Song Yuzhang: Chapter 6 - Awake
Chapter 6: Awake
Chen Hanmin didn’t have binoculars, so he could only see vague, indistinct outlines in the distance. Anxiously, he turned to Meng Tingjing. “Brother Meng, let me have a look.”
Meng Tingjing remained as still as a stone statue. Chen Hanmin, growing desperate, reached out without thinking to snatch the binoculars. As soon as he tugged at them, Meng Tingjing moved. He turned his face slightly, his gaze sweeping lightly over Chen Hanmin’s face. There was no particular expression on his face, yet it sent a chill down Chen Hanmin’s spine. Trembling, he withdrew his hand and pressed it to his side like a reprimanded schoolchild. “Brother Meng, I’m just worried. I want to see, too.”
Meng Tingjing withdrew his gaze and casually tossed the binoculars to him. Then, he beckoned a nearby crew member and whispered something in his ear.
The crew member immediately went below deck to call for help, preparing to send people to recover the survivors.
Meng Tingjing was just about to turn and sit down when he suddenly heard Chen Hanmin let out a joyous cry. “Mr. Song! It’s Mr. Song!”
Meng Tingjing was highly sensitive to that surname. He halted mid-step and asked, “Mr. Song?”
Tears streamed down Chen Hanmin’s face. His legs gave out, and he collapsed onto the deck, sobbing in both grief and relief.
He couldn’t forget how Song Yuzhang had turned back, descending upon him like a god, nor how he had tightly grasped his hand even as the ship capsized.
Chen Hanmin believed in love and longed for it. But his past romances had all been too shallow, built upon love letters, Western restaurants, and strolls in the park. Song Yuzhang was different. A few nights of passion, a moment of life and death—this time, Chen Hanmin felt as though he had finally understood the true weight of love.
Listening to the man wail, Meng Tingjing clasped his hands behind his back, fingers twisting with restrained impatience. He had the strong urge to slap Chen Hanmin across the face—he was making an unbearable racket!
Meng Tingjing had originally planned to ask more questions, but before he could, he realized that pressing too much might expose him in the future. So, he held his tongue and turned his attention to the ‘empire of money’ floating on the sea before him, waiting to see what kind of person would be fished out.
A moment later, the crew members maneuvered the lifeboat closer. Working in pairs, one supporting and the other carrying, they lifted the unconscious man onto the ship.
Chen Hanmin had been waiting anxiously. The moment the man was aboard, he rushed forward, pulling him into his arms. Then, he started crying again. “Mr. Song! What happened to you? Wake up!”
Meng Tingjing was already fed up with the noise. Striding over, he was about to casually inquire when the words caught in his throat.
The Song family had four sons.
Song Jincheng, Song Yekang, Song Qiyuan, and Song Mingzhao—each with a different personality and fate, but all equally remarkable in appearance. Not just handsome, but strikingly so. Their ages weren’t far apart, and two years ago, when Song Zhenqiao was still in good health, he had hosted a grand birthday banquet where all four sons made an appearance. At the time, the newspaper reporters had been awestruck, calling the Song family a household of ‘golden jade gentlemen.’
The first thought that crossed Meng Tingjing’s mind upon seeing Song Yuzhang was: This man could outshine all of them.
Meng Tingjing had seen plenty of good-looking people in his life—he himself wasn’t bad-looking. Though he didn’t care much about it, he had to admit the fact. But the man currently cradled in Chen Hanmin’s grief-stricken arms had long surpassed the realm of mere handsomeness. For a moment, Meng Tingjing was dazed. When he snapped back to his senses, the first thing he did was ask, “Brother Chen, this is your friend?”
“Yes.” Chen Hanmin, his face streaked with tears like a grieving widow, stammered, “This is Mr. Song. He just returned from studying in England.”
Meng Tingjing let out a soft “Oh.” Having already suspected as much, he was not at all surprised. “Hand him over to me.”
There was a doctor on board. Chen Hanmin knew that no amount of crying would bring Song Yuzhang back to consciousness, so he obediently relinquished him, helping to pass him over to the waiting crew members.
“I’ll take him.”
Meng Tingjing bent down and, with arms that looked quite slender in Chen Hanmin’s eyes, effortlessly lifted Song Yuzhang into his embrace.
