Chapter 398 Qing

Chapter 398: Qing

Cheng Ge suspected he had misheard.

Give it to him? What would Wuliji even want with it? He couldn't even read it!

"G-give it to you?" Cheng Ge's voice went up before he could stop it, with shock and disbelief he couldn't hide. "What do you want it for? You can't even read what's on it..."

The second the words were out, he regretted them. It came out too harsh, with an instinctive pushback that made him look even guiltier.

Sure enough, Wuliji's eyes dimmed, the hope flickering in them wavering.

The fire stretched his tall, sturdy frame into a long shadow that loomed over Cheng Ge, carrying the weathered strength of a man of the grasslands.

He didn't look away or back down from Cheng Ge's reaction. Instead, with a stubbornness that was almost defiant, he repeated himself, clear as day: "Give it to me."

He leaned in slightly, his big frame throwing a shadow across the tent wall, the weight of it pressing down without a word. "I can't read it... but I know it's... something you wrote for me."

A stone dropped into a deep pool, sending hot ripples through Cheng Ge's chest.

Cheng Ge's fingers scraped absently across the paper. The smooth surface did nothing to calm the storm churning inside him.

Midway through the mindless motion, a faint but unmistakable rip—his fingertip had torn a coin-sized hole in the paper.

He snapped back to reality, staring at the hole, his heart dropping again.

He opened his mouth, ready to refuse. But when he looked up and met Wuliji's eyes—

Every word he'd prepared froze solid, lodged in his throat.

Wuliji just looked at him, silent.

But beneath the stubbornness in those eyes, something clearer was trembling.

It was confusion—a careful, last flicker of reluctance mixed with a questioning light.

That look was too direct, too... heavy. It pressed on Cheng Ge until he could hardly breathe.

He looked away on instinct, afraid that one more second of eye contact would shatter his whole lie.

His eyes darted to his own fingertips, then back to the hole in the paper.

His voice came out dry, not even sounding like his own, stiff and awkward as he tried to cover it up: "This one... it's torn. Not good."

He tried to hide the real storm underneath with this flimsy excuse about the damage.

"I... don't mind." Wuliji's voice came right after, low but crystal clear, with a stubborn, almost unyielding certainty.

He didn't seem to care about the hole at all—or rather, to him, the hole mattered far less than what the paper meant.

Before the words even faded, a big hand, calloused from years of holding reins, reached out gently.

His fingertips hovered, about to touch the paper's edge, in a gesture that left no room for doubt—he was taking it.

Cheng Ge's pupils shrank. No! Absolutely not!

With Wuliji's stubborn, single-minded nature, the second this thing got into his hands, he'd have it translated inside and out.

The thought hit him like ice water. Pure instinct took over.

The instant Wuliji's fingertips were about to touch the paper, Cheng Ge's hand slammed down, pinning it flat.

The move was way too obvious—pure resistance and tension, no attempt to hide it.

Wuliji's hand froze in mid-air.

He looked up at Cheng Ge, the confusion in his eyes quickly turning into deeper shock and the sting of outright rejection.

The air in the tent seemed to freeze again. The firelight flickered over their frozen hands and tense faces, showing two completely different emotions.

On one side, the wariness of a spooked bird; on the other, the cold confusion of hopes dashed.

Cheng Ge could feel Wuliji's stare like actual needles, stabbing into his lowered eyes and pressed-together lips.

"It's torn... it's really no good now," he repeated, low and fast. "I... I'll write you a new one. A better one."

With that, he stopped looking at Wuliji and practically snatched the torn paper out from under the man's still-hovering hand.

His heart—like the tip of that dancing flame had given it a quick lick—suddenly burned hot.

Wuliji didn't say anything else. He just silently picked up the ink stick and started grinding it.

The motion was a little clumsy, but intensely focused. His rough knuckles wrapped around the smooth ink stick, circling it in the shallow inkstone—slow, even, with a solid, steady pressure.

Swinging a blade was second nature to a man of the grasslands, but this careful grinding of a pool of black ink was foreign territory.

The red firelight lit up half his resolute face, spilling into his lowered eyes, turning that focus into something almost devout.

Scrape, scrape—the faint sound was unusually loud in the silent tent, like some patient countdown.

The smell of ink mixed with the warmth of the fire, seeping out little by little.

Cheng Ge watched, swallowing without realizing it, head hanging low as he clutched the brush.

Wuliji stopped, set the inkstone down gently beside Cheng Ge's hand, and raised his eyes to burn into him.

That look was still scorching, full of naked expectation, and a kind of... almost protective focus.

He was waiting—waiting for that "better" promise to be fulfilled.

Cheng Ge, trapped under that gaze, could barely breathe.

He moved stiffly to sit at the table and grabbed a fresh sheet from the stack.

