Chapter 72 - Soul mark

Chapter 72: Chapter 72 - Soul mark

Jua Gu remained silent for the rest of the drive.

Mao Mao stayed beside him, occasionally looking over as though he wanted to continue their conversation. Once, his hand moved toward the blanket covering Jua’s legs. Jua adjusted it himself before he could reach it.

The hand withdrew.

Outside the window, the streets gradually became familiar. There were new buildings between the old ones, shops he didn’t recognise, but he remembered the turn leading toward the Ying residence.

He hadn’t expected to return like this.

The doctors had wanted him to remain in the hospital for a while longer. There were assessments to complete, and they needed to monitor his recovery now that he was conscious. Mao Mao had listened to all of it before explaining that the house had the facilities and staff to continue his care.

Equipment had been arranged. A room had been prepared. The doctors could visit, and his therapy would continue at home.

Jua had been awake barely a day when the arrangements began. At the time, leaving the hospital had sounded rather pleasant. Now, with the soul mark stirring faintly inside him, he wished he had asked a few more questions before agreeing.

He glanced at the man beside him.

Mao Mao noticed immediately.

"Are you tired?"

Jua looked back out of the window.

After a moment, Mao Mao settled into his seat again.

Jua knew he was being deliberately unhelpful. He could hear the uncertainty beneath the carefully ordinary question, and some part of him wanted to relieve it. But every time he considered answering, he remembered the kiss, the mark, and the quiet certainty with which Mao Mao had spoken about keeping him forever.

He needed to think without being touched or reassured.

The car passed through the gates.

Jua watched the house come into view, his fingers resting loosely on the blanket. It looked almost exactly as he remembered. The trees were larger, their branches spreading farther over the lawn, but the entrance and the broad windows remained the same.

He looked toward the patch of grass where they had played catch.

He could still picture Mao Mao running around his father, laughing while Jua tried to grab his shirt. Ying Di had followed with that blank expression on his face, determined to catch someone despite having no idea why.

To Jua, it had happened only a few days ago.

He turned away before Mao Mao could notice where he was looking.

The driver stopped near the entrance, and someone brought the wheelchair around. Mao Mao got out first, then came to Jua’s side and opened the door.

"Let me help."

Jua let him.

There was little point refusing when his legs still couldn’t reliably support him. He accepted the arm beneath his back and the hand steadying his elbow, concentrating on keeping his feet beneath him during the short transfer.

Mao Mao lowered him into the chair carefully, then crouched to arrange the footrests.

Jua watched his bent head without speaking.

Inside, the house smelled faintly of polished wood and something cooking farther down the corridor. Staff waited near the entrance, greeting them quietly before stepping aside. Jua nodded in response, distracted by the familiarity of the hallway.

Even the table near the stairs was the same.

He remembered passing it with Mao Mao holding his hand, remembered Ying Rui standing beside it with a phone pressed to his ear. The small details unsettled him more than the changes outside had. He kept expecting someone familiar to emerge from a doorway.

Mao Mao pushed the wheelchair toward the staircase.

Jua looked up at the steps, then toward the corridor leading to his old room.

He could see its door from here.

It was slightly open. Through the gap, he caught a glimpse of the bed and the desk near the window. They were still where he remembered them.

His gaze lingered.

Mao Mao followed it.

"Your room has been kept as it was."

Jua turned his head a little farther, trying to see inside. Someone had changed the curtains, but even those were close to the old colour. The room looked ready for him to enter and sit down, as though he had only been away for the afternoon.

For a moment, he wanted exactly that.

Then the wheelchair stopped at the foot of the stairs.

Mao Mao came around in front of him and bent to move the footrests aside.

"My room is upstairs," he said. "Everything you need is there."

Jua looked at him.

He hadn’t been asked.

The thought sharpened the irritation he had been trying to contain since they left the cemetery. He could have said something then. He knew that. Yet he was tired of having to object to decisions that should have been discussed with him in the first place.

Mao Mao seemed to read enough of his expression to hesitate.

"The bed will be more comfortable," he added. "And there’s space for the equipment."

Jua lowered his eyes.

After a few seconds, an arm slipped beneath his knees and another supported his back.

He stiffened as Mao Mao lifted him.

He still wasn’t used to how easily the man could do it. There was no awkward pause to adjust his weight, no strain in his breathing as he straightened. Jua’s own hand caught the front of his shirt out of reflex, then loosened as soon as he realised what he was holding.

Mao Mao looked down at him.

Jua kept his attention on the stairs.

They went up slowly. Beneath him, Mao Mao’s arms remained secure, and Jua hated that he had no reason to doubt his care even while he was angry with him.

At the top, a door stood open.

Mao Mao carried him through it and crossed to the bed.

The room was larger than Jua expected, with a sitting area near the windows and a desk against one wall. A wheelchair waited beside a low cabinet, and several pieces of medical equipment had been arranged discreetly nearby.

This had been planned.

Jua looked at the extra pillows, the folded blanket within reach, the clear space beside the bed where someone could assist him.

Mao Mao lowered him onto the mattress and kept a hand behind his shoulders while adjusting the pillows.

"Is that comfortable?"

Jua settled back without answering.

The man waited, then carefully lifted his legs onto the bed. He smoothed the blanket over them and moved the water on the bedside table a little closer.

"The nurse is downstairs. She’ll come up when you need her. I’ll also be next door. You can call me whenever you need anything."

Jua looked toward the window.

Mao Mao straightened, but didn’t leave.

For a while, Jua could hear him moving around the room. A drawer opened. Something was placed on the table beside him. When he glanced down, he found a box of tissues and the same small cup they had brought from the hospital.

Mao Mao was finding things to do.

"You can rest before dinner," he said. "I’ve asked them to keep it simple."

Jua’s fingers curled slightly against the blanket.

He wasn’t trying to punish him by refusing to speak. At least, he hadn’t intended to. He simply couldn’t bear another ordinary sentence while everything between them remained unsettled.

Mao Mao stood beside the bed for a few moments before sitting on the edge, leaving a careful gap.

"Jua Ge."

The name made Jua’s chest tighten.

He could hear the child in it, which only made the rest harder. He remembered being needed in small, manageable ways. A frightened dream, an aching knee, a book placed in his lap because Mao Mao wanted him to read.

Now there was a bond embedded in his soul, and a man beside him who had mistaken twenty years of waiting for permission.

Jua kept his eyes on the window.

Mao Mao’s phone rang.

He silenced it immediately, but when he checked the screen, his expression changed. Jua saw it reflected faintly in the glass.

"I need to take this."

There was a pause, as though he was hoping Jua might finally answer.

When he didn’t, the mattress shifted as Mao Mao stood.

"I’ll be just outside."

The door closed quietly behind him.

Jua listened until the low voice in the corridor moved farther away. Only then did he let his shoulders sink against the pillows.

He looked around the room once more, taking in the closed door, the waiting wheelchair, and the water placed exactly where he could reach it.

Then he rested both hands on the blanket and closed his eyes.

There would be time to argue about the room later. First, he needed to understand what Mao Mao had done to him.

He followed the demonic energy inward, moving carefully this time, until the black mark came into view deep within his soul. Red light traced the rune at its centre.

Jua steadied his breathing and began examining it properly.