hoarse past recognition. "Zhou Ling told me the truth today. Your face that day. Your ribs."

Sheng Linyou was silent for a beat in the dark. He'd thought Zhou Ling had seen nothing that day.

Apparently not.

"They've healed," he said.

"Your ribs. Let me see."

"Yin Xigui. It's the middle of the night—"

"Let me see."

Yin Xigui's voice rose suddenly, like a string wound too tight for too many days finally plucked hard.

He reached out and switched on the bedside lamp. Warm yellow light flooded half the room, lighting both their faces without mercy.

Sheng Linyou saw that Yin Xigui's eyes were red—but there were no tears. Dry red, the kind that comes from days without sleep. He was wearing that dark shirt, its collar buttoned to the top, hiding every visible inch of skin from the back of his neck up past his collarbone.

"Why aren't you in pajamas." Sheng Linyou looked at the shirt.

Yin Xigui's hand stopped midair, and then it simply stopped moving altogether.

Sheng Linyou reached for his collar. Yin Xigui jerked his head aside to dodge, the motion sharp as if something had stung him. Sheng Linyou's hand stayed where it was, and the distance between them snapped into an awkward angle.

"What are you hiding on your body." Sheng Linyou's voice sank. "Yin Xigui. You demand to see mine. What about yours."

Yin Xigui stood where he was without moving.

His hands had curled into fists at his sides, knuckles white from the pressure, breath quickening for a few beats before he forced it back down.

He raised his eyes to Sheng Linyou, lips moving as if searching for a usable word.

"You've been avoiding me these past few days."

Sheng Linyou said.

He pushed back the covers and got out of bed, bare feet on the floor, one step toward Yin Xigui closing the distance to less than half an arm's length. He could see it now—a thin, dark red mark extending out from beneath the edge of that collar, darker than the skin around it.

He reached for the first button of the shirt.

Yin Xigui seized his wrist.

The grip was far too strong for a delicate, sickly young master; Sheng Linyou's wrist ached in his hold.

The two of them locked in the warm circle of the bedside lamp. Sheng Linyou looked down at the hand clamped around his wrist bone, its knuckles trembling faintly with the effort.

"Don't look." The crack finally showed in Yin Xigui's voice.

"That day you went after those three men. What did you do."

Yin Xigui didn't answer.

Slowly, his fingers loosened and slipped away, falling to his sides.

Sheng Linyou took the instant to undo the first button. Then the second, the third. Yin Xigui stood without moving, shoulders faintly tensed, like a plaster figure fixed in its pose.

When the shirt fell open, Sheng Linyou saw the skin beneath the collar.

From the collarbone down across the chest, several thin, long welts were scattered, their colors ranging from dark purple to mottled yellow, some edges already faded—marks left days ago.

The worst one ran diagonally from above the collarbone across the top of the sternum, a thin scab formed over it, dark brown in the warm lamplight.

Sheng Linyou's breath stopped. His hand hovered an inch above that scab, and did not fall.

"Was it those three."

"...They were Yin Rui's people. When I went to them, they had no intention of talking." Yin Xigui's voice suddenly dropped, its last syllable splintering before he caught it. "So I made sure it hurt more for them."

Sheng Linyou looked at the wounds. From the first mark his eyes found, they layered one atop another in his chest, each one adding another gram of weight to some string inside his ribcage.

He thought of the past few days—the high-collared shirts, the slowed steps, the figure in the study late into the night, the neatly folded quilt in the guest room.

"Why didn't you tell me." Sheng Linyou's throat had gone hoarse.

"Because I didn't want you to feel you owed me."

"Yin Xigui—"

"The night you were beaten, I wanted to tell you." Yin Xigui suddenly looked up at him, and at last a sheen of water rose in those dry red eyes. "But when I got to the bedroom door... I saw you frowning in your sleep. And I thought—you just got hurt. Don't make you worry about me again."

Sheng Linyou's hand finally came down. His fingertip brushed, featherlight, the edge of the scab across the collarbone. Yin Xigui's breath caught at the touch, but he didn't pull away.

"So you slept in the guest room."

"Mm."

"You avoided me for four days."

"I was afraid you'd see."

Yin Xigui's voice dropped lower and lower, the last words nearly swallowed in his throat. "I was afraid that if you saw... then you'd feel you owed me again. You'd start saying you didn't want to be a burden to me again."

Sheng Linyou's hand withdrew from above his collarbone.

