Riding the Long WInd – Chapter 22

Chapter 21

If she could not catch him in time, Wang Rong’s leg was going to be broken in truth.

Gu Jiusi’s horse moved faster than any household guard could keep up with, let alone a carriage. He arrived at the wine house where Liu Yuru had been negotiating, grabbed the first attendant he saw, and demanded: “Where is Wang Rong?”

The attendant pointed with a shaking hand toward a private room on the third floor. Gu Jiusi took the stairs three at a time, and kicked the door open. “Wang Rong! Where are you?”

Wang Rong had been drinking himself back into a stupor. He looked up and brightened at the sight. “Well, look who it is.”

He picked up his cup, swayed over, and came to stand before Gu Jiusi. “Young Master Gu.”

He looked him over with satisfaction. “You usually like to make such a show of yourself. All those bright colors. Looking very plain today. What is that about?” He leaned in. “Mourning dress?”

Before anyone could react, Gu Jiusi grabbed Wang Rong by the collar and threw him.

Wang Rong went rolling down the stairs. The entire wine house erupted. Gu Jiusi came charging down after him, grabbed his collar again, and said: “You want to throw your weight around? Let us find out who in Yangzhou throws it further. Come on. Go ahead.”

“Gu Jiusi, have you lost your mind?” Wang Rong, suddenly sober, screamed in fury. “My father will not let this pass!”

“Your father?” Gu Jiusi laughed. “My uncle has things to say to your father. Wang Rong, you insulted my household first. I am perfectly within my rights. What exactly is your father going to argue?”

“You are lying! How did I insult the Gu household?”

“The woman you went after was my wife. My Gu household’s Young Mistress. You tell me you did not find us trouble?”

“Oh, that,” Wang Rong said, switching immediately to an ingratiating smile. “Jiusi. That was a misunderstanding. I was drunk, I did not know…”

Gu Jiusi hit him across the face before he finished. “Now you know?”

Wang Rong’s guards all surged forward. Wang Rong spat to one side and let himself get angry. “Gu Jiusi. You are pressing your luck. You cannot come after me like this.”

“You have a problem with my wife going out to do business? Your whole household of women living like turtles in their shells means you cannot stand to see mine living well? She wants to do business, I let her. She wants to go out, I let her. I give her what she wants and look after her, and you think you have the right to say a word about any of it? I am telling you right now, from today on, every time you see her, you back up three paces and get out of her way.”

“Gu Jiusi,” Wang Rong said, laughing in outrage. “Do not push it. Or one day you will be the one crying.”

“Then I will make you cry first.”

He threw a punch.

It came fast and hard. Wang Rong scrambled backward, calling for his guards. Gu Jiusi moved through them with easy, practiced fluency, grabbed Wang Rong, lifted him by the collar, forced his leg against the stairs and stamped down.

The sound was sharp and clear. Wang Rong screamed and the tears ran freely down his face. Gu Jiusi gripped his hair with one hand and his throat with the other, and used him as a shield, glaring at the guards advancing from every direction. “Anyone who takes another step can find out what happens.”

No one moved. Wang Rong wailed and howled. By the time the Gu household guards and Liu Yuru arrived, they found the scene exactly as it was.

Gu Jiusi stood with a few strands of hair fallen across his face, his handsome features set in an expression that did not often appear there. He was alone against a dozen or more men, and he was not remotely afraid. He patted Wang Rong on the cheek and said, with cold satisfaction: “I told you I would make you cry. I keep my word.”

Wang Rong could not respond. The pain had made it impossible to think.

Gu Jiusi looked up at the assembled crowd, his expression level. “Let me say this plainly. In my Gu family, men are people. Women are people. My wife lives as she pleases, goes where she likes, and does what she chooses. Whatever a man can do, she can do. The next time I hear that anyone has been saying anything behind her back, I will find out eventually. And whoever said it, I will break their legs.”

He shook Wang Rong’s hair. “Did you hear what I said earlier?”

“Heard it, heard it.” Wang Rong said hurriedly. “Young Master, I was wrong. Every time I see the Young Mistress, I will stand aside.”

“Still feeling proud of yourself?”

“No.” He was crying. “In Yangzhou, you are the one, you are the most powerful, it is all you.”

Gu Jiusi was satisfied. He dropped him. Wang Rong’s guards rushed to check on him. Gu Jiusi dusted off his hands and came down the stairs. It was then that he noticed Liu Yuru. He paused, then said: “What are you doing here? I told you to go home.”

Liu Yuru’s expression was complicated beyond description. She looked at the howling Wang Rong on the floor, then at the entirely unconcerned young man in front of her, and after a long moment she sighed. “Let us go.”

What was done was done. She could only think about what came next.

Gu Jiusi had broken Wang Rong’s leg.

And that dream, however she tried to tell herself it was only a dream, was getting harder to dismiss as coincidence.

