The Glory After Rebirth Chapter 386 - Absence Sharpens Love

Chapter 386: Absence Sharpens Love

However, Ling Zhang, who had criticized Yuwen Tong for being sentimental about the farewell during the day, found himself unable to sleep that very night.

Though all his family were with him, and this place was his home, when he lay onto the bed, he felt he was quite unaccustomed to it. The image of each and every one of the furnis.h.i.+ngs in the Infinite Fortune Palace in which he had only stayed for a few days kept appearing in his mind. He closed his eyes. Without the familiar smell in the air, the familiar embrace, the familiar temperature, the familiar sweet-talk and tease only lovers would do, he started missing his loved one. He felt as though there was a void in his heart, and he wanted to grab something to fill it but couldn’t. Thus sleep eluded him.

The candles in his room had been put out some time ago. The only light in the room was the moonlight streaming through the crack between the window and the frame, which was accompanied by night breeze. The breeze dissolved part of his restlessness but also rendered him more awake, making it harder for him to get to sleep.

Yuwen Tong in the imperial palace couldn’t sleep either. He lay in bed with open eyes for quite a while and eventually got out of bed fretfully, changed into a skintight night-suit and went outside.

“Where are you going, Sire?” Seeing this, Yao Yi who was on night duty hurriedly followed him.

“Go to sleep,” replied Yuwen Tong sourly.

Go to sleep? Yao Yi glanced over his shoulder at the imperial bedchamber and then turned his head back to look at Yuwen Tong striding sulkily towards the front gates, baffled as to what was going on.

…

Ling Zhang tossed and turned in bed for quite a long time. Eventually, realizing that he wouldn’t be able to sleep anytime soon no matter how hard he tried, he restlessly sat up, carelessly draped a coat over his shoulders, walked outside and directly sat down onto the stairs cross-legged, looking up into the sky at the moon.

Yuwen Tong arrived only to find that Ling Zhang was gazing emptily up at the moon, a distant look on his face, pondering over something.

However, seeing Ling Zhang also couldn’t sleep, Yuwen Tong instantly felt much better. He swiftly leaped off the rooftop and landed in front of Ling Zhang. “Who are you waiting for, uh?”

Ling Zhang gave a nervous start at his sudden appearance, but the flicker of surprise and delight in his eyes was manifest. “Why are you here?”

Seeing the look on his face, Yuwen Tong inwardly gave a little snort and thought, ‘When you were in the palace, you talked about going home every day. Now you must’ve regretted coming back, given that you couldn’t sleep.’

“A moment ago, when I was in the palace, I heard you say you missed me. Despite how much I’d like to stay in my bed sleeping, I kindly came here to keep you company, so that you wouldn’t have to sit here watching the moon for a whole night.”

After saying this, he scooped up Ling Zhang from the ground. Carrying him in his arms, he let out a sigh and felt all over comfortable.

His hand on Ling Zhang’s waist moved downwards and with that he gave Ling Zhang a playful spank and said through gritted teeth, “You’re such an ungrateful little devil. Now you know how it feels to suffer from insomnia caused by a loved one’s absence, I suppose? You could’ve spared us both this ordeal.”

The spank made Ling Zhang start and he felt a faintly numb and painful sensation in his b.u.t.t. The pain was nothing, but the slap was exceptionally loud because of the quiet of the night. He was terribly embarra.s.sed and annoyed. “What are you doing?!”

Yuwen Tong gave a little snort and spanked him again. “What do you think I’m doing? This is your punishment. We would’ve have wasted so much time had you not insisted on moving out of the palace, would we?”

Ling Zhang was torn between disconcertion and guilt at these words. “That doesn’t mean you get to spank me. What if someone sees? Besides, I wasn’t suffering from sleeplessness. The moon’s beautiful tonight, and I just came out here to enjoy the moonscape. You really need to stop imagining things.”

“n.o.body would come here to see us at this late hour. You didn’t allow me to do what I wanted during the day, but now it’s night-time, so humor me,” Yuwen Tong said. “Besides, no matter how beautiful the moonscape is, it could never outs.h.i.+ne me, could it?”

