Flying Ash Chapter 30

Chapter 30

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Believe… believe in what?

He believed everything he said before, but what happened? What was waiting for him was broken promises and deceit over and over again.

Thrown back to his previous life without warning, Yi Hui pulled up his legs, leaned back and did not respond as if he hadn’t heard it.

Zhou Jinheng saw his obvious intention to avoid him and turned away, a little frustrated. But only a moment later he moved back to Yi Hui as he noticed something he hadn’t seen before.

“Did you hurt your legs?” Zhou Jinheng leaned forward and touched Yi Hui’s knees exposed outside the blanket. The fabric of his pants was soaked with crimson. “There’s blood everywhere. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Yi Hui really didn’t notice. When he changed his clothes just now, he just wanted to hurry it up and didn’t have time to look down to check why it hurt. Only now did he know that his skin was broken.

“It’s nothing.” Yi Hui’s voice was faint. He bent his legs to avoid Zhou Jinheng’s outstretched hand and leaned to the side again.

Based on his understanding of Zhou Jinheng, since he had been repeatedly rejected like that, he would definitely not try again.

Who knew that this guy would continue to lean forward, his posture changing from sitting to squatting. He lifted Yi Hui’s pants with both hands, rolled them up and asked, “Do you have medicine?”

He really did. When he went out, Jiang Xuemei stuffed a bottle of Yunnan Baiyao powder into his bag. Zhou Jinheng picked it up and looked at the instructions on the tube, unscrewed the lid and sprinkled it on Yi Hui’s wounds.

He was impatient and moved quickly. Before Yi Hui could react, he had lifted his pants and placed on the medicine.

The medicine made the wounds hurt. Yi Hui gasped in pain and his body shivered. Zhou Jinheng asked nervously, “Does it hurt?”

Before Yi Hui could answer, he lowered his head to blow on the wounds, his warm breath spraying down on bare skin, causing Yi Hui to shrink again.

“Still hurts?“ Zhou Jinheng was not good at this kind of thing. He panicked seeing Yi Hui’s reaction, “It hurts a bit when this medicine is just applied.”

Yi Hui was silent.

The distance between them was too short; he was afraid that he would give himself away if he spoke and he even regretted calling the man to hide from the rain in the tent.

There was no response but Zhou Jinheng was not angry. He took out a handkerchief from Yi Hui’s bag, folded it into a strip and pressed it to Yi Hui’s wound, then wrapped it around Yi Hui’s knee, tied it and said, “If you don’t bandage it, it’ll get infected. If it still hurts, just… pinch me.”

After listening to the second half of the sentence, Yi Hui raised his eyes, puzzled and saw Zhou Jinheng’s focused expression. Meeting his clear gaze reduced his nervousness a little, making him think of a similar scene in his past.

It happened not long after they started living together. Zhou Jinheng was at home after filming. As the elder in the family, Yi Hui took on the task of arranging everyday food and living, and bought many things to show off his skills to make a nutritious meal.

Who would have thought that as soon as he washed the vegetables, put them on the chopping board and started cutting, the electricity would suddenly go off.

Yi Hui shivered, the blade scraped across his fingers and the fear of cutting himself made him cry out. Zhou Jinheng, who was resting upstairs, heard the sound and rushed down: “What’s the matter?”

Yi Hui shook his head and said nothing, so he approached and grabbed Yi Hui’s wrist and said, “You cut your hand? Tsk… it’s just a little bit, why did you scream so loudly?”

Yi Hui felt embarrassed and wanted to pull his hand back but was led by Zhou Jinheng to the living room and made to sit down on the sofa.

Zhou Jinheng walked back and forth with a flashlight in his hand. He found a band-aid somewhere, squatted in front of him, held his fingers and put the band-aid on him.

Due to the poor light and rough gestures, Zhou Jinheng’s hand that held Yi Hui’s wrist pinched it painfully, but he didn’t dare to say anything, fearing that Zhou Jinheng would not care about him in the future. No one liked delicate flowers who complained all day long.

