Care Diary

The small courtyard.

Inside, all was silent. Only a lone oil lamp burned by itself.

Having completely returned to a safe environment, the pain from the beating during the kidnapping and the exhaustion accumulated from his struggle with those two Killing Apes surged over him together like a tide.

Each breath carried a faint, dull ache. Qin Yi suppressed both the pain and drowsiness as his gaze fell upon the sharp, elegant handwriting on the sheet of rice paper at his fingertips.

Ruan Su's throat was injured. Unless necessary, the two of them were generally more accustomed to communicating through writing than through speech.

The rice paper recorded what Ruan Su had experienced recently.

This was a habit between the siblings. Once he woke up, Ruan Su would write down everything that had happened recently and tell him about it.

In order to make Ruan Su have no choice but to rely on him, Qin Yi had deliberately, through years of subtle influence, crippled her ability to judge major matters. Thus, whenever she faced an important choice, he naturally had to shoulder that responsibility.

Ruan Su's record was very brief. She wrote that she had recently killed several people for her old employer, that her daily expenses had cost a few coins of silver, and then, in an irritated tone, complained about how disobedient and annoying he was in his dementia-ridden state.

There was nothing important enough to discuss.

Qin Yi lifted his eyes, his gaze passing over the candlelight and landing on the narrow bed in the corner.

The girl was curled up on it, lying on her side with her back to the wall, her knees slightly drawn up. Her breathing was even, her small chest rising and falling faintly. It was as if she had cast off all vigilance and entrusted herself to this cramped little room—and to him within it.

If one ignored the half of her face that had been burned away, his older sister truly had the makings of a beauty as lovely as a banished immortal.

Even the contrast between that savage burn scar and the flawless half of her face lent her features a strange, eerie beauty.

After staring for several breaths, Qin Yi withdrew his gaze and rose.

The exhaustion in his body made his thin frame sway involuntarily. A brief haze of darkness spread across the edges of his vision, and only by bracing a small hand against the edge of the table did he steady himself.

In his dementia-ridden state, he had been unable to care for himself in any way, whether eating, drinking, or relieving himself. The resulting malnutrition and muscle atrophy had left this body exceptionally frail.

Qin Yi knew his body needed sleep, but he also knew that it was not time yet.

Every loss of consciousness began with falling asleep, but there were more important matters before him now.

Soundlessly, he walked to the old wooden cabinet in the corner. Qin Yi bent down, knelt on both knees, and took a cloth bag from a hidden compartment beneath it.

Ruan Su had made this cabinet herself, though he had taught her the carpentry.

He paid no mind to the faint noises. On nights when he woke up, Ruan Su always slept deeply.

It counted as her absolute trust in him.

He spread it open.

Inside was every possession Ruan Su had deliberately hidden away.

One fifty-tael ingot of official silver, a pouch of loose silver, several yellowed old books, and a jade pendant utterly out of place amid the surrounding ruin.

The pendant's main body was hollow-carved, its jade warm and translucent. On the left was a phoenix, every line carved with exquisite precision; on the right was a crescent moon. The phoenix's head and tail connected respectively to the upper and lower ends of the crescent, forming a seamless circle.

According to his older sister,

this was something left behind by the parents he had never met.

She was keeping it for him for now and would return it once his brain illness was cured.

Ignoring the money and jade pendant, Qin Yi took out the book with the most recently written pages and returned to sit at the table.

The corners of the pages had curled, clearly showing their age.

There was no title, because this was a diary.

Qin Yi was a proper man and did not keep diaries, so this belonged to Ruan Su.

Even though he had thoroughly tamed this girl, he still could not completely control some of her self-directed decisions.

Mm, the dignity of an older sister.

Ruan Su believed herself to be the pillar holding up their household and liked to report good news while hiding bad.

After discovering this, Qin Yi had devised several countermeasures.

Having her keep a diary was one of them.

To cultivate this habit in her, he had put in no small amount of effort when they were young. Looking at it now, though, it had all been worth it.

His fingertip brushed over the rough paper. The pages rustled as they turned. Finding where he had stopped reading last time, the sharp, elegant handwriting quietly came into view.

Ruan Su's handwriting was very beautiful—Slender Gold script, sharp like the person herself.

Of course, that was because Qin Yi had taught her well.

After all, she had learned it by copying his handwriting.

The third day of the tenth month,

[Eat, sleep, take care of Xiao Yi.]

The fourth day of the tenth month,

[Eat, sleep, take care of Xiao Yi.]

