An exceedingly faint clink of porcelain came from the kitchen.
After scrubbing the last dish, Ye Hui wrung out the coarse rag and arranged the bowls and chopsticks neatly inside the battered wooden cupboard.
Once everything was done, he dragged his still-lame right leg back into the front courtyard and quietly took his place half a step behind Yun Qing, eyes lowered as he waited for instructions, like a soundless shadow.
Ye Hui had always been cold and reserved, his thoughts buried deep. Though reduced to a servant now, he still carried a pride in his bones that would sooner break than bend. He neither deliberately curried favor nor dared openly defy orders, merely keeping to his present station and quietly clinging to life.
That was how Ye Hui, "weighed down by bitter suffering and deep hatred," saw himself.
But in Yun Qing's eyes, his behavior looked nothing like that.
Wherever he went, the boy followed, neither making a fuss nor saying a word, matching him step for step like a little tail he could not shake off.
Someone so full of viciousness and hostility insisted on quietly sticking close to him like this. The stark contrast lent him a faint obedience utterly at odds with his nature, making him somehow rather ridiculously endearing.
Yun Qing found him pleasing to the eye, so he paid him a little more attention.
He looked Ye Hui up and down. The boy was still wearing the same ragged beggar's outfit he had worn when he flopped down at Yun Qing's doorstep. Coupled with that deathly pale face, he looked like a little ghost freshly crawled out of a mass grave.
Yun Qing set down his travelogue and lifted his chin slightly, his voice perfectly level. "Go wash yourself."
With that, he casually took