The Fugitive's Wife (12)
I must draw a line somewhere. Let me say this upfront: what I am feeling right now is absolutely, positively, never jealousy. If I had to name it, I would call it murderous intent. It is the pure rage born of betrayal, the same feeling you get when a trusted business partner embezzles funds.
…That son of a bitch.
For the past three months, I had shivered in the ice-cold corners of rooms in Peixian. Under the gloomy surveillance and threats of the county magistrate, I had lain awake every night, praying only that this man was still alive. I had poured out capital that felt like my own blood, handed over a massive four hundred coins, risked my life spreading rumors in the marketplace, and even rolled out the red carpet for his glorious return.
“Hah, but… it hurts too much… ugh!”
“Relax your strength. That’s the only way it will slide in deep.”
“Hiiik! Th-there…!”
“Hey now, stay still. I’ll take care of everything.”
But what? Relax your strength? Slide in deep? I’ll take care of everything?
I must have been crazy. Calling a man like that my husband…
My hands trembled violently. I could almost hear the sound of my sanity snapping like a hallucination.
Of course, if I judged it coldly, Liu Bang relieving his lust with another woman instead of me could have been good news. Hadn’t I already resolved to tolerate his taking of concubines? While other women carried his seed, I would remain the noble and chaste principal wife, claiming only the power and prestige.
…But still.
This was crossing a line, wasn’t it?
Three months was not exactly a short time. Moreover, ever since marrying me, Liu Bang had completely stopped his beloved womanizing. By that measure, he had been forcibly abstinent for roughly six months. Having once been a man myself, I could understand his hardship. For a creature whose lower half ruled its brain, six months without release must have felt like torture.
Even so, this was a matter of basic decency. I hadn’t expected a tearful, emotional reunion, but I had at least believed he would observe the minimum line of propriety. What I had wanted was not this… live audio of a third-rate erotic film dubbing session. I had wanted him to come running out covered in dirt, wrap his rough arms around my shoulders, and say, “You’ve suffered.”
Yes, I will admit it honestly. I had hoped Liu Bang would smile at me. Even I could hardly believe myself, but while trudging along that harsh mountain path, I had… slightly looked forward to being held in his arms. Or perhaps even more than that. After all, reunions are the seasoning that draws out true feelings, and tears are the magic that makes it easy to cross the line of the heart.
If an embrace became a kiss, and a kiss became something more—no, that was going too far. Anyway, to be truly, brutally honest, the reason I had endured alone in that remote corner of Peixian, exchanging daily glances with the mice on the ceiling, could not possibly have been just to witness this scene.
…No. Stop.
I squeezed my eyes shut, cutting off the annoying stray thoughts. If I continued like this, it felt as though my frontal lobe would melt.
I’m going to kill him.
Instead, I hardened my expression into ice. With hands that no longer trembled, I gripped the curtain tightly. And then—
Swish—!
Without hesitation, I yanked it open. Spring sunlight poured into the dark interior.
The inside of the hut was dim. The air smelled of acrid smoke and something fishy. A small campfire burned in the center. And beside it, just as I had feared, a young woman lay face-down with her upper garment removed, her shoulders completely exposed. And the one straddling her back was…
“……Huh?”
Liu Bang, holding a dagger heated red-hot in the fire, turned to look at me with a utterly stupid expression.
“Uwaaang! It hurts, it hurts so much!”
The woman’s piercing cry rang out once more. I silently lowered my gaze to the place where the two of them were… well, not exactly joined, but touching.
“……”
“……”
For one thing, Liu Bang was wearing his pants. Very properly. He sat astride the woman’s waist while fully clothed, his left hand—the one not holding the dagger—resting on her shoulder.
“……Ugh?”
At the same time, the woman who had been lying prone lifted her tear-streaked face and looked at me standing in the backlight. And on the shoulder where Liu Bang’s hand rested…
“……”
A massive boil the size of my fist sat prominently, red and swollen, on the verge of bursting.
…Is this some kind of SM play?
