Chapter 47#
Should Have Been#
Lu Yan?
Yin Yuheng felt the name was a bit familiar, but he couldn’t remember it.
Looking up at the other person’s bright eyes, Yin Yuheng suddenly couldn’t get angry. A bit of a smile appeared at the corners of his mouth as he grasped the hand Lu Yan offered and climbed ashore: “My name is Yin Yuheng.”
The two looked at each other and smiled, and they were considered friends.
Yin Yuheng and Lu Yan were not old, and it was exactly the time when they loved to play. Yin Yuheng was not one to obediently stay in the palace; he was familiar with every street and alley in Chaoge. So Yin Yuheng took Lu Yan and played from the sunrise covering the sky until the moon rose over the western tower.
Lu Yan was not a local and found everything new. Whether it was the shimmering lake water, the moss-covered blue bricks and black tiles, or the scattered pavilions and terraces, Lu Yan looked at them all with joy. Inexplicably, Yin Yuheng also felt that these places he had been to before were a bit more interesting than usual.
The two passed by the jade workshop in the south of the city, and Yin Yuheng, on a whim, pulled Lu Yan to watch people carve jade. The more Yin Yuheng looked, the more curious he became, and finally he bought a pile of jade fragments, saying he wanted to learn this. However, he encountered a problem when he started.
“What’s good to carve? Nothing too tacky,” Yin Yuheng frowned while holding the carving knife, looked up and saw Lu Yan, his eyes lighting up, “How about I carve you?”
Yin Yuheng’s level naturally couldn’t carve a good human figure, so he chose to carve a bird. The young young lord of the Demon Clan couldn’t withstand Yin Yuheng’s soft-grinding and hard-soaking, transformed into his Golden Crow original form, and was scooped into the other’s arms.
“Little yellow bird,” Yin Yuheng said with a smile, “You’re so pretty.”
Lu Yan corrected him: “It’s a Golden Crow.”
“I know, little yellow bird.”
Yin Yuheng’s talent for carving jade was truly average. He ruined more than a dozen pieces of jade and didn’t have a single satisfying piece. Looking at the strangely shaped big bird on the jade pendant, Lu Yan hesitated to speak. But Yin Yuheng was full of enthusiasm and insisted on carving a satisfying Golden Crow.
The two were on a boat touring the lake together, and Yin Yuheng was still buried in his research. Lu Yan plucked a willow leaf from the shore and blew it at his lips. The tune was soft and melodious. Yin Yuheng inexplicably felt sleepy, put down the carving knife, and leaned dizzily on Lu Yan’s shoulder.
“I just wanted to give you a gift,” Yin Yuheng murmured with his eyes closed, “Forget it, I’ll give it to you after I practice well.”
Lu Yan laughed upon hearing this, picked up the jade pendant that Yin Yuheng had carved halfway, and put it in his arms: “It’s okay, I’ve received it.”
The small boat drifted aimlessly, and the moonlight sprinkled on the mirror-like lake surface. Yin Yuheng didn’t know if he heard it or not and fell into a deep sleep in a daze.
Lu Yan stayed in Chaoge for three months. When they parted, Yin Yuheng clipped a black bead to Lu Yan’s left ear.
“This is the communication artifact ‘Listening to Speech’,” Yin Yuheng exhorted, “You must also talk to me after you go back.”
Lu Yan touched his earlobe and suddenly reached out to hug Yin Yuheng. The young man’s hot embrace did not contain lust, but it made one’s head spin and heart surge.
“I’m so glad I came to Chaoge and could meet you.”
Parting in a hurry, they each had their own lives in the north and south. But no matter what happened, Yin Yuheng liked to tell Lu Yan about it.
For example, he went to Fengliang in Yuanzhou and found that someone was privately raising blood slaves. For another, he saved a child and enthusiastically taught him to read and cultivate.
Lu Yan liked to hear Yin Yuheng speak. The divine hall of the Demon Clan was empty, and Lu Yan slept in the darkness, but he didn’t feel lonely.
For a few days, he didn’t receive Yin Yuheng’s transmission, and Lu Yan felt worried. When he finally got in touch, as soon as the other spoke, Lu Yan’s heart tightened. Yin Yuheng’s voice was weak, but he was still laughing.
“You still have the heart to laugh when you’re injured?”
“I didn’t intend to get hurt either; it was just an accident. That beast suddenly rushed out…”
“Where are you hurt?”
“External injuries, I’ll be fine after a few days of rest.”
Yin Yuheng was accustomed to reporting good news and not the bad.
