BDSMST -Chapter 68 A Late-Night Talk — First Glimpse into Each Other’s Hearts

Two consecutive days of physical labor left Gu Yan feeling as though his body had fallen apart.

On the third night, as he lay in bed, there wasn’t a single part of him that didn’t ache in protest. He even felt as if he might never be able to leave this bed for the rest of his life.

Jiang Suisui, lying beside him, seemed to notice his “weakness.” That evening, she didn’t assign him any physical work. After dinner, she merely asked him to accompany Gu Xuan in the study to read.

Under the noble pretext of fostering father-son bonding.

The result?

Gu Xuan was deeply engrossed in the agricultural notes left behind by Mr. Shen, reading with great interest. Meanwhile, Gu Yan held a military strategy manual but couldn’t absorb a single word.

The father and son sat facing each other in silence. One was absorbed in his reading; the other sat stiffly. The atmosphere was awkward.

It wasn’t until late at night, when Gu Xuan yawned and returned to his room to sleep, that Gu Yan dragged his exhausted body back to the bedroom that made him feel so ill at ease.

As always, only a dim yellow lamp remained lit.

Jiang Suisui was still awake. She sat at the table, carefully wiping down a pot of narcissus that had just sprouted green shoots. Her movements were gentle, using a soft cotton cloth to carefully remove dust from each leaf.

Under the lamplight, her profile appeared especially serene and soft.

Gu Yan stood at the doorway for a moment before stepping inside quietly.

Unlike the previous two nights, he did not hurry to lie down. Instead, he pulled out a chair on the other side of the table and sat down.

Jiang Suisui’s hand paused briefly on the leaf, but she did not look up.

“Something you want to say?” she asked.

“Mm.” Gu Yan responded softly.

Silence fell again.

He watched her—watched her slender fingers glide lightly over the emerald leaves. He had many questions, yet didn’t know where to begin.

The past two days had shaken him deeply.

He had originally thought that upon returning, he would see a wife clouded with sorrow and a son filled with resentment. He had prepared words of comfort, prepared promises, even prepared to take them back to the capital to demand justice from his parents.

But what he found instead was a wife who treated him as if he were insignificant—even daring to order him to chop firewood and work the fields—and a son who barely recognized him anymore, even looking down on him for being clumsy.

Everything here overturned his understanding of the world.

“Why?”

In the end, he asked the question that had been circling in his mind for two days.

“Why live like this?”

The question came out with difficulty, because asking it revealed his confusion and bewilderment.

Jiang Suisui finally lifted her head. She set down the cotton cloth and looked at him. In her clear eyes flickered the dancing lamplight.

“What kind of life does the Marquis think we should be living?” she countered.

“I…” Gu Yan faltered.

Yes—what kind of life did he think they should be living?

Like in the marquis residence in the capital? Where she, as the mistress of the house, managed endless household affairs, socialized with noblewomen, and exhausted herself in hollow pleasantries and silent rivalries?

And Xuan’er? Continuing as that unruly troublemaker with no proper guidance—spending his days fighting crickets, chasing dogs, stirring up trouble—eventually becoming the laughingstock of the entire capital?

Was that truly a good life?

Before coming here, he might have thought so. After all, that was how everyone else lived.

But now, looking at the woman calmly wiping narcissus leaves under the lamplight, and thinking of the son who had stood confidently in the greenhouse during the day, hands on his hips as he directed his companions with confidence—

He suddenly wasn’t so sure anymore.

“At the very least… you shouldn’t be doing this kind of rough labor in a place like this,” he said stiffly. “You are the wife of a marquis. Xuan’er is the heir. Your status shouldn’t be reduced to this.”

“Status?” Jiang Suisui repeated the word softly, the corner of her lips lifting in a faint, almost imperceptible curve tinged with irony. “Does status put food on the table?”

“In the capital, I was the Marchioness. But that Marchioness had to think every day about how to win a bit more favor from the Old Madam, how not to fall behind among the noblewomen, how to keep her son from being outshined by other people’s children.”

“Every word I spoke had to be measured. Every action I took had to be weighed carefully. I couldn’t have my own thoughts, nor my own preferences. Everything about me had to serve the title of ‘Marchioness of Yongning.’”

“I felt like a bird locked inside a gilded cage—fed the finest grain every day, yet nearly forgetting how to flap its wings.”

Her voice was calm. There was no complaint, no accusation—only a statement of fact.

Yet those calm words struck Gu Yan’s heart like heavy blows.

He had never imagined that life in the marquis residence looked like this through her eyes.

“Here,” Jiang Suisui continued, her gaze shifting from his face to the dark fields beyond the window, “I work with the soil every day. I can see how the seeds I plant sprout, grow, and finally bear fruit.”

“I decide what to plant today and what to harvest tomorrow. With my own hands, I can support everyone in this estate. When I see their smiles because they have enough to eat, because there are vegetables in winter, I feel that what I’m doing has meaning.”

“Here, Xuan’er is no longer that troublemaking little tyrant who only stirs up chaos. He’s learned to distinguish the five grains, learned to care for seedlings, learned how to lead his companions to accomplish a task. He has a sense of responsibility now. He has a goal.”

“He may no longer look like a pampered heir, but he looks more like a living, breathing person.”

Jiang Suisui turned back to him. Her gaze was calm yet sharp, as if it could pierce through every layer of pretense and reach straight into his heart.

“Marquis, tell me—slowly withering and suffocating inside the cage of the marquis residence, or facing wind and rain here, yet able to breathe freely and truly feel alive—”

“Which kind of life do you think is the one we ‘should’ be living?”

Gu Yan fell completely silent.

He looked at her—at those eyes brighter than the stars. He felt that everything he had always upheld and believed in—status, hierarchy, social rules—

Seemed pale and fragile in the face of her words.

He had always thought that by giving her the honor of being a marchioness, by providing fine clothes and lavish meals, he had offered her his greatest gift and compensation.

But he had never asked what she truly wanted.

He had never truly tried to understand her.

Suddenly, he remembered something a cook in his army had once said to him during the hardest days at Heishi Pass.

“General, isn’t living all about having something to look forward to? If you’ve got nothing to strive for, how are you any different from a salted fish?”

Something to strive for.

In the marquis residence, what had her striving been?

And here, her striving was those green vegetable fields, those brimming granaries, those satisfied smiles.

“I understand now.”

After a long while, Gu Yan finally spoke, his voice hoarse.

He stood up. Without looking at her again, he walked straight to the bed and lay down without changing out of his clothes.

He turned his back to her, curling himself toward the outer edge of the bed.

The aches in his body suddenly seemed insignificant.

In their place was a deeper exhaustion—one rooted in his soul—and a profound sense of confusion.

For the first time, he began to reflect.

To reflect on what he, as a husband and as a father, had done wrong.