Chapter 83: Extra 11
On the day he was sentenced to execution by beheading, Zhou Chu was actually quite calm.
His mind was far deeper and more restrained than Li Min’s, unlike Li Min, who was straightforward and never knew how to beat around the bush.
On the night when the letters were discovered in his barracks, he had already guessed what was really going on.
He and Li Min rarely exchanged letters. This was because Li Min was simple-minded; whatever was on his mind, he preferred to say it directly to Zhou Chu’s face and never had the refined, roundabout romantic sensibilities of a scholar. Yet for Zhou Chu, it was precisely this straightforwardness of Li Min’s that became a romance belonging to him alone.
Since there had been no correspondence between them, it was not difficult to guess where those letters had come from.
Living at the center of power, Zhou Chu had not been unprepared in his heart. Or rather, from the very day he chose to walk alongside Li Min, he had already prepared himself for the arrival of such an end.
Had he dealt with things more rationally, on the night Li Min first showed him affection, he should have reasoned with him and made Li Min understand that given their respective identities, growing too close would inevitably invite suspicion over time. The court was not a place where familial affection and trust could be discussed freely. At the very least, that imperial elder brother of Li Min’s was not a magnanimous man.
Yet Zhou Chu could not refuse Li Min. Even knowing full well that the road ahead ended in darkness, he still chose to run toward it together with him.
Because he knew that if, from that point onward, his life no longer contained Li Min, then what meaning would there be in living peacefully all the way until his hair turned white?
With a temperament like Li Min’s, it was even more impossible for him to retreat just because of a few words of advice.
On the day of his death, Zhou Chu knelt at the execution ground and looked in the direction of Li Min’s princely residence. He thought that having been able to walk together with him from their youth to this point made this lifetime worth ending here. He had given his most fervent heart, and Li Min had entrusted everything to him in return. Aside from being unable to grow old together, they had no other regrets.
If Zhou Chu had only one concern, it was that he did not know how that foolish little Li Min would view his death.
But he had no time to comfort him, and he also knew that once he himself was gone, no amount of comfort would have any effect…
From that day onward, Zhou Chu stayed by the side of the Naihe Bridge, waiting.
He did not know when Li Min would appear, but he knew that sooner or later, he would be able to wait for him.
Day after day, the waters of the River of Forgetfulness flowed past him, countless souls coming and going.
Zhou Chu waited patiently by the bridge, like a faithful bridge guardian.
At times, he would think that if he waited fifty or sixty years, by then Li Min would already be white-haired. He thought that he had to recognize him at first glance… yet at other times, he could not help worrying—what if Li Min forgot him?
Fifty or sixty years was such a long time, while the days he had accompanied him amounted to no more than a little over ten years.
Zhou Chu felt that he was probably the most sentimental soul there.
Until one day, amid the coming and going of souls at the bridge, he finally waited for that person.
On that day, it had not even been a full year since he had been beheaded.
Li Min had come far too early.
Zhou Chu felt joy at their reunion, yet at the same time could not help but feel heartache.
“If we don’t drink Granny Meng’s soup, what will happen?” Li Min asked, holding Zhou Chu’s hand.
Zhou Chu looked at him seriously and replied, “If you don’t drink Granny Meng’s soup, you can’t cross the Naihe Bridge. If a soul loses its attachment, it can’t stay here for long. If it doesn’t enter reincarnation, it will dissipate.”
Li Min looked at him upon hearing this and asked, “You waited here for nearly a year—was it because your attachment was too deep?”
“Because my attachment was you. If you didn’t come, I couldn’t leave,” Zhou Chu said.
Li Min smiled at him and said, “Then let’s go. I’ll accompany you to drink Granny Meng’s soup.”
“Wait a moment.” Zhou Chu grabbed Li Min and lightly bit at his neck. Li Min was now only a soul, so Zhou Chu left no mark on his neck.
“I’m making a mark, so you won’t be stolen away by someone else in the next life,” Zhou Chu said.
Li Min followed suit and bit lightly at Zhou Chu’s neck as well. The two looked at each other and smiled, and only then did they step onto the bridge together.
