Chapter 24#
Memory#
The prospect of recovering his memories was, undeniably, compelling.
Zhu Anning missed Gongzi so terribly.
He wanted so badly to remember what Gongzi had looked like.
Zhu Anning pressed himself against Yin Yuheng’s chest and breathed in slowly, murmuring: “Shixiong — do you know about blood slaves?”
Shixiong, he thought, with quiet venom. Aren’t you essentially my blood slave right now?
“I do,” Yin Yuheng said, blinking. “There was a blood slave case in Fengliang once — I was there at the time.”
Zhu Anning went still. Something cold moved through him.
He remembered what the person who had helped him forge his identity had told him —
“Yin Yuheng took deliberate revenge against the Fengliang Prefect for some slight in hospitality. The entire household was executed — the Prefect’s eldest son among them.”
Yes, Shixiong. You were indeed there at the time, Zhu Anning thought.
You killed my Gongzi.
The thin thread of warmth that had begun to form dissolved at once. Zhu Anning’s heart turned cold again. He asked, with careful evenness: “Shixiong — do you remember the eldest son of the Fengliang Prefect’s household?”
The question came from nowhere. Yin Yuheng was puzzled.
He thought for a moment before he could place the person. “I remember him.”
A dissolute young master, as he recalled — someone who spent his days entertaining himself with servants and slaves, killing on a whim. He had even had blood slave offerings brought for his own pleasure. Obsequious to those above him and contemptible in conduct. When the Prefect’s household was searched and seized, he had been sent to the execution ground along with the rest. It hadn’t been unjust.
Yin Yuheng couldn’t imagine why Zhu Anning was asking.
“So Shixiong remembers.” Zhu Anning gave a short, scornful laugh and said nothing more.
“Go rest.” Yin Yuheng gave him a gentle nudge and a warm look, then turned and followed Li Guanghan into the Wentian Platform.
Zhu Anning watched his retreating back with cold eyes.
He stood outside the Wentian Platform for a moment. Two novices passed.
He thought of something and turned to call out: “Wait.”
“Were there really reports of people making blood slaves again?”
…
Yin Yuheng followed Li Guanghan into the Wentian Platform.
The same vast, empty hall. The same formation drawn at the center for the blood extraction.
Yin Yuheng had nothing to say. He walked in with a blank expression, drew the small blade, knelt at the center of the formation, pulled open his robe, unwound the bandaging, and used the blade to reopen the wound that had begun to close.
His mind drifted as he worked. When I get back I’ll have to deal with someone. I slipped out to the Guoshi Manor without telling Lu Yan — he’s going to be furious…
Blood welled up. Li Guanghan watched from nearby.
“…Yuheng.” Li Guanghan said his name suddenly.
Yin Yuheng looked up. His gaze was even and distant.
Li Guanghan paused — as though he was not entirely accustomed to his usually adoring disciple looking at him this way.
“You burned the lotus pond?”
He didn’t know why he had asked. It had simply come to him — a memory from five years ago, of Yin Yuheng on a small boat, dropping lotus seeds into the water one by one, smiling toward him on the bank.
“Shifu — whenever the lotuses bloom, it means I’ve been thinking of you.”
The lotuses had bloomed every year, persisting even through wind and snow. For five full years, the vast grounds of the Guoshi Manor had held nothing but the two of them, teacher and disciple, and a pond of green lotus flowers swaying in the breeze.
Until yesterday’s fire. The rest of the manor stood untouched. Only the pond had burned to nothing.
“Mm. I burned it.” Yin Yuheng’s expression didn’t change.
Neither of them said anything more. Silence settled between them.
Well. It’s burned. Nothing worth caring about, anyway.
Li Guanghan told himself he had perhaps never truly escaped the shadow of those early years — that he had always been circling the edge of something. Nothing in the world held his attention except for his long-lost boy. His feelings were too attenuated — thin enough that he could stand here and watch his own eldest disciple open his chest and give his blood.
