Ch54 - Yang Chun Noodles

Jing Shao tightly hugged the man in his arms. Scenes from his previous life in prison kept appearing in front of his eyes, like a drawn curtain, and causing bursts of fear. Today, if he had been just one step late, his Jun Qing might have become a ghost under that knife. 

“Wang Ye, the military doctor has come.” The right protectorate general had dragged the military doctor over with him, and when he ran over in a panic, he saw the military advisor leaning against the Wang Ye’s chest. What an ambiguous position!

The left protectorate general had also followed him in, and saw how the right protectorate general looked like he had been struck by lightning. He quickly nudged him with his elbow.

Mu Hanzhang saw people come in, and released Jing Shao’s hand.

Jing Shao looked up at the military doctor and said, “Are you still not coming over?!” When the prince went out on his campaign, the imperial physicians had specially picked a younger imperial physician to accompany the army, so the medical skills of this military doctor were just barely trustworthy. 

“Yes!” The military doctor hurriedly stepped forward. Putting his medicine box to one side, he took in Mu Hanzhang’s situation, then stretched out his hand to pull open his lapel.

“What are you doing?!” Jing Shao said as he grabbed the hand that was reaching for his Wang Fei’s chest and glared at him with red eyes.

“Wang… Wang Ye, Chen has to pull open his lapel to examine the wound.” Startled by Cheng Wang’s glare, the military doctor stuttered a little.

When Jing Shao heard this, he immediately wasn’t happy. He didn’t want to reveal his Wang Fei’s body to anyone else! But there was no other way. It was important to treat the wound as soon as possible, so he took a deep breath and lifted his hand to personally undo the lapel of the person in his arms.

“Ssss…” Naturally, there was a huge rip in the garment at the location of the wound. The garment was already stuck to the skin because of the blood, and it hurt when the cloth was pulled away. Mu Hanzhang couldn’t help lightly sucking in a breath.

Jing Shao immediately didn’t dare move. He carefully lifted the ragged cloth, tore it open, and quickly peeled it away to reveal Mu Hanzhang’s shoulder, dyed red with blood. But Jing Shao then saw that the three-cun long wound ran from Mu Hanzhang’s shoulder to his clavicle, and was still bleeding incessantly. It looked rather ferocious.

The military doctor was terrified by Cheng Wang’s imposing manner. He didn’t dare touch Mu Hanzhang, so he only came up to him and examined the wound carefully. “Reporting to Wang Ye, fortunately, he dodged just in time. This knife wound didn’t hit the veins or any internal organs. Just applying medicine and bandaging it will be enough.” There weren’t many good medicinal herbs in the army camp; moreover, this wasn’t some delicate relative of the imperial family, so the doctor also didn’t prescribe any decoction for nourishing the blood and so on.

Jing Shao looked at the pale, handsome face of the man in his arms. His heart was in great pain. The wound was so big, and they even had to march in a few days. The road was bumpy and definitely wasn’t conducive for healing. 

Seeing that Wang Ye didn’t say anything, the military doctor took out the Jin Chuang medicine for treating wounds from his medicine box.

“Tell the guards to bring in a basin of hot water. All of you leave.” Jing Shao snatched the medicine away directly, and didn’t give the military doctor any chance to explain how to apply it, before he waved his hand and drove everyone out.

He gently put the man in his arms back on the bed. When Jing Shao got up to get something, he saw that the left and right protectorate generals were still standing there like two big wooden poles, and suddenly his face went cold. “There is a great mess in the camp now. What are you two doing still standing here?”

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“Ai ai, why are you ignoring me?” The right protectorate general tried to kick the left protectorate general’s butt. However, he was being pulled along by the arm, and his legs were too long to kick a target so close.

“If you stand there and talk, Wang Ye can still hear you,” the left protectorate general said expressionlessly. 

“Ah!” The right protectorate general cried out in fear and sped up as he pulled the left protectorate general along and quickly ran away.

