Chapter 34#
The Dungeon#
Li Guanghan looked at his eldest disciple’s evasive manner and felt a chill permeate his entire body.
He said astringently: “Don’t be afraid… I won’t punish you.”
What had he done? Li Guanghan’s heart tightened; he didn’t dare think deeply, nor did he dare mention the matter of the jade pendant again. He put the jade pendant away, stepped forward, and gently embraced Yin Yuheng, his habitually indifferent voice sounding incredibly gentle: “It’s alright, don’t be afraid… does your wrist still hurt?”
Yin Yuheng also seemed to realize his reaction was too great. He turned his head slightly, avoiding Li Guanghan’s gaze, and gradually calmed down.
“…It’s fine,” Yin Yuheng said in a small voice.
Li Guanghan’s heart skipped a beat.
How could it be fine? Yin Yuheng always said he was fine, yet he clearly hurt to the point of instinctively avoiding him.
Li Guanghan took Yin Yuheng’s wrist, felt the other’s tension, and suppressing the regret in his heart, said softly: “Don’t move.”
A cool spiritual power flowed into Yin Yuheng’s wrist, repairing the carpal bones.
His movements were very gentle and careful, but Yin Yuheng still furrowed his brow slightly. Li Guanghan’s heart sank further.
It’s very easy to hurt someone, but very difficult to make amends.
Li Guanghan had many things he wanted to say, many things he wanted to ask Yin Yuheng, but looking at the other’s pale face, he couldn’t say anything. He suddenly remembered the medicine he had decocted for Yin Yuheng and hurriedly said: “Wait a moment, I’ll go back to get the medicine and come to see you later.”
Yin Yuheng didn’t speak, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.
*
Li Guanghan hurriedly left. Yin Yuheng sat on the bed, rubbed his wrist, and looked up.
His face showed neither pain nor fear; instead, a trace of a faint smile appeared.
Xiao Bai’s relieved voice sounded in his sea of consciousness: “Brother Heng, are you okay?”
It simply didn’t believe that Brother Heng could truly be traumatized by a jade pendant. Xiao Bai thought that if it weren’t for the fact that plot characters couldn’t die, if Li Guanghan dared to strike, Brother Heng would dare to stab back.
Trembling with fear? Non-existent.
“I’m fine,” Yin Yuheng said leisurely. “Having read so many stories and novels, I’ve long wanted to try this maneuver… you have to admit, it has quite a special flavor. Seeing Li Guanghan’s expression, it’s quite satisfying.”
Xiao Bai: “…” Honestly, it sometimes couldn’t follow Brother Heng’s line of thought.
Yin Yuheng rolled out of bed and said with a light smile: “Xiao Bai, tell me, why do some people always think that after hurting someone, as long as they regret it, there’s still a chance for redemption?”
“Repairing the wrist bones is easy, but repairing the heart meridians and the spiritual platform is very difficult. Even if they can be repaired, it’s also very difficult for feelings to return to how they were before. If one is going to regret it later, why do it in the first place?”
“I once said I would make my junior brother understand the meaning of pain, jealousy, self-abasement, and resentment; what Li Guanghan owes me, I will eventually make him pay back. I am a man of my word.”
Yin Yuheng pushed open the door and looked left and right. Aside from guards and maids, there was no one else around.
Yin Yuheng blinked and called out: “A-Yan?”
No answer.
Yin Yuheng murmured to himself: “Is A-Yan angry?”
True, as soon as Li Guanghan arrived, he had made him avoid… it would indeed make someone angry.
But he was used to acting pitiful in front of Li Guanghan; if Lu Yan saw it, he feared he’d be even angrier.
Yin Yuheng sighed helplessly and, remembering he had one more thing to do, lightly clapped his hands.
A figure emerged silently beside him; Eunuch De, holding a fly-whisk, bowed: “Your Highness.”
Yin Yuheng said calmly: “Is the person caught?”
“Caught,” Eunuch De said respectfully. “He’s being held in the dungeon.”
Yin Yuheng looked at the rain striking the plantain leaves outside the corridor, feeling the wind was somewhat damp and cold. He lowered his head and coughed twice. At this moment, a servant hurried forward and handed a hand warmer to him, saying softly: “Young Master Lu’s instructions.”
Yin Yuheng was stunned for a moment. Holding the warmer, the corners of his eyes curved slightly, suddenly feeling that this wind and rain in Chaoge had a few more degrees of poetic flair, and the plantains were also a lovely green.
When he spoke to Eunuch De again, his tone was much more genial: “How is that person?”
“He’s already been through one round of interrogation. He’s not tight-lipped and has confessed some things. Shen Liyuan… this person is not simple.”