He had assumed he felt nothing. But watching Yin Yuheng in his red robes, kneeling inside the formation, a quiet, unnamed ache rose in his chest.
This is my disciple. The one who trusted me. Who looked up to me.
He had betrayed that trust. He had pushed him toward the edge — just as his own companions had once done to him.
Li Guanghan found himself wondering: had he done the right thing?
…
Outside the Wentian Platform, a novice respectfully told Zhu Anning: “Yes — this morning in court, the blood slave case was raised again. There are reports of people secretly making blood slaves once more. His Highness the Crown Prince was very displeased and ordered a full investigation.”
Zhu Anning listened, hands still.
“Shixiong was displeased?”
The novice smiled. “He was. The Crown Prince seems mild-tempered, but truly he’s just especially patient with the people close to him. Many in the court hold His Highness in considerable awe.”
Another novice added: “Everyone knows the blood slave case is His Highness’s absolute limit. Of course he’d be angry.”
Zhu Anning listened. His hands didn’t move.
“Shixiong cares deeply about the blood slave case?”
“Of course. Eight years ago, His Highness had a large number of officials removed from court over it.”
Zhu Anning pressed his lips together.
The person who had helped him forge his identity had spoken of events from eight years ago:
“Yin Yuheng used the blood slave case as a pretext to eliminate his enemies — fabricating evidence, framing innocents. An entire household destroyed without cause. The eldest son died because of him.”
That account, combined with the broken fragments of his own memory, had made Zhu Anning believe it without question.
But now, inexplicably, something felt wrong.
Noticing his distraction, one of the novices continued: “The Fengliang Prefect kept blood slaves and took innocent lives. He deserved everything he received. If His Highness hadn’t brought justice, those wronged souls could never have rested.”
Zhu Anning said, almost without meaning to: “The Fengliang Prefect was framed…”
The novice looked confused. “Why would you say that? The evidence against him — the blood slavery, the corruption, the killings — it was all fully documented. The testimony was posted at the city gates for three days. When they uncovered the dungeon, dozens of people saw it with their own eyes.”
He thought for a moment. “And besides — the blood slave case was handled personally by His Highness. His Highness is the most upright, transparent person there is. How could someone like him fabricate evidence?”
Zhu Anning had been about to argue. But that last sentence stopped him.
He finally understood what had been feeling wrong.
The person who had helped him forge his identity had told him that Yin Yuheng was calculating and two-faced — a hypocrite who took revenge behind a pleasant face.
But everything Zhu Anning had witnessed from Shixiong contradicted that entirely.
Gentle and patient. Clean as warm jade. He had suffered so much, and still he protected Zhu Anning, comforted him, bore no resentment.
Could a base and scheming person maintain a facade this convincing?
Was what he had believed truly the truth?
The answer was obvious — and yet Zhu Anning felt as though he had been under a spell, unable to think it clearly until this moment.
A sudden splitting headache. Zhu Anning inhaled sharply and pressed his hand over his forehead.
The novice’s voice came blurred: “Young Master Zhu? Young Master Zhu!”
Zhu Anning pushed away the steadying hand. “I’m fine.”
Something long buried was trying to break through — not quite managing it yet. Fragments of memory flickered at the edges of his mind. He stood frozen, gripping his own fist.
He opened his mouth wanting to call for Gongzi — and remembered that Gongzi was gone.
He wanted to call for Shixiong — and realized, abruptly, that Shixiong was inside the Wentian Platform.
Shixiong was inside the Wentian Platform right now. With the person he loved. His chest cut open by force, his blood taken.
Zhu Anning’s expression changed. He ran toward the Wentian Platform without answering the novice’s calls. He reached the door and raised his hands to push it open — and before he could, it swung outward.
Li Guanghan stepped out and found his young disciple at the threshold. He sighed.
“Didn’t I tell you to rest?”