Granny Meng had already noticed Zhou Chu long ago when he had been guarding the bridge. Now that she saw he had finally waited for the one he was waiting for, she could not help but look at them a few more times. Seeing Granny Meng sizing him up, Li Min smiled at her and said, “Granny Meng, please do us a favor. When we reincarnate, don’t let the two of us be born too far apart.”
Granny Meng glanced at him. After a brief hesitation, a trace of compassion unexpectedly arose in her heart. She took out a bone knife and cut across the hands with which the two were holding their bowls of soup. For reasons unknown, that bone knife was actually able to cut a soul. Immediately, a drop of blood seeped from each of their souls and drifted into the other’s bowl of Granny Meng’s soup.
“Drink,” Granny Meng’s cold voice rang out.
The two exchanged a smile and drank the bowls of soup mixed with the other’s soul-blood.
Their souls soon began to rise gradually and merged into the cycle of reincarnation.
Granny Meng raised an eyebrow and said, “Souls that have been cut by the bone knife will never again be born into wealthy or noble families, life after life.”
Still, the fates of these two in their previous lives had been extremely noble, yet they ended up like this.
Perhaps being poor in the next life would not be such a bad thing after all…
Not long afterward, in a remote village somewhere,
two neighboring households welcomed new children, one after the other.
One family bore the surname Li, and the other bore the surname Zhou.
The Li family named their child Li Min, while the Zhou family named theirs Zhou Chu.
Both the Li family and the Zhou family were well-known poor households in the village, so poor that they could not even afford to hold a full-month celebration for their children. In the end, after discussing it together, the two families decided to hold the celebration jointly, saving both effort and money.
Thus, on the day Li Min and Zhou Chu reached one month of age, the two families jointly held a full-month banquet for the children.
The village was not very large, and the villagers were close-knit, so everyone who could come did come on that day.
“The Li family’s baby is really fair-skinned and doesn’t cry much—truly lovable.”
“The Zhou family’s baby looks sturdy at a glance. He’ll be great at hunting when he grows up!”
The villagers gathered together, commenting on the two children, when someone soon noticed something interesting.
“The Li family’s baby has a red birthmark on his neck!” A middle-aged woman reached out and tugged at the clothing near Li Min’s neck, and sure enough, there was a small red birthmark on the baby’s neck.
On the other side, Zhou Chu’s mother spoke up, “My child has a birthmark on his neck too. What a coincidence?”
Hearing this, everyone gathered around to take a look. Sure enough, on little Zhou Chu’s neck, in the exact same spot, there was also a birthmark.
Everyone clicked their tongues in amazement, clearly having never seen anything like this before.
Two babies being born on the same day was already remarkable enough, but for them to even have identical birthmarks on their necks was truly uncanny.
Some people suggested that the two children should swear brotherhood, while others sighed in regret that the children were not a boy and a girl—otherwise, with such fate between them, they could have been betrothed as a childhood match.
“Boys can be betrothed too. Last year in South Village, there were even two hunters who got together and had a child,” a middle-aged man said with a laugh.
Everyone burst out laughing at his words, treating them all as a joke. After all, in their poor and remote village, it was rare to see men marrying men.
With that interruption, the matter of the two children becoming sworn brothers was temporarily set aside.
However, the Li family and the Zhou family had always been close to begin with, and now, because of the children, they became even closer.
A year later, little Zhou Chu learned to walk first, and soon after, he could even talk.
Li Min looked a bit thinner and smaller than him, and he learned to walk and speak more slowly. Little Zhou Chu would often babble and gesture toward him, and after a long while, little Li Min gradually began to blurt out one or two words as well, though they were hard to make out.
It was not until he was nearly a year and a half old that Li Min’s walking became somewhat steady.
During that period, little Zhou Chu would spend all day dragging him around in front of their houses, and would even correct him from time to time when he could not pronounce certain words clearly.
The two children grew up tangled together like this, and in the blink of an eye, they had grown into youths of eleven or twelve.
It was in that year that a sudden misfortune struck the Li family.
