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Once the sun had traversed further in the sky, Li Lianhua found himself unceremoniously dragged to the outskirts of Xiaoyuan city, where the stone mountains rose steeply. Fang Duobing continued to shoot withering glares his way and tug on his arm when he'd occasionally be distracted by the wares sold by the market vendors and carts of goods wheeled into town.
They stopped at one of the high end bathhouses where Fang Duobing booked a private pool under his name, tossing a heavy bag of silver onto the table with a thump. Li Lianhua sauntered around the reception area eyeing the fancy decor, generally buying time.
“Come,” Fang Duobing said coldly, as the maid began to lead the way in before Li Lianhua could find an excuse to loiter outside. The hard look in the younger’s eye said that if Li Lianhua did not cooperate, it would not be below him to drag him in like the prisoner he currently is.
Li Lianhua smiled meekly at the waiting maid, before flitting his eyes to the young man and obediently following along. She eyed the two unusual guests with unspoken curiosity, but simply bowed and left after ushering them into the changing area of their private hot spring.
“Ah, Fang Shaoxia, please go ahead,” Li Lianhua prattled and gestured to the pool, eyes evading left and right, “This is too high end of an establishment, I am really not used to it.”
“Cut the nonsense,” Fang Duobing snapped, arms folded around Erya, “Strip, or I'll…throw you in clothed.”
Li Lianhua threw him a wounded look - had he let this brat hang around Di Feisheng for too long? Even their threats were beginning to sound alike…
He resigned to his fate and began to undress down to his underclothes under Fang Duobing's watchful eye. When Li Lianhua hesitated and cleared his throat, Fang Duobing shifted as if to turn his back and give him some privacy, but then remembered all the times the other man had knocked him unconscious and left him behind in the dust.
Better to be cautious when it comes to this wily old fox, he groused, “What's the matter? We're both men here.”
Though Fang Duobing's posture was rigid and stubborn, he could not hide the redness that spread on the shell of his ear.
Li Lianhua sighed, dropped all his clothing in a heap and went to rinse himself off with the pails of water by the pool. Fang Duobing diverted his eyes slightly, until Li Lianhua treaded carefully over the wet stones and submerged himself into the steaming water.
His lean body emanated quiet strength, moistened and gleaming in the pale morning sun. Dark waist length hair flowed in the ripples like fresh ink dipped in water, painting an otherworldly sight. Shrouded in the misty vapours from the natural hot spring, the man appeared inexplicably immortal-like regardless of the icy white scars that criss-crossed all over his body.
Fang Duobing stayed on guard by the pool, keeping his mind busy by mentally replaying all the times the other man had betrayed and lied to him, like a kaleidoscope of self-mockery in his head.
This proved useless when Li Lianhua turned to look up at him disarmingly, “Aren't you going to bathe? It’s quite nice in here.”
Fang Duobing feigned nonchalance as he knelt down on one knee by the edge of the pool to meet the other's gaze, and tried not to glance down at the strand of wet hair snaking down his pale neck, along his nape…
“Forget it,” he scoffed, sounding a bit faint, "I know better now than to show my back to you Doctor Li.”
“What a shame, you've paid quite an exorbitant price for this private bath too.”
“It's well worth the price when I bring you in to Baichuan Court,” he forced out a mocking smile, and then added with a hint of venom, “We can't have you keeling over and dying before then.”
Fang Duobing sprang to his feet and started to fill a separate bath tub with clean water for Li Lianhua to wash in after the soak. He tossed in a pouch of medicinal herbs he had purchased earlier and stirred through the water with his arm, sleeves rolled high. Evidently, he was greatly worried about Li Lianhua’s strange sickness after the attack from the previous night. Surely a heart disease could not produce such terrifying symptoms?
The two men remained a mere few steps apart in distance, one awkwardly soaked in the hot springs while the other occasionally glared at him menacingly, the worry concealed in a thin, brittle layer of anger.
Li Lianhua laughed bitterly in his heart; after being tricked over and over again, Fang Duobing still cared deeply for him. The dark circles and reddened puffiness of his eyes gave away the sleepless nights and gloomy, aching state of the other after their parting. Despite his harsh words, who was the one who still kept watch all night by his bedside?
He loathed to admit it to himself, that there were many things he would do for Fang Duobing’s sake had their roles been reversed, or had he been the one in danger.
Li Lianhua needn't have tried to dwell on this fact nor deny this to himself for later on, the moment news of Fang Duobing's capture had reached him had he thrown away his escape route, and forsaken his identity and freedom as Li Lianhua. Without a sliver of hesitation he headed back to the city’s west and down the dingy mines with Wenjing at the ready in his sleeve, coming to Fang Duobing’s rescue as Li Xiangyi.