The fifth day of the tenth month,

[Eat, sleep, take care of Xiao Yi.

[The employer came to Yellow Bamboo Town and said Qin Ke's whereabouts had not been found. He was probably dead.

[I need to think about how to tell Xiao Yi. He seemed to like this younger brother quite a lot.]

The sixth day of the tenth month,

[Eat, sleep, take care of Xiao Yi.]

The eighth day of the tenth month,

[The old employer summoned me to Jade-Rinsing Studio today.]

At this, Qin Yi's fingers paused slightly as he turned the page.

It seemed he had found the information he wanted.

His fingertip pressed against the corner of the page as the writing continued.

[It was different from when he used to order me to kill people. This time, the old employer spoke with me about many strange things, from the everyday necessities of food, clothing, rice, oil, and salt to Xiao Yi's brain illness. In the end, he even mentioned the young master, saying that compared to profit, he respected his child's happiness more.

[Does this mean he knows about the young master confessing his feelings to me?

[After returning home, I told Xiao Yi many things, but he did not react.]

The ink on the final line was lighter than the ones before it, as if the ink on the brush tip had nearly run dry, yet she had not dipped it again and had merely written it down casually.

The fourteenth day of the tenth month.

[Today, Xiao Yi would neither eat nor sleep. He kept making a fuss.

[When he wakes up, I must teach him a fierce lesson!]

The exclamation mark had nearly poked a hole through the paper.

Qin Yi was somewhat speechless.

The sixteenth day of the tenth month.

[The old employer called for me again today.

[The atmosphere in Jade-Rinsing Studio was very strange. The old employer told me many strange things.

[I am a little worried.

[I wanted to discuss it with Xiao Yi, but Xiao Yi still had not woken up.]

From the varying thickness of the strokes, Qin Yi could see how many times the writer had paused, as well as her hesitation at the time.

The twentieth day of the tenth month,

[The old employer came looking for me early in the morning, bringing the young master with him.

[It was actually to propose marriage.

[The old employer promised me many things.

[If I married the young master, my money and safety would be guaranteed. There would also be someone specially assigned to take care of Xiao Yi. Moreover, the old employer guaranteed that he would mobilize every connection he had to find a physician and do everything in his power to cure Xiao Yi's brain illness.

[And the old employer emphasized that the young master had already broken off his engagement and that I would be given the position of principal wife.]

At this point, the brushstroke

seemed to have halted for a long while. The ink had bled into a round blot on the rice paper.

[Xiao Yi told me to reject the young master.

[But the atmosphere of the conversation was rather strange. I could not quite refuse.

[I asked the old employer to give me some time.

[The old employer agreed.]

"..."

A draft swept through the hall and brushed past the boy's delicate face. Qin Yi's gaze lingered on that line for two breaths, his eyes revealing an indifferent chill.

This old employer must have been plotting for a long time. Otherwise, Ruan Su could not possibly have hesitated.

When had it begun?

Flipping the diary forward, he discovered that Ruan Su had recorded some of the old employer's abnormalities as early as spring. Unfortunately, he had not considered it from this angle at the time and had only thought it was a sign of esteem.

The diary continued.

The twenty-first day of the tenth month,

[Eat, sleep, take care of Xiao Yi.]

The twenty-second day of the tenth month,

[Eat, sleep, take care of Xiao Yi.]

The twenty-third day of the tenth month,

[Eat, sleep, take care of Xiao Yi, I decided to burn my face.]

It was not written on a separate line, merely appended after "take care of Xiao Yi," as though it were nothing out of the ordinary.

The twenty-sixth day of the tenth month.

[Eat, sleep, take care of Xiao Yi.

[The people around me were all very surprised. Many people no longer come near me. Are they afraid of the employer, or do they dislike me?

[Xiao Yi... probably would not dislike me, right?]

The last four words were written very large, as if she were persuading something—or rather... persuading herself.

Closing the diary, Qin Yi placed it back into the cloth bag, rose soundlessly, returned to the corner, and bent down to push the cover of the hidden compartment back into place.

Qin Yi returned to the square table and sat down, his eyes lowered. There was no emotion in his dim pupils.

Ruan Su was still obedient. She still treated his words as a guiding principle, and there were no signs of her losing control. That was good.

But there were some things he could not deny,

such as...

Qin Dao reached out and extinguished the oil lamp. Darkness swallowed the entire room, leaving only those eyes glimmering with a faint, cold light in the gloom.

...tonight's attack had been aimed at him.