Free Web NovelChapter 206: Caring for Him
Every night, I would stay up late and wait for Ren to return. I would offer to bathe him as an excuse to spend even more time together. As the days went by, I started to notice more injuries on Ren’s body. It started off with a few grazes on his knuckles and then some small cuts here and there, mostly on his arms. Ren never mentioned anything to me, but I would use the excuse of bathing him to fully inspect his body.
“You should go to sleep first. There’s no need for you to wait up for me,” Ren said on one of the nights when he came back to the tent.
“I wouldn’t do that. More like, I couldn’t sleep no matter how hard I tried. I want to see you, Ren,” I said before I offered him one of my sweetest smiles.
He smiled back at me. Knowing that he didn’t want me to approach him when he was unclean, I quickly offered to bathe for him. I wished it was just my imagination, but I knew well that it wasn’t so. Today Ren’s injuries had gotten worst.
“Ren, let me patch you up...” I offered immediately after he got out of the bath.
“It’s nothing but a few scratches here and there,” Ren replied.
“You had a lot of blood on you...” I said as I recalled the state that he was in when he first came back.
“It’s not mine...” Ren replied flatly.
“Are you sure? Anyways, just let me see, ok? I’ll apply some medicine so that your wounds don’t get infected,” I quickly offered.
“They’re just scratches, Rin,” Ren said and I knew that he didn’t want me to worry.
“Please just let me heal it. Please...for my sake...” I pleaded.
Ren gave in with a sigh and I led him to the bed and urged him to sit down before I went to fetch some medicine and bandages. I hated the sight of Ren coming back to the tent covered in the color and smell of blood even if the blood wasn’t his own. Quickly, I fetched the medical kit before returning to Ren’s side.
He was right, his injuries were insignificant. It probably didn’t hurt much if he didn’t move his hands and arm around, but I knew that he had to so this needed to be dealt with as soon as possible. Infections were no joke, and it could lead to fever and other conditions so I needed to prevent that as well. I felt Ren’s eyes on me as I started applying medicine to his cuts.
Honesty, I wanted to take care of Ren. The main reason I studied and trained so hard was so that I could heal Ren when he got hurt. However, I hated patching Ren up simply because that meant that Ren had been hurt somehow. My brows furrowed together as I focused on making sure that I got every single scratch on his body.
“When I was a boy, I got these small injuries quite a lot from fighting and sword training with my masters,” Ren spoke up suddenly.
“Really? I didn’t think that they would let the crown prince get hurt...” I replied in surprise.
“Well, anything is fine for them as long as I don’t die,” Ren said with a laugh, although I didn’t think that that was funny.
“I see...” I mumbled as I continued to apply medicine to more of his cuts. freewēbnoveℓ.com
“Whenever I get injured, I would run to my mother at her palace after the training was over. I wanted her to tend to my wounds and heal me instead of the royal doctors. Of course, I didn’t expect her to know how to tend to my wounds properly, but I still wanted her to take care of me. However, she never did,” Ren said with a faraway look in his eyes as if he was recalling some old memories from the past.
“That’s...” I began saying and then quickly realized that I didn’t have anything to say.
“Harsh? My mother was always like that towards me. She would always push me away even if I was sick or injured, she wouldn’t take care of me like a mother normally would...” Ren said emotionlessly.
I felt like Ren wanted to tell me something, but it was hard for him to put it into words. Although he made it sound like it didn’t bother him, I was certain that it must have hurt him a lot when he was younger.
“She must have had her reasons...” I said, wondering what those reasons were. Her reasons, whatever they were, were probably what Ren wanted to tell me through this story of his.
“She did. My mother was a political hostage that was sent to represent her town when my father conquered it. She was one of the many that were offered to my father as his concubine. She didn’t love my father at all but as fate would have it, she was the first woman to get pregnant with his child and gave birth to his son. Obviously that child was me,” Ren stated flatly.
I listened attentively as Ren told his story about his mother. The previous empress was a political hostage just like me and the other concubines in the inner court. If I have Ren’s child, I’ll probably follow closely in her footsteps.
“For my mother, giving birth to me was the worst thing that could have happened in her life. She was forced to become the empress and lost all hopes of returning to her hometown. She hated everything and everyone. She hated my father and she hated me as well. In the end, she became a nun and soon passed away from illness,” Ren told his story in a detached way.
“I’m sorry to hear that...” I whispered sadly.
“It was an illness that ultimately ended her life, but it was like she took her own life. She wanted to die so badly...” Ren said, and for a moment, I felt like he was far away.
“It must have been very hard on you...” I said comfortingly.
“I never paid attention to women in my inner court. They all reminded me of my mother. I’m not saying that I’m inexperienced with women. Just like any man, I’ve sought for comfort from many women during my travels from brothers and the like. However, I’ve never bedded a political hostage before in my life. You’re the first and will probably be the only one...” Ren said ending with a soft laugh.
--To be continued...
