Since she was a child, Zhu Qingyu had always believed herself to be a calm, rational person who wasn't easily swept up by emotion.
Especially as a physician, having witnessed life and death countless times, she could mostly keep her feelings in check.
During the six or so months of separation, when Gu Zhao hadn't shown up, Zhu Qingyu could console herself: If he doesn't come, then he doesn't come. It's fine either way.
Love was merely a luxury item, with a short shelf life. Meeting someone was fate; missing them was just the way of things.
But when she pushed open the door and saw Gu Zhao standing outside, all that rationality, all that calm, all that "it's fine," all that "if it's missed, it's missed"—those self-comforting, self-deceiving thoughts scattered to the winds.
The moment he appeared, Zhu Qingyu understood: some people had already taken root in her heart, and if she let them go, uprooting them would feel like tearing flesh from bone—an agony that cut to the core.
Thankfully, he had come. She wanted him here far more than she'd ever admitted to herself.
Now that he was here, all the trivial details—why he'd cut his hair that way again, why he'd only come now, whether he'd won over the elders at home, whether he'd have to leave again—none of it mattered.
A lifetime is long, and there will always be storms and twists.
But even if the future held a thousand towering waves, so what?
She wanted this very moment—his reckless, thousand-mile dash to reach her—and she was willing to seize it with him, cherishing every second.
Zhu Qingyu rushed forward, threw her arms around Gu Zhao's neck, rose on her toes, found his lips, and kissed him.
Gu Zhao hadn't expected such fiery passion to greet him. Caught off guard and overwhelmed with delight, his eyes went wide, and even the lantern in his hand dropped to the ground.
The lantern toppled, the candle flame catching the paper shade, and a flare of fire shot up.
No one spared a single moment to care about the lantern. Xiong Kun, waiting not far off with the carriage, immediately covered his face with his hand, pretending he'd seen nothing.
Even Uncle Qi, who had come out to open the door, quickly hid behind it, facing the wall in self-reproach, pretending he'd never stepped out at all.
Stunned for only an instant, Gu Zhao pulled Zhu Qingyu tightly into his arms and responded with even more fervor than she had shown.
After months apart, the reunited lovers, beneath the first glimmer of winter moonlight, on the quiet street, in the gently falling first snow, beside the brightly burning fallen lantern, clung to each other and kissed with fierce intensity.
As if between heaven and earth, there was nothing and no one but the two of them.
As if this moment, right now, was eternity itself.
Zhu Qingyu drowned in Gu Zhao's eager ravishment, and drowned just as deeply in her own passionate response. Neither knew how long they kissed, until she paused to catch her breath against his chest, her head spinning—and then he bent down and swept her into his arms.
A voice, strained with restraint, landed beside her ear:
"Where do you live?"
Zhu Qingyu looked up at him, then at the second floor of the main house in the inner courtyard.
Gu Zhao followed her gaze, understood at once, and strode inside without hesitation. Past the screen wall, through the moon gate, past the festooned gate, into the main hall, up the stairs—straight for the second floor.
The robust, tall, powerful Vice Minister Gu carried her with effortless ease, yet his steps grew faster and faster. When he reached the stairs, he took two at a time, nearly sprinting up to carry her into the bedroom and, in one fluid motion, press her down onto the soft bedding.
Earlier, when Zhu Qingyu had gone downstairs to the front courtyard, she'd left a small night lamp burning in the room.
In its faint, flickering glow, Gu Zhao pressed down on her, gazing at her with hunger—his expression raw with barely contained, barely suppressed desire.
That look, heavy with longing, seemed to touch and caress her like something physical. His familiar scent, which she hadn't felt in so long, sent her heart racing.
Without thinking, Zhu Qingyu reached up and touched his face, and smiled.
At the smile that gave him silent permission, Gu Zhao lost even more control. He forced himself to hold back, rubbing his cheek against her palm, his Adam's apple bobbing, while his eyes remained fixed on her—like a beast about to strike, trying to intimidate its would-be escaping prey. His voice came out rough, laced with barely restrained panting:
"I thought about coming to see you. This morning on the boat, I bathed. I know by all the rules, we should wait until we're married, but I missed you too much, I couldn't hold back. Qingyu—can it be?"
Ah, why did he have to pick this moment to be so polite?
This Bath Fiend who always liked to wash in the morning—so annoyingly fussy!
Zhu Qingyu was thoroughly displeased with his hesitation. Her hand slid from his face down to his shoulder, and with a shove, she flipped them over, pressing him down and straddling him.
Action spoke louder than words. Overwhelmed with delighted disbelief, Gu Zhao tried to sit up and embrace her, but Zhu Qingyu's hand drifted down to his belt and below, while her other hand pressed against his shoulder to hold him still. She looked down at him with a smile:
"Little brother, you talk too much. Is your wound healed?"
Gu Zhao's head fell back, sinking into the pillow. His eyes narrowed to a sliver, and he let out a breathy groan:
"Yes... it's healed."
She'd noticed last time: this boy's groans were quite pleasant to hear.
She almost missed it, almost looked forward to it—to hearing him groan even more beautifully.
Zhu Qingyu leisurely untied the cords of his cloak, then worked at the knotted buttons of his collar. Her fingers grazed the scar left on his shoulder as she said, in a deliberately serious tone:
"Is that so? Let me take a look, see if it's fully recovered."
The tormented Gu Zhao gasped harder, his hands gripping her waist as he looked up at her pleadingly:
"Qingyu, please."
Ah, Gu Zhao like this looked so pitiful—it made one want to toy with him and tease him a little more.
Zhu Qingyu's smile turned bewitching:
"Please what, Vice Minister Gu? Tell me."
Gu Zhao had reached his limit. No longer able to care about anything else, he wrapped his arms around her, silenced her mouth with his, and pressed her back beneath him.
She who toys with others gets toyed with in turn. Lord Zhu, who moments before had foolishly thought she could torment Vice Minister Gu, now reaped what she sowed, plunged into a night of chaos from which there was no turning back.
Winter had arrived in Jiangning. Outside the window, the first snow fell heavier and heavier, while the northern wind whipped through the city with cold fury.
But in the bedroom on the second floor of the Hui Medical Hall's inner courtyard, though the chilling wind was kept at bay, there was someone who couldn't keep out the relentless assault of her lover's attentions. She retreated, step by step, and begged for mercy.
Those pleas came out broken and ragged, but the moment they left her lips, her iron-hearted lover sealed them with a kiss, swallowing the cries and gasps alike, and pressed on anew.
The small night lamp in the bedroom could no longer hold out; it burned down to nothing.
Only the darkness remained to shroud the fragrant mists of hair and skin, the lush, decadent spring of the night within.