At the age of sixteen, Yin Yuheng sensed an opportunity for a breakthrough and went out to travel. While passing through Luoyan Mountain in Lizhou, he encountered a great demon. The little Crown Prince was this disheveled for the first time; his storage pouch was destroyed, and he was too heavily injured to walk. He leaned against the stone wall and touched the black bead on his ear. This was the only thing on his whole body that was intact.
Yin Yuheng coughed blood and transmitted a message to Lu Yan.
“A-Yan, if you don’t come to save me, your childhood friend will be gone.”
Sword light flashed past, layers of clouds were dyed, and the whole sky was golden-red. In the brilliant daylight, Lu Yan came with his sword, his tied-up ponytail leaping in the wind with his movements. Black gauze and mysterious clothes were originally dark colors, but worn on Lu Yan, they were elegant, solemn, upright, and handsome.
Not having seen him for three years, the boy’s figure was reflected in Yin Yuheng’s pupils.
Suddenly, his heart was like a drumbeat.
“A-Yan,” Yin Yuheng reached out his hand to Lu Yan, “I can’t walk anymore.”
Lu Yan didn’t go to pull him.
He picked him up directly.
Lu Yan’s face was unsightly: “New injuries on top of old ones, what’s going on? You were fooling me in the transmissions?”
Yin Yuheng closed his eyes: “Incredible, Young Lord Lu can even scold me now.”
“If you were from my Demon Clan, I would…”
Lu Yan gnashed his teeth and finally didn’t say anything. Yin Yuheng secretly opened his eyes and looked at his expression, knowing this person was angry, so he circled his neck and said softly, “I was wrong.”
Lu Yan could do nothing with Yin Yuheng. To rush to save Yin Yuheng, he had used the Demon Clan’s special methods and had to rush back as soon as possible and still receive punishment. Yin Yuheng urged him to go back, but Lu Yan became even angrier as a result.
From then on, Lu Yan transmitted messages to Yin Yuheng more frequently.
Whatever happened in the Demon Clan or whoever he met, Lu Yan sometimes told Yin Yuheng. The internal struggle within the Demon Clan was serious, and Lu Yan was not very good at plotting and calculating, so he suffered some losses. Yin Yuheng, thousands of miles away, offered advice to Lu Yan and worried his heart out for the little young lord.
“Some methods should be used when they should be. If you don’t offend others, others will offend you,” Yin Yuheng said earnestly. “Sometimes you can’t be too soft-hearted.”
Lu Yan replied to him: “You also know you can’t be too soft-hearted, yet you injured your own heart meridians to save someone?”
“…Accident, accident,” Yin Yuheng changed the subject, “I’m currently learning the sword from my teacher, let’s not talk for now.”
Lu Yan knew Yin Yuheng was learning the sword with Li Guanghan and also knew the other person greatly admired his teacher, especially admiring the other’s attainments in the way of the sword. Lu Yan practiced his sword himself, and his heart suddenly felt a bit unpleasant.
So during that time, Lu Yan’s swordsmanship improved rapidly.
Time passed quickly. In the blink of an eye, the Demon Emperor went into seclusion, and the Demon Clan rebelled. Lu Yan fought his way out of the encirclement. He was poisoned and leaned against the wall, panting.
Standing in a chaos of firelight, Lu Yan hesitated about which way to go. He thought about it and transmitted a message to Yin Yuheng.
“Do you have any absolute confidants you can trust in the Demon Clan?” Yin Yuheng’s voice was fast and serious, “No, there are too many demons who want to take this opportunity to kill you. It’s not absolutely safe anywhere, not to mention you’re poisoned.”
Yin Yuheng made up his mind: “Head toward Chaoge! I’ll send someone to meet you.”
“Aren’t you in the Demon Realm?” Lu Yan knew Yin Yuheng’s movements.
“I’ll be back soon,” Yin Yuheng said, “I can protect you.”
Lu Yan smiled and headed toward Chaoge.
The two met outside Chaoge City. The sky was full of stars, the Milky Way spanned across, the sky was clear and the moon was bright. The young man shot through the pursuing demons with an arrow and walked toward Lu Yan. The evening breeze blew his white clothes, like surging clouds and waves, and also like flowing moonlight.
This piece of moonlight was reflected in Lu Yan’s eyes, making him dazed for an instant, and then he quickly reacted.
Before there was time to reminisce, Lu Yan grabbed Yin Yuheng’s hand.
There was still wet blood on the other’s hand.
“…What’s going on?” Lu Yan gritted his teeth.