“Let’s go take a look,” Yin Yuheng smiled nonchalantly.
*
The person held in the dungeon had an ordinary appearance; in a crowd, one wouldn’t be able to pick him out. But his identity was very special—he was Shen Liyuan’s personal servant, and also a killer with decent cultivation.
When Yin Yuheng entered the dungeon, the man was tied firmly to a torture rack, half-unconscious.
Yin Yuheng sized up this person and slightly curled his lips.
—Shen Liyuan was stirring up trouble behind the scenes. Constrained by the plot, he couldn’t directly move against Shen Liyuan, but that didn’t mean he would just swallow his pride forever, did it? Were the people around him all useless, to be led away every single time? If Shen Liyuan dared to stretch out his claws, he had to be prepared to have them cut off.
Yin Yuheng lightly tilted his chin. Eunuch De understood and stepped forward, grabbing the servant’s hair and forcing him to look up.
Oil lamps burned in the dungeon. The servant felt the blurred light before his eyes and struggled to open them. He gradually adjusted to the light and, seeing the person standing before him clearly, felt somewhat dazed.
The person opposite him had a pale face and gentle features, holding a hand warmer in his arms—looking for all the world like a sickly young master. Even standing in a crude and dark dungeon, he was still as beautiful as a painting.
A refined gentleman, as if cut, as if filed, as if chiseled, as if polished.
Such a sentence surfaced in the servant’s mind for no reason. But soon, he realized his current situation. His expression changed and he trembled all over: “Your, Your Highness…”
Yin Yuheng rubbed the hand warmer with his fingers and said in a measured pace: “You are someone close to Shen Liyuan, aren’t you? Do you know why I caught you?”
The servant was no fool; he knew some of Shen Liyuan’s actions had likely been exposed. He stammered: “Your Highness, I… I also had no choice…”
As the servant spoke, tears began to flow: “I didn’t want to harm you either, but if I couldn’t complete the instructions from the Heir of Shen, I would be tortured by him until I was neither dead nor alive…”
Through the blurred tears, the servant seemed to see a hint of pity in Yin Yuheng’s expression. The other even let out a sigh: “Alas, you are also a pitiful person…”
The servant cried even more vigorously, but couldn’t help feeling a bit smug in his heart.
What kind of person was Yin Yuheng?
If you asked this question in Chaoge, you would surely get a look of admiration, longing, and respect. Ever since the Immortal-Promotion Decree was implemented, the Crown Prince’s reputation among the people had been like the sun at noon. It was hard to find someone who truly disliked him; even among the aristocratic families hostile to Yin Yuheng, many people secretly held him in high regard.
Whether as a friend or an enemy, everyone admitted that Yin Yuheng was indeed as clear as the wind and moon, as bright as jade. It wasn’t that he lacked schemes or means—he also understood political maneuvering—but most of what he used were upright and open strategies. What he wanted to do, he wouldn’t take a single step back from even under great pressure, but he would also never be unscrupulous or involve others at will for it.
The servant thought that as long as he pushed all the blame onto Shen Liyuan and claimed he was just forced, with Yin Yuheng’s nature of not liking to involve the innocent, he could escape the ordeal.
With a plan in his heart, the servant’s expression became even more humble. However, after he had cried for a long time, he didn’t hear the other person say another word. In his trepidation, he suddenly felt a chill on his cheek as a cold, gleaming dagger was pressed against the side of his face.
The servant froze, and his crying diminished.
Yin Yuheng held the dagger and said nonchalantly: “No need to act in front of me.”
“With such murky spiritual power and being burdened by karma, to be like-minded with Shen Liyuan, you are a bird of the same feather as him. You have quite a few lives on your hands, don’t you? Killing you would be considered acting on behalf of heaven.”
The servant’s eyes widened in disbelief, and this time he truly began to tremble: “You…”
“Shh, don’t make a sound,” Yin Yuheng pressed his forefinger to his lips. “The ambush on Lu Yan was also your doing, wasn’t it?”
Yin Yuheng suddenly remembered the injury on Lu Yan’s face from last time and narrowed his eyes.
“—Who gave you the nerve to move against him?”
The dagger pierced his cheek, slowly moving down toward his neck. Blood surged out; the servant had never felt death so close. Even when Shen Liyuan went mad, it didn’t make his hair stand on end like now—
Because when saying these words, Yin Yuheng was still gentle and tender. To anyone looking, he was still a clean and flawless jade-like gentleman.
But the sharp pain and the sense of suffocation from his neck made him understand that the other party truly intended for him to die.
An indescribable fear surged in his heart, and the servant’s eyes were full of terror: “Please, please… don’t kill me! I know about Shen Liyuan’s affairs!”
