BDSMST -Chapter 89 Gu Yan’s Confession — This Heart Is Only for You

Night had deepened.

The revelry in Woniu Village gradually subsided. After a full day of excitement, the once-noisy estate finally returned to tranquility beneath the bright moonlight.

When Jiang Suisui finished handling the estate affairs and returned to her courtyard, she found Gu Yan sitting alone on a stone bench in the yard.

On the stone table before him were no official documents, no maps—only a pot of warmed wine and two cups.

He was no longer wearing the marquis’s formal attire from the day. Instead, he had on a dark inner robe, his long hair tied back with a simple ribbon. Bathed in moonlight, he looked gentle and relaxed.

“Waiting for me?” Jiang Suisui walked over and sat across from him.

“Mm.” Gu Yan responded softly, lifting the wine pot to fill her cup. “Today is worth celebrating.”

Jiang Suisui raised the cup. The crisp fragrance of the wine rose to her nose. She looked at the wavering reflection of the moon in the cup and asked, “Celebrating your reinstatement? Or celebrating my new title as Protector of the Nation?”

Gu Yan looked at her and shook his head.

“What I’m celebrating is that we are both still alive. That this home is still here.” His voice was low and mellow in the night air.

Her heart stirred gently at those words.

After the plague and the treacherous currents of court politics, being able to sit together peacefully under the moon, sharing wine, was already the greatest blessing.

Neither spoke again for a while. They simply drank in silence.

The moonlight stretched their shadows long across the ground, weaving them together until they were indistinguishable.

“Suisui.” After some time, Gu Yan suddenly called her name.

“Mm?”

“I’m sorry.”

Her hand froze midair, the cup suspended. She looked up at him in confusion.

Gu Yan did not meet her eyes. His gaze rested on the distant field ridges, as if recalling something.

“Three years ago, when I returned from the northern frontier, my body was covered in wounds, and my heart was as good as dead. I thought that once I took off that armor and left that battlefield, I could live a peaceful life. But I was wrong.”

“I brought the killing aura of the battlefield back home. I vented my disappointment and resentment toward the court onto everyone around me. I shut myself away and refused to let anyone into my world.”

“I owe you and Xuan’er far too much. I left you alone in that devouring capital, letting you and our son endure humiliation and cold stares. I even… when I heard you had left the capital with Xuan’er, I felt a trace of relief.”

He spoke calmly, as if narrating someone else’s story.

But Jiang Suisui could hear the deep regret buried beneath that calm.

“I thought I would spend the rest of my life rotting away on this estate like a walking corpse. Until… you came.”

He finally turned to look at her, his eyes blazing.

“You burst in like a beam of light, without hesitation. You turned this barren estate into something full of life. You transformed those idle wastrels abandoned by their families into men who could stand tall. You gave Xuan’er back the joy and innocence a child should have.”

“You’ve managed everything so well—so well that I sometimes feel that I, the so-called ‘Marquis,’ am the most useless person in this household.”

Her emotions churned as she listened. She wanted to speak, but any words felt pale in this moment.

“I once believed my heart had died long ago in the frozen wastelands of the north. I thought my life’s purpose was to guard the borders and, one day, be wrapped in horsehide on the battlefield.”

“But during these days in Woniu Village—watching you lead people to reclaim the land, watching Xuan’er run laughing along the fields, watching the steam rise from the dinner table—I began to understand.”

He stood, walked to her, and crouched down in front of her, looking up at her.

In that posture, he shed all the authority of the Marquis of Yongning and the sharpness of a war god. He was simply an ordinary man, confessing to the woman he loved.

“I guarded the border for ten years and protected the people of the realm. But when I returned from the battlefield, I realized that what I truly wanted was not the hollow glory of the court nor a few cold lines in the history books.”

He reached out and gently took her slightly cool hand resting on the stone table, enveloping it in his warm palm.

“Suisui, this countryside—with you in it—is where my heart belongs.”

“I missed too many years in the past. In the days to come, I want to stay by your side—watch the wheat in the fields turn golden, watch Xuan’er grow up and marry, watch us… grow old together.”

“I don’t know how to say flowery words. I only want to tell you this.” His eyes shone brighter than the stars above. “This heart of Gu Yan’s belongs to you alone.”

Jiang Suisui was stunned.

She had imagined countless possibilities for how their relationship might develop, but never had she imagined that on such a quiet night, in such a solemn yet clumsy way, he would lay bare his heart so completely.

She was not a naïve young girl who would be moved to tears by a few sweet words.

But every sentence he spoke felt as though it had been carved straight out of his chest—flesh and blood and warmth—and struck her squarely in the heart.

The courtyard was silent save for the rustle of leaves in the wind and the clear, steady sound of their heartbeats.

Jiang Suisui looked at him—at the careful hope and faint nervousness in his eyes—and suddenly smiled.

Under the moonlight, that smile was so gentle it seemed almost to melt into water.