On the way home they walked rather than taking the carriage. Liu Yuru held a lantern and walked ahead. Gu Jiusi followed behind. He could clearly sense that her mood was not good, and said nothing for half the journey. Then finally, low: “I was not sorry about it. I do not think I did anything wrong.”

Liu Yuru did not answer. Gu Jiusi dropped his voice further. “Do not worry. He and I have been going at each other for years. His father is just a regional governor. I can break his leg without it being a problem. My uncle’s position covers this.”

Liu Yuru let out a quiet breath, stopped walking, and turned. “Gu Jiusi.” Her voice was tired. “The wheel of fortune turns. Even at the height of your power, you should leave yourself room. The way you go about things…”

She stopped. Shook her head. Turned back and kept walking.

The night air had gone cool. Gu Jiusi came up beside her, took off his outer robe, dropped it around her shoulders, and took the lantern from her hand. He walked beside her, not quite happy. “I hear you. But that is exactly why I do not randomly pick fights. He came for my wife. He came for my household. If I do not stand up for you, what kind of man am I?”

He said it as though it were obvious. “Those guards that travel with you are people who have been with me for years. He certainly recognized them. You do not walk up to someone’s household attendants without knowing whose they are. He was not ignorant, he was deliberately looking for trouble. And people like him do not let things go if you back down. If I had stepped aside today, he would have pushed further the next time and further still the one after that. Hit him hard enough to put him in bed today, and we get three months of peace.”

Liu Yuru was quiet, her lashes flickering.

She was thinking hard about what Gu Jiusi had just said. Wang Rong was not someone who picked fights without reason. He was not clever enough to have something subtle in mind, everything he felt was written on his face. Gu Jiusi was right: he must have heard something. He would not have come at them without cause.

Liu Yuru pulled the robe tighter around her and felt a sudden shiver that had nothing to do with the temperature. Gu Jiusi noticed it. He frowned. “Still cold?”

Liu Yuru started to say she was fine, but before she could he reached over and put his arm around her shoulders, his wide sleeve folding around her back, half-holding her against his side as they walked. “Better?”

She looked at him, startled. He had a pleased and ingratiating look on his face, the lantern in one hand, the other arm around her, walking forward without any apparent self-consciousness. “Back when I used to pull all-nighters at the gambling house with Yang Wenchang and Chen Xun, we used to huddle up like this when it got cold. I am not taking advantage of you. I am treating you like one of the brothers.”

Liu Yuru was caught between amusement and exasperation. She played along: “Well, thank you then.”

“So stop worrying all the time,” he said, warmly. “You see? When something goes wrong, you find a way around it. You were cold, I gave you my coat. Still cold, we huddle. When the problem comes, we will work it out. Do not overthink things.”

He paused, and when he spoke again there was a real sincerity in it: “We are married. I do not know what the future holds for us. But as long as you are my wife, I will look after you properly. You will be safe. Anyone who tries to hurt you…”

“You will break their legs,” Liu Yuru said, smiling, and completed the sentence for him. He nodded, fully serious: “Exactly.”

“Gu Jiusi.” She was looking at the place where their shadows overlapped on the path in front of them. Her lashes lowered, hiding what was in her eyes. She could not look at him directly. “Back when you first heard you had to marry me, you hated it. You went to such lengths to get out of it. And yet you still…”

How had he ended up helping her this much? Protecting her this consistently?

“I am not someone who does not know how to treat people who are good to me,” he said, without hesitation. “You have been genuinely good to me, and I know it. Pushing me to study, making me give up gambling, it is all because you are afraid things will go badly for me. Even if part of it is for your own title,” he glanced at her face with a slight smile, “I know your good heart.”

“This is who I am. If you treat me well, I do not treat you badly in return. And none of this is your fault to begin with. Whatever anger I have, it belongs with my parents and yours. It cannot land on you. In fact it should be the opposite. I should be looking out for you. Making sure you do not regret marrying me. That is what I should be doing.”

Liu Yuru said nothing for a while. She felt something she could not quite name.

Gu Jiusi was too fair.

Right and wrong, credit and blame, he could see through all of it without flinching. He already knew exactly who owed what to whom, and to what degree. And this kind of fairness was something she had not been given in her whole life before this. Not once.

And now someone was giving it to her for the first time, all at once, blazing and unapologetic, standing in front of a crowd and declaring out loud that he cherished her and looked after her. For no other reason than because he thought it was right.

Her heart went soft and aching at the same time. She sniffled, and finally said:

“Gu Jiusi.”

“Mm?”

“You are really very good.”

“Obviously.” He tilted his head at her, looking quietly smug. “I told you from the beginning. I am the best in the world. No exaggeration. Marrying me,” he said, completely seriously, “you came out ahead.”

Liu Yuru: “…”

She really should not have said anything.

This man, honestly, could not be complimented. Without a compliment he was already threatening to remove the roof tile by tile. With one, he was halfway to the moon.