It was already past three o'clock in the morning. Gu Yun was exhausted and wanted to go back to rest, but he was influenced by Shen Yi's words and turned to the backyard unconsciously.

At this time, there were few lights on in the entire capital. Chang Geng had already gone to bed. Gu Yun did not disturb the old servant outside and tiptoed into his room. He was about to reach out to pull the quilt for Chang Geng in the light of the snow outside the window, but suddenly, he found that the child was not sleeping well, as if he was having a nightmare.

"Are you not used to living in the Marquis' Mansion?" Gu Yun thought so and put his cold fingers on Chang Geng's wrist.

Chang Geng shuddered violently, gasped and woke up, with confusion still in his eyes, staring blankly at the person beside the bed.

Gu Yun gently shook his wrist and softened his voice: "Are you having a nightmare? What did you dream about?"

Chang Geng didn't say anything at first. After a while, his scattered gaze gradually came into focus. He stared at Gu Yun's eyes as if two fires were burning in the middle of the night. Suddenly, he reached back and hugged Gu Yun's waist.

Gu Yun had a piece of black iron armor hanging on his shoulder, bringing with it a chill of early winter. The cold iron pressed tightly against Chang Geng's forehead. In a trance, Chang Geng seemed to have returned to that bone-chilling snowy night outside the Great Wall. He shivered violently, only then freeing himself from the entangled nightmare, thinking: "I'm still alive."

The gears of the clock in the room were turning with a rustling sound. A brazier had been lit and was lying in the middle of the room like a big pot. Thin white steam was rising from the bottom and was immediately blown away by a special bellows. Only the hot steam was emitting slowly, circulating throughout the room and making it warm.

Gu Yun was suddenly hugged by him. He was stunned at first, and then a strange feeling arose in his heart. It was the first time that someone relied on him with all his strength, and he almost felt a sense of dependence on each other.

Of course, his usual frivolous look of "I am invincible" was just an act. He knew his own worth very well. If Marquis Anding was really so overconfident, after several trips to the battlefield, the grass on his grave would probably be as tall as a person.

But at this moment, Gu Yun really had the illusion that he could do anything.

Chang Geng's skeleton had grown, but he was still as thin as a child. When he stretched out his hand, he could vaguely feel the bones under his ribs through his thin inner clothes.

This thin body of flesh and blood weighed heavily on him. Gu Yun thought that he had to take care of this child and raise him up, just as the late emperor had hoped, and watch over him so that he would live a long and peaceful life.

He was finally able to make up for his helplessness in helping Ayan.

Gu Yun took off the armor on his shoulders and hung it aside. He climbed onto Chang Geng's bed with his clothes on and asked, "Do you miss your mother? I mean your aunt."

Chang Geng shook his head.

Gu Yun Chang Geng could not hold back his deep affection for the late emperor, and probably to give himself face, he called the late emperor "father" and asked, "Do you miss Brother Xu?"

This time Chang Geng did not deny it.

Captain Xu was the first good man Chang Geng had met in many years. Although he had no special abilities, he was kind and gentle. His stepfather set an example for Chang Geng and for the first time he realized that a person could live in such a peaceful and calm manner.

It was just that Captain Xu was busy with military affairs and was always away from home, which allowed Gu Yun to take advantage of the opportunity and fill the vacancy.

Seeing that he agreed, Gu Yun looked up at the blurry ceiling of the bed, and suddenly felt a little uncomfortable. He blurted out, "Brother Xu treats you better than me?"

Chang Geng looked at him in surprise, wondering how he could ask such an obvious question.

This time, Gu Yun miraculously understood his look, and immediately felt a gust of cool wind blowing through his heart. He said dryly, "There's nothing we can do about it. The emperor's order is hard to disobey. You can only make do with it."

Chang Geng: “…”

Gu Yun laughed, and Chang Geng felt a slight vibration in his chest. He suddenly felt something strange in his heart. The left half of his body felt a little uncomfortable at such an intimate distance and wanted to move away, but the right half of his body wished it could turn into a piece of paper and stick to him tightly.

The uncertainty of whether to stay or go seemed to split him in two.

Just when he was struggling with his conscience, Gu Yun's urge to do something came back again.

Chang Geng's hair was scattered behind him and unfortunately fell into his hands. He began to twist Chang Geng's hair back and forth unconsciously, not using much force, just gently pulling his scalp.

Chang Geng shuddered and got goose bumps all over his body. The blood in his body stopped flowing and started running wildly. He seemed to be able to hear the rustling sound of blood rubbing against his blood vessels. An unknown heat spread into his limbs and bones, almost burning through his skin.

Chang Geng suddenly turned over and got up, snatched back his hair, and instinctively said in shame and anger: "Don't do it!"

Gu Yun suffered from many illnesses when he was young and grew up slowly. When he was twelve or thirteen years old, he was still like a child. Therefore, he did not regard Chang Geng as an adult and did not realize that there was anything wrong.

He retracted his mischievous claws without caring, put his hands behind his head, and said to Chang Geng: "I am not married, so of course I don't have any children, not even brothers and sisters, so it is inevitable that I can't take good care of you. If you don't tell me a lot of things, I may not think of them, so if you have any grievances, don't hide them in your heart, okay?"

His voice was low and pleasant, perhaps because he was too tired, and it also had a subtle ambiguity, which penetrated directly into Chang Geng's ears, making the hair on the back of the young man stand up and a thin layer of sweat appear.

Chang Geng was nervous and puzzled, "It was just a casual chat, why should I be so nervous?"

"Your Highness, please bear with me," Gu Yun said with a smile, patting his side, "Come, lie down, and tell me what you dreamed about just now."