He truly wasn’t a good person, and he couldn’t even be called loyal. At the brink of life and death, he chose to betray his former master without hesitation.
But what made him despair was that Yin Yuheng blinked, but the pressure on his hand didn’t stop.
“Unfortunately, I don’t really want to know,” Yin Yuheng said nonchalantly. “Haven’t you already confessed?”
“Don’t, don’t…” The shadow of death loomed, and at this moment, the servant completely broke down. “I know even more! Shen Liyuan has many plans behind the scenes! Zhu Anning was sent by him to your side…”
Yin Yuheng lacked interest and continued to apply pressure with his hand.
The servant’s face turned deathly pale from pain, and he struggled: “He uses fragments of the Kunlun Mirror to obscure heavenly secrets and mislead Li Guanghan! He also plans to use this method to deal with Lu Yan—”
Yin Yuheng’s eyes flashed, but his tone remained flat: “Oh?”
Seeing that he had finally piqued Yin Yuheng’s interest, the servant hurriedly poured out everything he knew. Fearing Yin Yuheng wouldn’t believe him, he spoke in great detail.
Yin Yuheng listened quietly, keeping the words “Kunlun Mirror fragments” in his heart. After the other person finished, he gave a slight smile and moved the dagger away.
The servant was soaked in cold sweat, and blood was still surging from his neck. Before he could breathe a sigh of relief, a sharp pain suddenly came from his chest.
He looked down blankly and saw the dagger plunged into his heart.
“Thank you,” he heard Yin Yuheng’s gentle voice. “Be a good person in your next life.”
The voice even had a hint of pity, like a god or buddha looking down on the mortal world.
Before completely losing consciousness, one last thought flashed through the servant’s mind:
The Heir of Shen treated this person as prey, but who exactly was the true hunter?
*
Yin Yuheng tossed away the blood-stained dagger, his expression turning cold.
He used a handkerchief to wipe away the bloodstains accidentally gotten on his fingertips and let out a sigh in his heart.
Xiao Bai sensed his change in mood and comforted him: “Brother Heng, for people like this, the number of lives on their hands won’t be small. They deserve their death.”
“I know,” Yin Yuheng’s brow lowered slightly. “I just…”
Xiao Bai was stunned: “Just what?”
Yin Yuheng was silent for a while, then suddenly smiled: “Nothing.”
The dark shade in Yin Yuheng’s eyes gradually dissipated, finally returning to a state of clarity.
“Xiao Bai, actually sometimes when facing an inescapable fate, I also feel a bit tired and doubt if what I’m doing has meaning… but no matter what, I won’t stop my footsteps, and I won’t admit defeat.”
He walked out of the dungeon.
He held the hand warmer in his arms tightly, his smile genuine, and his entire person appearing spotless: “Where is Lu Yan?”
*
The rain in Chaoge was still falling.
Lu Yan leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, coldly watching Li Guanghan come and go, his fists clenching unconsciously.
He didn’t speak or move to stop him, but his heart was not at peace.
Clearly Li Guanghan had been hurting A-Heng all along.
Yet A-Heng still liked Li Guanghan.
At this moment, that faint thought in Lu Yan’s heart surfaced again, growing stronger and stronger.
How great it would be if, if he could replace Li Guanghan.
How great it would be if the person who saved A-Heng had been himself.
If he had met him earlier…
Lu Yan closed his eyes, a fine sense of resentment rising in his heart.
Suddenly, he heard footsteps approaching him. Someone grabbed his hand and called him gently.
“Young Lord Lu,” the other party approached him, “what are you doing alone?”
Lu Yan opened his eyes; the youth was looking at him with a smile.
Lu Yan opened his mouth, forgetting what he had originally intended to say. After a long while, he suddenly frowned: “It’s raining outside, why did you come out wearing so little? Get inside.”
*
When Li Guanghan returned to the State Preceptor’s Manor to get the medicine, his gaze suddenly fell upon a sword.
He was in a daze for a while before remembering that it was the gift he had originally intended for Zhu Anning.
Too many things had happened in a single day. If he weren’t preoccupied right now, he would likely wish to torture Zhu Anning to death, much less mention any birthday.
Li Guanghan stopped blankly in place, looking at the sword, his thoughts in disarray.
The person more suited to hold this sword was undoubtedly his Yuheng.
That was the most talented child he had ever seen; he surely could have gone very, very far on the path of the sword. Yet he had never even thought of giving Yuheng a carefully prepared sword…
Li Guanghan suddenly began to tremble uncontrollably.
—Because he suddenly realized that now, no matter how good a sword he gave Yin Yuheng, it was of no use.
He had personally destroyed the other’s talent and broken the other’s future.
He had done it with his own hands, with no room for excuse.