บท 548: He Should Have Known
Leng Jin Yu stared at him blankly. Right. How had the demon king fallen in love with him after Jinde raised him? That was … He closed his eyes and sighed. No wonder Jinde didn't want to talk about it.
"It must have been terrible for you. You finally had something like a family of your own and then …"
Jinde stared at his husband without blinking. His lips parted but he didn't know what to say. Finally, he could only repeat his lover's words. "A family of my own?"
Leng Jin Yu squeezed his hand. "Don't look at me like this."
"Like this?"
"As if you expect me to get angry. I'm not Chun Yin himself. He might have but I certainly won't. Not only that, this was long before we even met, I think it's understandable."
"Understandable?" Jinde took his hand back and sat up straight, looking at Leng Jin Yu as if this was a completely foreign concept to him.
"Don't you think so? Chun Yin left you. No, even worse. He betrayed you with somebody else and then he had the family with her that you desired. It must have felt … like a slap in the face."
Jinde laughed hollowly. "It did."
"You see? After doing that, which right would he have had to criticize any decision you made? You wanted a family but he didn't even let you have a lover. Not him, not any other man. And then he even had the child you wanted."
Jinde nodded. "Yes. I've always thought that … If he left her … I certainly would have taken care of Qiu Ling as if he was my own child. I wouldn't have minded at all. And he should have known that." Jinde's voice broke. He tried to gulp those tears down but it didn't work. They finally spilled over. "He should have known. He should have known me well enough. Didn't we spend almost all of our lives together? How could he not think of that?"
Leng Jin Yu stared at him, his thoughts coming to a jarring halt. There was way too much information in these few sentences. His lips moved but he couldn't say anything. Chun Yin's child had been called 'Qiu Ling'? That … was probably a strange coincidence, right? It certainly couldn't be that the son he had had in his past life was the quirky dragon king that had tried to kill him twice, could it?
Well, he couldn't worry about that anyway. At least not for now. Jinde's eyes were wet with tears that constantly spilled over and fell onto the surface of the water in the tub. His lips trembled slightly and his fingers were curled around the edge of the tub as if they wanted to dig into the wood. It was a pitiful sight.
Leng Jin Yu didn't think any longer. He got up and knelt down in front of the tub, gently putting his arms around Jinde's shoulders and resting his forehead against Jinde's. "I'm sorry. That shouldn't have happened. I wish I could tell you why he did so to at least give you a reason you can live with."
"That's also my fault." Jinde let go of the tub and instead grabbed Leng Jin Yu's robe. "You can't leave me, do you hear that?"
"I won't. I was worried about not finding you before. It was my luck to meet you here. The best thing that happened to me in my whole life. Naturally, I won't let go of you ever again." He cupped Jinde's cheek with his hand and kissed the other side of his face, interrupting the trail of his tears. "Don't cry, alright? You're making my heart hurt. What he did wasn't right. It made you suffer. But it's in the past. You have me now." He kissed the rest of the tears away and turned to the other side.
Slowly, Jinde calmed down. He let go of Leng Jin Yu's robe but hugged his neck instead. "Stay with me, yes?"
"Of course."
They stayed together in silence and Leng Jin Yu gently caressed his lover's back.
"Anyway, what happened with Jin Ling? You just picked him up like that?"
Jinde didn't answer at first. He stared at Leng Jin Yu's profile and wondered if maybe this was the right moment to tell him the whole truth. In the end, he still lowered his lids and pretended the thought had never crossed his mind. "Yes. That was after Chun Yin left the capital. I was … alone. No, not just that. I was … lonely. Terribly lonely. It was a type of loneliness that neither my advisers nor Xin Lan could fill, although he stayed with me every day.
"Jin Ling … When I held him in my arms for the first time, I felt like life wasn't as bad. I felt that … I could still continue going forward. Even if there wasn't Chun Yin, my life would still have a reason.
"For a long time, Jin Ling was the only thing that kept me going. I guess you could say he saved my life. Without him … Who knows if I would have been able to take it? Maybe the loneliness would have gotten too much someday."
"So you raised him until …"
"Until he came of age, yes. He was a sweet child. Really cute. Not as much when he got older but still very lovable. He started to get a little difficult with other people though. I never would have guessed the reason though."
"He had already fallen in love with you at that time?" Leng Jin Yu tried to look into his lover's face but Jinde had leaned his head against his shoulder and didn't look up.
"Mn. Though I can't say when it happened. I only know … that it very likely had to do with Jian Heng. Ah, that bastard. Taking Chun Yin from me. Then taking Jin Ling from me too. Just what did he have against me?"
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