Chapter 36 - I will hold you

Last time, when he was sent into the deep, dark water by his mother’s hands, Jian Qiao passed out from suffocation.

He didn’t know how he was saved.

This time, he clearly saw Rege’s figure swimming towards him. He moved through the water like a powerful fish, cutting through the rapids and waves, approaching quickly.

He extended his strong arms and tightly wrapped them around Jian Qiao’s slender waist.

He towed Jian Qiao upward and supported his body so that he was the first to reach the surface and breathe the air before Rege himself emerged.

Everything happened so quickly, but it was terrifying.

Jian Qiao coughed while clinging to Rege’s body with all his might.

“Don’t be afraid, Jian. Don’t be afraid. I’m here and I’ve got you with me. I’ll definitely save you. Relax, ease up.” Rege reassured Jian Qiao again and again.

Rege was so tightly entangled he couldn’t free his hands and feet, and this was the biggest cause of death for good Samaritans who tried to rescue drowning victims.

Jian Qiao knew he ought to relax, but intense fear made his body more rigid than stone. He was wrapped around Rege like seaweed, afraid to let go even a little lest he be swallowed up by death.

“ Right, I’m sorry, I can’t relax. ” His teeth chattered with fear.

The desperate desire to live made it impossible for him to say something like “leave me and go”.

“It’s all right.” Rege had a smile in his voice. “It’s fine if you can’t relax. I can get you to safety.”

The swirling vortex created by the rushing current was like countless pairs of hands from the god of death reaching for them, pulling them under the water to the bottom. But Rege, who was born for war, possessed strength and endurance unimaginable by ordinary people. Even if he was closely hindered by another person, he could handle it with ease.

He comforted Jian Qiao as he used his powerful arms to plunge through the waves and swim towards shore.

His hounds and knights chased him along the road by the shoreline, barking and shouting in great confusion.

As he heard the river’s roar and those anxious shouts, Jian Qiao’s heart was in his throat.

But Rege didn’t panic at all. He also continued to comfort him, “ Don’t hold my arms, hold my neck. We’re almost there. We’ll get out, trust me. This kind of current is nothing to me. I once crossed a strait overnight when we did a sneak attack on the sea defenses of Aratos. The ocean waves were higher than the walls of Grande.”

“You’ve never seen such a magnificent view. I’ll take you to see it someday.” He rambled on about his heroic deeds, using his words to soothe Jian Qiao.

Of course, Jian Qiao knew how magnificent the waves of the ocean were. He’d seen them on TV.

“You’re more magnificent than the ocean,” he said in a hoarse voice, pressing against Rege’s ear.

As Rege firmly gripped his waist and brought him to the shore little by little, Jian Qiao calmed down. He even felt an odd sense of security in the pull of the whirlpool and the call of death.

“ I don’t need to see the ocean, I can just look at you. You’re the most magnificent view in my eyes.” He focused on Rege’s excessively handsome profile.

This man was fighting death itself to save him. If that wasn’t magnificent, what was magnificent?

Rege: “…”

Rege’s sore and tiring arms instantly gained a lasting surge of strength. He looked down at Jian Qiao and grinned, then accelerated towards shore like a ship riding the waves.

When Jian Qiao was by his side, he could tolerate all tiresome people and things. And at that moment he could also overcome every difficulty and danger.

A few minutes later, Rege stepped into the shallows with Jian Qiao in his arms. He shouted an order to the knights who arrived a little later, “We’ll head back immediately!”

When they returned they’d have to blow the horn to inform the other hunters. If those people didn’t see their companions at the rendezvous point after dark, they’d search for them all night.

Jian Qiao automatically stopped him. “Don’t. We can dry our clothes over a fire and pretend that nothing happened.”

He didn’t want those trading partners to see him at his most wretched. He had his dignity and respectability to maintain.

Rege gave a short laugh.

He knew the gentleman Earl was most sensitive about his reputation.

“Put up a tent and light a fire.” He immediately changed the order.

The knights efficiently pitched a tent, built a campfire, and brought two cloaks to warm Rege and Jian Qiao.

