Li Yu had originally come out to relieve himself, and now feeling uncomfortable and impatient, he stamped his feet in the cold wind and casually pushed the door open. “Let me check for you.”
“Eh… wait…”
The snowy wind gusted in, making the grey curtains on the canopy bed flutter noisily. Li Yu saw Deng Ying sitting on the couch and said awkwardly, “How about… I bring you another pot of hot water while I’m at it?”
Yang Wan pushed Li Yu out the door. “Go on with your business, I know what to do.”
After speaking, she directly inserted the door bolt. As she turned to walk in, her knee suddenly gave way, and her kneecap struck the cold ground, the pain bringing tears to her eyes.
Deng Ying hurriedly tried to stand, but Yang Wan pressed down on his knee and stood up by herself. “Stay seated, I just lost my balance, it’s nothing.”
As she spoke, she moved the low table from the foot of the bed, rolled up her sleeves, and sat down, taking out a package of nuts wrapped in oiled paper from her bosom and offering it to him. “Before I came, I was helping the young prince shell these. He’s quite skilled – at least half of these were shelled by him.”
Deng Ying looked at the oiled paper package in Yang Wan’s hand but didn’t take it.
“Aren’t you afraid the prince will kill me one day?”
Yang Wan started. “How could that happen?”
Deng Ying lowered his head. “If the prince learns in the future that he once served a servant, what will he think?”
“It won’t happen.”
Yang Wan placed the package on her knee. “Not while I’m here.”
Deng Ying smiled and shook his head.
Yang Wan said, “But if you won’t take these, I’ll take them back. When I’m better, I’ll shell them for you again, absolutely by myself, and won’t let anyone help…”
Halfway through speaking, she suddenly realized she had let something slip, and quickly looked down at Deng Ying’s ankle. “Is the water still hot?”
“Still hot.”
“Hmm… should I find Li Yu to bring another pot of hot water?”
“Yang Wan.”
Deng Ying reached out and caught her arm. “Let me look at your leg.”
Yang Wan sat back down somewhat helplessly, rubbing her hands. “I just fell.”
Deng Ying didn’t respond to her words but bent down and gently lifted her skirt hem.
She wore moon-white silk drawers with subtle embroidered patterns along the edges.
The silk was smooth, and with a gentle lift, it reached her knee.
Deng Ying carefully held her trouser leg and moved the candle closer. “Were you punished by kneeling?”
Yang Wan pressed her lips together, and after a while, nodded. “You can tell?”
Deng Ying put down the candle and looked at her seriously. “Of course. If it were Li Yu, he might even be able to tell how long you knelt.”
Yang Wan looked down at her knee.
Though the swelling had subsided somewhat by now, the bruising beneath the skin from damaged capillaries still looked frightening.
Yang Wan tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “The way you say that, were you also punished by He Yixian and the others?”
Deng Ying slowly lowered Yang Wan’s trouser leg and straightened up. “Not yet, though last year during the court trials, I did kneel for an hour or two.”
After speaking, he moved his leg from the basin and put his shoes and socks back on.
Yang Wan looked at his bent back and said softly, “Today was the first time I truly understood what punishment means.”
Deng Ying stood up, took out the medicine Yang Wan had given him earlier from the cabinet, and turned to her. “Sit on my bed, it’ll be easier to apply the medicine.”
Yang Wan made a sound of agreement and sat on Deng Ying’s bed, continuing, “This time I angered Senior Lady Jiang. She’s punished me occasionally before, but always with tasks, never hurting my dignity. This time, she made me kneel outside the Senior Ladies’ Office to reflect…”
As she spoke, her voice began to choke up.
Deng Ying remembered how she had pulled at his sleeve and tried desperately to hide behind him when Zheng Yuejia had bowed to her that time, and couldn’t help asking, “Does this matter greatly to you?”
Yang Wan didn’t answer.
When she was first brought home by Yang Lun, she had also been forced to kneel in the ancestral hall for several days, but her rebellious spirit prevented her from taking it as punishment. She had lounged about carelessly in front of the maids watching her, putting on a show of repentance before “ancestors” she didn’t even know. Back then, she hadn’t felt humiliated or sad at all, because she could still look down upon these “feudal dregs” from her superior position, finding them ignorant and even somewhat amusing.
But after witnessing Deng Ying’s forbearance and his strict self-discipline in daily life, she gradually understood. His humble acceptance of these imposed disciplines, and his willingness to be bound by Yang Lun, Bai Huan, and Yi Lang, was because the “scholarly heart” he had sworn to protect was itself part of those disciplines.
Therefore, these feudal ethics that later generations scorned, these rules that violated personal freedom, restricted human emotions, and distinguished between classes, were also the foundation of Deng Ying’s self-cultivation.
Yang Wan didn’t like this backward civilization that suppressed human nature, but she gradually came to understand that by Deng Ying’s side, she couldn’t look down upon these rules from a position of superiority – to do so would be to “disrespect” Deng Ying.
This time, the punishment that had once fallen on Deng Ying had fallen on her as well.
Unlike Yang Lun’s “punishment” in the ancestral hall, Yang Wan now understood Deng Ying’s state of mind.
At that moment, she had a thought so absurd it left her speechless – she wanted to hug Deng Ying or have him hug her.
But such confused, illogical thoughts were not something she dared express to Deng Ying.
“No, I don’t mind, I just… ouch…”
Hearing her cry of pain, Deng Ying quickly lifted his hand. “Was I too rough?”
Yang Wan smiled. “You might as well say I’m too delicate.”
She looked at Deng Ying crouching before her. “I think what we have now is good.”