He looked into Yin Xigui's eyes, where the water was rising, and Yin Xigui blinked hard against it, lips pressed into a thin line.

"You—"

Sheng Linyou's throat jammed. He swallowed a breath before forcing out the rest. "You're hurt this badly and you hid it from me. What do you take me for."

Yin Xigui's lips moved.

He wanted to say afraid you'd worry, but the words died under the expression on Sheng Linyou's face—not anger, not heartache, but something complicated he had never seen before. Like a man pushed out the door by the person who mattered most to him. The expression of someone standing in the gap of a closing door.

"You went out and stood up for me. You got hurt. You came back and told me nothing."

Sheng Linyou's voice was heavy as a stone dropped into deep water. "And then you hid from me. Made me think you—"

He didn't finish.

"Made you think what."

"That you regretted it."

Yin Xigui's eyes flooded in an instant.

The layer of water he had held back for days, pressed down countless times, finally crested the dam and slipped down along the corner of his eye in a single drop.

He stood there, shirt open, the wounds across his collarbone stark in the lamplight, the tear tracking down his cheek before he could wipe it away.

"When did I ever say I regretted it."

"You didn't say it. You hid from me."

"I hid because—"

"Because you didn't want me to see."

Sheng Linyou finished the sentence for him.

His voice was calmer now.

"So the plan was to keep hiding. Wait until your wounds healed and then come back to our bed. And pretend I never noticed a thing."

Yin Xigui said nothing.

"What do you think I am."

Sheng Linyou stepped forward, closing the distance to its absolute limit.

He could see the lamplight reflected in the water brimming in Yin Xigui's eyes, shattering into tiny bright points in his pupils.

"Do you think I'm the kind of person who'd watch you get hurt behind my back and decide you did the right thing?"

Yin Xigui's lips parted, his voice thick with congestion. "That's not what I meant... I just wanted—"

"You wanted to protect me."

Sheng Linyou finished it for him.

He closed his eyes briefly, and when he opened them, some of the dark weight in them had receded, revealing something deeper underneath—an emotion even he hadn't fully sorted out. "But do you understand? I don't need you carrying it all alone."

Yin Xigui's tears finally fell in streams.

He stood there and let them run down his cheeks and soak his jaw, making no move to wipe them, just watching Sheng Linyou.

"What about you, then." His voice was hoarse to the point of being pure air. "You got beaten and you hid that from me too."

Sheng Linyou's breath caught.

"I only found out about your face when it was nearly healed. I still haven't seen the full bruise on your ribs."

Yin Xigui's voice rose suddenly, carrying the collapse of too many days finally pouring out. "You told me it didn't hurt. You told me you were fine. When you told me not to worry about you, you—you yourself—"

His throat seized. He swallowed hard, piecing the broken words back into place, his voice dropping, shattering and shattering again.

"You were carrying it alone too."

The bedroom went quiet.

The two of them stood face to face in the lamp's halo—one with his shirt half open and his wounds showing, one barefoot on the floor with a pale old mark still on his cheek.

They looked at each other, and each saw in the other's eyes the same stubborn reflection of themselves.

"Sheng Linyou." For the first time in the conversation, Yin Xigui said his full name, deliberately. His voice was hoarse but clear. "Let's stop hiding things from each other. Can we."

Sheng Linyou looked into those eyes, red-rimmed and bright with tears. There was no weak surrender in them—only a plea that had spent every last ounce of strength it had.

He reached out and drew the open shirt closed again, doing up the buttons one by one.

At the last button, at the collar, his fingertip rested on the small patch of skin just below Yin Xigui's throat, and felt the pulse there racing.

"All right." Sheng Linyou said. His voice was low, low enough to dissolve into the air between them. "No more hiding."

Yin Xigui buried his face in the hollow of his shoulder, hot damp tears soaking into the collar of his shirt.

Sheng Linyou wrapped an arm around his back, his palm resting over the new and old wounds he could faintly feel through the fabric, and tightened his arm around him little by little.

The bedside lamp glowed warm over the two silhouettes folded together.

Night pressed dark and quiet against the window, making the little lamp inside glow like a piece of amber held in the dark.

Yin Xigui murmured something into his shoulder. Sheng Linyou lowered his head to listen, the words broken and intermittent, only a few of them distinguishable.

"...Can you stop carrying it all alone too."

Sheng Linyou rested his chin on top of his hair and gave his back a gentle pat with his palm.

"You too."