No, that couldn’t be it. No matter how I looked at it, that woman’s boil looked genuinely painful. And between Liu Bang’s legs… everything was calmly settled.
“……Chia?”
Liu Bang opened his mouth with a dazed expression. He looked as if he had seen a ghost. I stared at his face for a moment, then felt my earlobes burn hot as I spoke.
“Were you squeezing out a boil for her?”
“Eh? Ah… y-yes? This girl said her shoulder had been hurting for several days.”
Liu Bang answered in a fluster and quietly set down the dagger in his hand. His eyes darted back and forth between my face, my clothes, and my mud-covered shoes.
“No, but… Chia… you… I mean… uh… are you really Chia? Not a hallucination?”
“……”
I gave no answer. To be precise, my mind had gone completely blank, and no voice would come out. After exchanging silent glances with him for a moment, I finally managed to squeeze out a calm tone.
“But why is Your Grace performing the procedure yourself?”
“Eh… what, what do you mean?”
“Treating a boil, I mean. Especially in such a position.”
Liu Bang looked down blankly at what lay beneath him. A moment later, he snatched his hand away from the woman’s bare skin as if he had touched a hot coal.
“W-well, that’s because I’m the only one among us who has any experience with this sort of thing.”
“Did Your Grace also study medicine? This is the first I’ve heard of it.”
“O-of course. Boils are extremely common in the army or on labor crews. As a sergeant, it’s basic common sense to know how to lance a wound, how to squeeze out the pus, and which herbs to mash into a poultice.”
Slap. Liu Bang lightly smacked the woman’s back, as if urging her to explain. The woman, who had been frozen in a daze, finally opened her mouth.
“Ah, y-yes… Our leader also serves as the physician for this mountain stronghold!”
Her voice trembled. It seemed she had finally realized that I was Liu Bang’s wife and that their current appearance looked highly inappropriate.
“……”
“R-right now I’m lying face-down on the bed because I’m afraid of the knife and covering my eyes. It’s not that the leader forced me down or anything!”
“……”
I said nothing. I simply looked down at her with a cold expression.
“S-so… that is…”
The woman, now on the verge of tears, barely continued.
“P-please believe me, Madam…! The leader truly cares about our bodies… sob…”
“That’s right, Chia. Don’t misunderstand, alright? No matter how much I like women, I wouldn’t do that to someone who’s in pain.”
Liu Bang, who had staggered to his feet, added with an awkward laugh. I looked back and forth between the two of them, then let out a short sigh and nodded.
“I didn’t misunderstand. I’m not an idiot.”
From the beginning, I had not felt jealousy. I relaxed my expression slightly and met the woman’s eyes.
“So, is the boil feeling a bit better now?”
“Ah… yes! He says once he squeezes out the pus, it will be fine.”
The woman finally nodded with a look of relief.
“Even though the leader looks like this, his skill is truly excellent! Before, he even sucked out the pus from a boil on the inside of my younger sister Jeong-i’s thigh with his own mouth!”
“……What?”
“Ah?”
“……”
In that instant, Liu Bang squeezed his eyes shut. A suffocating silence of a completely different kind descended upon the room once more.
“……”
“……Chia.”
“……”
“……I’m sorry.”
Inside the now much quieter hut, the woman whose treatment had finished under my supervision straightened her clothes and fled as if escaping. With only the two of us left, Liu Bang’s creeping voice echoed in the space.
I stared at him intently and asked, “What exactly are you sorry for?”
“……”
“Tell me. Specifically. What did you do wrong?”
“That is… well…”
Liu Bang fidgeted, unable to continue. Yes, I knew. This was not manly at all. It was the kind of interrogation a 21st-century woman might use on her boyfriend for failing to notice her new hairstyle—the conversational style men hated most.
But right now… I was simply curious. I wanted to know just how aware this old man was of the situation. How well he understood which of his actions had made me furious.
After pondering for a moment, Liu Bang slightly lowered his head. He fidgeted with his fingers, sneaking glances at my expression.