While hunting in the mountains, little Li Min’s father lost his footing and fell, breaking his leg. Later, villagers dragged him back and hired a doctor, but the doctor’s skills were limited. He barely managed to set the leg, yet complications remained. After that, Li Min’s father was left with a disability in his leg and could no longer hunt.
With that fall, life became even harder for the family of three. Fortunately, little Li Min was sensible and rarely needed his parents to worry about him. He could take care of himself every day, and even helped his parents with some simple chores.
But this could not go on forever. There were very few ways to make a living in the village, and if things continued like this, the family would sooner or later starve.
It was at this time that the warmhearted village head brought along an old woman from the village. Out of kindness, they came up with a suggestion for the Li family.
“The Old Wang family at the village entrance lives quite comfortably, but Old Wang has no sons in his old age and has always hoped to have one. If Li Min were to acknowledge him as a godfather, then your two families would become relatives. Not to mention giving you some support, even if the child’s mother went to the Wang household to do some cleaning work, it would be enough to support your whole family,” the old woman said.
Li Min’s parents were both honest people and had never had much contact with the Wang family at the village entrance.
But the Wang family’s house was the grandest in the entire village, so it went without saying that their life was well-off.
“We’re neither kin nor related—how could we go and take advantage of someone like that?” Father Li said.
“If your son calls Old Wang his godfather, wouldn’t that make you related?” the old woman replied.
Both Father Li and Mother Li felt that this was a serious matter, so they did not agree to it on the spot.
Instead, Li Min himself was very sensible. He knew how difficult life was at home, and yet he was still young and unable to hunt, so he could not help much.
If he could support the family, he was naturally willing. Moreover, he could do many kinds of work. If he went to the Wang household, he would not be eating and living there for free—he could work as a young hired hand. That way, it would not be taking advantage of them for nothing.
Li Min told Zhou Chu what he was thinking, but to his surprise, Zhou Chu flew into a rage upon hearing it.
He nearly grabbed a hammer on the spot and went to smash the Wang family’s door.
“Why are you so angry?” Li Min had never seen Zhou Chu lose his temper like this and was immediately a little frightened.
Zhou Chu’s face was flushed red with anger. He looked at Li Min for a long time without saying anything, and finally only said, “You’re not allowed to go.”
“I’m not going there to eat and live for free. I’ll work for them. I can do cleaning and washing clothes,” Li Min said.
“I said you’re not allowed to go, and that means you’re not allowed to go. Give up this idea as soon as possible,” Zhou Chu said angrily.
Seeing how red-faced and heated he was, Li Min instead found it a little funny and asked, “Are you afraid that if I go to the Wang family, I won’t pay attention to you anymore? The village entrance isn’t far. If you miss me, I can come back to see you and your parents.”
“Who would miss you? Stop talking. Don’t bring this up again!” Zhou Chu grabbed Li Min, shoved him into the Li house, slammed the door shut behind him, and left.
That night, Father Zhou went to see Father Li. Li Min did not know what they talked about, but from that day on, Father Li never mentioned the matter of going to the Wang household again. The next day, when the village head and the old woman came knocking, Father Li, even with his lame leg, drove them away. The scene turned very unpleasant.
Li Min felt that something must have happened, but when he asked his father and Zhou Chu, neither of them was willing to tell him.
A few days later, when Father Zhou went out hunting, he took Li Min along with him.
It was Li Min’s first time going up the mountain, and he felt extremely uneasy.
The men in the village all learned their hunting skills from their fathers. Because Father Li had injured his leg, he had never been able to teach him. Now that Father Zhou was willing to take him and Zhou Chu up the mountain together, it meant that he had taken the initiative to shoulder the responsibility of teaching Li Min how to hunt.
“Follow me carefully and learn properly. In less than half a year, I’ll be able to make you competent,” Zhou Chu said to Li Min.
“Aren’t I supposed to learn from your father?” Li Min asked with a smile.
“What, are you looking down on me?” Zhou Chu asked.
