BDSMST -Chapter 65 An Awkward Night — How to Share a Bed?

Night had deepened.

One by one, the lights in the estate went out, leaving only the night watchman carrying a lantern as he made his rounds inside and outside the courtyard walls.

Gu Yan had finished splitting the entire pile of firewood.

He stacked the chopped logs neatly against the woodshed wall, sorted carefully by size and thickness—arranged even more precisely than supply piles in a military camp. By the time he was done, a thin sheen of sweat covered him, and much of the pent-up frustration in his chest had dissipated with each swing of the axe.

When he returned to the warm chamber carrying a chill from the night air and the scent of wood chips, it was already empty.

Chunxing waited under the corridor with a lantern. Seeing him, she hurriedly bowed. “Marquis, Madam has prepared hot water for you. Your room is also ready.”

Gu Yan nodded and followed her through a small winding corridor to a side room on the west side of the main courtyard.

The room was not large, and the furnishings were simple: a bed, a table, a wardrobe, and a folding screen for washing. The floor heating burned warmly, filling the room with comfortable heat. An oil lamp flickered on the table, casting a soft glow that made the small space feel unexpectedly cozy.

Jiang Suisui sat beneath the lamp, holding an account book, her eyes lowered as she recorded something with a brush. She had changed out of her daytime cotton dress and into a plain inner robe. Her long black hair hung loose over her shoulders. She seemed less cool and efficient than during the day, softer—more domestic.

Hearing footsteps, she looked up at him.

“You’re back?” She closed the ledger and stood. “The hot water is behind the screen. Fresh clothes are at the bedside. Go wash up first.”

Her arrangements were as thorough as ever—and just as impersonal.

Gu Yan said nothing. He surveyed the room.

This was clearly a woman’s chamber. A faint scent of soapberry and herbs lingered in the air. On the table, aside from the account book, sat a sewing basket.

And that bed…

His gaze settled on the only bed in the room.

It was not large—just an ordinary double bed—covered with thick cotton quilts. The bedding was new, carrying the faint scent of sun-dried fabric.

“My room?” he finally asked, his voice slightly dry.

“The rooms in the estate are limited,” Jiang Suisui explained, seeming to understand his unspoken question. “This is the main chamber. I usually stay here. Now that you’re back, you’ll stay here as well. We can’t very well send a Marquis to squeeze onto a communal kang bed with Wei Ziqian and the others.”

Her reasoning was sound and impossible to refute.

Yet Gu Yan felt his breath hitch.

Stay here? With her…?

Though they were husband and wife in name, he had left for the northern frontier the day after their wedding. For three years, aside from the title of husband and wife, there had been nothing between them. He had never even touched her hand.

He had assumed that upon returning to the capital and the Marquis’s residence, they would live in separate courtyards—polite but distant.

And now, in this small rural estate, they were to… share a bed?

This unsettled him far more than chopping firewood had.

“What?” Jiang Suisui noticed his stiff expression, her brow barely shifting. “Is the Marquis unwilling? Or does sharing a room with me damage your dignity?”

“No,” Gu Yan denied immediately.

He did feel uncomfortable—but to say it damaged his dignity was untrue. She was the properly wedded wife of the Marquis of Yongning. Sharing a room was only natural.

It was just that everything felt too sudden—too unreal.

“Then go wash,” Jiang Suisui said without further comment. She picked up the ledger and sat back down, lowering her head to continue her calculations—an unmistakable air of “do as you please, just don’t disturb me.”

Gu Yan looked at her calm, unruffled profile and felt that all his emotions seemed redundant and almost laughable in front of her.

He hesitated no longer and stepped behind the screen.

The hot water had been prepared at just the right temperature. He removed his dust-covered clothes and immersed himself in the warmth. The fatigue and grime of the journey seemed to dissolve little by little in the rising steam.

But the restlessness and awkwardness in his heart did not diminish in the slightest.

When he finished washing and changed into a clean cotton inner robe, stepping out from behind the screen, Jiang Suisui had already extinguished the oil lamp on the table, leaving only a dim bedside lamp burning.

She was already lying in bed, close to the inner side, covered with a thin quilt. Her back faced him, offering only a slender silhouette.

Gu Yan stopped at the bedside.

He looked at that back, at the half of the bed left empty for him, and suddenly had no idea where to put his hands or feet.

He had spent half his life in battle—climbing mountains of blades and crossing seas of fire—never retreating before thousands of troops. Yet now, faced with this small bed, he felt an urge to flee the battlefield.

Time ticked by.

The room was so quiet that only the sound of their breathing could be heard, along with the occasional mournful whisper of wind through the treetops outside.

“Does the Marquis intend to stand there all night?”

Jiang Suisui’s calm voice came from the inner side. She did not turn around, and no emotion could be detected in her tone.

Gu Yan’s body stiffened.

After a moment of silence, he finally removed his shoes and lay down rigidly on the outer side of the bed.

He kept his body as far as possible from the invisible line in the middle, his back straight, hands placed properly at his sides—like a fallen statue laid flat.

He could smell a faint fragrance drifting from her side—not the cloying scent of cosmetics, but something clean, mingled with grass and sunlight. He could also feel that the mattress beneath him carried a trace of warmth from her body.

These subtle sensations were like feathers brushing against his taut nerves.

He closed his eyes, trying to ignore the woman beside him. In his mind, he began reviewing maps of the northern frontier, replaying the gains and losses of various battles. This had long been his habit in the army—a method to clear his thoughts and fall asleep quickly.

Tonight, however, it failed.

His mind was in chaos.

One moment, it was her calm eyes as she handed him the axe.

The next, her gentle profile as she served food to the boys at the dinner table.

Then, the quiet figure of her back, so close at hand.

He turned over, facing outward, pressing toward the cold wall in an attempt to cool himself.

But her steady, even breathing continued to reach his ears—soft, rhythmic, like a peculiar cadence tapping against his disordered heartbeat.

He had never imagined that sharing a bed with a woman could be such… torment.

On the other side of the bed—

Jiang Suisui lay with her eyes open, staring at the dark wall before her.

She could feel the man beside her turning over repeatedly like a pancake. The firm, austere aura unique to a soldier lingered faintly in the air, mixed with the clean scent of soap from his bath.

To be honest, she was not entirely accustomed to it either.

But that was all—it was merely unfamiliar.

To her, Gu Yan’s return was simply an added variable in her life. This bed, this room—since half had been given to him, then he was now part of this space. What she needed to do was adapt to this variable as quickly as possible and then incorporate him into the order she had already planned.

As for anything else…

She did not think further.

Through the long night, they shared the same bed but dreamed different dreams.

Gu Yan was awake for almost the entire night.

When the first rooster crow sounded from outside the window, he opened his eyes. Silently, he rose, dressed, and left the room without waking the still-sleeping woman.

The morning air was cold and crisp.

Standing in the courtyard, watching the pale light of dawn spread across the eastern sky, he felt like a defeated soldier—thoroughly disheveled and at a loss.