“For touching another woman’s body without your permission.”
“……”
It was a far more direct apology than I had expected. The phrase without your permission struck me especially hard.
“……Huu.”
One cannot spit on a smiling face. When the great Liu Bang was being this honestly reflective, I had no grounds left to attack him further. I sighed and rubbed my face with both hands. Then I looked at him with half-lidded eyes.
“Your Grace.”
“Speak.”
“At that time… you didn’t make her take off her undergarments as well, did you?”
“……Eh?”
Liu Bang, who had been momentarily stunned, shuddered all over.
“Th-that’s impossible! I have my own sense of decency!”
“But you said it was on her thigh.”
“It was the middle of the thigh. Not the upper part.”
Liu Bang looked at my thigh as I knelt. Then he squeezed his eyes shut and stretched out his own leg. He placed the edge of his hand on his thigh.
“About here?”
The spot he indicated was the center of the thigh—the exact point where the plump flesh ended and the true line of the leg began. The boundary between skirt and over-knee socks. In otaku terms, the beginning of the absolute territory.
“……Hm.”
Well, ethically speaking, it was a line one could barely consider safe. If I rolled up the trousers I was currently wearing, that much would be exposed. I pretended to ponder for a moment while staring at his leg, then clicked my tongue and nodded.
“Fine. I’ll believe you this once.”
“Haha… thank you.”
Liu Bang let out a deep sigh as if he had aged ten years. His hand moved habitually toward the liquor jar on the table, then slyly retreated back to his chest. I tilted my chin with a calm voice.
“About that drinking.”
“Uhh…?”
“Once every three days. You’re still keeping that promise, right?”
“……”
A brief silence. Earthquake in his pupils. Avoidance of eye contact.
“O-of course! Naturally!”
His trembling voice finally burst out after a long delay. Having seen how he had denied any relations with the women earlier, I could now tell. This old man was telling a blatant lie.
I let out a deep sigh and shook my head.
“While completely forgetting your promise to me, you’ve been drowning yourself in liquor every day with the money I earned through blood and sweat.”
“N-no, it really was once every three days…”
“While a delicate young girl left alone in Peixian suffered terribly, bearing the stigma of being a traitor’s wife.”
“……Ugh.”
“On my way here, I heard from Elder No. He said that whenever Your Grace holds a drinking party, you seat young women on both sides.”
“What are you talking about?! N-no! Chia! It’s not true!”
Liu Bang jumped in denial. From his reaction, it seemed this part really was false. I didn’t bother correcting that I had simply been testing him and merely shrugged as if I knew nothing.
Liu Bang, who had let out a short sigh, cautiously reached out with his right hand toward mine.
“Ahem. Then may I ask you a few questions now?”
He tried to cover my hand with his. I calmly pulled my hand back.
Having sliced through empty air, Liu Bang bit his lower lip slightly, then forced a smile and continued.
“Why did you come so quickly?”
“Why? Are you displeased that I came early?”
“……A clever person like you already knows what I’m trying to say.”
“……Hmph.”
Of course I knew. In his own way, Liu Bang was worrying about me. He was saying there had been no need to cross snow-covered mountains and paths where tigers appeared just to see him. That what he had written in the letter was only to come when I was safe and comfortable.
I returned my withdrawn hand to its original place. Then I met Liu Bang’s eyes directly and continued.
“Because my husband called for me.”
“But that was…”
“And because I wanted to see you.”
“……”
Liu Bang, his gaze fixed on me, froze in place. For a moment, a strange silence settled between us.
…What is that reaction?
The way he was staring at me with such obvious eyes made me feel even more embarrassed. I cleared my throat with an ahem and changed the subject.
“That aside, Your Grace.”
“Speak.”
“While Your Grace has been hiding here, I have prepared a few things together with Administrator Xiao.”
“Prepared things?”
“Yes.”
I hesitated for a moment. I wondered whether it was right to reveal our plan to Liu Bang as well. At this point—four months earlier than in the original history—would it be correct to tell him, We are preparing to make you the Duke of Pei?