Hearing this, Li Min looked at him. Zhou Chu was the same age as him, yet for some reason was much bigger in build. Though both were eleven or twelve, Li Min looked only about ten, while Zhou Chu looked more like fourteen or fifteen, and was nearly a whole head taller than him.
“I trust you. It’s just that I’m not as smart as you. I’m afraid I won’t be able to learn,” Li Min said.
Zhou Chu took his hand and examined it, then said, “With hands like these, you shouldn’t grip a bow yet. You’ll easily rub the skin raw.”
“Then how am I supposed to learn how to hunt?” Li Min asked.
“It doesn’t matter if you can’t learn. I’ll hunt, and you can just follow me and pick things up,” Zhou Chu said. As he spoke, he drew his bow and shot an arrow deep into the forest. Immediately, a rabbit was struck and fell to the ground.
Zhou Chu raised his eyebrows at Li Min with a smug expression. Li Min immediately looked at him with admiration and jogged over to retrieve the rabbit.
Li Min spent several years like this following the Zhou father and son around. His hunting skills did not improve much; in Father Zhou’s words, the child simply was not cut out for that line of work. However, Li Min found his own usefulness elsewhere. He was poor at drawing a bow and shooting arrows, but he was skilled at making traps. Relying on that ability, he actually caught quite a fair number of prey.
As Li Min grew older day by day, life for the Li family gradually became less difficult than before.
Li Min and Zhou Chu spent their days together. Aside from going up the mountains to hunt every few days, they would periodically go to the town to sell the furs and cured meat they had saved up, exchanging them for silver and rice or flour. Occasionally, they would also buy a few other things for their households.
Zhou Chu’s family was a little more well-off, so every time he exchanged money, he would buy some miscellaneous books or candies to bring home. These were things Li Min never had the heart to buy. Neither of them had ever received a proper education, but they had learned some characters from the old village scholar, so reading storybooks was not a problem.
“Take the candy back with you. I don’t like sweets—my teeth hurt,” Zhou Chu said, tossing the freshly bought candy into Li Min’s basket.
Li Min gave a wry smile and said, “If you’re not going to eat it, why did you buy it? Do you have so much silver you don’t know how to spend it? Go return it.”
“I won’t eat it. You eat it,” Zhou Chu said.
Hearing this, Li Min smiled and stared at him as he asked, “You don’t dislike it—you’re just reluctant to eat it yourself and deliberately saving it for me, right?”
“Who would be reluctant to eat something and save it for you?” Zhou Chu snapped irritably.
He had never been good at saying nice things, and Li Min had long grown used to it.
“Then lend me the book to read,” Li Min said with a grin, hooking an arm around Zhou Chu’s neck.
Zhou Chu had been secretly reading it just then. Hearing this, he immediately closed the book and tucked it into his waistband.
“Lend it to me for a look. At worst, we can read it together!” Li Min laughed as he went to grab the book. The two of them tussled, nearly pulling Zhou Chu’s trousers down right there in the street. Zhou Chu grabbed the youth’s wrist and said in a low voice, “If you don’t behave, I’ll deal with you.”
“And how are you going to deal with me?” Li Min asked with a laugh.
Since childhood, Zhou Chu had loved to scare him verbally, but the two of them had been together for seventeen or eighteen years, and Zhou Chu had never once laid a hand on him. In everyday life, he rarely even got angry.
Come to think of it, the only time Zhou Chu had ever truly lost his temper with him was when Li Min had planned to become Old Wang’s godson.
“Hey… isn’t that Master Wang?” Li Min spotted the Wang family’s carriage from afar and joked to Zhou Chu.
Zhou Chu’s brows knit together at once. He reached out and pinched Li Min’s cheek, saying sharply, “Mention the Wang family again and I’ll really deal with you.”
“Why do you hate the Wang family so much?” Li Min asked curiously.
He had asked this question many times before. Every time, Zhou Chu would darken his face and refuse to answer. The more he acted like that, the more curious Li Min became.
This time, whether because Li Min had angered him or for some other reason, Zhou Chu abandoned his usual evasive attitude. He looked at Li Min seriously and said, “Do you think Old Wang wanted you to go over there to be some kind of godson?”