—

Jing Shao soaked a piece of soft silk in warm water and carefully wiped away the blood around the wound. Instead of using the medicine given by the military doctor, he took out a small green jade bottle; this medicine wouldn’t increase the pain when it was applied, and would also quickly stop the bleeding.

“Don’t you still have that western medicine? Use that one.” Mu Hanzhang raised his uninjured right arm to stop Jing Shao from opening the bottle. The war was a more urgent priority, and they couldn’t just pitch camp at any time. Although the medicine was good, it wouldn’t speed up the healing. Mu Hanzhang remembered that the medicine which Jing Shao had given him for his lower lip on their wedding day could heal wounds quickly, and it wouldn’t affect the army’s march. 

“No way!” Jing Shao refused without even thinking about it. He washed his hands in the warm water, poured some of the clear ointment from the green jade bottle onto his fingertips, and gently applied it to the wound. “That medicine will increase the pain several times over; you won’t be able to stand it.”

When the cool ointment was applied to the injury, it immediately relieved the burning pain of the knife wound. Mu Hanzhang closed his eyes slightly and his breathing relaxed.

Jing Shao leaned over and gave him a gentle kiss. Resisting the acridness in his own eyes, he wrapped the wound with practiced hands and quickly covered Mu Hanzhang with a quilt.

Mu Hanzhang turned his face to see Jing Shao’s eyes full of heartache. “I’m ok, you can go sort out the mess now.” 

Jing Shao held one of Mu Hanzhang’s hands that was outside the quilt and slowly rubbed the center of his palm over and over again; he didn’t get up or speak.

After being reborn, he had never taken anything for granted ever again, but this kind of thing had still happened because he had been too arrogant. Now that the war against the vassal states was happening three years ahead of schedule, many things would be different. The relatively young kings of the southwest and southeast would have different methods and ways of thinking. The horse cavalry today could be considered the secret treasure of the Southeast King. In this life, he was actually willing to lend them to the Southwest King to use, which was truly outside of Jing Shao’s expectations.

Jing Shao pressed the back of that hand to his face. What world or imperial throne – he had long stopped wanting those things. In this life, what he genuinely wanted was only to stay with Jun Qing forever. If he lost this man, what would be the meaning of this life?

The softness he was holding suddenly turned to hold his own hand. Jing Shao returned to his senses and looked up at him. 

Mu Hanzhang looked at such a dispirited Jing Shao, who was like a little beast that had been wounded and who was clinging to him as if he were his only thing left in the world, unwilling to let go. He couldn’t help but feel his heart ache a little, and his lips curved gently. “Go and help me find Xiao Huang. It was a mess just now, and I don’t want him to be lost.”

Jing Shao reluctantly smiled and nodded as he got up and went out to look for the little tiger; Jun Qing simply didn’t know how painful it was when he used those bloodless lips to smile at Jing Shao.

It took a long time and a lot of effort before Jing Shao was able to find the tiger cub hiding inside a box. Jing Shao felt that the thing was too dirty, and after shaking the gray ball in his hands, he threw it to a soldier to bathe, then went to personally deal with camp affairs.

After carefully checking the clothes and weapons on the bodies of those cavalry soldiers, Jing Shao determined that these were the men of the Southeast King. It was understandable that he would take advantage of the main forces being away to launch a surprise attack on the camp, but it was hard to understand why they had targeted a minor military advisor, even if he was a budding talent. 

“Not even one survived?” Jing Shao frowned.

“Those horse archers were too fierce; we absolutely couldn’t leave any of them alive.” The right protectorate general was still horrified when he thought of all the people that their swords had cut down that morning. That kind of fighting style, without care for their own lives, revealed that they were only focused on killing a certain person. It was the first time he had seen such a thing.

“Repair the camp, set up another line of defense outside the camp, and add another patrol at night.” Jing Shao took the count of casualties and injuries from the left protectorate general and waved the two people away.

The guard came in to deliver the sundried little tiger. After he finished looking at the things on hand, Jing Shao picked up Xiao Huang and went back to the imperial tent. 

The man on the bed was already asleep, and the setting sun which slunk into the tent shone on his face. He was still rather pale, perhaps because the wound hurt, and his sleep wasn’t peaceful, judging from his slight frown.