He quietly pulled the door shut behind him, not letting Zhu Anning see the state of things inside.
“Shifu, I — I—” Zhu Anning’s voice was urgent. What could he even say?
Li Guanghan looked at him with concern. “What’s wrong? Is the pain in your spiritual veins back?”
He raised one hand. In his palm sat a small jade vial — the collected heart’s blood.
“Take your medicine,” he said, extending the vial. “One more dose, and you’ll be fully recovered.”
Zhu Anning’s first instinct was to refuse. But the word recovered gave him pause.
If his spiritual veins healed completely — would he also recover his lost memories?
He wanted to know the truth of what had happened.
Slowly, in a daze, he took the vial.
The rare ingredients blended into the liquid masked the smell. But when it passed his lips, if he paid close attention, he could detect a faint iron sweetness beneath everything else.
Was this how those people had felt, drinking my blood?
A wave of heat surged into his spiritual veins. His whole body burned. He recognized the medicine taking effect. The world tilted. Zhu Anning fell forward into Li Guanghan’s arms.
Spiritual energy churned. Blockages in his meridians dissolved. As his spiritual veins cleared and his foundation reformed, memories locked away for years finally broke through.
“I’ll take you somewhere to rest,” Li Guanghan said quietly.
“Shixiong…” Zhu Anning murmured.
Li Guanghan’s steps faltered. He thought of his eldest disciple, and glanced back involuntarily.
Yin Yuheng was still inside. He had just finished giving his blood.
Drifting between consciousness and sleep, Zhu Anning dreamed.
The dream was full of old things — things he had forgotten, now returning as vividly as yesterday.
He dreamed he was back in the dungeon.
He had no name then. People called him “little beast.”
He was curled in a corner, chains around his ankles, his body covered in wounds — some from where his skin had been cut for blood-drawing, some from the whip. He hadn’t been compliant enough; hadn’t been pleasing enough to those above him. A wrong word earned a lash. A slow reply earned a lash. The marks on his body had never stopped accumulating.
He cowered in the dark, his back pressed against cold rough stone, shaking and weeping, helpless. He was too young to understand why he had to suffer like this. He didn’t know whether it would ever end.
Who will save me? Who will save me?
Shouting voices. Rough hands hauling him upright, pushing him through the dungeon door.
He knew what this meant. He was being taken for the blood-drawing again.
He was washed hurriedly and dressed in clean clothes.
“An important guest today. Can’t make a bad impression.”
An important guest. He could only hope this guest might be less cruel — might not take pleasure in torturing him, in beating him.
He was pushed through tall doors into a room of elaborate refinement. Gauze curtains and glass lanterns. Threads of incense. Precious gems strung into curtains, gleaming gold and silver cast into ornaments on the tables. He had never seen anywhere so magnificent. He kept his eyes fixed on his feet, trying to take up as little space as possible.
Even just standing in this room, he felt that his presence was a stain on it.
A shove from behind sent him stumbling forward. The steward, who usually looked down on everything, was fawning obsequiously: “The child is brought, sir.”
“Good.”
He recognized that voice. The Prefect — the man who had once strung him up from the rafters and used a blade on his own back while laughing.
He couldn’t stop shaking.
“Come here,” the Prefect said casually, beckoning. “Young master, come look — his tongue’s not very quick, but his looks are exceptional.”
Someone gripped his chin and turned his face up.
Forced to lift his eyes, he finally saw the room clearly.
A gauze curtain hung not far away. Someone sat behind it. The Prefect stood on the outer side, practically bowing.
The Prefect was the most terrifying person in his world — and even he deferred to someone? Who was this young master behind the curtain? Were they worse than the Prefect? Would they have new cruelties to inflict?
He felt the last of his hope dissolving.
The Prefect shot him an impatient look. “It’s an honor to serve a distinguished guest. Why do you look like you’re at your own funeral? If you fail to please—”
“That’s enough.” The voice that came through the curtain was light and easy. “Little brother — come closer.”