Ling Zhang sniffed, “You’re such a shameless narcissist.”

Yuwen Tong’s hand which had a moment ago spanked Ling Zhang was now squeezing and kneading Ling Zhang’s b.u.t.t. “You dare deny that?”

With his b.u.t.t being kneaded, Ling Zhang involuntarily stood on tiptoe, flung his hand back and grabbed Yuwen’s. “You… Stop that.”

Yuwen Tong, who had been restless and unable to sleep for several hours, had quite some anger to vent and naturally wouldn’t let go of Ling Zhang. He freed his hand from Ling Zhang’s grip, grasped Ling Zhang’s hand and then directly lifted him bodily up, pressing him tightly against his chest. Off the ground, Ling Zhang had no choice but to wrap his legs around Yuwen Tong’s waist, his cheeks instantly flus.h.i.+ng so red as though blood was about to ooze out of them. This posture was so…!

“Put me down!” snarled Ling Zhang through gritted teeth, looking down at Yuwen Tong, trying to slacken Yuwen Tong’s grip.

Naturally Yuwen wouldn’t let him struggle free. Carrying Ling Zhang, he made towards the doors of the house. “No. Let’s go to sleep.”

As Yuwen Tong walked forward, the rubs became more obvious. Distinctly feeling Yuwen Tong’s bodily response, Ling Zhang stiffened. “You…You…”

After entering the bedroom, Yuwen Tong put him down onto the table. Sitting there, Ling Zhang found his eyes and Yuwen Tong’s on a level. The doors were closed, and there was no lighted candles in the room. With only the moonlight s.h.i.+ning through the crack between the window and the frame, the room was almost completely dark.

However, this scene aroused their desire even further. Ling Zhang grabbed the arms of Yuwen Tong’s coat, abruptly drew Yuwen Tong to him and pressed his lips onto Yuwen Tong’s.

A smile flashed across Yuwen Tong’s eyes and with that he took Ling Zhang’s face in his hands and opened his mouth to enjoy the kiss initiated by Ling Zhang.

…

Outside the house, Yao Yi and Miao s.h.i.+ba who were crouching on top of the outer wall exchanged glances, jumped off the wall at the same time, leaped onto the nearest rooftop and lay down to enjoy the moonscape.

“You should’ve believed me when I told you Sire was definitely coming here to see Childe Ling,” observed Miao s.h.i.+ba.

Yao Yi said, “I just didn’t catch on to the situation.”

Miao s.h.i.+ba gave a yawn and, looking into the sky, sighed, “It’s true what they say, ‘Absence sharpens love.’ It’s been less than a day since Sire and Childe Ling parted. Do you think I should get myself a lover to see how it feels to have my love sharpened by absence?”

Yao Yi cast a sidelong glance at him and sniffed, “You? Who would want to be your lover?”

Miao s.h.i.+ba was displeased. “Hey, I’m a handsome, elegant and eligible man, okay? If I get word out that I want a girlfriend, all the girls in this city will line up in front of my house waiting for me to pick them.”

Yao Yi rolled his eyes upwards. “You’re such a braggart. All the girls in this city? You should feel lucky if there’s one girl showing interest in you.”

Miao s.h.i.+ba, who was quite thick-skinned, believed that Yao Yi was saying this purely because he was jealous of him and wanted to dishearten him, so he was totally unaffected by these words. “My big brother said that he’d start to set me up in a couple of years so that I could start a family.”

Yao Yi said, “Miao s.h.i.+san wants you to start a family when he himself hasn’t got married yet?”

Miao s.h.i.+ba replied, “He doesn’t want to get married. What could I possibly do about it? He said he had no interest in women. I suggested he try starting a relations.h.i.+p with a guy, but he said he’s even more uninterested in men. Alas, it strikes me that my brother was probably destined to die single and alone.”

Yao Yi managed to stifle a chuckle. “Apart from anything else he’s your big brother. Shouldn’t you figure out a way to help him instead of saying he’s destined to die a bachelor?”

Miao s.h.i.+ba responded, “You know very well how scary my big brother looks when he puts on a poker face. Both men and women would be scared away by him. What would you have me do? The way I see it, he’s just like Qi San. No girls will dare get close to either of them.”