Chen Hanmin thought the sight was a bit ridiculous.
Song Yuzhang had a large frame—tall and dashing at a glance. Yet here he was, being carried in the arms of a man whose features leaned on the delicate side. The contrast was… odd.
Holding Song Yuzhang, Meng Tingjing strode toward the cabin. As he walked, he weighed the man in his arms, concluding that he must have lost weight while adrift. His waist was lean, without an ounce of excess flesh, his skin smooth and slightly fevered. Meng Tingjing lowered his gaze, looking at the closed eyes of the man in his arms, thinking, What a pity—I can’t see what he looks like when he opens them.
The doctor arrived, and Meng Tingjing quickly found an excuse to send Chen Hanmin away. Standing aside, he lit a cigarette. After a preliminary examination, the doctor reported, “Young Master Meng, this gentleman is suffering from dehydration. He’ll need an IV.”
Meng Tingjing flicked his fingers. “Go prepare it.”
After the doctor left, Meng Tingjing placed his cigarette on the windowsill, then swiftly pulled back his coat, drew his gun, and cocked it. In three strides, he was beside Song Yuzhang’s sickbed.
Holding the Browning pistol in his hand, he aimed its dark barrel directly at Song Yuzhang’s forehead. He didn’t pull the trigger. Instead, he used the gun as a makeshift scope, carefully tracing the man’s features.
Truly a beautiful person.
In this lifetime, he doubted he would ever see another man as perfectly formed as this one.
A rare specimen.
After committing that face to memory, Meng Tingjing shifted his aim, targeting the closed eyelids he hadn’t yet had the chance to see open. He lifted his hand—then abruptly holstered the Browning pistol at his waist.
Using a gun was foolish and far too conspicuous. He had never intended to actually use it—drawing it had merely been a way to acknowledge the bullet he owed to Song Jincheng. A rare treasure like this deserved at least that much respect.
The doctor returned with the IV, inserting the needle into Song Yuzhang’s vein. Watching from the side, Meng Tingjing noticed that even his arms were beautifully formed—slender, long, with smooth muscle definition. Not weak, not overly rugged—just aesthetically perfect.
Meng Tingjing dismissed the doctor and called for a crew member, ordering him to bring some of the recovered opium.
Now, only he and the unconscious Song Yuzhang remained in the cabin. Meng Tingjing sat on the edge of the bed, initially fiddling with his pocket watch. But soon, he found himself growing restless. Here was a rare treasure. A dying one, no less. Wouldn’t it be a terrible waste not to appreciate it while he had the chance?
From a young age, Meng Tingjing had little interest in either men or women. He grew up in a large family with numerous members, where every male elder he could remember had three or four wives and mistresses, shrouded in a haze of infidelity. The absurd entanglements between men and women in his family were too numerous to record. Growing up in such an environment, one either embraced the family’s glorious tradition and became a lecherous old man cloaked in hypocrisy, or rebelled entirely and became an absolute ascetic.
Meng Tingjing took a middle path—he became a hypocritical ascetic. His heart was wild, but his body remained pure. Sometimes, he was tempted, but in the end, it always led to nothing. There weren’t many people who could truly catch his eye, so he lacked certain experiences.
When the man was rescued, he wasn’t wearing anything on his upper body. Meng Tingjing hadn’t paid much attention at the time, but now, lifting the blanket, he carefully examined Song Yuzhang’s body. With the meticulousness of a scholar, he studied him closely and concluded that from bone to flesh, there was nothing about him that wasn’t beautiful.
The days adrift at sea hadn’t left him looking too disheveled. Meng Tingjing thought about the other survivors, all tanned and weathered, and couldn’t understand why Song Yuzhang remained so fair and exquisite.
Finally, he nodded as if he had suddenly realized the truth.
Because this man was a favorite of the heavens—blessed with beauty, the heavens could not bear to ruin him.
Meng Tingjing thought to himself: “Beautiful men meet tragic ends.”
Once he had taken a good look, Meng Tingjing reached out and brushed the back of his hand against Song Yuzhang’s face. He was still slightly feverish, and his skin was unbelievably smooth—like warm silk, soft but not greasy, full of elasticity. Meng Tingjing let his hand glide down from Song Yuzhang’s face to his shoulder, then to his arm. The lines of his body were all fluid and graceful, as if he had been sculpted by heaven with painstaking precision, leaving no flaw to be found.
