Passion Raga Novel (Completed) - Chapter 30

In the Bud

After a long silence, with only faint signs of a presence occasionally heard from within the room, finally, a human voice emerged.

“Ah—, hot—”

A sigh was mixed with a grumbling murmur. The low, chuckling voice of an old man responding to something was also audible. The clatter of things being put away followed, indicating it was over.

Yuri, who had been waiting outside the sliding door, quietly turned and spoke through the door.

“Are you finished?”

“Yes—.”

Ling Xinlu’s drawn-out voice answered. Yuri said, “I’m coming in,” and opened the door. A pungent smell of dry grass wafted out. Ling Xinlu, buttoning his shirt, turned to Yuri and asked, “Did you wait long?”

Helping the old man, who was tidying up thin paper and powder that had turned into white ash, Yuri picked up the water bowl and sprinkled its contents into the outer garden. There was nothing else to help with. The old man had told him not to touch anything. Even touching the water bowl was only something he’d been allowed to do recently.

After wiping the water bowl with a dry towel and handing it back to the old man, the old man mumbled something as he took the bowl. Yuri couldn’t understand what he was saying, his wrinkled lips curving into a gentle smile. Yuri understood Chinese reasonably well, but he couldn’t grasp this old man’s words. Ling Xinlu had once laughed and said, ‘It’s because a lot of Southern barbarian dialect is mixed in.’

Even now, he still couldn’t understand, but Yuri diligently listened and earnestly looked at the old man, who continued speaking, regardless of whether Yuri understood or not. Then, with a wrinkled hand gently patting his forearm as if he were a good grandchild, Yuri nevertheless nodded and replied, “Yes, sir.”

At that, Ling Xinlu, who was putting on his clothes nearby, suddenly burst into laughter.

“Do you know what Old Man Chang said for you to answer like that?”

“I thought he was saying something nice.”

Yuri spoke with slightly widened eyes, and Ling Xinlu chuckled, acknowledging that was true.

“He said your posture is good. He saw your shadow sitting beyond the sliding door, and you kept your back straight the whole time, so your posture is excellent.”

Yuri looked at the old man and nodded, saying, “Thank you.” The old man also nodded back.

Ling Xinlu, still chuckling at whatever he found so amusing, fastened his cuff buttons.

“Mr. Gable, sometimes you’re quite funny. Like that time in the alley, you were earnestly chatting with those little girls, even though you couldn’t understand each other.”

Ling Xinlu chuckled again, remembering how they had been chattering as if they understood each other perfectly, even though the flow of conversation made no sense. Soon, the old man finished tidying his tools and drank the tea that a servant had brought at the right time. Ling Xinlu, who had finished dressing, and Yuri, who had already drunk several cups of tea while waiting outside, also picked up their teacups.

Twice a week, Ling Xinlu received acupuncture and moxibustion. It was for his eyes, which, while not entirely hopeless, had shown few signs of improvement. The old man, brought in by the Ling family after much searching, was surely no quack, yet there was still little progress.

Ling Xinlu didn’t seem to have much expectation or enthusiasm, but he also had no particular reason to refuse, so he dutifully met with the old man. And during that time, Yuri waited outside, separated by a single door, until the treatment was over.

“It feels like it’s getting hotter every day. Ugh, I’m going to get scars. What a mess on my jade-like skin.”

Ling Xinlu grumbled while drinking his tea, yet he never once complained of pain or heat during the actual moxibustion. He had once briefly entered the room during a treatment for an errand, and even as his skin was being scorched, he calmly gazed at the ceiling. It was only after the treatment was completely finished and he was dressing that he would playfully grumble and complain about the heat. Unless he had some other hidden intention, he was truly a man who never showed weakness to others.

Soon, the old man emptied his teacup, nodded once as he always did, and left, leaving only the two of them in the room.

