𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐄𝐧𝐞𝐦𝐲'𝐬 𝐇𝐮𝐬𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐝 || 敵の旦那様 (𝐁𝐋) ✔ [COMPLETE]

21. To know what was unknown

When Fu Lin woke up, he was lying on a bed with a thick wool quilt covering his body in a room where a bare minimum of light pervaded from the open windows. He squinted his eyes at the silver glimmer from the moon and tried to sit himself up on the bed he was very familiar with.

It seems he had been brought back to the Zhou Manor while he was unconscious and clothed in inner garments for ease of breathing, but everything was still horribly hazy in his eyes. His hands searched for a pitcher of water from the bed, and he almost fell off of the bed in the attempt when two gentle hands handed the pitcher towards him. When he had trouble sprinkling it on his eyes, the hand once again gently flicked a few drops on his lashes.

He was too lost in his chain of thoughts as his palms gently grazed the white bandage wrapped around that gaping wound on his neck. There was a heavy swath of bandage circling the expanse of his elegant neck, and his nostrils were constantly infused by the dense smell of bitter medicine. When he raised his hands to check on them due to the burning sensation that surged from them, he immediately sensed a pungent mint smell coming from them. It seems even his burns were attended to with some ointment.

It seemed he had misunderstood the general.

The reason why Fu Lin despised men who fussed with the code of 'honor' and tried to behave all 'honorably' was because, in reality, they did not have a shred of the so-called 'honor' in their scrawny bodies. They were only bothered by the extravagant niceties of dressing up well, worrying about their reputation, and using their elite power to crush their peers and suck face with the emperor, with not an ounce of loyalty or sincerity in their actions. They had no loyalty or conviction but pretended they did, and they went to greater lengths to prove this. Such as risking their lives on the battlefield and trying to pretentiously uphold honor even when they get insulted.

And it was true that the general came across as someone who held onto useless scraps of honor.

But that was only until the subject of the insult was the general himself. When that official with his 'pregnant-lookalike' belly walked over and trampled over his reputation and went on condemning him, the general remained unfazed. And Fu Lin knew better than anyone knew how much the general cared about his reputation; he was not the kind of man to stand down after all that bullshit the 'pregnant look-alike' man gave.

The only reason he didn't go on a rampage and butcher the man right there was because of that lousy rule of honor: you can't stain the royal hall with blood.

When Fu Lin realized this, he wanted to laugh. It was the most ridiculous reason ever for someone to stop themselves from defending their own freaking selves.

But there was also a time when he broke his own rule, and that was when Fu Lin ridiculed his empire and monarch. To anybody watching from outside, it might seem like the general was trying to put on a show, but Fu Lin knew what the blade against his neck felt like.

It was cold, hard, and full of killing intent. At the very last moment that the General had managed to decrease his momentum, barely grazing his neck-and that too, Fu Lin was very sure-it was because if Fu Lin died in his hands, his empire would have to bear the consequences.

The general had no merit in killing Fu Lin there; he would have been better off killing that "pregnant-lookalike" than killing his useless self. However, he broke it-whatever rule, honor, and 'elite decorum' there was to not stain the royal court with blood-because he knew obeying that rule and choosing to be a man of 'honor' was meaningless if he stood there, taking his country, and the monarch got slandered.

General Haoran was a man of honor. An actual man of honor who knew what it meant to be loyal.

Fu Lin exhaled, kind of relieved that the person he would be spending his future with was not a vain fellow. The last thing he wanted was to spend his time with a fool who knew no essence of sincerity, and that was why he felt not a dollop of anger or resentment even when he was threatened with a monstrous sword to his neck. The general did what he did for his own country, and Fu Lin did the same-nobody owed each other anything.

As these thoughts streamed through his mind, he saw the edge of a robe fluttering about from the corner of the window. With burning curiosity, when he tiptoed to the bamboo shutter veiling the window and raised it, he saw the vague silhouette of someone kneeling in the dark corner of the manor on the gravel.

It looked like a punishment. But who would dare break the rules of Zhou Manor and get away with a simple kneel-down?

As Fu Lin looked on and on, he realized that the silhouette was very familiar. Wait, that upright posture and hands like trash cans-they were definitely the general's!

What did he do to deserve a punishment like kneeling? There is nobody within the Zhou Manor who would dare order the general and subject him to punishment of any kind. Which means this was a self-inflicted punishment? But why would he?

Fu Lin searched and sifted through every fragment of his memory to come up with a reason why the general would resort to something like this, and the only error his meager brain could conjure was,

Uh, because he spilled blood on the royal hall when he drew his sword against Fu Lin, and the emperor didn't pass a verdict regarding the whole matter?

Seriously?

What was this man doing? Who was he putting on a show for?

Fu Lin's lips twitched as he continued to watch the general try hard to hold onto his kneeling position by clenching and unclenching his fists, and when he'd momentarily lose his grip, he would give out an ugly sneeze.

But then again, that was the kind of man the general was; he would do it whether people saw him or not. And he would do it even if people didn't ask him to. As he continued to watch the general and his antics, Fu Lin felt a strange sense of weightlessness and peace, his very sparse lashes fluttering in a haze.

He wasn't that... bad of a man.

However, the general didn't continue to kneel down for too long. A sudden downpour crashed down, drenching him in one fell swoop and making him give chase into the house with his black and gold robes whipping by his side, dripping with water. The flecks of water startled Fu Lin, and he almost missed the sound that suddenly echoed from the door.

It couldn't be the general, could it?

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(ﾉﾟ▽ﾟ)ﾉ I'm back with an update! How was your day? Mine was so unproductive because I slept the whole day(〜￣△￣)〜

Mini theatre!!!

Fu Lin: You know you'd be the teacher's pet if this was a high school setting right?

Haoran: *looks away*

Fu Lin: Right?

Haoran: And you'd be the delinquent.

Fu Lin: Oh?

Haoran: The delinquent that ends up getting beat up by the teacher's pet.

Fu Lin: ༼ ༎ຶ ෴ ༎ຶ༽ *slowly disappears*

Hahahaha! Stay tuned for the next update and ( ' ∀ ')ノ～ ♡ Don't forget to vote, comment and share if you enjoyed the chapter. Also make sure to follow me for updates on more exciting stories!