Chapter 22 Retrospection
On one side of the Southern Garden in the Imperial Palace, there was an abandoned courtyard, hidden behind the solemn red walls of the main entrance of the Imperial Palace and barely noticeable. Only a side gate connected to the Imperial Palace, with guards standing watch day and night. The entire perimeter of the courtyard was the fortress-like wall of the palace, and the guards stood their posts for twelve Shichen Chinese Hours without rest.
San He, limping, was busily making a fire and cooking, but their food supply was running low again. San He was somewhat anxious. His master had returned early yesterday, locked his room upon arriving, and had not emerged since. Had he been injured again?
Worried, San He, although the barely closed door could no longer be called a wooden door, could vaguely see Nanmen Yu lying on the bed through the broken holes in the door. San He didn’t smell blood; could that be considered a good thing?
"Master, please have some food," San He said after checking three times, seeing that Nanmen Yu, lying on the bed, still had not moved, unable to hold back from speaking out.
The young man didn’t respond, staring blankly at a patch of the old wall beside the bed, without getting up. The mottled and peeling mud wall slowly morphed into a blurry figure.
A sudden impulse surged through the young man’s heart, wishing to release something, but the next moment, he abruptly pulled the blanket over his head, burying his head in the crook of his arm, clinging to the remaining warmth.
Nanmen Yu restrained himself from thinking, but the images kept reappearing in his mind, one after another, making him not even want to move, preferring to just lie there continuously.
"Master—" San He persisted from outside the door.
Nanmen Yu, with his head buried in his arms, didn’t want to listen, didn’t want to respond. Yet, he also wanted to burst out and run with all his might until he was utterly exhausted, to keep his mind from thinking.