Chapter 58#
Lovesickness#
Palace lanterns cast a flickering light, filling the room.
The faint yellow light softened Yin Yuheng’s features, adding even more gentleness to his already mild-looking face. A chessboard was on the table, and the youth toyed with a chess piece in one hand, smiling as he listened to the person in front of him.
The young master of the Fox Tribe sat in his chair, dazed for a moment, his speech slowing down, “…That day, most of the rebels were dead or injured, and only a few survivors fled… His Majesty is currently purging the Demon Clan…”
Yin Yuheng listened quietly, nodding from time to time. The Fox young master seemed to be greatly encouraged, and he spoke even more vigorously.
“Young Master Bai Heng doesn’t know since he just arrived, His Majesty’s methods are cold-blooded and ruthless—”
With a “creak,” the door was suddenly pushed open before the Fox young master could finish. The person who came in was dressed in black gold-sprinkled clothes and asked indifferently, “What cold-blooded and ruthless?”
“Ma, Majesty!” The Fox young master turned around impatiently and immediately turned pale, jumping up. “I, I was saying You’re brilliant and heroic…”
The Fox young master had a well-behaved appearance. Lu Yan glanced at him and didn’t intend to trouble him much. He looked at Yin Yuheng. Yin Yuheng took the opportunity to drop the chess piece in his hand and said with a smile, “Welcome, Your Majesty.”
The palace attendants stepped forward quietly and trimmed the lamp wick, and the room instantly brightened a bit. Lu Yan gave a faint “En,” his gaze scanning the Fox young master again. The Fox young master shivered and immediately stuttered, getting up to leave.
“We were just chatting and I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Li Hu,” the Fox young master took a careful look at Yin Yuheng. “I’ll come again to play chess with Brother Bai Heng another day.”
Yin Yuheng smiled and accepted.
Brother? Lu Yan couldn’t help but frown, feeling a bit more irritated in his heart.
After Li Hu left, only the two of them remained in the room. Lu Yan frowned and intended to step forward, but suddenly paused, eventually sitting across from Yin Yuheng, leaving two or three empty spaces between them.
Yin Yuheng blinked, amused. Seeing Lu Yan’s stiff face and not knowing how to open his mouth, Yin Yuheng didn’t ask what he was doing, and said softly, “Is Your Majesty here to talk about the Blue Sky Attraction? Don’t worry, I will definitely practice well and condense my soul.”
“…En.” Lu Yan lowered his eyes and didn’t look at him. In fact, the moment he stepped through the door, he regretted it—what was he doing here?
Was he using a substitute so similar to A-Heng to ease his lovesickness? Lu Yan asked himself and knew he couldn’t do such a thing.
He didn’t know what to say, and finally said dryly, “The medicinal materials and spiritual treasures for condensing the soul will be sent over by someone soon. I won’t interfere too much in your affairs. Once the matter here is settled, you can leave the Three Barren Mountains freely at any time.”
Yin Yuheng was stunned, his eyes curving as he said, “Your Majesty the Demon Emperor helped me stabilize my soul and set me free; it’s indeed a great favor. I wonder what Your Majesty used to exchange for me?”
Lu Yan curled his fingers and didn’t speak.
Yin Yuheng smiled: “Your Majesty has done so much for the Crown Prince of the Li Dynasty. When he wakes up, he’ll surely be moved.”
Yin Yuheng’s tone was gentle, as if it were just a common sentiment. However, Lu Yan suddenly tightened his grip on his sleeve.
The palace attendants had already withdrawn, and the surroundings were silent. Only the light from the palace lanterns rested on his fingertips. Ever since Yuheng fainted, Lu Yan had been taciturn, and everyone in the Demon Clan said he was cold-blooded and ruthless. But perhaps the tone of the person before him was too gentle and familiar. Lu Yan was in a daze for a moment, and the suppressed pain, anxiety, and grievance in his heart rose like a tide.
By some freak of fate, his lips moved.
“When he wakes up,” Lu Yan said with a lowered head, his voice hoarse and trembling, “I’m afraid he’ll blame me.”
“…Why?” Yin Yuheng was stunned.
Because when he needed me, I wasn’t there.
Lu Yan raised his hand and gently rubbed the black bead on his ear. He suddenly stood up and walked hurriedly out of the door.
……
The night wind brushed against his face, making Lu Yan a bit clearer. He stopped in a deserted corner, and the stars in the sky flowed like light, just like the night sky when the two first met.
Lu Yan took off the “Listening to Speech” from his ear and rubbed it in his palm. The other bead that paired with it was on A-Heng’s person—this bead had been lost in the Shen family, and Lu Yan had spent a lot of effort to find it.
Lu Yan still remembered the day he arrived at the Shen family, standing in the room where Yuheng lay unconscious, and the anger and despair in his heart. He didn’t know what A-Heng had encountered in the Shen family, but he knew there were no good things. Lu Yan stood in the room, imagining what kind of mood Yin Yuheng had when he said he missed him through the “Listening to Speech”?
