DBTC 02

Chapter : 02

The Wedding.

The night was thick as ink, pressing heavily down on Qinjia Village.

Qin Hu strode out of the Zhao family’s small courtyard, his pace quickening. His right hand rested loosely on the hilt of the hunting knife at his waist. The air was thick with the scent of parched dust and an undercurrent of unease.

He pushed open the gate to his own yard. Qin Chuan was crouched by the millstone, sharpening a dagger. Seeing his elder brother return, he sprang up: “Brother, did it work?”

“It worked.” Qin Hu walked straight inside and lit the oil lamp. “Wedding in three days. At dawn on the fourth day, we move.”

Qin Chuan nodded, his face showing neither joy nor sorrow.

Qin Hu walked to the east end of the yard. Two vehicles sat quietly—one horse-drawn cart, one mule cart, both fitted with covered compartments. The horse cart had been prepared last year; the mule cart was acquired early this spring. He crouched down, pulling out an oilcloth-wrapped bundle from a hidden compartment in the floor of the horse cart, then retrieved another from inside the mule cart.

Under the lamp, he opened them: a stack of banknotes, a pouch of silver ingots.

After counting, he said in a low voice: “Banknotes go in the horse cart’s hidden compartment. The silver is split in two—sixty taels in the mule cart’s hiding spot, forty-five taels carried on our persons.” He paused. “If trouble comes on the road, keep the two carts some distance apart—so we don’t lose everything in one blow.”

Qin Chuan stared at the silver, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Brother, do we really have to leave so completely?”

“If we don’t leave, what are we waiting for?” Qin Hu’s voice wasn’t loud, but it fell like chips of ice on stone. “For the refugees to turn into bandits? For the well to go completely dry? The horse cart carries people, the mule cart carries goods—both offer shelter from wind and rain, so we can travel far.”

His gaze seemed to pierce through the earthen walls. “I’ve been preparing this road for two years. It’s time to go.”

That night, Qin Hu lay in bed, his eyes burning bright.

Two years. Ever since the game had started migrating south, he had been preparing for this day. Stockpiling grain, saving money, buying carts, scouting routes… What Qin Hu set his sights on, he never failed to obtain.

This time, what he wanted was Zhao Wan—that girl as beautiful as a mountain spirit.

In three days, she would be his.

Three days passed in the blur of trepidation, shyness, and the tangled web of boundless fear and faint hope for the future.

The wedding day came at dusk.

The ceremony was held in Qin Hu’s equally modest main hall. No crowd of guests, no suona horns or drums.

Zhao Wan wore a brand-new red wedding gown—simple in design, but with fine, even stitching. Qin Hu had quietly procured it some time ago and had Qin Chuan deliver it only yesterday.

A light dusting of rouge on her cheeks. Her dark hair was pinned up by her father’s hands, secured with the plain silver hairpin Qin Hu had given her.

Though simple, the red skirt made her radiant beauty all the more startling. Against this drab backdrop, she blazed like a living flame.

Only two thin red candles burned in the main hall, casting a dim yellow light. Besides her father Zhao Mingyuan and Qin Hu’s younger brother Qin Chuan, only the elderly clan elder from the east end of the village had been invited to bear witness.

The old man’s hair and beard were white as snow, the deep wrinkles on his face filled with the weathering of years.

First bow to Heaven and Earth. Second bow to the ancestors and parents. Third bow—husband and wife to each other.

Zhao Wan was led by Qin Hu through the ritual, so simple it bordered on perfunctory. His palm was warm, calloused, his grip on her wrist steady.

Through the coarse red bridal veil, she could only make out his blurry outline and a tiny patch of floor beneath her feet. Her heart pounded so wildly she thought it might burst from her chest.

The red candles flickered, casting their light on the simple but brand-new double-happiness characters.

The moment the door closed, the world seemed to lose all sound, leaving only Zhao Wan’s thunderous heartbeat and Qin Hu’s all-too-present breathing.

She wore the red wedding gown he had sent—rough fabric, but a shade of red so vivid it burned the eyes, hugging her slender curves and making her feel awkward and exposed. This garment, like the man himself, carried an unrefusable, straightforward intensity.

Shyness flooded over her like a tide.

When he handed her the nuptial wine, their fingertips brushed—she jerked her hand back as if burned, her face blazing.

When his calloused fingertips traced her cheek with near-reverence, the tremor that ran through her left her weak and tingling.

His scent—sweat, soapwort, and the crisp pine-and-cedar fragrance of the mountain woods—enveloped her overwhelmingly. Unfamiliar, yet strangely not unpleasant; instead, it made her heart beat even more erratically.

When the lamp was blown out, darkness amplified every sensation. His approach, the arm encircling her waist, the heat of his chest pressing against her… every move tentative, yet inexorable, giving no ground.

Zhao Wan’s body first went rigid. Then, at his low, almost restrained murmur of “Wan’er,” she slowly softened, little by little.

“If I can’t hold back… and it’s too much for you… just tell me, and I’ll stop.” The barely contained pain and longing in his hoarse, broken voice struck like a small hammer against the tenderest part of Zhao Wan’s heart.

In the darkness, she summoned her courage, reached out, and lightly touched his burning cheek with her fingertips.

That tiny gesture was like a spark to gunpowder. The force of his sudden explosion was astonishing—his kiss descended with a heat that consumed everything.

The initial rawness and pain were soon swept away by his fiery guidance. His rough palms left vivid, unfamiliar sensations on her skin, sending shivers of numbness through her.

His breath, his sweat, his barely suppressed gasps—all merged into a torrent that engulfed her completely.

Zhao Wan went from passive endurance to clumsy response, finally to clinging helplessly, her consciousness bobbing in the surging tide of heat. She felt as though she were being taken apart and reassembled, branded with a mark that was his alone.

Sometime later, the storm subsided. Exhausted, she curled in his sweat-damp embrace, too weak even to move her fingers.

He still held her tightly, almost painfully so, yet it brought a strange sense of security—of being firmly guarded. His heavy breathing gradually steadied; the kisses he pressed to her crown were so gentle they seemed to belong to a different man from the fierce one moments before.

Zhao Wan sank into sleep, utterly spent.

Outside the window, the night was deep and all was silent.