Yuri flung open the sliding door, bringing the sun-drenched inner courtyard into view. The detached building deep within the Ling family’s main residence always had a courtyard overflowing with flowers, except in winter. It was the garden Ling Xinlu’s mother loved most.

“Shall we go back then?”

As soon as Ling Xinlu emptied and set down his teacup, he showed signs of getting up. Yuri watched him silently for a moment but soon followed him wordlessly. As they stepped out of the room and put on their shoes, a servant carrying fruit looked flustered.

“Um, the young mistress will be here soon…”

“Ah, tell her I had an appointment and left early. I’ll visit her on the weekend.”

Ling Xinlu walked briskly towards the parking lot, and Yuri gave a slight bow to the servant before following him.

Yuri had been living in the Ling family’s main residence for less than a month.

When he first arrived in China, Ling Xinlu was living in the main residence, and Yuri stayed there with him. However, it wasn’t long before Ling Xinlu found a separate house and moved out. To the elders of the family—though he was young, he was still an ‘elder’ by generation—he gave the reason that the shock and sorrow from his unrecovered body were too great, and he wanted to quietly compose himself for a while. But as soon as he entered the mansion about 40 minutes’ drive from the main residence, the first thing he said was, ‘Ah, that’s better now. They were so bothersome there.’

‘Are you not on good terms with your family?’

He didn’t intend to pry, but he thought it would be better to know if he was going to be looking after him and staying with him for a while, so he asked. Ling Xinlu shrugged his shoulders as if to say, ‘What nonsense.’

‘My father and mother, I like them both. They care for me terribly.’

He added that the problem was that it was sometimes truly ‘terrible,’ and Ling Xinlu’s expression didn’t seem to be deliberately hiding anything. Indeed, what Yuri felt during his brief stay at the main residence was the excessive affection showered upon Ling Xinlu by the two adults. It was, quite literally, doting love, as if he might drown in it.

‘I had heard rumors, so I expected it to some extent, but… it’s surprising.’

As soon as he first entered the Ling family home, Yuri was immediately summoned before Ling Hwirung, who wanted to see for himself what kind of person his youngest son had brought to keep by his side. After a long tea session with him—though it seemed the investigation into his background was already complete, as most of the conversation was about current affairs—Yuri mumbled in a dazed voice.

Ling Hwirung was a person of overwhelming aura, as if simply being in his presence drained one’s energy. Indeed, without such a presence, one couldn’t lead a family like a vast empire.

What was surprising was that this man, who seemed to have neither a drop of blood nor a tear, poured an absurdly unconditional affection onto his youngest son. It was so much that it even made one suspect that this cunning, tiger-like man might have some ulterior motive.

‘My father is a bit like that. Still, seeing him say ‘Please take good care of my son’ when I left, it seems you passed, Mr. Gable. My father is a very picky man, and he really doesn’t show that kind of sentiment.’

‘Well, I thought he’d like Mr. Gable anyway,’ Ling Xinlu said with a calm smile. Then, with that beaming face, he dragged Yuri to his mother, saying, ‘Now it’s Mother’s turn to evaluate.’

His mother, who at middle age still retained all the beauty of her youth, was, to be honest, almost sickeningly doting. The somewhat melancholic Madame Mei observed the person next to her son for an uncomfortably long time. And every word she spoke to her son was so permissive and accommodating that it seemed she might spoil the child.

The overly cautious love, like treating a dying infant, was discernible even without observing her for long. The parents’ love for Ling Xinlu was absolute and unconditional, to the extent that one might think he had grown up exceptionally well in such an environment.

That’s why Yuri could understand his relieved expression when Ling Xinlu moved out of the main residence and into the mansion.

“…Yes, Mother. It was because I had plans to meet Qianping. Today’s treatment ran a bit long, so I was pressed for time. …Of course, I want to see you too.”

Yuri glanced at Ling Xinlu, who was taking a call less than five minutes after driving out of the main residence, in the rearview mirror and slightly eased his foot on the accelerator. The car began to slow down.