Chapter 46: Childhood Memories

Oh, good grief, what kind of nonsense is this? Let alone the fact that I am not Liu Yiqing, even if I were, so what? Not only does Ma Wencai already have someone in his heart, but he also has Zhu Yingtai as his betrothed, and yet he actually asks me to give him a chance? This man's appetite is truly astonishing.

Though Ma Wencai's actions today moved me just a tiny bit, I am not an ancient person after all; I could never accept a man with multiple wives and concubines. Besides, I only have five years in this spacetime, so how could I possibly decide Liu Yiqing's lifelong matters for her?

I offered an awkward laugh. "Brother Wencai, stop joking around and drink your medicine first."

"I am not joking," Ma Wencai suddenly grabbed my hand.

"Ah!" It startled me so much that the entire bowl of medicine magnificently splashed all over Ma Wencai's upper garments.

I hurriedly took a handkerchief to wipe him down. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. Let me help you get a change of clothes."

"No need," Ma Wencai said, laboriously pulling his collar together.

I rummaged through Ma Wencai's wardrobe, retrieved a white undergarment, and handed it to him by the bedside. "Change into this."

"Really, there's no need," Ma Wencai wrapped himself tightly in the quilt.

"How can that do? You're already running a fever; how can you sleep in wet clothes? Hurry up and get up." I pulled back Ma Wencai's quilt and hauled him up from the bed. "Are you going to take it off or not?"

Ma Wencai averted his face, leaning against the bed without moving. Damn it, if you won't take it off, this young lady will do it for you! I reached out to untie the fasteners of his outer garment, but he gripped my hand in a tight, unyielding grasp.

Helpless, I sat down on the edge of the bed. "I know why you refuse to take off your clothes. You don't want me to see the injuries on your body, right?" I looked into Ma Wencai's face, catching a trace of sorrow leaking from his eyes.

"That day at Miss Xia's bamboo lodge, I saw them all." Ma Wencai's grip relaxed slightly. He took the clothes from my hands and murmured, "I'll do it myself."

There were five fresh scars across Ma Wencai's back. This Prefect Ma was truly ruthless, inflicting such heavy blows upon his own son. I truly wonder if the two of them share some deep-seated enmity. "Miss Xia said these injuries were all inflicted by your father. Why on earth did he beat you?"

Ma Wencai leaned against the headboard with a bitter smile. "Because I was useless. I always brought him shame. When I was seven, I lost an archery competition to the son of a minor bailiff. When my father found out, he flew into a rage. That was the first time he ever beat me. After whipping me with a riding crop, he made me kneel in the ancestral hall for a day and a night to repent to our forebears."

Good grief, to have such a father—did he view his son merely as a tool for competition? I was also my father's tool, a tool to fulfill his unreached dreams.

"Just because you lost a single match, he treated you like that? What about your mother? Did she just sit by and do nothing?"

"My mother... my mother..." Before Ma Wencai could finish, tears fell from his eyes. He choked out, "To protect me, my mother took blows from my father as well, and even... even had her face disfigured by scalding tea."

"From that day on, I believed that as long as I diligently practiced martial arts, my mother and I would never be beaten by my father again. But I was wrong. Once something is broken, it can never be mended again. My father began to dally in the outside world of worldly pleasures, ignoring my mother day after day. Whenever I made the slightest mistake, he would lash me with his whip."

"My home was destroyed, and the affections among family members completely withered. Those who persist unchanged can only endure eternal suffering, or choose to leave forever. My mother... my mother hanged herself with a white silk sash in the year I turned eight."

"With my mother dead, there was no one left to protect me... The outside world was so dark, yet this dark cabinet was safe..."

I pulled out my handkerchief and handed it to Ma Wencai. Hearing him recount his childhood, I suddenly felt how fortunate my own childhood had been. Although I didn't have a mother either, at least I was never beaten or cursed by my father. Looking at the scars on his arms, a surge of soreness ached in my heart. Those wounds had healed, but the scars within his heart perhaps would never truly mend.

Ma Wencai wiped his face with the handkerchief, tilted his head back, and continued, "Therefore, I swore from that moment on that I, Ma Wencai, would become a strong person. I would make those who bullied and insulted me die beneath my arrows. Only thus could I protect the people around me. Yet... later on, I discovered that my mother was dead, and Yinuo had also left. I, Ma Wencai, would forever remain a person unburdened by attachments, a solitary soul."

Judging from Ma Wencai's words, the person he currently cared about most, the one who mattered most to him, was this Xia Yinuo. After all, his mother was dead and could never return, but Xia Yinuo was a living person who could accompany Ma Wencai by his side forever.

I wrung out a damp towel from the basin and wiped his face for him. "Don't be sad. Miss Xia has returned, so you aren't alone. She has always cared about you." I pointed toward the ointment on the bedside table. "Look, the medicine on your back was applied by her own hands."

Ma Wencai shook his head. "Yinuo will leave again. Her lifelong wish is simply to dwell among mountains and rivers, living the life of a free crane among idle clouds. Even if she returns home, sooner or later she will be married off to become another man's wife."

What did that mean? Could it be that Xia Yinuo was betrothed to someone as well? Why was everything so complicated?

"If Miss Xia is willing to stay here, the two of you could become husband and wife!" Didn't ancient people love forming closer ties through marriage? They didn't share the modern concept that close relatives couldn't marry.

"Yinuo is my younger sister; she will always be just my younger sister." Ma Wencai's tone was firm, not sounding like a lie at all. Could it be that the person in his heart was someone else entirely? But that didn't seem right either; when I counted them all up, there was simply no one else left.

Sigh, never mind. It was already so late, and after a whole day of turmoil, I should just go to sleep. "Brother Wencai, you're still running a fever; you shouldn't speak so much. Lie down and rest." I settled Ma Wencai comfortably, tidied up the room a bit, and went to sleep myself.

When I woke up the next day, Ma Wencai's fever had broken, but his body still seemed quite frail, so he skipped class. Xia Yinuo and Xin'er stayed in the room to take care of him.

To be honest, having to attend Tao Yuanming's lectures was something I really didn't want to do, but Liu Yitang seemed to hold Tao Yuanming in high regard, even taking Ma Wencai's seat to listen to the lecture alongside us.

Who knew what kind of scheme that old man was hatching? The academy director had asked him to teach us calligraphy, but instead, he directly handed each of us a jar of wine, saying we had to drink first before writing. Oh, my goodness, this young lady passes out after just one cup—how on earth was I supposed to write anything?

One by one, they started drinking. To my surprise, Zhu Yingtai actually held her liquor quite well, downing several cups without collapsing. The old man stared at my empty seat for a long time before asking, "Why aren't the two of you drinking?"