After putting the band-aid on, Zhou Jinheng blew on his thin white finger and when he looked up, he saw tears falling from Yi Hui’s wide-open eyes.

It was not the first time Zhou Jinheng had seen him cry and he said helplessly: “Why are you still crying? Does it hurt so much?”

Yi Hui shook his head vigorously, covered his eyes with his other hand and said, “I miss my Mom.”

“I don’t have a mother either, do you see me crying?”

This sounded thoughtless, but at the time it comforted Yi Hui inexplicably. He slowly put down his hand and sniffed: “Then, then don’t you miss her?”

Zhou Jinheng confessed frankly: “Yes.”

“Then you… why don’t you cry?”

“What’s the use of crying? If you cry, will she come back?”

Saddened by these words, Yi Hui flattened his mouth and the tears that had just stopped were about to burst out again.

“Tsk.” Zhou Jinheng frowned, “Still crying?”

His expression was impatient, but his movements were much softer.

Holding Yi Hui’s hand gently in his palm, Zhou Jinheng looked up at him, and the corners of his lips turned up in a gentle arc: “So what if Mom is gone, isn’t your husband here?”

He thought that the sentence contained a bit of teasing, but the clear eyes of the young man smiling in the faint light had already deeply imprinted in Yi Hui’s mind.

He took everything Zhou Jinheng said as true, including this joke. From that moment until a long time later, he not only regarded Zhou Jinheng as his husband, but also as his closest person in the world.

He innocently wanted to be with him like this for the rest of his life.

When he pulled away from his memories, Yi Hui was still a little startled but his eyes gradually became cold.

Zhou Jinheng seemed to be aware of it. He opened his mouth to say something but in the end he didn’t say anything. He helped him tie the handkerchief and returned to his place.

Yi Hui was not an ungrateful person. He took out the water and biscuits from his bag, gave half of them to Zhou Jinheng and asked him to turn off the phone light and take it back, so as not to run out of power later.

Zhou Jinheng said at first that he didn’t need it, but when he saw Yi Hui insisting, he didn’t refuse anymore. He took it and only drank water, putting the biscuits aside without touching them.

The rain outside was getting stronger, seeming endless. In the evening, the sky was getting darker and darker, and the visibility in the mountain was getting even lower. Through the transparent windows of the tent, one could only see the shadows of the swaying trees.

Yi Hui had spent almost the entire day climbing the mountain. Later, because of the weather change, he was scared half to death. After finally relaxing, he planned to take a break, recharge and then rush down the mountain in one go.

His bag was used as a pillow. He pulled up the blanket and laid down, turning his back to Zhou Jinheng. The tent was quite spacious and the two people didn’t hinder each other.

He was about to close his eyes when he heard the phone ring. Yi Hui pulled the blanket to the tip of his ears, hid his hands under the blanket and clicked on Weibo. Unexpectedly, he found that the signal was better now and the homepage could be easily refreshed.

He clicked onto the notification interface and saw a message from Dora-hum-hum: Are you home yet?

Yi Hui shrank in the blanket and typed a reply: No, the weather is bad, I’m trapped in the mountains [cry]

Dora-hum-hum: Are you okay?

Yi Hui: I’m okay, I can go down the mountain when the rain stops

Dora-hum-hum: Is anyone with you?

Seeing these words, Yi Hui thought of another man in the tent and inexplicably felt that someone was standing behind his back: En

Dora-hum-hum had to ask: Who?

Yi Hui said vaguely: A friend of a friend

Dora-hum-hum: Is he reliable?

Although he felt that the topic was taking a strange direction, Yi Hui replied: He’s okay, I couldn’t set up a tent, he helped me set it up

Dora-hum-hum: Then, do you think I’m reliable?