Only after the Prefect shoved him did he realize the little brother was meant for him.
No one had ever called him that.
So gently.
Dazed and trembling, he pushed the curtain aside and stared at the young man sitting on the bed.
He wasn’t much older. Dark hair loose, a pallor of illness on his face. When he saw the boy, he smiled — quietly, softly.
Zhu Anning had no real sense of what beauty meant yet. He only knew that when the young man smiled, he thought of a peach blossom he had secretly plucked from a branch the previous spring.
The young man reached out. “Come here.”
He shuffled forward.
The young man gently took hold of his wrist. A shiver ran through him. He looked at that pale, smooth hand, and felt a sudden, fierce shame at the state of his own.
“A little closer — I have a wound, and it’s difficult to move.” An apologetic smile.
Like cold water thrown over him. He jolted back to reality.
What was he thinking? This person only wanted to use his blood to heal themselves.
He had met people who seemed gracious on the surface and turned out to be cruel. And yet just now, for a moment, he had nearly let himself be pulled in by the gentleness.
He had forgotten his place.
He moved closer obediently, and waited. A blade, or—
The expected pain never came.
A gentle tide of spiritual energy flowed through his meridians, sweeping away the pain settled into his body.
He looked up, confused — and met a pair of eyes full of warmth and compassion.
“Don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you.”
He stared, unable to process it.
The young man gave a helpless smile, looked up at the Prefect, and let his tone cool. “Thank you for your consideration. I’ll be keeping this child.”
Only after everyone had left and they were alone did Zhu Anning manage to find his voice: “You…”
The young man reached up and ruffled his hair.
“Don’t be so stiff. If you like, you can call me Gege.”
Zhu Anning was too stunned to speak.
“All right then,” the young man said, resigned. “Call me Gongzi, like everyone else.”
Zhu Anning managed haltingly: “Gongzi — what do you need me to do?”
Gongzi sighed. “What can you do at your age? You’re covered in wounds. Rest and heal.”
When Zhu Anning remained frozen, Gongzi sighed again and called in some attendants.
“Don’t be afraid. Be good. I won’t hurt you.”
Very quickly, Zhu Anning found that Gongzi had meant it.
His wounds were tended, his body soaked in medicinal water, and he was dressed in clean, fine clothes. The chains at his ankles were removed. He slept in a soft bed.
No one cut his skin. No one barked orders at him. Everyone treated him with respect — because he was someone Gongzi had chosen to keep near.
And Gongzi didn’t want his blood. He only asked Zhu Anning to sit with him while he read. Zhu Anning was needed for nothing — only to bring medicine and water when the illness flared.
Gongzi sat in the sunlight. Zhu Anning sat beside him.
One week. One month.
One afternoon, in the warm spring breeze, Zhu Anning looked at Gongzi’s profile — and understood with sudden, absolute certainty: this person genuinely wanted to be good to him.
He had left hell.
Because Gongzi had reached down and offered him a hand.
He was saved.
Euphoria, gratitude, stunned relief — emotion upon emotion crashed through him all at once and refused to stop. Zhu Anning burst into tears without warning and flung himself into Gongzi’s arms.
He wasn’t afraid. He knew Gongzi wouldn’t push him away.
Sure enough, Gongzi wrapped an arm around him, laughing quietly. “Finally figured it out?”
Zhu Anning scrubbed at his face and nodded through his sobs. “Gongzi, Gongzi—”
Gongzi patted his back. “All right, all right. Too much crying isn’t becoming.”
Zhu Anning sniffled, still unable to hold the tears back, afraid of getting them on Gongzi’s robes.
Gongzi smiled. “No more crying — could you bring me my medicine?”
Gongzi seemed to have a serious illness and took medicine every day. But Gongzi himself seemed unbothered, and every so often he would leave for a while, returning each time with his condition a little worse than when he’d left.
