It hurts! Be gentler!

The yellow dog squeezed through the gap in the door, its tail sweeping back and forth over the dirt floor. It walked over to the bed and nudged Jiang Xun's hand dangling over the edge with its wet nose.

Jiang Xun looked down at it. "You think he went too far too, right?"

The yellow dog wagged its tail and rested its head on his knees, whining in its throat.

"Forget it. You wouldn't understand even if I told you." Jiang Xun leaned back, resting the back of his head against the earthen wall, and stared blankly at the spider on the ceiling beam.

His stomach chose that moment to growl.

He instinctively glanced toward the kitchen, then quickly looked away.

He could go hungry. It wasn't as if he would starve to death.

But he did feel a little wronged.

Jiang Xun was brooding with his face buried in his knees when someone suddenly pushed open the main room's door from outside.

Heavy footsteps thudded against the packed-earth floor. The yellow dog lifted its head from Jiang Xun's knees, swept its tail across the floor twice, and scampered eagerly toward the newcomer.

Jiang Xun silently cursed it as a traitor and turned his head toward the earthen wall, leaving only the sulky, rounded back of his head on display.

Shen Wangjing stood in the doorway for a moment, then his footsteps approached the bed, and he set something on the low stool beside it.

The porcelain base struck the wooden surface with a soft clink.

Jiang Xun held out for three seconds before turning his head for a look.

A coarse porcelain bowl sat on the stool, and what it held was actually white flour noodles.

A steaming bowl of white flour noodles, topped with a fried egg. The edges of the white were golden brown, and the yolk bulged, ready to spill its soft center at a poke of the chopsticks.

His Adam's apple bobbed traitorously, but he forced himself to turn his head away. "Take it away. I'm not hungry."

The words had barely left his mouth when his stomach let out a long, loud growl, ringing especially clearly through the quiet little adobe house.

Jiang Xun: "..."

Shen Wangjing: "..."

Even the yellow dog tilted its head to look at him.

The tips of Jiang Xun's ears burned, but he kept his eyes fixed on a little hole someone had picked in the wall, refusing to give in.

Shen Wangjing picked up the bowl and set it on the edge of the bed beside his hand. "I traded corn for the noodles with the Wang Family at the village entrance. The egg came from the hen you protected last night. This was all the Wang Family had. Make do."

The aroma kept wafting into his nose. Jiang Xun warned himself inwardly, Don't eat it. If you do, he'll think you've given in, but his hands had already closed uncontrollably around the rim of the bowl.

The noodles were cooked a little soft. When he bit into the fried egg, the soft yolk spilled out and coated the noodles, fragrant and thick.

He ate so fast that half the bowl was gone in a flash.

Only after drinking the last mouthful of broth did he set the empty bowl on the low stool, glance at Shen Wangjing, and give a muffled huff.

"Don't think I've forgiven you. I'm not that easy to buy off."

"Mm."

Shen Wangjing walked over to the bed and lifted the back of Jiang Xun's shirt a little.

The bluish-purple bruise beside his spine stretched from his shoulder blade all the way to his waist, looking especially alarming against his fair skin.

Jiang Xun frantically tugged at his shirt. "What are you doing?"

Shen Wangjing rummaged through the cabinet in the corner and took out a small tin. Inside was a lump of dark ointment that gave off a strong herbal smell.

"Lie on your stomach."

Jiang Xun grabbed his hem and glared warily at the uninvited visitor lifting his shirt.

"What is that stuff?" He stared at the dark lump of ointment and shrank back in disgust. "It looks like you dug it out of a filthy ditch."

Shen Wangjing couldn't be bothered to waste words with him. He set the tin on the edge of the bed with one hand and pressed the other directly against the back of Jiang Xun's neck.

He didn't use much force, but he precisely blocked off every angle of escape.

"You-" With his face pushed into the pillow, Jiang Xun's voice came out muffled. "Shen Wangjing, fucking let go!"

Not only did Shen Wangjing not let go, he pushed the back of Jiang Xun's shirt up to his shoulder blades, fully exposing the bluish-purple bruise.

He scooped some ointment onto his fingertip, and Jiang Xun's whole body jolted when it touched his skin.

"Cold!"

"Bear with it."

The ointment was indeed cold, but the pads of Shen Wangjing's fingers were hot, roughened by years of farmwork as he rubbed the ointment into the bruise bit by bit.

Every stroke pressed into the most painful spot, and the aching pressure of the knots being worked loose shot up along his spine.

Jiang Xun bit the corner of the pillow and gave a muffled groan. "It hurts! Be gentler! Are you applying medicine or torturing me?"

"Why didn't you ask them to be gentler when you were fighting?"

Left speechless, Jiang Xun rolled his eyes.

Shen Wangjing finished massaging the last bruise and closed the tin, tugging Jiang Xun's shirt back down as he stood.

"Don't fight anyone again."

Jiang Xun rolled over. His back still burned, but the dull pain had indeed eased considerably.

He gave Shen Wangjing a sidelong look. "What if someone hits me first?"

Shen Wangjing put the tin back in the cabinet in the corner without turning around. "Call me."

Zhao Pengfei followed Jiang Xun for three full days, hoping to catch him alone and get revenge.

His philosophy in life had always been simple-if someone made him unhappy, he would make them even unhappier.

His father was the Village Chief, his mother was Li Guizhi, and even his family's dog was fiercer than anyone else's. Yet a delicate city boy half a head shorter than him had beaten him until the back of his head hit the ground.

I'd be no man if I didn't avenge this!

Yet after three days of staking him out, Zhao Pengfei's only discovery was that Jiang Xun's daily routine was outrageously regular.

Every day before dawn, Shen Wangjing dragged Jiang Xun out of bed.

Jiang Xun hung groggily from Shen Wangjing's arm, his hair sticking up every which way, his eyes half-open, and his body as limp as a sack of half-asleep potatoes.

Shen Wangjing took him to the school cafeteria entrance. Still not fully awake, he clung to the doorframe and refused to go in, so Shen Wangjing hoisted him up without a word and shoved him straight into the cafeteria.

Squatting behind a tree, Zhao Pengfei watched in stunned disbelief and rubbed his eyes hard, wondering whether he had been crouching there so long that he was hallucinating.

He had staked him out for three days, and forget revenge-he hadn't even found a moment when Jiang Xun was alone.

Shen Wangjing was always by his side-taking him to school in the morning, coming back to cook at noon, and applying ointment to his back at night.

He even squatted beside the well and scrubbed Jiang Xun's shoes, then set them on the windowsill to dry.

Jiang Xun sat barefoot and cross-legged on the heated brick bed, munching green jujubes. He tossed the pits at Shen Wangjing after finishing them, and without even turning his head, Shen Wangjing reached back to catch them and threw them into the winnowing basket.

Zhao Pengfei crouched at the foot of the wall, unable to put a name to what he was feeling.