When the dream was mentioned, Chang Geng's nameless wildfire calmed down. He stared at Gu Yun for a while, forcing himself to hold back the desire to tell Wuergu everything, and first tried to test him: "Sixteen, is there a poison in the world that can make people crazy?"

Gu Yun rolled his eyelids in dissatisfaction: "Who are you calling Sixteen?"

After scolding him, Gu Yun didn't take it too seriously. He paused and said, "Of course there are. The world is so big that there are all kinds of strange things. Especially in foreign lands, there are many herbs that are not found in the Central Plains. In addition, there are many gods and gods passed down from generation to generation. There are many secret tricks that we don't understand."

Chang Geng's heart sank, and he tightly grasped the useless knife hanging on his chest.

Gu Yun asked in surprise: "Why do you think of saying this?"

Chang Geng's fingertips were cold, and the internal struggles in his heart were finally resolved. He said in a muffled voice, "No, I dreamed that one day I became a madman and killed many people."

After saying that, before Gu Yun could comment, Chang Geng said, "Dreams are always the opposite, I know that."

He finally made up his mind to keep the secret of Wuergu a secret. With a youthful spirit, Chang Geng refused to admit that he might lose. He wanted to fight Wuergu to the end, and to die with his mind clear.

However, even though he had so much courage in his chest, he still didn't dare to ask what Gu Yun would think if he knew about this.

Chang Geng thought, even if he had a head full of dirt and feet full of sores, his adoptive father might not necessarily dislike him. But what if he knew that he would eventually become a hysterical lunatic?

He instinctively avoided the topic and didn't want to delve into it, so he just asked, "Have you ever had a nightmare?"

Gu Yun boasted, "How is that possible?"

But as soon as he finished speaking, Gu Yun remembered Shen Yi asking him to "be honest with Chang Geng", and felt that he had exaggerated too much, so he coughed dryly and tried to make amends, "Not really... well, sometimes if you sleep in the wrong position, you will have some weird dreams."

Chang Geng: "What do you dream about?"

Gu Yun didn't like to talk about his feelings, because he felt it was awkward to talk about it, like stripping naked and running around the street in front of people, so he evaded the question by saying, "It's all a mess, I can't remember it the moment I opened my eyes - go to sleep, it will be dawn if you don't."

Chang Geng fell silent.

But after a while, Gu Yun turned his head to look at him, only to see Chang Geng staring at him with his eyes open. He finally couldn't help but feel a headache.

"Okay," Gu Yun sighed, racked his brains to recall, and said in a tone of coaxing a child to sleep, "When I was a child, I once dreamed that I was locked in a dark place. There was no movement around me, but I just knew that there were many man-eating beasts in that place, so I kept running - maybe my legs were not stretched out that day. It is said that people with unstretched legs cannot run fast in dreams. At the end of my run, I felt that my legs and feet were made of cotton. The faster I ran, the slower I could run."

Chang Geng asked: "And then?"

Then of course I was frightened awake, what else can I do?

But Gu Yun refused to admit that he was frightened awake, so he lied in a vivid way: "Then I got tired of running, and I pulled out a large machete with a gold-threaded back from somewhere, stabbed the beast chasing me to death, and woke up contentedly."

Chang Geng: “…”

He actually wanted to hear some serious words from Mr. Gu. He was thinking too much.

Unexpectedly, Gu Yun asked seriously again: "Do you know what to do when you have a nightmare?"

Chang Geng hesitated for a moment, then believed him again, shook his head seriously, and waited to listen to his profound remarks.

Gu Yun said seriously, "The reason you have a nightmare is because there are night ghosts in the house teasing you. Ghosts are afraid of filth. Remember to put a chamber pot at the door in the future. It will surely drive them away."

Chang Geng: “…”

Chang Geng was particularly prone to taking other people's lies seriously, and Gu Yun soon discovered the fun of teasing him, and laughed his ass off in the middle of the night.

Chang Geng once naively believed that his young godfather was here to visit him, but now he realized that he was here purely to entertain him!

He turned over angrily, with his back facing Gu Yun, and the words "Get lost" were written in large letters on his back.

Gu Yun didn't leave. He watched Chang Geng's breathing gradually stabilize before he gently pulled the quilt for him and stood up to leave.

Before leaving, Gu Yun wanted to take away the shoulder armor he had just taken off. As soon as he stretched out his hand, he remembered that he seemed to have heard someone say before that children easily wake up in the middle of the night because their yang energy is too weak and they have attracted unclean things. It would be better to press an iron object on the head of the bed.

Gu Yun had never believed these nonsense stories from the folk market before, but now he suddenly felt that they might have some truth, otherwise how could they have been passed down for so many years?

So he left the iron shoulder armor behind and left Chang Geng's bedroom wearing only a single piece of clothing.

Marshal Gu might really be a ghost who could ward off evil spirits. During Chang Geng’s second sleep, there were no more evil spirits and monsters, and he slept until dawn.

Unfortunately, when Chang Geng woke up, his face looked uglier than if he hadn't slept all night.

He sat on the bed for a while with a grim face, lifted the quilt and took a look, then he couldn't help but sighed with tears in his eyes, curled himself up into a ball, and hugged his head.

The second time.

Chang Geng could no longer deceive himself, because this time his dream was truly real and straightforward... He had truly and straightforwardly blasphemed his young godfather in his dream.

He buried his face in the quilt and yelled incoherently, feeling so disgusted by himself that he wished he could bang his head against the bed and die.

This time, even the auspicious cloud-shaped waste blades could not calm him down.

Just when the young man was feeling extremely confused, his door suddenly rang.

Chang Geng's painful and depressed soul was frightened out of his wits. His first reaction was to roll up the bed sheet into a ball in panic. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to calm down, then opened the door with weak legs and feet.

Unexpectedly, as soon as he opened the door, he was frightened again.