The Richest Man’s Boyfriend Lives in a History Textbook - Chapter 8

Xingyuan had rarely ever pushed himself this hard physically as he did today.

At first he was exhausted, wanting to stop at the slightest excuse. Later he tried to grit his teeth and press on, shortening his rest intervals as much as he could.

Gradually, Xingyuan’s mind traveled from “just rest” to a haze, and finally to a numbness where thought ceased entirely.

Sweat soaked into his eyelashes, blurring his vision. He swallowed, felt the urge to retch, and the metallic taste of blood in his throat was unusually sharp.

Perhaps because he had thrown caution to the wind, his desire to give up was paradoxically not as strong as before.

His body had grown so exhausted it had lost all sensation, yet the idea of rest had become something indefinitely postponed in his plans.

He didn’t know when he would rest — but there was a single thought in his heart:

Rest when you truly can’t run anymore.

Xingyuan ran slowly, so he stopped mixing in with the rest of the group.

He opened his bleary eyes. Ahead of him rose a tall earthen mound. His spirit stirred, and he ran toward it.

The setting sun was dazzling. Beads of sweat rolled down and soaked through his clothes. Xingyuan squinted, and for a brief moment he lost consciousness.

His legs could no longer bear the weakness — they gave out, and he sank straight down to his knees.

His body… had no strength left to rise.

The taut string inside Xingyuan’s chest finally slackened.

He lay sprawled on the ground, motionless, letting the dying sunlight wash over him.

His pale, slender fingertips trembled. He tried to lift them, but let them fall again.

Xingyuan’s consciousness scattered. The stinging pain from his knees flooded into his mind — he knew the skin there must have been scraped raw.

Even so, Xingyuan moved his body bit by bit, shifting until he was lying flat on his back.

The corners of his lips twitched, then slowly curved upward into a faint smile.

His lashes stirred. A bead of sweat rolled into his eye. He gazed at the gradually setting sun, and the sound that left his lips was too quiet to hear.

“How wonderful…”

It was only when the air began to cool that Xingyuan slowly pulled himself up. His whole body felt like it had come apart at the joints — aching and utterly without strength.

He rested for a moment, then grabbed the hem of his trousers for leverage and barely managed to sit upright.

Piece by piece he climbed to his feet, then walked with a limp toward higher ground.

He stopped only when everyone came into view below him.

He leaned against a nearby tree, his gaze drifting down toward the training ground.

Despite how exhausted he looked, he had actually not exercised very much at all — probably less than one-fifth of what an ordinary soldier would do.

The look in Xingyuan’s eyes was something that, for a moment, he couldn’t name as envy or something else entirely.

He wanted so much to become a soldier. He wanted so much to pass the military academy entrance examination, to join a war and be forged through it, to become a general.

His thoughts began to drift.

Rank essentially accompanied a person throughout their entire life. Sometimes it was determined at birth — difficult, if not impossible, to change.

It wasn’t that constitution was entirely unchangeable — it could be broken through by pushing past one’s absolute limits. But training beyond one’s capacity damaged the body. The two were in direct conflict.

People never knew which would arrive first: a breakthrough in rank, or the collapse of the body.

Xingyuan shifted his body experimentally and nearly fell to his knees again.

He let out a sigh. It seemed he genuinely couldn’t train any further today.

He looked at the setting sun and calculated the time.

By the reckoning of this world, he had been here for two days already.

His lashes moved, and he suddenly asked, “System, how does the time outside work?”

The mechanical voice appeared without warning and replied with measured precision: “The time flow rate between the two is 1:1, but each day on this planet is half an hour shorter than each day on the Imperial Capital Star.”

Actually, close enough.

Xingyuan’s heart gave a small lurch, and the mechanical voice continued with a prompt:

“Hello. The rest day is coming to an end. Tomorrow is a working day. Please be mindful of your schedule in the real world, and do not let amusements consume your ambition.”

……

Xingyuan dragged his aching body back to camp at a slow plod.

From the outside, the light inside the tent was noticeably brighter than the night before. Xingyuan let out a quiet sound of surprise but didn’t think too much of it.

The moment he stepped inside, he was like a child returning home — every bone in his body went soft.

He wanted to lie down, but there was nowhere for him to do so.

The bed belonged to Aisley. He couldn’t just take someone else’s nest.

But —

Xingyuan’s gaze moved to Aisley’s bed.

There was now a brand-new quilt lying on it, and a fairly thick one at that.

Xingyuan pressed his lips together. His eyes shifted, and his scheming little mind grew active again.

This isn’t right at all. It’s clearly something someone just had made.

But…

If it had been anyone else’s, Xingyuan might not have had the nerve to copy it — but this was Aisley’s.

Strangers at first meeting, friends by the second.

Besides, he had already grown used to owing this person. More debt heaped on the pile doesn’t break your back. He would pay it back double once they met again someday.

With that settled in his mind, Xingyuan crept over furtively, copied a brand-new quilt from Aisley’s bed, then tiptoed back and spread it out carefully over his own spot.

“Good night…”

The boy gave a little wave in Aisley’s direction, then wrapped himself tightly in the quilt until not a gap remained.

With the “electric blanket” running beneath him, Xingyuan’s cheeks were flushed pink. He yawned, and in his state of utter exhaustion, he gradually drifted into sleep.

Aisley heard the sound and ran his tongue lightly over the tips of his teeth. His expression was unrestrained yet carried an undercurrent of softness. The characters beneath his brush continued to flow — and it was only when the boy’s shallow, even breathing drifted over that the brush finally came to rest against the paper.

