Chapter 171 - My Costar Puts A Sword To My Neck

Yao Shen watches the moment the smile disappears form the Crown Prince's face. Xin Hulei is sitting down on the same sofa he was when they first met. Except this time he's injured, covered in bandages everywhere. There's one wrapped around his eye, circling his head.

It's a heartbreaking sight, but Xin Hulei still has both horns -- like he told Yao Shen, that will come later.

"What happened to you?" the Crown Prince asks, rushing to his side. "Did you manage to use the relic?"

Xin Hulei glares at him with his visible eye and pushes him away, making him stumble into the other sofa.

"Did it amuse you?" he asks, his voice heavy and grating. "Did you enjoy lying to me, sleeping with me, knowing what would happen after?"

The Crown Prince's eyes widen. "I don't- I have no idea what you're talking about."

Xin Hulei gets up from his sofa like a big cat stretching his muscles, unfolding himself from his seat and advancing towards the Crown Prince with long strides.

The Crown Prince scoots up backwards on his sofa. He doesn't know what is happening, but he's scared -- and hurt.

"The two people I loved most in the world are dead, I only survived by a miracle," Xin Hulei says, his remaining crimson eye flashing. "I'm sorry to disappoint."

"I didn't betray you! The relic I gave you was only supposed to deactivate wards."

Xin Hulei grins, but there's no humour in it, only a devastating sadness and a corroding hatred. "It did, if you count the explosion that brought everything down on top of us too."

The Crown Prince's eyes widen even more, he doesn't know how any of this happened. What any of it could mean.

His hands shake, and his usually red lips are rendered bloodless. 

"There has to be an explanation...I," his head shoots up at once, "My brother!"

Xin Hulei frowns. "Your brother?"

"I'm...I'm one of the ghost kings, the Tenth King, my brother is the Fourth King."

Xin Hulei is already enraged by what happened before, but now his hatred has reached a boiling point. "What?" He grits his teeth. "I assumed someone had put you to this, and you agreed, but now, you admit that you've been lying to me from the start, apparently of your own volition, and expect me to believe this is someone else's doing?"

Yao Shen has been in a painfully similar situation with Xin Hulei, over the exact same thing.

He wonders if he looked as heartbroken and hurt as the Crown Prince does now. 

"Let me try to explain," the Crown Prince begs, and then launches into a hurried account of all the events leading him to become a ghost king, his feud with Si Wang, the other ghost king's plans to destroy Modu...but he omits the tale of how he first came to meet Xin Hulei. That little detail he keeps to himself.

Yao Shen has the odd sensation of seeing footage of himself, while having no recollection of being recorded, when looking at the Crown Prince. For all their differences, a lot of their behaviours are similar. Especially when they are too sad to think clearly.

"I've heard enough," Xin Hulei says, stepping away from the Crown Prince. The hatred in his eyes hasn't receded from hearing the Crown Prince's jumbled tale.

Instead, he closes his fist and in it appears a sword hilt, attached to a long, engraved blade.

"I'm not a cultivator, not even a human, but my shizun gave me this sword when I became his disciple, and I intend to avenge him with it."

He raises the sword above his head, not pulling his gaze away from the Crown Prince.

The Crown Prince keep looking up at him, his own dark eyes filled with unshed tears. He doesn't beg for his life. He's not crying because he's about to lose it either.

Xin Hulei brings down the sword, and Yao Shen flinches as it flies straight at the Crown Prince's neck.

It comes to a stop a hairsbreadth away from the prince's skin, the metal of the blade reflecting the smooth sheen of his supple skin and the drops of perspiration dotting it.

Xin Hulei's eyebrows are knitted in rage above his visible red eye, flashing in the low light of the room like a warning.

Something inside him struggles with himself to get the job done -- avenge his shizun and Xie Huan.

The white bandages covering his blind eye start weeping a trail of blood down his face. Over his eye socket, a flower of red blood blooms.

The Crown Prince keeps looking at his face, his expression unchanging. He wraps the fingers of his hand around the sword's blade and pushes it further into the soft skin of his neck, drawing blood. "Do it, I don't have anything else to live for. My brother will never let me be."

A trail of red drips from his hand and down his forearm in deep crimson rivulets, from how tightly he's gripping the blade -- barely flinching at the deep cuts in his palm.

On his neck the sword has cut a small nick, it trickles blood like a dried up stream, staining the collar of his robes slowly.

Xin Hulei keeps looking at him, his free hand shaking madly at his side. The Crown Prince's red blood proves his tale, he's a ghost king, otherwise he would have no blood left to bleed.

With a growl that seems ripped from inside him, Xin Hulei hangs his head and his sword disappears into the air.

The Crown Prince gasps and lists forward, his skin even paler from the blood loss.

"Get out of here," Xin Hulei says, nodding towards the door. "Go as far as you can, because I don't intend to leave any stone in this fucking city standing."

Before the Crown Prince can say anything the sound of clapping fills the room.

Si Wang emerges from behind the curtain hiding the bed from the living area, a delighted smirk stretching his thin lips.

"That was quite the performance," he says, smirking down at the Crown Prince who glares hatefully at the side. "I'm sorry you didn't go all the way, I was excited for the final act."

Xin Hulei snorts. "He's your brother, kill him yourself. Don't expect me to do your dirty work for you," he says, barely sparing the Crown Prince one last glance as he turns towards the door.

Yao Shen can see by the empty look in the Crown Prince's eyes that those words from Xin Hulei hurt him more than anything else that has happened in the room.

Si Wang laughs, clutching his belly theatrically. "Did you hear that?" he asks the Crown Prince with a delighted smile. "He can't even be bothered to kill you himself."

"Shut up," the Prince spits, refusing to meet his brother's eyes. "This was all your doing."

Si Wang hums. "I suppose you were too busy getting fucked to consider that possibility."

Finally, he gets a reaction out of the Crown Prince. His eyes finally meet Si Wang's. The hatred burning in them is incandescent. "You disgust me, what do you want from me?"

"What I've always wanted, for you to love me instead of wasting time with unnecessary people."

"You're my brother, I've always loved you! But you turned that love into hatred with your obsession."

Xin Hulei no longer looks as if he's going to leave the room. From the corner of his eyes he's looking at the Crown Prince's tear streaked face.

Yao Shen can tell from the grim line of his lips that he's beginning to consider that the prince might have been telling the truth.

Silently, he summons his sword again, but this time he aims it at Si Wang's neck.

"I've changed my mind."

Si Wang grins, not at all surprised by this change of events. "Well, I haven't," in a swift movement he takes hold of Xin Hulei's wrist, touching the bare skin beneath the sleeve of his robe. 

The very next instant Xin Hulei's eyes widen, and his fingers go lax, letting the sword fall to the floor with a metallic clang.

"Neither of you is leaving here alive," Si Wang says.

He ignores Xin Hulei's frozen form, and kneels down in front of his brother who has slid down to the floor and is holding his bleeding hand in front of his chest.

He grins, and reaches forward to tuck a strand of the Crown Prince's hair behind his hear. He wrenches his head to the side, preventing his fingers from connecting.

"I could have given you the world on a platter," Si Wang says, almost sad. 

"I didn't want it," the Crown Prince hisses. "I never asked for anything."

Si Wang clicks his tongue. "That's the problem you see...how can you keep someone that doesn't want for anything?" He shakes his head. "Next time will be better, next time you'll have no memories of me to cloud your judgement."

"What are you talking about?" the Crown Prince asks.

Si Wang smirks, and from the inside of his pockets produces a relic, similar in everything to the one the Crown Prince gave Xin Hulei.. "We'll get it right in your next life, don't worry."