“Wawu!” After being tossed about for a long time, the little tiger saw its master and cried out excitedly.

“Shhh…” Jing Shao gave the little tiger a slap on the head and told it to be quiet. However, the furball in his hands didn’t understand at all and struggled, wanting to escape to the bed.

The person on the bed slowly opened his eyes. Looking at the two rascals fighting with each other, he couldn’t help laughing, and slowly sat up. 

“Don’t move too much!” Jing Shao hurriedly went over to support him. The tiger seized the opportunity to jump onto the bed and roll around on the quilt before it jumped onto Mu Hanzhang’s leg under the quilt and scratched at it.

Not long after, the soldier who delivered the meals came in with two bowls of noodles. “Military advisor, the noodles are done.”

“You suddenly wanted to eat noodles?” Jing Shao lifted his eyebrows. He remembered that Jun Qing liked rice and didn’t eat noodles very much. After bringing a bowl over, Mu Hanzhang reached out for it, but Jing Shao evaded him. “I’ll feed you.”

Mu Hanzhang immediately blushed. “The wound is on my shoulder, it won’t be a hindrance.” He was already twenty years old; how could he let someone else feed him! 

“No way.” Seeing that Mu Hanzhang’s pale face finally had some color, Jing Shao’s mood also couldn’t help but brighten. He smiled and picked up some nice and warm noodles with the chopsticks and held them to Mu Hanzhang’s lips. “Eat while it’s hot.”

Mu Hanzhang was helpless, so he opened his mouth and took a bite. Then, he watched with wide eyes as Jing Shao ate the other half of the noodles he had just taken a bite out of.

“Wang… Wang Ye…” Mu Hanzhang looked at him blankly.

Pleased, Jing Shao rubbed his face against the face of his dumbfounded Wang Fei, and then went on to finish the whole bowl of noodles with satisfaction, following the pattern of “you have a bite, I’ll have a bite”. Although it was just Yang Chun noodles cooked with some green vegetables, Jing Shao felt like they were the best noodles he had ever had since childhood. 

The little tiger in his arms saw people eating, so it crawled onto Jing Shao’s arm, and clinging to it, the cub stood up and stuck its fluffy head out to take a look in the bowl. Jing Shao stuffed half a piece of noodle into the tiger’s mouth. The little tiger chewed on it, and not liking the taste, spat it out.

Night fell, and because of today’s chaos, the barracks still hadn’t completely settled down as people continued to be busy everywhere.

Mu Hanzhang lay in Jing Shao’s arms and frowned slightly. The wound was painful. He couldn’t sleep at all, so he sat up slowly.

“Jun Qing, what’s the matter?” Jing Shao’s arms were empty. He immediately woke up with a start, and seeing that the person by his side was still there, he sat up with a sigh of relief. 

“I can’t sleep. Let’s go for a walk by the river,” Mu Hanzhang said as he got out of bed and got dressed, and also hung his jade flute at his waist.

Jing Shao was stunned for a moment. Afraid that Jun Qing would reopen the wound, he went to help him put on his outer clothes. Although he didn’t know why his Wang Fei wanted to go to the river in the middle of the night to get some air, his brain was still half-asleep, so he thought that they might as well go out for a walk.

The camp was always pitched near water, so there was a small river right behind it. The moon shone on the shallow water, and the pebbles at the bottom of the river could be clearly seen.

They walked by the river for a while, hand in hand, but beads of cold sweat started to dot Mu Hanzhang’s forehead, and he had to sit down on a rock. 

Jing Shao felt his sweaty forehead. “Don’t walk anymore. I’ll carry you back after we sit for a while.”

Mu Hanzhang took a slow breath, looked up, smiled, and said, “Do you know what day it is today?”

“What day?” Jing Shao was stunned. He looked up at the waning moon in the sky and couldn’t remember what day today was.

But Mu Hanzhang smiled and didn’t answer. He took the jade flute from his waist and said, “I’ll play you a tune.”