He rose, removed his military uniform, and stopped once only the inner layer remained.

Aisley lay down on the bed and covered himself completely, not a sliver of his body left exposed.

He smiled and tilted his head back. The scar near his eye appeared and disappeared in the shifting light. He glanced toward the head of the bed, where several small stacks of Kaen coins had been arranged — two coins to each stack.

He extinguished the lamp. In the last moment before darkness fell, in a corner of the wall, a few sprigs of lavender rested in their place.

****

The sky had shifted to a dim, indistinct gray — no longer fully dark.

This time Xingyuan did not linger in bed. He opened his eyes early and got up without delay.

He first put on his school uniform, then compressed his bedding and military uniform into a small, compact bundle and tucked it away in a hidden spot.

Taking advantage of the quiet, he walked slowly over to Aisley’s bedside and gently crouched down.

Xingyuan’s eyes were round and bright. He still believed Aisley could neither hear nor see him.

He poked at Aisley’s quilt and spoke in a hushed voice.

This time he used the local language. The words came out a little awkwardly, yet his voice was just as pleasant as ever.

“Hello. I am the little spirit who has been at your side. I noticed you at once among the crowd.

I am deeply grateful for everything you have done for me during this time. As a little spirit, I am able to grant you one wish.”

The boy spoke in the starlight with complete sincerity, his eyes curving into a smile as he continued.

“However — so that you may consider it well — I will give you a very long time to decide. My promise will never expire.”

A pendulum sound reached Xingyuan’s ears. He knew the alarm he had set earlier was almost due.

Xingyuan broke into a smile, and murmured softly, “My name is Xingyuan.”

He spoke the two characters “Xingyuan” using the Interstellar pronunciation.

Then he pointed toward the vast expanse of stars outside and explained, “‘Xing’ — the ‘xing’ that means stars in the sky. ‘Yuan’ — the ‘yuan’ that means a great distance away.”

Xingyuan wasn’t watching the man’s eyes, and it never would have occurred to him that a person’s eyes could be so dark that not a single glimmer of light shone within them.

He did not “wake up.” There was no reluctance, no lingering. If anything, the smile on his face had grown even clearer.

And so, in Aisley’s gaze, the boy gradually faded — until not a trace of him remained.

After a moment, the horn sounded.

With no one else around, Aisley no longer kept up the smile. His face was expressionless.

His eyes remained dull, as though he had long since grown accustomed to this kind of life.

It was only when he had finished dressing and noticed the small stacks of Kaen coins at the head of the bed that he paused.

He quickly composed his expression, reached out, and put the coins into the cloth pouch.

He murmured to himself, “So careless — how could you leave Kaen coins out in the open like that?”

He was about to step out of the tent when he saw the lavender in the corner of the wall.

He stopped. For a brief moment, a surge of emotion gathered in his eyes. Aisley was faintly taken aback. He raised his hand to rest over his eyelids, and the corner of his mouth pulled into a one-sided smile.

“So it wasn’t a dream after all…”

His throat moved. His lips trembled slightly. He pushed out two awkward syllables.

“…Xingyuan.”

*****

Xingyuan’s mind reeled. The scene before him twisted into a swirl of color — vivid and kaleidoscopic.

As his consciousness slowly reassembled, everything before him was pitch black.

He paused, as though remembering something, and lifted off the helmet-like Perception Simulator.

Light flooded in. The scene around him was exactly the same as it had been before he entered the Star-Scrying Device.

Xingyuan was about to get up when he suddenly sensed something was off.

He moved his body experimentally and found that the aching soreness from before seemed as though it had never existed.

Xingyuan’s eyes opened wide. He hurriedly rolled up his trouser leg — and there, on his leg, aside from a thin layer of fine hair, the skin was still smooth and fair, his legs still slender and well-shaped.

The scrape he had gotten earlier was gone.

Xingyuan barely had to think before he understood, more or less.

It was actually quite simple. As a publicly available invention, user safety was always the first priority.

And since everything inside was simulated, that included hearing, sight, smell… and pain.

What about death?

Xingyuan already had an answer in his mind, but he still needed to confirm it with the system.

Sure enough, the system responded: “Your progress has been saved. Your body will refresh upon logging back in.”

Xingyuan was relieved.

No need to worry about being stomped to death now.

After two consecutive days in another world, Xingyuan felt somewhat disoriented when he finally stepped out of the Science Museum.

The moment he emerged, a shadow fell over him from above.

He looked up. It was a low-profile but clearly expensive aircraft — and the markings on its hull were ones Xingyuan knew all too well.

Before he could even wave at the aircraft, a gentle, respectful voice reached his ears.

“Good day, Young Master. I hope you’ve had an enjoyable time.”

Xingyuan turned. It was a young man with a soft, pleasant face. He bowed deeply at the waist, careful to keep himself lower than Xingyuan.

“Young Master, you were inside for a very long time and didn’t send word home. I was very worried that something might have happened to you. Because of that, I went and checked your whereabouts and, in doing so, looked into the Star-Scrying Device more closely.

You may not be aware, but the Star-Scrying Device is not fully developed when it comes to information transmission — it can only simulate in one direction. Many times, even the Imperial Research Institute has no way of knowing what happens inside. If you intend to use it again, I would ask that you take care.”

The young man lowered his gaze. “I have no intention of standing in the way of things you enjoy. But I would ask that the next time you go in, you let me know beforehand. That way I can have someone wait outside the door, in case something goes wrong.”

Xingyuan felt rather embarrassed. He immediately apologized to the young man and promised he would give advance notice next time.

The young man smiled and shook his head.