The Road Home

Chapter 20

Gui Xiao's hand stroked and caressed to and fro over his back. When it contacted that one spot that she had touched a dozen or more times last night, she did not make another sound.

He reached behind himself and took her wrist into his grasp. "It's normal for people in counter-terrorism to get injured."

This was not an exaggerated statement. In their squadron, there truly was not a single person who had gone without injuries. Just last year, a young soldier new to the group had fallen and injured his leg during training, but he had been quite happy about it, declaring that he had finally gotten an injury and now dared to openly say that he belonged to this squadron.

Beneath the pads of her fingers, there was a small area of skin that was obviously bumpy and uneven. Her hand would stroke over it, then double back to it yet again, her fingers drawing circles on it. It was, after all, a place that had suffered a wound, so the feel of it was different than elsewhere. And when he was being touched there, psychologically, Lu Yanchen would feel much worse.

Lu Yanchen's throat felt as if he had been smoking for an entire night, dry and also itchy.

Gui Xiao rubbed her eyes and forehead against his shirt collar, then, after a lengthy time, lifted her head to look at him. Her eyes were red, but it was not known whether that was from her rubbing or because she truly did want to cry. "Back then, you just had to absolutely insist on being a soldier. No matter what I said, you just wouldn't listen. You've had to suffer through so much..."

She was plainly quite calm, but her nose just had to start tingling like a wimp's, and her voice was quavering slightly, too.

"Tired... Let's sleep." Afraid he would be able to tell that something was not right with her, Gui Xiao rolled over and fixed her eyes on the paint-peeled table leg that was directly in the line of her gaze. She thought about this decade and more of his life from which she had been absent, and also thought about the information and news about counter-terrorism soldiers that she, over countless times, had intentionally or otherwise learned...

Her thoughts were many and varied. Yet, still he was not saying anything. It was so quiet inside this room that she could even hear the sound of her own breathing.

Having not slept the whole night, her head was aching, and before long she grew groggy. However, the racket outside produced by that young couple startled her mind back to consciousness.

The woman's voice was especially loud and high-pitched, and it drifted into this ger through the little cracks. She was complaining that the man was a madman for insisting on coming for fun to the steppe when it was smack in the middle of winter. Other people all came in the summer. She had been frozen for an entire night already, and she basically was going to die of cold here. The most psycho part was that in just a little bit, they still needed to go watch the sunrise. Sunrise her foot...

The bed gave a shake. Lu Yanchen got off it and left the ger.

When Lu Yanchen felt his way outside, his comrade was feeding a horse that he kept.

Lu Yanchen strolled over and stroked that horse's chestnut mane.

"Had a quarrel with Sister-In-Law?"

Other than this reason, his comrade really could not think of what a man might be coming out to do in such early morning hours before the sky had lightened, while his wife still lay in the warm bed... Lu Yanchen wordlessly took the reins from him and mounted the horse. Then, tightening the reins, he gave a low shout and hurtled off into the deep, snowy night.