“Wasn’t that it?” Li Min asked.
“That old bastard had no good intentions. If my father hadn’t stopped me, I would have gone and castrated him,” Zhou Chu said angrily.
Li Min was no longer that young. Hearing this, he understood a few unspeakable implications hidden within the words.
He sucked in a sharp breath, feeling lingering fear, and silently thanked his luck that Zhou Chu had stopped him back then.
“You’ve been angry about this all this time just because of that?” Li Min asked.
“Shouldn’t I be angry?” Zhou Chu said indignantly. “The two of us were even betrothed as children—what right did he have to harbor improper intentions toward you?”
Li Min froze when he heard this, stunned by the words “childhood betrothal.”
The two of them were grown men—what kind of childhood betrothal was that?
Li Min was completely confused and wanted to ask clearly to his face, but Zhou Chu’s face was red, and he did not give him any chance to speak.
Over the next few days, every time Zhou Chu saw Li Min, he acted awkward and stiff. At first, Li Min was quite open and unbothered, but later he inexplicably began to feel shy as well, as if the two of them truly had some unspeakable relationship.
“Let’s go up the mountain today and check your traps together. Don’t let them catch prey with no one to tend to them, or the meat will starve thin,” Zhou Chu said.
Li Min turned to look at him and saw that Zhou Chu was wearing new clothes that day, his hair neatly arranged. He looked especially valiant, with that distinctive youthful vigor.
“Don’t stare at me,” Zhou Chu said without turning his eyes.
“You look very handsome today,” Li Min said.
Zhou Chu’s expression remained unchanged, but his foot stumbled, and he nearly fell.
“You…” Zhou Chu turned to glance at Li Min. Li Min had shot up in height over these years, but he was still half a head shorter than Zhou Chu. However, Zhou Chu quite liked the height difference between them. That way, when he secretly looked at Li Min, the other would rarely notice as long as he did not raise his eyes.
“Why are you staring at me too?” Li Min asked. “Do I look good?”
Zhou Chu quickened his pace. After a moment, he gave a muffled “Mm” from ahead.
Li Min was instantly delighted. After all, Zhou Chu rarely ever praised him outright.
Hearing kind words from Zhou Chu was harder than hunting down a fat deer.
“Hey…” Li Min quickly caught up and slung an arm around his neck from behind, saying, “I asked my father about our childhood betrothal the other day. Guess what he said?”
Zhou Chu’s steps faltered. A trace of unease appeared on his face as he asked, “What did he say?”
“My father said that if you could bear children, he would agree to the marriage,” Li Min said.
Zhou Chu immediately furrowed his brows, as if seriously considering the feasibility of such a thing.
Seeing this, Li Min burst into laughter. Only then did Zhou Chu realize that Li Min was teasing him.
“You little brat, your guts are getting bigger and bigger!” Zhou Chu grabbed him and pinned him against a tree, starting to roughhouse with him.
Li Min begged for mercy as he was teased, and in the end the two of them tumbled to the ground together.
Their eyes met, and their breathing had grown somewhat rapid from the scuffle.
Zhou Chu’s gaze drifted downward and landed on Li Min’s lips. He subconsciously licked his own lips.
Li Min’s knee pressed against him, and he asked, “What is that? Something’s poking me!”
Zhou Chu’s face flushed red at once. He hurriedly got up and reached out to straighten his clothes.
“Why are you blushing?” Li Min leaned close and asked.
Zhou Chu took out the book he had bought earlier from his pocket and said, “Didn’t you want to read it? I brought it with me. Here.”
Li Min took the book and casually flipped through a couple of pages, then realized that there were illustrations inside. Only the content and the positions depicted were…
“Wow!” Li Min exclaimed in astonishment as he flipped through the book, as if a new world had been opened before him. “Th-this…”
“What ‘this, this’? If you’re not going to read it, give it back!” Zhou Chu said, reaching out to take the book. Li Min pressed his hand down instead and said, “What are they doing here? It looks pretty interesting… tsk, tsk…”
Zhou Chu muttered, “When you get married, you’ll know.”
