Chapter 96 - My Costar Wanted To Kill Me

[Congratulations for growing 100% closer to the Demon King. Ninth reward unlocked: Persuasion. Host now has full use of all Ghost King abilities]

Xin Hulei's words don't come as a surprise, but his coldness as he says them leaves Yao Shen winded. 

The blood rushing to his ears is so loud that it almost drowns out the System's voice.

[Host has to make a decision soon.]

Yao Shen barely catches on to the tail end of that sentence. 

He knows he has to make a decision. Several, actually.

"Is everything alright?" Xin Hulei asks, looking down into Yao Shen's eyes. "You look pale."

"It's nothing, just the day getting to me."

Xin Hulei looks out the window above them and notices the late hour for the first time. "We've spent a long time here. Your assistant must be looking for you."

Bi Jialu was the last thing on Yao Shen's mind when he followed Xin Hulei into his trailer. They shouldn't even be spending this much time unsupervised on set. What if someone saw them going in? 

"Won't we get in trouble if we leave now?" Yao Shen asks.

"I can take us back to my apartment, or your hotel room, if you want."

Mentioning his hotel room, immediately conjures up in Yao Shen's mind the image of the ghoul lurking in the shadows.

"No, it's better if we go to your apartment." As soon as the words are out of his mouth, Yao Shen wishes he could take them back. 

Depending on what Xin Hulei is about to say, Yao Shen might not want to stick around, pretending everything is okay, when in truth he's keeping so many secrets from Xin Hulei.

"Actually, let's stay here a little longer," he says, holding on tight to Xin Hulei. He wants to stretch this moment of intimacy for as long as he can.

Xin Hulei taps Yao Shen's chin with a fond expression. "Are you afraid of Jincan?"

"Yes," Yao Shen says, returning the smile even as something in his chest twitches unpleasantly. "I feel like the new concubine being mistreated by the first wife whenever I'm around him."

The low rumble of Xin Hulei's chuckle reverberates through his chest. Yao Shen feels it even through the layers of costumes they're both still wearing. 

"Who was he? The wrong person?" Yao Shen asks, regretfully steering the issue back to the topic at hand.

"He's the one who looked like you," Xin Hulei says, and then draws a line from one of Yao Shen's ear to the other. "Although I didn't see his face until the second day, he wore a veil when I met him."

Yao Shen clears his dry throat. "Was he a prostitute, at the brothel?"

He knows he wasn't, and that the other ghost kings got him to infiltrate the Fragrant Peony as one. Probably when they got wind that Xin Hulei was there. 

"I thought so at the time, but I suspect he wasn't. I think it was just a plan to trap me." 

Yao Shen nods. He suspects the same, but he knows even less than Xin Hulei.

There's an ominous premonition pressing down on him. Yao Shen has been feeling it since he woke up. Like the crackle in the air just before a storm.

"I wanted to forget everything. About Yan Shuyi, Xie Huan, and Modu," Xin Hulei says, carrying on with the account of events as he remembers them. "He made it easy to forget. I remember that he seemed almost scared, I asked him if it was his first time accepting a client and he said yes. That made me let my guard down around him."

"Did you tell him about Yan Shuyi?"

Xin Hulei nods. "I didn't think a prostitute had any interest in the power struggles of the Underworld, so I told him everything." His self-deprecating smile returns. "I was naive back then, a privilege Xie Huan's protection afforded me."

The more he talks the worse Yao Shen feels. He doesn't want to believe he would be the kind of person to take advantage of someone's vulnerability, but the truth is he doesn't know. He doesn't know anything.

"So you confided in him?"

Another nod, this time slower. "It seemed he was confiding in me too. He complained about being pushed by his brothers and sisters to fulfill a role he didn't want to. Complained at length about his voice not being heard when he made suggestions." 

His eyebrows furrow in an unusual display of annoyance. "A few sad words about infighting among the brothel workers were enough for me to trust him."

The sad part is that it wasn't just a sob story to get Xin Hulei's sympathy, and instead a genuine account about his strained relationship with the other ghost kings.

It doesn't bode well for whatever Xin Hulei is going to say next.

Yao Shen wants to stop him, tell him not to say anything else and remain suspended in this state of ignorant bliss.

Whoever he was back then, he isn't that person any longer. Isn't that the whole point of reincarnation? To do things differently, to become someone better with each new chance, closer to enlightenment. 

The words are on the tip of his tongue, but when he looks at Xin Hulei, and sees all the heartbreak he's trying to conceal he knows he can't do it.

Maybe this is something they can overcome together, maybe it isn't, but either way, he should give Xin Hulei a choice in the matter.

Yao Shen clears his throat. "And then what happened?"

"We stayed locked up in the same room for days." He doesn't elaborate, but Yao Shen can see a faint red hue tinge his earlobes. "I'm not a talkative person."

Yao Shen smiles. "I know."

"With him a felt like I could talk for hours, as if I was making up for lost time." He lowers his head and drops a kiss on Yao Shen's forehead. "You have that in common."

Yao Shen's smile slips and he lowers his eyes, his long eyelashes casting crisscrossed shadows on his cheeks in the gloom of the trailer.

"He said he understood me, and I believed him. He said he wanted to help me, and I trusted him." Xin Hulei stops and takes a shuddering breath. "He said he wanted to leave Youdu and go to Modu instead, I said I would take him."

"Maybe...maybe he meant it?" Yao Shen says, his heart thumping violently inside his chest. From everything he knows about the ghost kings, he has no trouble imagining how terrible his existence must have been.

If there's any common link between his personality now, and back then, it would be the desire to leave those overbearing assholes behind.

The ill-fated attraction to Xin Hulei too, apparently.

"Not long after I returned to the mortal realm, everything collapsed." 

While his words are grim, they actually give Yao Shen some hope. It's possible that everything is a coincidence. By Xin Hulei's own admission, there was already something happening behind the scenes that he wasn't aware of.

So maybe him meeting Yao Shen in the brothel and everything going to shit weren't related.

"How can you know for sure, that he had anything to do with it?"

"He gave me something he said would help me bypass Frozen Peak's wards. Something I and Xie Huan had been trying to do for ages to reach the relic." 

"It didn't work?" Yao Shen says, his voice tentative.

Xin Hulei goes very quiet, as if reminiscing about the day.

"When I got back, Xie Huan was naturally suspicious of me, but I managed to convince him of my loyalty. He was still reticent, so he and Yan Shuyi tested the 'key' while I remained behind to keep guard." 

When Yao Shen looks up into Xin Hulei's eyes he finds them as impenetrable as a bottomless lake. 

"The explosion was so violent, that it knocked me unconscious too, even several rooms away."

"An explosion?"

Xin Hulei nods, slowly. "It's after that that my memories become fragmented. I know that Yan Shuyi died right away as a consequence of the blast. Xie Huan survived, but only barely, and then not for long. The sect elders tortured him for answers."

Yao Shen has no reaction beyond the cold dread that seeps into his limbs, a feverish chill in the middle of the summer heat.

Outside, the cicadas cry is almost deafening. It rings in Yao Shen's ears louder than his own thoughts, like an echo of that explosion, centuries ago.

"I only escaped the same fate because Liansi found me, and took care of me," Xin Hulei says, his hands clenched tightly into fists, no longer holding Yao Shen to him. "After that, I only wanted revenge."

Yao Shen swallows dryly. "What did you do?"

"I went back to find him, determined to end his life." A dark sneer twists his handsome features. "My only regret is not having a clear enough memory of whether I succeeded."