In the water, Jian Qiao was as stiff as a stone. When he got to shore, he turned into soft dough. The long struggle and immense fear robbed his strength and made his body limp.

He shuddered and curled up in Rege’s arms.

And Rege carried him into the tent and quickly stripped off his clothes.

Because of his poor constitution, Jian Qiao usually didn’t do many activities outside. The skin of his body was fair and delicate everywhere, like the finest porcelain from the East. His limbs were long and slender and his waist was soft.

He huddled in Rege’s arms, shivering like a flower that was almost scattered by the wind, so frail yet so beautiful.

Rege, who was taking off his own clothes, suddenly froze in place. His Adam’s apple rolled up and down.

He could hardly take his eyes off Jian Qiao. He didn’t even want to put the cloak over his body to cover up the boundless beauty.

But Jian Qiao, who’d survived another brush with death, was once again stirred up by the fear of what just happened. Only when he came to a safe place did he recognize how close he’d been to losing his life. If he’d been swept under by the rapids and hit a rock, his blood would have dyed the river red.

When people are in a dangerous situation, they feel afraid. After they leave the situation, thinking about it again will make the fear return.

Jian Qiao was already cold to the point of numbness, but tears kept falling. He was reliving the ordeal.

When he saw these tears, Rege snapped out of his distraction.

He hurriedly put the cloak over Jian Qiao and wrapped him in a soft blanket, gently wiping away the tears. He turned around, stripped off his own wet clothes, and threw them out of the tent for the knights to dry over a fire.

A hound peeked in through a gap in the door curtain to check if the two were well.

Rege quickly wrapped the cloak around him to prevent Jian Qiao from seeing that slightly hot place.

“Go.” He waved at the hound.

The hound obediently withdrew its head.

“ Don’t be afraid, we’re all right now. Let’s go out and warm ourselves by the fire.” Rege squatted down and rubbed Jian Qiao’s damp head.

He didn’t dare to hold Jian Qiao, because once he hugged the other man, his own scalding hot body would become even hotter. Jian Qiao was a spark and he was dry tinder. Jian Qiao could easily set him on fire.

The scary thing was that he hadn’t discovered this fact until today.

Jian Qiao blinked and tried several times to support his weak and aching body, but failed. He was dazed.

Rege had to lift him by his arms and help him outside to the fire.

The knights built several other fires, and one knight was holding a few pieces of clothing over a campfire to dry them. They turned their backs to the two lords so as not to see their embarrassed appearance.

Rege added logs of firewood to his own fire. Several hounds ran out of the dense woods with dead branches in their mouths, wagging their tails and running to Rege’s side.

“Good boys!” Rege stroked their heads one by one.

“Are you better now?” He tossed the dead branches onto the fire, trying to make the flames as warm as possible.

Jian Qiao tried to sit up straight but couldn’t, no matter how hard he tried. In the end he could only lean against Rege’s body. Rege hurriedly reached out a hand and hugged him halfway in his arms.

A deep sense of dread loomed over Jian Qiao like a lingering cloud. There was no way he could pull himself out of his deepest nightmare in just a few minutes.

He was scared of water, scared to death!

“Are you afraid of water?” Rege asked perceptively.

Jian Qiao hugged himself tightly and nodded.

“Why are you afraid of everything? Are you a man?” Rege snickered.

God knew that when he said this, his body was burning for Jian Qiao. He didn’t even know if Jian Qiao could be considered a man, because how could Rege react like this to another man? Of course he knew something about homosexuality, but he’d always thought it was abnormal.

But now he was abnormal too!

“Some fears cannot be overcome. I’m not you,” Jian Qiao closed his eyes and retorted weakly.

As soon as his eyes were closed, he couldn’t help thinking of the incident in his last life when he was dragged into the river by his mother. Back then he was also rescued by a kind-hearted person on the scene. When he woke up, he found himself lying alone in a hospital bed. There were no relatives around him, only a machine that kept beeping.