At the most dangerous moment, A-Heng had thought of him.
But… he didn’t respond.
This matter had become Lu Yan’s heart knot. Later, Lu Yan sat by Yin Yuheng’s bedside, staring at the unconscious person in a daze, and realized that a single mistake could make a person regret to this extent. From then on, when he woke up from a dream in the middle of the night, he always instinctively felt for the “Listening to Speech” on his ear, even though he knew that A-Heng could no longer speak to him.
“Lu Yan, I miss you.”
“Lu Yan, if you could come to my side once, you can have a second time, right?”
That was what A-Heng had said back then, and Lu Yan didn’t have time to answer.
Lu Yan closed his eyes, brought the “Listening to Speech” to his lips, and said softly, “A-Heng, I miss you too.”
Only when the lovesickness enters the bone does one know the entanglement of feelings.
……
The night was deep and the wind was cold, the dew heavy.
The deer carriage wobbled into the main gate of the City Lord’s Manor. Xue Ciling pulled back the curtain, but paused for a full three breaths before getting off the carriage.
“Welcome back, City Lord.” A maid stepped forward to salute, secretly rolling her eyes, seemingly puzzled why one person was missing. Only when Xue Ciling walked forward without saying a word did she open her eyes wide in surprise.
“City Lord, Young Master Yin, he…”
Her voice stopped abruptly, and she lowered her head with a pale face.
She saw Xue Ciling turn his head slightly, and the coldness in his eyes was bone-deep.
The maid fell to her knees with a “thud,” and it was only after Xue Ciling left that she raised her head, dripping with sweat.
Xue Ciling went alone to the forbidden area of the City Lord’s Manor. He pushed open that room, and it was cold and silent inside. High and low puppets either sat or stood, all of them having the skin and bones of a beauty, reflected in the cold and gloomy moonlight.
Xue Ciling felt around and sat down, without lighting the lamp. His fingertips accidentally touched the tools on the table—they were all ones he used to make puppets, but since he had Yuheng, he hadn’t touched them for a long time.
He suddenly became stiff, and after an unknown amount of time, he suddenly went crazy and pushed everything off the table with a “clatter.”
Xue Ciling propped himself against the edge of the table, gritting his teeth and panting.
“Yuheng…”
He murmured softly, and in a daze, he didn’t know whether he was calling that Crown Prince of the Li Dynasty or the puppet he had made.
Xue Ciling chanted this name, and his empty heart was pierced by the cold wind, the pain reaching his very core. His blood seemed to be mixed with torturous poison. There was no one by his side, just as it had been for countless days and nights.
Xue Ciling had been lonely for many years.
From the initial hope for warmth to the cold-hearted abandonment. Later, he began to be accompanied by puppets, obsessed with the illusory, never-to-be-betrayed sincerity. He sat in this room carving the features of the puppets, and only then would his heart be exceptionally calm, pinning his hidden, secret expectations, and fantasizing about his redemption.
However, now, as Xue Ciling’s peripheral vision caught the various puppets around him, he only felt a surge of anger. He suddenly grabbed a nearby puppet, pulled it in front of him, and stared fixedly at its exquisite but lifeless face.
“…What thing,” Xue Ciling chuckled softly, laughing like a ghost, “Uninteresting.”
Cold dead things were not one ten-thousandth as good as Yuheng.
He kicked it, and this puppet, which he had originally held in his palm and carved carefully, hit the ground and broke into pieces.
“Yuheng…” Xue Ciling turned in a circle and then stopped in despondence.
Yuheng was gone, missing.
He had given him to someone else.
The cold moon shone on his face, and Xue Ciling gradually became clear, standing in the middle of a mess, trembling with red eyes. After a long while, he barely calmed down.
“Given away… if he’s given, then so be it. Just a puppet; I can have as many as I want. What does it matter if one is missing?”
He muttered to himself, with a cold smile on his lips. He took a deep breath, bent down, and picked up the carving knife he had pushed off the table.
“I’ll just make another one…”
He could even make it more exquisite and perfect.
Xue Ciling gave a foolish laugh and began carving a new “Yin Yuheng.” He was focused, tracing the features of the puppet.
For several days, he didn’t go out.
Putting down the last stroke, Xue Ciling rubbed the exquisite puppet and finally revealed a satisfied smile.
“Yuheng,” Xue Ciling said softly, “wait for me, I’ll make you wake up soon.”
He came to the Ghost River again, and just like the last time, he summoned a lonely soul wandering in the Ghost River and put it into the puppet’s body. Having completed everything, Xue Ciling sat by the bed, waiting for the puppet to wake up with eyes full of expectation.
He would soon possess “Yin Yuheng” again, he thought.