“Hey, Captain, what about you? Our status is different now, and it’s much easier than before for you to find a girl to get married and settle down – if that’s what you want.”

Yao Yi threw a glance at Miao s.h.i.+ba who had instantly steered the conversation to his personal life, and said in an even voice, “Like your big brother, I haven’t met the right person either.”

Miao s.h.i.+ba sighed, “It seems that you were destined to die single and alone just like my big brother was.”

Yao Yi, who tried to restrain himself but failed, heavily gave Miao s.h.i.+ba a smack on the head. “Shut your mouth. Don’t jinx me.”

…

While Miao s.h.i.+ba and Yao Yi were having a chit-chat on the rooftop outside. Ling Zhang and Yuwen Tong inside the bedroom had stripped, clothes strewn across the floor, the whole s.p.a.ce filled with erotic, tantalizing sounds.

Maybe because there was really lingering vexation caused by sleeplessness in them, they both had a lot of pent-up anxiety and annoyance to release, so their movements were more intense than usual.

At the stroke of midnight, they still showed no inclination to stop.

It was not until Yin Hour (3:00 a.m.) that the action in the room gradually abated. Yuwen Tong toweled Ling Zhang who was all sweaty, pulled the comforter over him, drew him into his embrace and suggested, “You should move back to the palace and wait until the day before the wedding day to come back here.”

Ling Zhang shook his head. “I can’t do that. I’ve already come back home. How could I break my word? If I do that, what would my paternal grandfather and maternal grandfather think of me?”

Yuwen Tong let out a sigh, tightening his embrace. “It seems I’ll have to go to the trouble of coming here every night before the wedding.”

Ling Zhang slightly s.h.i.+fted his position. “You work so late every day. Maybe you should stay in the palace tomorrow night.”

Yuwen Tong said, “If I stay there, I’ll be lying in bed with my eyes wide open for a whole night. I might as well forget about sleep and work all night in the consultation hall.”

Ling Zhang kept silent for a few moments and then said, “How about I slip into the palace by night?”

Yuwen Tong looked down at him and giggled, “That won’t be necessary. The palace is pretty close to this place, and it takes me only a Joss-stick (a unit of time used in feudal China; how long it takes for a joss stick to burn itself out) to get here from there. I’ll try to finish work earlier and you should come back here earlier, so that we’ll have more time to sleep.”

Ling Zhang put his arms around him, making no reply.

Yuwen Tong said, “Get some sleep. There’s still two hours before daybreak.”

“Don’t make a habit of this. The next time you come here, you need to show more self-control so that we won’t stay up so late. You barely had any sleep,” breathed Ling Zhang.

“Okay,” answered Yuwen Tong. In fact, if Ling Zhang was in his arms, a two-hour sleep would refresh him fully; if he was alone, he would feel drained no matter how long he slept.

The two of them talked for a while, their voices gradually trailing away. After another few moments, Ling Zhang drifted off. The long s.e.x had been quite tiring.

Yuwen Tong looked earnestly at him, recalling that back at the time when he’d been in the north-west, the separation between the two of them had also been quite tough for him, but not as tough as the couple of hours before he came here earlier this night. Maybe the few hours had been exceptionally unbearable because he’d been separated from Ling Zhang knowing that Ling Zhang was in a place he could reach in a very short time, or because his tolerance to separation from Ling Zhang had been declining. When he’d been lying in the imperial bedchamber earlier this night, the faintly cool night breeze had felt as though it were cutting into his skin, and it’d been so cold that his insides had seemed to be shuddering.

Holding Ling Zhang in his arms, he gingerly kissed him for a while, feeling that Ling Zhang had become thinner lately. It was not very noticeable, but as he had Ling Zhang in his embrace while sleeping every night, he could immediately feel it when the touch of a part of Ling Zhang’s body was different. Recently his workload had been particularly heavy, and there always seemed to be an endless list of things to do. He hoped that the situation would improve after the wedding ceremony, and he wanted Ling Zhang to eat more and at least make his face full again – and his waist and b.u.t.t, too. Anyway, Ling Zhang needed to eat more.