Chapter 4: You'll Pay for the Button

Wen Jialing raised her eyes to take in the room, and Song Tingyue was studying her just as closely.

Her brows were twisted together so tightly they could have crushed a fly. Her big, bright eyes darted everywhere, her face was flushed red, and she looked like she was dying to say something but couldn't get it out.

"Stop standing by the door. Come in. Shut it—the wind's strong."

Song Tingyue knew exactly what kind of place she'd lived in before.

A high-end Western-style house in the French Concession. Her bedroom alone had been bigger than this entire room.

A soft Simmons bed, plush cashmere carpets, a vanity covered in dolls brought back from Hong Kong—the whole room had been decorated in the height of foreign style.

If the Wen family hadn't kindly taken him in, he probably never would have set foot in a place like that in his whole life.

They had never been of the same class.

No wonder Wen Jialing had grown more and more disdainful of him as she got older—until in the end, she wouldn't even acknowledge the slightest connection to him.

The thought made Song Tingyue inexplicably irritable. He bent down and rummaged through a drawer, rough and clumsy, yanking it so hard it rattled. He fished out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, shook one loose, then looked up and met those clear black-and-white eyes.

He froze.

The cigarette hovered at his lips—lighting it felt wrong, putting it back felt wrong too.

In the end, he shoved it back into the drawer and slammed it shut with a bang.

"Why aren't you coming in? Legs tired from all that standing? Sit down and rest. I'll take you to the mess hall for food in a bit." Song Tingyue jerked his chin toward the bed. The tin stools in the room didn't even have padded covers; at least the bed had a mattress, softer to sit on.

"No need... um, is there no toilet in here? I want to use the bathroom." Wen Jialing's voice trailed off at the end, faint as a mosquito's buzz.

Song Tingyue didn't catch it. He leaned in slightly. "What are you mumbling about? Speak up."

His expression was still hard, but his voice had lost its chill—had even softened a little.

"I want to use the toilet," Wen Jialing repeated quickly, face burning red. She'd already secretly scanned the room and found nothing.

On the way here, the women riding in the same car had needed to go, so they'd had the driver stop. The vehicle pulled over to a desolate stretch of roadside, and the group had gone together into a small grove to relieve themselves on the spot.

She would rather have died. So she'd endured her thirst the whole way without drinking a drop.

But holding it this long, she was about to burst.

Song Tingyue paused, finally understanding why she'd been hesitating.

He glanced at her cracked lips and frowned. "Follow me."

"Isn't there a chamber pot?"

Wen Jialing stared at the crudely built public latrine in front of her. Waves of stench rolled out from inside, and flies buzzed back and forth.

She'd grown up with flush toilets. After her family's home was seized, the lowest she could stomach was a chamber pot.

But this... this was worse than the grove.

"What's there to turn your nose up at?" Song Tingyue shot her a look. "Water's scarce here. Water is life. The soldiers' quarters only have this one shared dry latrine. Having a roof over your head to keep out wind and rain is already more than enough—and you're still picky."

Wen Jialing bit her lip and said nothing, looking on the verge of tears.

She told herself over and over to be ready for hardship. But after more than a decade of sweetness, plunging from heaven straight into hell had left her mental defenses teetering, ready to collapse at any moment.

Resigned, she shuffled forward and pinched her nose. She couldn't hold her breath for long—she'd let go to gasp twice, pinch it again, and back and forth until her eyes were wet and her nose tip red, standing there like a startled fawn, pitiful and small.

Finally she just kept her nose pinched and mumbled thickly, "It stinks too much. I'm not going."

Let it kill her, then.

If tears could substitute for peeing, she thought, she'd have loved to cry a whole basin right now.

Song Tingyue drew a deep breath, stared at her for two seconds, and said gruffly, "You really are a delicate little thing!"

With that, he turned on his long legs and strode back the way they'd come—toward the dormitory building.

Wen Jialing assumed he was angry and didn't want to bother with her anymore. After all, she'd come to trouble him, and she still couldn't shake those spoiled habits.

She held it in, refusing to let the tears fall.

Because there was no one here to wipe them for her. Crying was showing weakness, and she absolutely could not cry.

The urge grew more urgent by the second. She glanced hesitantly at the dry latrine and thought: if she actually died from holding her bladder, that would be a pretty embarrassing way to go.

Just as she was wavering about going in, footsteps came running up behind her, along with a man's low shout: "Take this!"

Wen Jialing turned and instinctively caught what Song Tingyue handed her—a stack of soft straw paper.

"The paper in there is hard. Scratchy. This one's soft."

Then he pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, twisted off two sponge filters, and without a word stuffed them into her two small nostrils. His movements were rough, but the force was surprisingly gentle.

"Plug them up. Tobacco smell beats the stink." Song Tingyue looked her up and down, exasperation written all over his face. "There. Satisfied now, Your Highness the Young Miss?"

That form of address, paired with his lazy drawl, made Wen Jialing's heart jolt for no reason.

She remembered mocking Song Tingyue once: "I am the noble Young Miss, and you're just a bodyguard my parents picked up off the street! Without my orders, you're not allowed to leave my side even half a step!"

That boomerang had come back around and hit her square in the chest.

She'd been a little girl then—bossy, domineering, rude.

But she'd only said it because she couldn't stand seeing Song Tingyue close to his female classmates. She was fiercely possessive of what was hers; she wanted all of his attention, and she wouldn't let him look at anyone else.

Seeing Wen Jialing still dazed, Song Tingyue went on:

"The dry latrines in the family housing are better than this—cleaner, more hygienic. Once you move over there, you won't have to suffer this. For now, since it's urgent, just make do."

Persuaded, Wen Jialing finally agreed to go in. Her nasal passages filled with the faint scent of tobacco, the same smell that had drifted from his room. Honestly, she hated the pungent odor—but compared to the stench, it was a vast improvement.

After a few steps, Wen Jialing turned back anxiously. "Will anyone else come in?"

Song Tingyue crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe, half-lidded eyes on her. He ground his teeth, then squeezed the words out between them: "I'll stand guard out here for you. A tank couldn't get through. Go on."

Only then did Wen Jialing feel reassured, and she went in obediently.

Song Tingyue leaned against the wall and raked a hand through his hair.

They say girls change a great deal as they grow up—but how did this little one get more delicate the older she got?

Even using the toilet took this much fuss.

He clicked his tongue.

How was he supposed to raise her from here?

Back at the Wen house, with her parents and the servants around, he'd only had to do his duty as an older brother. Now the whole burden had landed on his shoulders alone. Truly a daunting task.