Let’s do it. Liu Bang is a vessel capable of handling at least that much.
My hesitation was brief. I began speaking in a calm voice.
“It is the plan for the ‘welcome ceremony’ that will be held when Your Grace returns to Peixian.”
I then explained to him the same stages of the welcome ceremony that I had briefed to Xiao He that day. The public opinion campaign using the women, the neutralization of the defense force, the organization of the Abundance Society, and the rough scenario for ‘that day.’
When my long explanation finally ended—
“I see.”
Liu Bang nodded with an utterly indifferent expression. For someone who had just learned that a coup was being plotted in his name without his knowledge, his face was absurdly peaceful. I let out an involuntary dry laugh and asked,
“You’re not surprised? Even though I’m plotting treason.”
“Mm… No, I am surprised. I just didn’t expect you to set the board on such a grand scale.”
Liu Bang gave a small chuckle.
“I was surprised, but… not to the point of fainting from shock.”
“……?”
“That’s because I’ve always thought you were up to something by using me, Chia. You always seemed to be looking at a distant place. As if you were seeing something I couldn’t, and leading me there.”
Liu Bang gently wrapped his hand around the back of mine. This time, I did not pull away from his touch.
“If you say to go, then that must be the right path. I believe that.”
Liu Bang stroked the back of my hand a few times with his thumb, then nodded toward the coin purse lying on the table. I looked for a moment at the shriveled pouch that had nearly run out of coins, then carefully withdrew my hand.
“Then I can take it that Your Grace’s answer is already decided.”
“Yes. Well, that’s right.”
Liu Bang scratched his head.
“But in your plan from the beginning, there isn’t really anything for me to do, is there? It’s all being handled by you and Xiao He.”
“Yes. Your Grace simply needs to return to Peixian in good health when the time comes.”
“That much is easy enough. Yes, just leave it to me.”
Thump, thump. Liu Bang lightly pounded his chest. I stared at him for a moment, then let out a small smile that was closer to a dry laugh and rose from my seat.
“Eh? You’re leaving already?”
“I heard that Your Grace has begun a business selling hides.”
“That’s right. I have to feed the children somehow.”
“In that case, I will determine the optimal price considering production speed and quality. So that ‘Liu Ji’s hides’ can successfully establish themselves in the market.”
Having spent the past three months rolling around in the marketplace, this was not particularly difficult for me. Especially with rare goods like hides, it was easier to control supply and dominate the market.
“R-right. Thank you.”
Liu Bang looked as though he didn’t quite understand what I was about to do, but he still nodded obediently. I gave him a small bow and turned to leave the hut.
“Um… Chia.”
At that moment, Liu Bang called me again. I turned only my head slightly to look at him.
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“You’re staying the night, right?”
“Yes. I plan to depart after eating breakfast tomorrow morning.”
“Good. Then I’ll prepare a small banquet for this evening. Let’s drink heartily and share a cup between ourselves.”
This old man is talking about drinking again.
“Yes, let’s do that.”
There was no reason to refuse. After all, I had brought fine liquor all the way from Shangyangju just to let him drink it. We ought to clear the air between us.
“And about sleeping…”
Liu Bang fidgeted, reading my expression. This was a mountain stronghold, and there were no spare huts. It would also be awkward to let me sleep alone in the communal quarters full of men. I let out a sigh and said bluntly,
“We can just sleep together in Your Grace’s bed. We are husband and wife—what is there to hesitate about?”
“……Eh?”
“Then, I’ll take my leave. I’ll go check the inventory.”
I nodded calmly and left Liu Bang’s hut. I was heading toward the place where the men had been skinning the deer earlier to assess the stock of hides when—
…Wait a moment.
A single word that I had casually brushed off just now suddenly lodged itself in my mind with terrifying intensity.
Did I just… suggest that the two of us drink alone together and then sleep in the same bed?
Goosebumps rose all along my spine.