When Zhu Anning finally dried his face, he said, still thick-voiced: “Gongzi — medicine has toxicity. Why not let me take it, and you can use my blood instead…”
A firm knock on the head stopped him.
Gongzi, uncharacteristically stern, said coldly: “I saved you — not so you could be a blood slave somewhere new. If you want to accept that for yourself, walk out that door right now and pretend we never met.”
Zhu Anning stared, and the tears came back all over again.
“…Did that hurt? Good. Remember it.”
“Gongzi, why are you so good to me?” Zhu Anning’s voice was raw. “I was wrong — please don’t send me away…”
He had no name. He asked Gongzi to give him one.
But Gongzi shook his head. “Choose it yourself. Your life shouldn’t be decided by another person — not even me.”
Zhu Anning nodded with hazy understanding.
The months with Gongzi were the happiest of his life.
Then one day, Gongzi told him quietly that he would be leaving soon.
Zhu Anning went rigid. “Gongzi, take me with you—”
Gongzi wouldn’t agree.
“What would be the point of coming with me and serving someone else somewhere new?” he said, with genuine seriousness. “I helped you heal, taught you to cultivate — because I wanted you to have your own life. You don’t need to live for anyone else. Spend your life free, on your own terms.”
He looked out at the open sky. “…Don’t be like me. Bound by fate.”
Zhu Anning didn’t understand. He only knew he wanted to stay with Gongzi — everything else seemed unimportant.
But what Gongzi decided, no one could change.
On the last day, Gongzi smiled and said he had a gift for him.
It didn’t take long to understand what that gift was.
A massive case shook the entire region. Armed men broke through the gates of the Fengliang Prefect’s manor. Blood slavery. Corruption. Unlawful killings. Exploitation of the people. Crime after crime brought to light. The innocent people locked in the dungeon were freed. Every perpetrator received their due punishment.
That day the sun blazed bright overhead. Zhu Anning stood outside the execution ground beside Gongzi, trembling with relief, the great weight that had pressed on his chest for so long finally gone.
Gongzi watched the celebrating crowd with a quiet, meaningful smile.
“Heaven sees all. Justice is never truly delayed.”
“Little brother — I have to go now. I wish you a life of peace and safety, of quiet joy and ease.”
“Where am I going? Back to Chaoge. When you’ve grown up, come find me there.”
“You want to know my name?”
Gongzi smiled, turned his head slightly, and spoke—
“Yin Yuheng.”
The memory ended.
Zhu Anning’s eyes flew open.
Something cold and wet had fallen on his face.
Snow from the Guoshi Manor? It was so cold.
But the next moment he found himself lying in a warm, hearthstone-lined room, with no wind or snow anywhere.
What had fallen on his face was his own tears.
Zhu Anning lay still and didn’t reach up to wipe them away. He hadn’t fully surfaced yet, but his body was already trembling before his mind understood why.
“Anning — what’s wrong?” Li Guanghan had been keeping watch at his side. Zhu Anning hadn’t noticed him at all.
He didn’t answer. He breathed in short, shallow pulls, and a strange suffocating pressure spread slowly through his chest.
“Anning!” Li Guanghan’s brow furrowed. “What is it — was there something wrong with the medicine?”
…The medicine. What medicine?
It was Shixiong’s…
Shixiong.
That word surfaced without warning. In that instant, Zhu Anning came fully awake.
All of it flooded back. His face went white.
“—Shixiong!”
He jerked upright, looking around in blind panic, like an abandoned child. “Where is Shixiong? Where is he? Shixiong—”
And then he realized: Shixiong was still in the Wentian Platform.
Shixiong was in the Wentian Platform right now, with the person he loved. His chest cut open by force. His blood taken.
Zhu Anning’s expression changed. He shoved Li Guanghan’s steadying hands away, tumbled out of bed, and fell to his knees — he had moved too fast. He didn’t stop to look at the scrapes on his palms. He scrambled up and ran.
