Chapter 417 Reunion

Chapter 417: The Reunion

Moonlight cast a faint halo. Two bodies pressed together, drawing subtle warmth from each other in the winter night.

Cheng Ge, having drunk quite a bit of warming soup in the evening, woke up in the dead of night with his bladder painfully full—he couldn't hold it any longer.

He blinked himself groggily awake, and the moment consciousness returned, he reached out to remove Yun Xunyu's hand from where it rested on his waist.

He slipped quietly out of bed. The icy floor against his bare feet jolted him further awake, and he pushed open the door to step outside.

The night was deep, the snow heavy; a gust of frigid wind immediately rushed in from the end of the corridor. Cheng Ge couldn't help but duck his head, wrapping his robe tighter as he hurried toward the stairs.

He had just set foot on the descending steps when he heard from below the inn's attendant prattling ingratiatingly alongside the sound of steady footsteps.

"...Right this way, honored guest, mind your step—these stairs are a bit steep. Your best room is at the very end of the second floor, nice and quiet."

"Much obliged." A gentle male voice responded, tinged with the faint weariness of a long journey, yet still composed and clear.

Cheng Ge's steps paused almost imperceptibly, a strange sensation flickering in his chest.

But before he could make sense of it, he turned the corner of the staircase and looked down—

The attendant held a dim oil lamp aloft, leading the way.

A step behind him walked a tall figure draped in an indigo outer cloak, ascending the stairs.

The lamplight swayed, illuminating the man's refined and gentle profile.

He kept his head slightly lowered, seemingly watching his footing on the steps, his brow etched with lingering traces of wind and frost and exhaustion, his jawline sharper and more defined than Cheng Ge remembered.

But that face, that air of quiet elegance soaked into his very bones—impossible to hide even down on his luck...

Cheng Ge's breath caught in his throat the instant he recognized that face!

His blood seemed to freeze in that moment, then surge wildly backward the next, pounding against his eardrums as every limb turned stiff and cold.

And at that very moment, as if sensing something, the other man slowly lifted his head.

Their gazes met abruptly in the narrow stairwell corner, amid the dim, flickering lamplight!

He jolted violently, his upward steps freezing mid-stride as if struck by an invisible force.

The rolled paper tube of travel permits in his hand slipped from his suddenly weakened fingers with a soft clatter, tumbling down several steps.

Every trace of color drained from his face in an instant, leaving it deathly pale.

His lips parted slightly, as if he wanted to say something, but his throat seemed clogged with scorching gravel—parched, unable to produce a single sound.

The attendant looked back, confused: "Honored guest? Are you..."

The stairwell fell deathly silent, broken only by the faint crackle of the oil lamp's wick.

And so they stood—one above, one below, just a few steps apart—gazing quietly at each other.

The dim lamplight flowed between them, tracing their rigid, tense silhouettes.

The air seemed to thicken into something tangible and viscous, heavy enough to suffocate.

The rolled-up travel permit lay forgotten at the edge of the steps.

A dozen seconds stretched out like an eternity.

Without warning, without a word—

He surged forward, one step, then another, then a third... hurtling up the stairs toward Cheng Ge with an almost reckless urgency!

Cheng Ge barely had time to blink before the tall figure, still carrying the chill of the outdoors, crashed into him fiercely.

"Thud!" The heavy impact echoed through the silent stairwell.

Cheng Ge staggered slightly from the impact, letting out a muffled grunt.

Then came a force that was almost brutal, crushing him into a tight embrace.

The hold wasn't warm—it still carried the biting cold of wind and snow from the road, seeping through the indigo cloak and into Cheng Ge's thin sleeping robes.

But the chest pressed against him was heaving violently, its heartbeat heavy as a war drum, thudding fast and hard against Cheng Ge's chest and eardrums through the layers of fabric.

"Mu Yu..." The voice, hoarse and nearly distorted, sounded right against Cheng Ge's ear, rough from the dryness of a long journey.

"Mu Yu..." He called again, his arms tightening with astonishing force, as if he wanted to crush Cheng Ge into himself, to fuse them into one.

Cheng Ge's chin was forced onto his shoulder, and against his cheek he could clearly feel the scorching warmth of racing blood and pounding pulse beneath the skin of the other man's neck.

That violent throbbing came through, beat after beat, as if it would travel through the skin where they touched, vibrating all the way to resonate with his own heart.

Thud, thud, thud...

Each beat faster and heavier than the last, rattling his eardrums, sending numbness and weakness through his limbs.

That frantic pounding, mingled with the equally out-of-control heartbeat pressed against his own, became impossible to tell apart—nothing left but a near-numbing clamor.

Everything around them faded into a blur, becoming irrelevant.

Only this sudden embrace—cold yet burning—remained.

And the thunderous heartbeat in his own chest, equally clamorous, yet unsure how to respond.

Cheng Ge blinked, his long lashes casting faint shadows in the dim light.

He didn't struggle. He didn't speak.

After a few heartbeats, he raised a slightly trembling hand and placed it on Lin Nanshu's taut back, patting it very gently.

"Yuli..." he called softly, using the other man's name.

Before the words faded, he felt a faint, wet warmth on his neck—so hot it made his heart clench, his fingertips curling unconsciously.

A surge of tangled emotion—bitterness, guilt, and an indescribable dull ache—suddenly seized his heart.

His fingers spread slightly, then slowly tightened again, finally settling back into that gentle patting motion as his voice dropped even lower: "I've... made Yuli worry."

The candlelight flickered, stretching the shadows of their embrace, long and blurred, across the stairwell wall.

A tall, slender silhouette fell silently across the wall beside them, overlapping and intertwining with their shadows.

Yun Xunyu, dressed only in thin sleeping robes, stood barefoot at the top of the stairs, holding Cheng Ge's outer cloak in his hand.

From his elevated position, he watched from above, gazing down at the two figures locked in an embrace at the turn of the stairs below.

The faint light from the corridor behind him outlined his form in a blurred silhouette, but left his face hidden in deeper shadow.

His expression was unreadable as he quietly watched Cheng Ge's back, held in another's arms, and that exposed nape, tilted upward in a vulnerable curve.

In the air, the chill of the wind and snow, the heat of the reunion, and the cold of this silent gaze—all eerily interwoven.