RUHIP Chapter 011

For just that brief instant… had this fool actually warmed his heart?

So even a fool can flirt… And when he does, he’s ridiculously cute.

The moment the word “cute” surfaced in his mind, Lin Ye felt as though he’d been struck by lightning. He stopped in his tracks.

Yun Jiu looked at him in confusion.

Lin Ye suddenly turned back and fixed Yun Jiu with an unusually serious stare, looking him up and down several times.

How exactly does this guy have anything to do with being “cute”?

Seeing Lin Ye’s solemn expression, Yun Jiu unconsciously became serious as well.

So there they stood on the country path, patches of snow still scattered across the ground. Beside the endless, neatly ordered fields, the two tall youths faced each other from barely a step apart, their eyes locked.

A gust of cold winter wind swept over their heads.

Yun Jiu shivered involuntarily, then blinked his eyes, which had begun to sting from the cold.

Lin Ye suddenly burst into laughter.

He was about to die laughing. How could there possibly be someone this amusing?

He had only been staring at Yun Jiu to convince himself that the man wasn’t actually cute. Instead, Yun Jiu had met his gaze with an equally serious expression. Perhaps because he was too nervous, Yun Jiu hadn’t blinked once while staring straight at Lin Ye. If the freezing wind hadn’t irritated his eyes, he probably would have stared until tears formed.

Looking at Yun Jiu now—with reddened eyes and a puzzled expression as he continued staring at him—Lin Ye gradually stopped laughing.

How long had it been since I’d laughed like this?

…This fool really is adorable.

Yun Jiu rubbed his sore eyes, still unable to understand what Lin Ye had found so funny. But he assumed Lin Ye had been laughing at him.

Suddenly, Lin Ye stepped closer and covered Yun Jiu’s eyes with his hand.

“It’ll be better in a moment.”

When Lin Ye’s warm palm rested over his eyes, Yun Jiu’s cheeks immediately flushed. The discomfort in his eyes disappeared almost instantly.

Just as Lin Ye was about to remove his hand, Yun Jiu hurriedly grabbed his wrist and awkwardly lied,

“N-Not yet… It still isn’t better. Keep… keep rubbing them a little longer.”

Lin Ye looked at the lying Yun Jiu with amusement.

Rubbing? He was using his wood-element ability to heal him, not giving him a massage. A tiny irritation like that only required the briefest touch to cure. Yet this silly fool had actually learned to lie.

Still, seeing how earnestly Yun Jiu was trying to keep him there, Lin Ye decided to pretend he hadn’t noticed.

So he left his hand in place for a while longer.

When he tried to pull it away again, Yun Jiu still refused to let go.

Yun Jiu’s hands were rough. Resting against the back of Lin Ye’s hand, the thick calluses on his palms could be felt clearly.

Lin Ye’s dark eyes lingered on Yun Jiu’s face.

Over the past few days, he had more or less realized how Yun Jiu felt about him.

The problem was… he still didn’t understand his own feelings toward Yun Jiu.

Because of that, he didn’t know how he should respond.

Compared to the other ge’er who admired him, Yun Jiu’s affection was much more straightforward—so obvious that anyone could see it at a glance.

He smiled simply because Lin Ye was happy.

He became hurt because of a single sentence from Lin Ye.

But it still wasn’t the right time.

Until he understood his own heart completely, Lin Ye felt it would be better not to give Yun Jiu too much hope.

With that thought, he gently withdrew his hand and, meeting Yun Jiu’s slightly disappointed gaze, said,

“If we keep delaying like this, we won’t reach town before the day’s over.”

Only then did Yun Jiu remember why they had come out in the first place. The sadness that had flashed across his face vanished immediately after hearing Lin Ye’s explanation.

The two of them quickened their pace toward town.

Lin Ye naturally walked very fast, but remembering that Yun Jiu wasn’t in good health, he deliberately slowed his pace.

The walk from Yunjia Village to town usually took over two hours. Although Yun Jiu had a weak constitution, he’d spent years doing hard labor, so walking itself wasn’t tiring for him.

Especially not when he was beside Lin Ye.

Listening to Lin Ye occasionally asking whether he was tired or if he needed to rest, Yun Jiu felt as though his whole body was filled with strength.

When they finally reached town, the first thing Lin Ye did was buy Yun Jiu two sets of ready-made clothes.

He chose padded cotton winter clothing of good quality. Each set cost forty wen.

Because Yun Jiu was rather tall, he could only buy men’s styles for him. Men’s clothing was always plainer and less attractive than the styles made for ge’er, but Yun Jiu didn’t mind in the slightest.

Just having new clothes to wear already made him incredibly happy.

After that, Lin Ye took Yun Jiu to buy three quilts, which cost a total of one hundred and eighty wen.

The moment Yun Jiu heard the price, he immediately told Lin Ye that one quilt would be enough.

But Lin Ye replied, “This is being paid for with your own money. The one tael of silver we got from Yun Dali’s family yesterday belonged to you in the first place.”

Yun Jiu’s stubborn streak surfaced.

He didn’t want Lin Ye to think he was the kind of person who liked taking advantage of others.

“Then how about this?” Lin Ye suggested. “Whenever my family needs help in the future, you can come over and work it off as repayment.”

In truth, there wasn’t much at the Lin household that required Yun Jiu, a ge’er, to help with. Lin Ye was simply making up an excuse to reassure him.

But Yun Jiu, being completely honest by nature, took those words seriously.

To him, this meant that in the future he would finally have a legitimate reason to visit the Lin family… and see Lin Ye.

Afterward, they went to the grain and oil shop, buying a large pile of daily necessities—firewood, rice, flour, cooking oil, salt, and other household items.

For the rice and flour, Lin Ye deliberately bought half good quality and half cheaper quality, mixing them together so the food wouldn’t taste too bad while still saving money.

Once they had purchased everything they needed, the two of them rode the village ox cart back home.

After returning, they divided the work between them. One organized the kitchen while the other cleaned and arranged the bedroom. Before long, the little house had been put into neat and comfortable order.

Once Yun Jiu’s affairs had been settled, Lin Ye realized that the New Year was almost upon them.

He didn’t have much silver left, so to ensure they could celebrate the holiday properly, he decided to sell another batch of medicinal herbs.

On the twenty-fifth day of the twelfth lunar month, Lin Ye got up early as usual. He carefully unlocked the room next door.

He normally kept this room locked—not because he was guarding it from Lin A’mo. Lin A’mo already knew about the medicinal herbs. In fact, it had been Lin A’mo’s idea to keep the room locked, just in case someone accidentally wandered inside. It wasn’t because they feared theft. They simply wanted to avoid unnecessary trouble.

Inside the room stood rows of wooden shelves, each filled with potted plants. Most of the medicinal herbs were grown in pots, but some species weren’t suitable for container planting. For those, Lin Ye had dug out part of the room’s floor, leaving nearly half the room as exposed soil where numerous herbs were planted directly into the ground.

Whenever Lin Ye wasn’t around, Lin A’mo would occasionally open the room to let in fresh air.

Lin A’mo had often wondered how Lin Ye managed to keep all these plants growing so well, even in the middle of winter. Lin Ye’s explanation was simple: his family had once been flower growers, and cultivating delicate plants had been their livelihood.

Lin A’mo had no reason to doubt him. Back when he had still lived with his former family, there had been an exceptionally skilled gardener who could bring flowers and plants that were on the verge of dying back to life within just a few days.