How To Polish A Pearl

Chapter 18 - Treating

A/N: Have you recovered from the second wedding night? Would you believe me if I said that up until end of August I hadn't written as much as a kiss in any of my stories? Here is a chapter to calm you down.

⊂ (▀▿▀) つ

The water in the hot spring was painful, but one of those good kinds of pain. The kind you knew in your core was necessary for some reason. The body needed it to go through and complete whatever process it was going through. And his body definitely needed it.

Zhou Xu was hurting everywhere. His throat was still burning from swallowing the pearls, only to have them yanked out. His shoulder was luckily not infected by the two deep bite marks that had—likely forever—branded his left shoulder. His wrists and ankles had no skin left in the areas where he had fought the hardest against the restraints. His inside felt like it had been split apart, glued back together and then ripped apart a second time. Like he was somehow askew.

He had seen the way the maids looked at him when they had cleaned up after yesterday's battle, both in horror and with blushing curiosity. Embarrassed, he had dismissed them as soon as the bath in the hot spring was ready for him. He needed time to tend to his body and he didn't want anyone watching him try to sit down.

He assumed that the guards were still stationed in droves outside, openly safeguarding the bridal cage. He hadn't bothered to look though. He didn't want to show his current state to anyone. Shame prickled his skin, making him shudder for the hundreds time since he woke up. The shudder hurt. Breathing hurts. Sitting hurts.

Slowly using the scoop to pour water over the top of his head, he savors how the hot water burns against his cold skin, momentarily dimming all those messy thoughts. Continuing to scoop water again and again and again over his head and shoulders, he focuses on how the water runs along his face, the droplets in his eyelashes, his wet hair sticking to his back. The slight sting when the water cleans the cut on his bottom lip. The burning tingle around his submerged raw ankles. All to drown the memories that have been in his mind since yesterday.

Not only the memories of Wen Ke Xing on top of him, inside him, and around him, but the other memories that had been released during the night's big chaotic mess. Where had they come from? Was it actually me in those flashes? What more have I lost? A vague memory of a conversation he'd had with Wen Ke Xing forms in front of his eyes. What is this Water of Lethe?

Lost in thought and pain, Zhou Xu doesn't hear the footsteps along the pool edge as he pours another scoop of water over his head, his eyes closed.

The feeling of two cold hands tracing the outline of his shoulders pulls him out of his thoughts so abruptly that he stands up in the pool, splashing water all over the person behind him.

"Ah-Xu~ that's no way to greet your husband in the morning."

Dazed, Zhou Xu shakes his head and stares at Wen Ke Xing, "Wen Ke Xing. I wasn't expecting you this early in the morning. Or for you to intrude when I am having a bath."

"Ah-Xu, I have already seen everything there is to see of you, no need to be so shy."

Taking a deep and calming breath through aching lungs, he suppresses a wince and calmly asks, "Why are you here?"

"After a night of wind and rain, who knows how many blossoms have fallen." (1)

"..."

After a few moments of staring at each other in silence, Wen Ke Xing can help himself. His gaze wanders over that naked, and very wet, delicate body in front of him. The water droplets sparkle as they fall along the contours of those ethereal shoulders. It was a vision that instantly sent his core burning like wildfire.