Yin Yuheng coughed lightly and withdrew his hand: “It’s fine, let’s enter the city.”
Lu Yan didn’t believe it, and soon he knew the origin of the wound.
The youth had picked the Underworld Flower and brought it all the way from the Demon Realm to Chaoge, feeding it with blood every day.
Lu Yan held the flower, his heart aching.
Yin Yuheng didn’t care: “It’s already picked. Open your mouth and take the medicine.”
*
The dream suddenly began to be disordered and broken.
People always like beautiful dreams, and in dreams, they intentionally or unintentionally eliminate those pains. His dream was only intermittent fragments, filled by Lu Yan, beautiful to the point of being unreal, but in those details, one could still glimpse traces and strands of sadness.
When the sadness finally reached an unignorable degree, the dream was difficult to maintain. Yin Yuheng frowned in his dream. He suddenly felt very stifled and very sad.
He dreamed of the mountain forests of Fengliang and the wound in his chest.
He dreamed of the flying snow in the National Preceptor’s Manor and the blood all over the ground.
He dreamed of his junior brother pulling his teacher and saying he liked him, mocking with a smile.
He dreamed of a long sword piercing through his chest.
He dreamed of his own disbelief.
He dreamed of the north wind and snow on the snowy plains.
He dreamed of Lu Yan’s voice and embrace.
Reality and dream intertwined. In a mess, Yin Yuheng gritted his teeth and asked: “Why would I have such a dream?”
A voice replied: “This is ‘what should have been’.”
Yin Yuheng suddenly remembered when he was a child, there was a period of time when he really liked to carve jade. He didn’t know why he carved it, he just practiced over and over again. He always felt he would meet the person worthy of his giving the jade pendant, but until he was sent to Fengliang, he didn’t wait for them.
On Luoyan Mountain, when he was seriously injured, looking at the boundless sky, he always felt someone would come to save him. Sword light flashed past, and he couldn’t help but reach out his hand, but before his eyes was only the lonely wind.
He was forced by the plot to pick the Underworld Flower for Li Guanghan. He waded through the icy water of the Ghost River, but felt it shouldn’t be like this.
The person for whom he was willing to pick the flower should not have been Li Guanghan. Whether it was the Underworld Flower or the Qilin Horn, they all should have belonged to another person.
Who was it?
Countless misses, many years of searching, he was waiting for an answer.
The voice by his ear sounded again: “Don’t trace it further. Forget him, and you can see the sweetness after the bitterness.”
“Who are you?” Yin Yuheng asked.
The other side didn’t answer.
Yin Yuheng smiled: “I never believe people who inexplicably negotiate with me. And I think you’re lying to me.”
“Besides Lu Yan, everything in the dream is actually the so-called original book plot, isn’t it? In the dream, I really wanted to be good to my teacher and junior brother.”
The matters in the dream were all related to Lu Yan, and other things were just mentioned in passing. But Yin Yuheng still saw many fragments… Although in the dream he had no romantic love for his teacher and junior brother, he had truly given his heart, so it was much more painful than reality.
So painful that even the dream couldn’t be maintained.
But Yin Yuheng no longer cared about these. He only cared about one person.
“I’ve always wondered why Lu Yan was different from the plot,” Yin Yuheng said indifferently, “Because the plot about Lu Yan was originally wrong.”
His A-Yan was never the kind of person who would basely deceive and coldly calculate. Whether in the dream or in reality, he was his own, the only warmth.
Someone wanted to take this warmth away from him. So the plot was tampered with, fate was deflected, and the memories that should have belonged to him and Lu Yan were split and given to others, even “liking” was given to Li Guanghan. He kept missing out and even kept dreaming since he was a child that he died by Lu Yan’s sword.
What was it like to constantly experience one’s own death? He was almost driven mad and had once truly hated Lu Yan.
But even so, as long as they really met, he would still fall in love with the right person.
“Letting me dream all this, is it to make me unwilling, to make me go mad? But actually, I’m very happy.”
“Thank you for making me realize that, as it turns out, I really like him.”
That voice finally sounded again, seemingly somewhat turning from embarrassment to anger: “Stubborn and persistent, Lu Yan really killed you.”
Yin Yuheng smiled: “Okay, I’m waiting.”
The dream completely shattered, and he opened his eyes. It was not yet dawn, and the bright moon still hung on the top of the building. Yin Yuheng stared blankly for a while and stumbled out of bed.
“Lu Yan…” Yin Yuheng touched the “Listening to Speech” on his ear, “I miss you.”