He spread it flat, pressed it smooth.

Wuliji's shadow, thrown across the table by the fire, swayed gently with the flames.

Cheng Ge took a deep breath and gripped the brush. The shaft was cold, but his palm was slick with sweat.

He dipped it in ink, each character a struggle. Stroke by stroke, he wrote out the polite, hollow phrases he'd scrambled together in his head.

His wrist was stiff, his strokes halting. He could feel Wuliji's gaze, fixed unwaveringly on the tip of his brush, following every horizontal and vertical line.

Time stretched endlessly.

Finally, the last dot fell.

Cheng Ge released the brush as if drained of all strength, gently blowing on the wet ink on the paper.

"...I-It's... okay." His voice came out dry and raspy as he slid the newly written paper across, not daring to meet Wuliji's eyes.

Wuliji immediately reached out and took it.

He studied it carefully, his gaze slowly moving between the lines, like he was picking his way across unfamiliar grassland.

Finally, his eyes stopped, fixed on a certain spot.

"...Here," he looked up at Cheng Ge, his eyes carrying clear confusion, "why is there no 'Yuli'?"

Cheng Ge: "..."

He'd been so busy making up safe stuff that he'd completely forgotten about Yuli.

He quickly shoved the crumpled old letter he'd been clutching in his left hand deeper into his sleeve.

"T-This is the new one!" he said hurriedly, "So... so I changed the style!" He had no choice but to keep walking down the path of lies, steeling himself to go on.

Wuliji nodded, indicating he understood, but his gaze still lingered on the spot where Yuli's name should have been.

"Then what did you change it to?" he asked, his eyes returning to the paper, then lifting to Cheng Ge's face, waiting for an answer.

Cheng Ge felt his scalp tingle and a dull ache forming at his temples.

He had to scrape together what was left of his quick wit and fall back on his gift for making things up.

He leaned in slightly, his finger hovering vaguely over the character he had hastily filled in, and blurted out in a flash of inspiration, "This... is pronounced 'Qing'."

He licked his dry lips, "It's used... you know, as a way to address someone you're close to."

"Qing?" Wuliji repeated, his tongue fumbling around the unfamiliar sound, a bit stiff, and the tone came out a little off.

But he clearly latched onto the more important part: "Close people?"

He raised his eyes, his gaze settling on Cheng Ge's profile, with a hint of scrutiny in it.

"Y-Yes," Cheng Ge said, squirming under that look and desperate to end this ordeal, he almost brushed it off, "Some... some couples even call each other 'Qingqing' (like 'dear')."

The moment the words left his mouth, he wished he could bite his tongue off—what had he just dragged them into!

"Qing... Qing?" Wuliji repeated the two-syllable word slowly and carefully.

This time, his pronunciation seemed a bit more accurate, his deep voice rolling over those two soft syllables, giving them a strange, murmuring quality.

He called out again, so softly it was almost a breath: "Qingqing."

The sound was so faint, as if he were afraid of waking a dream, and only he—and maybe Cheng Ge, sitting right there—could hear it.

Then his fingertip came down. Not hovering anymore, but gently and firmly brushing over the character "Qing" on the paper.

The pad of his finger, calloused from years of work, traced the edges of the ink over and over, carefully.

The firelight cast a small shadow under his lowered lashes and picked out the faint, almost invisible curve at the corner of his lips.

The tent fell silent once more.

The earlier tension and probing seemed to melt away under that soft touch and that low call that had almost dissolved into the air.

It turned into something thicker, stickier, hanging in the air between them.

Wuliji carefully folded the paper with the character "Qing" on it in half, then in half again, until it was a neat, thick little square.

Only then did he tuck it, with great reverence, into the inner pocket of his leather robe, right against his heart.

After putting it away, he even pressed the spot without thinking, as if to make sure it was still there.

Only then did he look up again at Cheng Ge, who sat across from him, practically turned to stone.

The firelight danced in his deep brown eyes, giving them an unusually pure, earnest glow.

"Your betrothal gift," he said, not loud, but every word clear, with the plain, practical sincerity of a grassland man talking about something important, "might be a little late."

Cheng Ge: "..."

When Cheng Ge didn't say anything, Wuliji reached out and lightly touched the back of his hand.

The touch was featherlight, barely a brush, but it carried a warmth you couldn't ignore, tinged with apology.

Cheng Ge flinched, as if burned, and instinctively pulled his hand back.

Because Wuliji's hand didn't pull back after the touch—it just hovered there in the air.

His gaze stayed fixed on Cheng Ge, full of genuine apology, and even a hint of barely noticeable... nervousness.

"I'm... sorry," Wuliji said, his voice lower now, as if afraid of disturbing something, with a rare, almost clumsy gentleness. "For making you... wait."