Li Guanghan seized him. “Anning — what is wrong with you?!”
“I have to find Shixiong.” Zhu Anning’s face was streaked with tears. “I have to go to the Wentian Platform—”
He wrenched free. Li Guanghan’s brow creased hard, but — inexplicably — he didn’t move to stop him.
Perhaps because the look on Zhu Anning’s face in that moment would have alarmed anyone who saw it.
Or perhaps because, sitting at Zhu Anning’s bedside just now, the face that had kept drifting through Li Guanghan’s mind had been Yin Yuheng’s.
…
The Wentian Platform. A harsh wind shrieked.
The cold was ferocious, pouring down his collar and out through his sleeves, cutting straight through him.
Zhu Anning’s hands were frozen. He had fallen several more times on the way and his palms were raw. He didn’t notice. He only thought, distantly: it’s so cold out here. Is Shixiong cold in the Wentian Platform?
He half-climbed, half-stumbled up the platform stairs, thinking only that he had to get there, quickly—
He pushed the door open.
The first thing that hit him was a blaze of red.
Zhu Anning stopped. His breath went quiet.
He saw the person at the center of the hall. A red robe. Fallen at the center of the formation, scattered bloodstains around him. Dark hair fallen across his shoulders, covering a pale face.
Zhu Anning stared.
In that moment, he thought of a long-ago afternoon — being pushed into a bright room, pulling aside a gauze curtain, seeing a figure seated on a bed within.
The same dark hair loose and falling. The same pale complexion.
Past and present converged. The face was still otherworldly in its beauty — but far more fragile now than it had been then. Lying still on the ground, unable to reach out a hand.
His Shixiong.
His Gongzi.
The suffocating weight closed over his throat. In this moment, Zhu Anning understood everything.
His Gongzi — the Gongzi he had longed for, grieved for endlessly — had never been any son of the Fengliang Prefect. He had been the Crown Prince of the Li Dynasty, Yin Yuheng, come to Fengliang in secret to recuperate.
And the Fengliang Prefect himself had been nothing more than a wretch who deserved every punishment he received. The entire manor had been a place of rot and cruelty — the dungeon that had held half of Zhu Anning’s childhood prisoner.
It was Yin Yuheng who had saved him. Helped him. Taught him right from wrong. Avenged him.
And Zhu Anning — had mistaken his enemy for his benefactor, and subjected the only person who had ever truly been good to him to every cruelty he could devise.
Zhu Anning’s face was ashen. He swayed.
“Gongzi…” he murmured. “Shixiong?”
The Wentian Platform was cold and still. No one answered.
Yin Yuheng lay exactly as he had fallen, without a sound.
Zhu Anning’s expression shattered. Panic swallowed him whole. He lunged forward. “Shixiong, don’t scare me—”
He fell to his knees before Yin Yuheng, hands trembling as he reached out to check for breath.
Still faintly breathing.
A shaking exhale of relief. And then, in the next moment, his gaze fell on the wound at Yin Yuheng’s chest.
He went completely rigid.
…What had he done?
He remembered all of it now.
Zhu Anning’s outstretched hand froze in midair. He couldn’t make himself touch him.
He remembered what he had thought. What he had wanted.
I will never feel pity for him — I only want to watch him suffer more. If I could make him cry, that would be even more satisfying.
The more you’re like this, the more I want to hurt you.
I want you to live in pain. You deserve every bit of my revenge.
I want to make you my blood slave.
He had thought those things. And he had done them.
He had used Shixiong’s trust. Manipulated his feelings without remorse. Taken the person who had once been like spring wind and clear moonlight, and reduced him to this.
Yin Yuheng lay unconscious on the ground. The most precious heart’s blood had been collected by the formation. Scattered bloodstains covered the floor around him in all directions.
Zhu Anning heard footsteps behind him.