Yi Hui was even more confused, but since the other party asked, he thought about it seriously. Remembering that the other party had helped him a lot before, he replied: Reliable, Hum-Hum is the most reliable [so happy]

The two chatted casually for a while, then Yi Hui put down his phone and continued to rest.

Maybe he was too tired during the day but he actually fell asleep. However, he slept very lightly and any movement could wake him up, such as Zhou Jinheng’s voice when he answered the phone.

“Hey… en, I found him… it won’t take long to climb back from the bottom of the mountain… You can go first, sorry I can’t send you off… what’s fake… I’m serious, I’m not kidding.”

Zhou Jinheng’s voice was very low. In a daze, Yi Hui didn’t understand the subject of the call. He only extracted the message “He originally went down the mountain and then came back to find me.” He thought to himself that he had to thank him again when he woke up. The more like strangers they were, the more polite he had to be.

When he woke up again, he noticed there was someone next to him. The rustling of tiny movements merged with the sound of rain outside, much lighter than the sound of conversation, but Yi Hui still caught it sensitively.

He didn’t dare to move or open his eyes, for fear that his stressed reaction would reveal something.

Fortunately, the man who leaned over didn’t want to alarm him. First, he helped him pull up the blanket and covered his exposed toes. Then, his hand wandered cautiously on the edge of the blanket, then finally gently held one of his hands lying by his side.

As his hand was lifted a little bit, Yi Hui’s heartbeat accelerated. If it weren’t for the darkness in the tent, one would have easily found that his closed eyelids were trembling and his eyelashes were fluttering.

It was too close, so close that he could clearly feel another heartbeat that didn’t belong to him.

In the dark, all his senses were infinitely magnified. When a soft touch fell on his hand, Yi Hui immediately knew that it was his lips.

Zhou Jinheng was kissing his hand, moving from the back of his hand to the roots of his fingers, slowly turning to the web between his thumb and index finger, his breath hot and gentle.

It was the place where he held the brush when he painted. This patch of skin was scalded in his previous life. After the redness, swelling and blisters subsided, it became wrinkled and mottled, making his hand even more unpleasant to look at. Although he was a fool at that time, he also knew how to distinguish between beauty and ugliness, so he usually wore gloves or hid his hands in his sleeves.

And now the man who had caused it was kissing the spot where the scar had been, just as he had fantasised countless times, quietly, gently, without the slightest hint of disgust.

Yi Hui suddenly recalled that it wasn’t like Zhou Jinheng didn’t give him a chance to refuse at that time, nor did he stop him from letting go of the cup midway.

The reason why he endured the pain and didn’t let go was because he didn’t want him to be angry and was willing to be a prop for him to vent his anger; the reason why he hid the wound was not because he was afraid he would be upset when seeing it, but more because he was afraid he would see it and be disgusted.

It was because he loved him too much.

“I’m sorry.” With his warm lips clinging to the skin on the back of his hand, Zhou Jinheng whispered through the sound of rain, as if from light years away and after countless years of baptism, “I’m sorry… trust me one more time, okay?”

The author has something to say: Regarding why Xiao Zhou firmly believes that Jiang Yihui is Yi Hui, in fact, Xiao Zhou is not sure about the so-called reincarnation and rebirth. He is very sad and desperate. Seeing Jiang Yihui’s gestures and manners were the same as Yi Hui’s, coupled with his reactions when he saw him and because he did not accept the fact that Yi Hui was dead, he ignored the causes and consequences and directly convinced himself that it was Yi Hui. Everything was just his wishful thinking. As for whether he will have doubts in the future, that will be a matter of future events. This question had been asked many times and I have answered it many times in the comments. I will answer it here. Too much talk involves spoilers but if I don’t answer, I will be asked again and again… Transmigration of a soul is very mysterious in itself, not to mention a human’s intuition, so if you can’t accept this logic, you should read with caution.

(Translator’s notes: in other words, no, Zhou Jinheng will not have doubts :))

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