Meng Tingjing couldn’t help but think: And this is after suffering and falling ill. If he were well-nourished, just how breathtaking would he be?
As Meng Tingjing was treating Song Yuzhang like a life-sized porcelain doll to admire, Song Yuzhang was dreaming.
In his dream, Nie Yinbing barged into his room in the middle of the night, holding a gun and pointing it at him in a frenzy. Nie Yinbing was tall, lean, and upright—a military school graduate, thin but brimming with energy. He always wore a look of disdain, as if ready to punch someone at any moment.
With the gun aimed at him, Song Yuzhang felt a brief moment of panic, but only briefly. He figured that while Nie Yinbing wasn’t the most even-tempered person, he wouldn’t take his life over a mere thousand or so silver dollars.
Indeed, Nie Yinbing wasn’t there to kill him. Without a word, he suddenly reached out and stroked Song Yuzhang’s face.
Song Yuzhang was completely stunned.
He had never imagined that the man who always looked at him with such cold hostility actually had feelings for him.
Perhaps his shock was too evident, for it seemed to wound Nie Yinbing. “Zhao Jianfang, what do you mean? Don’t tell me you can’t see it!”
Song Yuzhang wanted to explain, but Nie Yinbing had been far too restrained for far too long. His lips were dry and pressed against Song Yuzhang’s, refusing to part, making speech impossible.
His mind flickered with strange images—one moment it was Xiao Yingtao tying his cravat, the next it was riding horses with Tang Jin. The confusion reached its peak. Then, the crashing waves jolted him from his nightmare.
Song Yuzhang opened his eyes. For a moment, his vision was filled with swirling specks of color, like snowflakes in chaos. When they cleared, he saw the decor of a ship’s cabin, making him momentarily disoriented—was this all just a long dream? He took a few quiet breaths, and only then did he notice someone was playing with his fingers, one by one, running their fingertips along them, pressing lightly at each joint as if in idle amusement.
Slowly lowering his gaze, he discovered a stranger sitting by his bedside, utterly engrossed in toying with his fingers. He was slightly taken aback and, with difficulty, parted his lips. “You…”
Meng Tingjing had just been contemplating whether he should trim Song Yuzhang’s nails to ensure he looked presentable when he left. Hearing the faint sound, he abruptly looked up and found himself staring into a pair of clear, black-and-white eyes. The long, curled lashes fluttered ever so slightly, carrying a trace of drowsy confusion—evidently bewildered by the situation.
Song Yuzhang had only just regained consciousness, his mind still clouded. The two men stared at each other for a moment before the stranger before him smiled smoothly. “Brother Yuzhang, you’re awake.”
In that instant, Song Yuzhang snapped to full alertness.
—This man knew his real name!
Shock flooded Song Yuzhang’s mind. He was nearly overwhelmed by panic, wishing he could disappear on the spot.
Ever since he left Chun Xing, he had lived in a web of lies and deception. Yet now, this stranger had suddenly torn away his mask and called him by his true name!
There were only a handful of people in the world who knew his real name. Aside from Chun Xing, the only others would be the lovers he had taken in his reckless youth when he was sixteen or seventeen. He could barely recall those past lovers now.
He had no idea if the man before him was one of them, but he did know two things: this person knew his name, and he was undeniably handsome—almost too handsome.
Could it be…?
Song Yuzhang’s thoughts were still sluggish, unable to process things clearly. Instinctively, he relied on the skills he had honed as a dandy: no matter what, he needed to keep this person calm first. So, he smiled.
Meng Tingjing had seen many smiles before. Given his position, everyone who met him had to smile first, and he had long since stopped caring whether those smiles were genuine or fake. Yet, for some reason, this weak, casual smile before him stirred something within him. Like a dragonfly skimming the water, it sent ripples spreading through his thoughts.
Just as he was caught in a daze, the hand he had been holding slipped free. The soft, living warmth of it brushed against his skin as it retreated, only to return a moment later—this time, it was Song Yuzhang’s turn to grasp his fingertip and give it a gentle squeeze.
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