He looked up sharply, tears on his face. “Save Shixiong — Shifu, please, save him—”
Even as he said it, he was carefully gathering Yin Yuheng into his arms. The wound must hurt terribly. Shixiong is always so frail, and he hates the cold — he can’t be left alone on the floor.
Li Guanghan looked at his younger disciple — disheveled, undone. “Medicine has already been administered.”
Zhu Anning stared blankly. “But Shixiong still hasn’t woken.”
Li Guanghan was quiet for a moment. He sighed.
“His injury is not an ordinary one. It won’t heal quickly.”
He didn’t elaborate further. But Zhu Anning had devised all of this himself. He understood exactly what the injury was.
The faint smell of blood hung in the air. Zhu Anning’s arms tightened around Yin Yuheng. His whole body was shaking.
His chest cut open by force. His spiritual core ruined. His heart’s blood taken to rebuild my own spiritual veins.
When I drank Shixiong’s blood so easily, so willingly — I was no different from the people who used to take mine. Worse than them, even. At least those people didn’t do it to someone who had saved them.
Zhu Anning thought of something from when he was very small. He had had no name then. People had called him little beast.
Perhaps they had been right.
He was someone who repaid kindness with cruelty.
Blood flooded his mouth — a sweet, metallic taste. Wave after wave of nausea rose through him. He turned aside and retched, but nothing came. He pressed his fingers against his own throat, too roughly, and tore skin, and still it was no use.
The medicine had already worked its way into his meridians. Whether he regretted it or not, nothing could be undone.
…
When Yin Yuheng woke, the first thing he saw was his little junior brother’s tear-stained face.
It was warm here — nothing like the bone-deep cold of the Wentian Platform. He looked around and realized this appeared to be Zhu Anning’s room.
Who had brought him back?
He instinctively tried to move. The pain in his chest surged up and stopped him.
The moment Yin Yuheng opened his eyes, Zhu Anning — who had been slumped against the bedside — looked up. His eyes lit briefly, then went dark just as quickly.
He called out, with great care: “Shixiong…”
Yin Yuheng had lost a great deal of blood and was still dizzy. Hearing Zhu Anning’s voice, he made a quiet sound of acknowledgment.
Getting a response, Zhu Anning sniffled. His voice came out rough. “Shixiong, don’t move. You’ll disturb the wound.”
Yin Yuheng blinked and managed a faint smile through his weakness. “I’m fine. Really. What’s wrong with you? You look so worried.”
You had your heart cut open. How are you fine? The words nearly burst out of Zhu Anning. His eyes were red.
But in the next moment, he saw the concern in Yin Yuheng’s eyes.
And he remembered: as far as Shixiong knew, Zhu Anning had no idea where the medicine had come from.
Shixiong didn’t know that all of this had been Zhu Anning’s scheme. Didn’t know the darkness and malice he had harbored. Didn’t know that the torment inflicted through Li Guanghan’s cold neglect had been deliberately engineered.
Shixiong was someone clean and open-hearted, who gave genuinely and never imagined that the deepest betrayal might come from the junior brother he cared for most.
Zhu Anning had manipulated his feelings. Had left him wounded through and through. And Shixiong didn’t know any of it — so the way he spoke to Zhu Anning was still gentle. The way he looked at him was still patient and accepting.
And Zhu Anning craved that gentleness.
If Shixiong knew — if he knew that I’m not the gentle, ailing little brother he thinks me, but someone who deceived him and repaid every kindness with cruelty — would he still be gentle with me?
The fear rose like a tide.
Yin Yuheng’s worried voice reached him again. Zhu Anning forced himself to smile — small and obedient. “I’m fine.”
He was not.
He didn’t dare let Shixiong know the truth.
He was terrified. Terrified that if Shixiong learned everything, no amount of kneeling and begging would matter. He couldn’t bear to imagine the look of disgust on Shixiong’s face. All he could do was maintain the fiction, in desperation, and try with everything he had to delay the day the truth came out.
I really am despicable, Zhu Anning thought.