“Get married—to whom?” Li Min asked instinctively.
Zhou Chu was so worked up by the question that his whole body seemed to be on fire, and he looked rather irritable.
Yet Li Min refused to let it go, staring at him with an air of digging to the bottom of things.
Zhou Chu’s gaze fell on Li Min’s lips again, and a thought flashed through his mind. In that instant, he did not know where the courage came from. Almost on instinct, he grabbed the youth by the collar and fiercely kissed him on the lips.
Only after the kiss did Zhou Chu’s reason return.
He was a little at a loss, and could only turn around and stride away.
Li Min stood there dumbfounded for a long while before he came back to his senses. Then he subconsciously licked the corner of his lips, stood up, and chased after Zhou Chu.
Zhou Chu was full of unease, and only relaxed when he saw Li Min catch up.
“Don’t be mad at me. I couldn’t hold back,” Zhou Chu said in a low voice.
Li Min looked at him. There was no anger on his face—if anything, it was a little flushed.
“I’m not angry. You can just let me kiss you back,” Li Min said.
Zhou Chu looked at the youth in shock and frowned as he asked, “Do you even know what this means? Do you think kissing back and forth is just fooling around? It’s not like fighting.”
“I know. Didn’t your father kiss your mother?” Li Min said matter-of-factly.
Zhou Chu froze, unable to react for a long while. Li Min’s response was simply far beyond his expectations.
Just a moment ago, he had still been an ignorant brat, and suddenly he had become smooth-tongued. Now it was Zhou Chu himself who felt at a loss.
In truth, Li Min was not dull, especially when it came to such matters. He had always followed his own instincts.
When Zhou Chu had brought up the childhood betrothal that day, he had been briefly confused, but he quickly figured it out.
People were going to get married anyway. If he had to choose, he felt that there was no one in the world better than Zhou Chu.
In that case, wasn’t it just right for him and Zhou Chu to marry?
Zhou Chu was willing, and he was willing too.
Didn’t that settle it? There was no need to agonize over it.
“Then I…” Li Min pointed at Zhou Chu’s mouth, then carefully leaned over and gave him a light kiss.
Zhou Chu’s face flushed bright red in an instant, his heart pounding wildly.
Li Min’s thin lips brushed against his and immediately parted again. Then he leaned close to Zhou Chu’s ear and said softly, “What I said earlier was a lie.”
“What?” Zhou Chu looked at him, truly dumbfounded this time.
Li Min smiled and added, “Even if you can’t bear children, I can still marry you.”
After saying this, the youth kissed Zhou Chu on the cheek, then turned and walked away.
Zhou Chu raised a hand to touch his own face, then could not help pinching himself. Only when the sharp pain hit did he finally come back to his senses.
“Wait for me…” Zhou Chu hurried after the youth.
The youth seemed to be deliberately teasing him and did not slow his pace.
“If you don’t stop, I’ll deal with you,” Zhou Chu warned again.
“You can’t bear to hit me at all. Stop trying to scare people,” Li Min said with a laugh.
Zhou Chu’s face was bright red as he said, “Dealing with you… doesn’t mean hitting you.”
“What?” Li Min turned his head and asked.
Zhou Chu glanced at the youth, smiled, and said nothing more, striding after him…
The two of them wove through the forest one after the other. Sunlight filtered down through the gaps in the leaves, falling across the youth.
Before long, the two boys’ hands found each other. In that instant, the entire forest seemed to be shrouded in a layer of searing warmth.
“Zhou Chu, what do you think is the deal with those birthmarks on us?” Li Min asked.
“Maybe they were marks left from a previous life,” Zhou Chu said.
Li Min smiled and said, “I think so too. How long do you think they’ll last?”
“A lifetime,” Zhou Chu replied without hesitation.
Li Min stopped and looked at him. Zhou Chu’s expression was a little awkward as he lowered his voice and said, “Every lifetime.”
“Hahaha.” Li Min tightened his grip on the other’s hand and laughed. “It’s not ‘every lifetime’—it’s ‘for all eternity.’”
Zhou Chu nodded.
That was… for all eternity.
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