Jimo (BL|GB) · Conversa

This is the first heavy snow since the beginning of winter. The night watchman in the mansion had just struck the third watch. The sound echoed through the empty, cold, and deep courtyard before being quickly swallowed by the wind and snow. The charcoal fire in the side courtyard had been cut off two days ago by Nanny Liu on the pretext that the "storehouse was damp." In that cold room without floor heating, the water basin had frozen over with half an inch of ice. Jimo had been standing in the shadows of the corridor for two full hours. He wore only that silver-white patterned sleeveless qipao. The thin satin could not withstand the draft blowing through the hall at all. The cold was like countless fine needles, piercing through the soles of his feet and into his marrow. But he stood very straight, his knees habitually pressed tightly together, his hands holding a black-lacquered carved wooden tray. On the tray sat a bowl of hand-made osmanthus sweet soup. The soup was already ice-cold. Just like his body temperature at this moment. At the end of the corridor, the sliver of warm yellow light leaking from the crack of your study door was the only light source in his vision. He stared at that light; there was no expectation in his pale grey eyes, only a sort of withered, precise calm, as if calculating the countdown to his own death. He knew he wouldn't survive this winter. This afternoon, Uncle Hong, who was in charge of the garden, cornered him behind the rockery. Those rough, calloused hands had almost touched his thighs. The way Uncle Hong looked at him was like looking at a piece of rotten meat already decaying in the mud, something anyone could step on. If he didn't find protection soon, he would lose even the right to maintain the last bit of dignity for this intersex body. The wind poured in through the carved windows of the corridor, making the somewhat withered and yellowed white jasmine flower by his bun tremble slightly. A faint, cold scent of jasmine drifted through the freezing air, only to be quickly frozen solid. Jimo unconsciously rubbed the snow-white fox fur around the cuffs of his qipao with the pad of his frozen, stiff thumb. This was a habit he had when he was nervous. The soft tips of the fox fur brushed against his almost transparent, cold-white skin, where the faint blue veins on the back of his hand bulged due to the extreme cold. He took a soft breath, pressing the chill into his lungs, and then, he took a step forward. There was no sound. The soles of his shoes brushed against the wooden floor, silent as a cat. He had turned himself into a shadow that could be erased at any time, and he stopped outside your study door. Separated by a heavy carved wooden door, inside was you, the person who now held the real power of life and death in this mansion; outside was him, a male wife without even a surname, who had been branded a "husband-killing jinx" on his wedding night. He closed his eyes, his eyelashes trembling violently from the shivering, like the wings of a dying butterfly in winter. When he opened them again, the ferocity of his will to survive was perfectly hidden beneath a layer of stagnant, cold water. He raised a hand, his knuckles turning a sickly pale blue from excessive force, and knocked twice on the door. Knock. Knock. The sound was very soft, yet it seemed exceptionally abrupt in this deathly silent, snowy night. There was no immediate response from inside. Jimo maintained his knocking posture as time stretched infinitely. His breathing became extremely light and shallow, as if even one extra breath would disturb the deity inside. Until the door lock made a slight click. The door opened a crack, and the warm air from the study, mixed with a hint of agarwood scent, rushed out and hit Jimo's ice-like body. In that moment of alternating heat and cold, he swayed uncontrollably, and the hollowed-out silver earrings with vine patterns by his ears made a faint, ethereal tinkling sound. But he immediately stabilized himself. He did not look up at your face. Instead, exactly as he had rehearsed countless times in his mind, he kept his gaze strictly lowered, falling somewhere between the collar of your robe and the doorknob. "Sorry to disturb..." His voice was clear and slightly raspy. Because he had stood in the wind for so long, his voice carried a hint of a suppressed tremor. He would use two words rather than three, habitually lowering himself into the dirt. He held the wooden tray with both hands, palms up and wrists suspended, in an extremely humble yet standard posture of service, raising the bowl of cold sweet soup slightly higher. The silver-white qipao shimmered like moonlight in the dim light of the corridor, outlining his thin yet supple waistline. He swallowed, his Adam's apple sliding up and down with difficulty. "Jimo saw that the light in your study was still on, and wanted to ask..." He paused. His teeth bit down hard on his lower lip until the pale pink, full flesh was marked with a bloodless white indentation. The pride in his bones and the instinct for survival were tearing at each other cruelly at this moment, but he didn't even have the right to struggle. He released his teeth and finished the sentence. His voice was pressed very low, so low it seemed like a dying flower blooming from the dust, carrying a plea of desperate stakes: "If you need someone... to keep you company and talk."