Outside the door, his grandma and grandpa were having a heated argument with his paternal grandparents. Their daughter had died and their grandson almost died, but all they cared about was whether they could blackmail a huge sum of money from the child’s father.

He still remembered the three things his grandma and grandpa told him when they walked into the hospital room after losing the argument.

The first sentence: “Your mother is dead.”

The second sentence: “We can’t afford you and your father’s side doesn’t want you.”

The third sentence: “Why didn’t you die together?”

He’d just broken free from the abyss of death, only to fall back into hell on earth.

Instead of a warm hug, the young and fragile boy was cut by the sharp edges of words that punctured his soul, and the wounds never healed.

This memory was like an endless chasm that devoured Jian Qiao’s bloodied heart. He was so cold his teeth were chattering, and the chill came not only from the cold wind in the valley, but from the void in his soul.

But Rege, who was next to him, was as hot as a fire.

This too-hot temperature was a deadly attraction for Jian Qiao.

“Can you hold me?” he asked suddenly.

“Huh?” Rege stared at him dumbfounded.

Jian Qiao stretched out a hand, hugged Rege’s strong and narrow waist, and asked again, “Can you give me a hug? Just for a moment.”

Feeling that his shivering body was getting colder and colder, Rege woke up as from a dream, hurriedly unfolded his legs and opened arms, scooped Jian Qiao into his embrace, and hugged him tightly from behind.

“Don’t be afraid, everything is over!” he whispered in Jian Qiao’s ear.

Jian Qiao shook his head and didn’t respond.

It wasn’t. It would never be over. The pain, the shadows, the fear, the loneliness and despair of being abandoned in the dark, would never pass.

But they could be soothed.

With this in mind, Jian Qiao fell backwards, resting all his body weight on Rege’s broad chest.

He felt safe only when he was embraced by this person, a man whose strength of mind was incomparably powerful and whose body hid a surge of explosive power.

Rege reflexively wrapped his arms around the gentleman Earl’s waist, his expression still confused, and his body got even hotter.

His hot skin made Jian Qiao, who was immersed in cold fear, experience a yearning he’d never felt before.

Jian Qiao took off his cloak almost without thinking, got into Rege’s cloak, inserted his ten fingers into Rege’s ten fingers, tugged on Rege’s arms, and wrapped them around himself tightly.

His fingers were entangled with Rege’s fingers, his hands and feet were locked with Rege’s hands and feet, his body was against his body, skin simmering against skin, body heat melting into body heat.

Rege’s hot blood boiled his cold blood.

He was completely wrapped up by Rege, and he was completely at peace.

So he pressed his cheek against Rege’s broad and burning chest, let out a gentle sigh of relief, and closed his aching eyes.

“Being held by you, warmed by you, surrounded by your scent, I won’t be afraid,” he slowly murmured.

Rege passively accepted the gentleman Earl’s proximity. Everything that touched him was so silky, so tender.

A spark fell on the dry tinder, igniting a blaze of fire.

Rege felt that he was about to burn to the point of explosion, but the gentleman Earl didn’t seem to notice a difference at all.

“Don’t you feel it?” he asked hoarsely.

“It doesn’t matter. It’s a normal reaction for men.” Jian Qiao moved a little bit, nestled deeper into Rege’s arms, and murmured, “You have a high body temperature. I need your heat.”

He was like a vine that had to wrap around a giant tree to get sunlight and rain. And Rege was his giant tree. Such behavior was no different from a vampire.

But he had no choice, because the memories of the past were constantly flashing through his mind.

Those cruel words and merciless abandonment were the demons that lived inside his heart.

“Hold me for a while, just a little longer.” Jian Qiao trembled slightly, begging in a low voice like a helpless child.

Rege was stunned, then his roiling body and wildly beating heart melted away completely.

“Yes. I’ll hold you until you let me go.”

TL Notes:

Good boys! – This was in English in the raw

Transliterated names, titles, and places—new in this chapter:

阿拉图 – Aratos – A place by the sea previously attacked by Rege. Alternatively: Aratu, Alato, Alatut