A Scumbag Always Gets What He Deserves

41: The desert after the rain

Once Jian Qiao resolved on something, he was certain to do it.

Aside from eating and drinking, he spent all of his time asleep. His breath grew weaker and weaker until the rise and fall of his chest was nearly imperceptible. His servants were so frightened he would die without making a sound that they stretched out their trembling hands to test his breathing.

Queen Moen often came to see him. Each time she left her face was more solemn than before.

Jian Qiao was so thin that only a few bones remained, but his face was as beautiful as ever.

It was a type of beauty that was frozen and deathly still, a dying beauty that bloomed just to the point of fading. The life cycle of a flower is often short. This is its destiny.

And Jian Qiao was no exception. Most people like him do not live long.

Queen Moen waited every day for Jian Qiao's servants to deliver the news that he had died. Miraculously, he survived day after day. He lay in bed, sunken under a thick quilt, breathing so little he was like the living dead.

But every morning when the mist cleared and light shone through the window, he opened his eyes with difficulty and asked, "Did Rege come back today?"

When he got a negative answer, he closed his eyes and didn't wake again for the rest of the day. The servants could only pinch open his mouth and pour in the porridge and medicine.

In the past, he was tormented by insomnia and nightmares every night. Sleep was what he dreaded most. Now he could sleep as long as he wanted. He'd finally overcome his greatest fear, only to fall into an even greater one.

He was terrified of losing Rege.

He was like a faint spark buried deep, deep in the ashes. The ashes made him despair, but they also kept his residual heat from disappearing.

Even Queen Moen was shocked by his tenacity.

He seemed to live just to wait for Rege.

Gradually, Queen Moen's hatred for him faded away. Such a person who loved but didn't know it—she could only pity him.

One day before the arrival of winter, Jian Qiao's servant rushed into the hotel like a whirlwind, flung himself down on his knees beside the bed, and said while panting for breath, "Master, wake up, Lord Rege is back! Master, wake up! The man you've been waiting for is back! Gloria has won!"

At that time it was nearly dusk, a kind of witching hour.

Jian Qiao's mind had long ago fallen into a dark abyss from which he didn't awaken. He woke only for a moment every morning when the first light of day appeared, and with dry, cracked lips asked for news of Rege. His long-depleted life force had to be scrimped and saved to make it last.

He knew the longer he was awake the shorter he would live, and then he wouldn't be able to wait for Rege.

His eyelashes trembled, but finally he returned to stillness.

The manservant shouted several times but failed to rouse him, so he gave up.

That night, a carriage slowly pulled up in front of the hotel. An unusually tall man jumped down from the carriage, walked around to the side of the building, and raised his hands to grasp the downspout pipe, as if he wanted to climb up. But he hardly climbed at all before he wrinkled his forehead, revealing an expression of pain.

"Let the innkeeper take you up. Your body is covered in wounds," said an old voice from the carriage.

The man agreed, and when he passed the candle-lit window, the light revealed a handsome face. It was none other than Rege.