Chapter 44

[*slams cards on the table* Read ’em and weep, boys. What do you mean I’m not playing right. Of course I’m not playing right I don’t even know what game this is]

I’ve known for a while that I’m a bit afraid of blood, but being afraid of heights I’m not sure about. I rode roller coasters before and never screamed, only laughed.

The wind whistles past my ears. I didn’t have time to appreciate life’s final process, nor did I have time to playback any important memories. I simply fainted.

The underlying cause, in the end, is likely a fear of death.

After dying once already, I truly feared it.

Since I’ve fainted, please forgive me for having the audience inevitably missing all the good drama. By the time I woke up again, I was in the same place I woke up in the first two times. Even the one at my side is the same.

The Established Law of Cliffs isn’t meant for me.

I’m not getting any exceptional martial arts, rare treasures, handsome chaps or beautiful women.

“Am I paralyzed?” I ask.

“No.” Jinzi’s face is quite a bit haggard, an obvious scratch on his left cheek.

“Disfigured?”

“No.”

I moved my body around, finding that there was nothing obstructing my movement, and apart from a bit of soreness in my fingers, I didn’t have any injuries.

“How did you save me?”

“Jumped down, grabbed you.” He says sullenly.

“After that?”

“Grabbed the rock, climbed up.”

“Oh.”

An expert is an expert. An unruly asset, indeed.

I can’t help but mentally sneer.

I don’t talk anymore. Neither does he.

I’m not talking because I don’t want to.

He’s not talking because he didn’t know what to say.

I just close my eyes, letting the silence extend without bounds.

……

“His Majesty escaped and came to see you in person.” He finally can’t resist speaking up.”

“Ah.”

“The chancellors of the court came too, including Li Minguo and Gu Yunzhi.”

“Hm.”

“Zhou Zizhu came twice, and returned Hearth.”

“Oh.”

“Gao Yushu is still in the hall waiting for you to wake up.”

“‘Kay.”

He gave up, returning to silence.

I look outside. It’s nighttime already. The moonlight is very gloomy as it weaves through the muslin window screen, its diffused brilliance like a piece of jade that had gradually lost its luster over the ages.

I turn my body on its side, back to him, and close my eyes to doze off.

Jinzi suddenly spoke again. “The books I destroyed that day… apart from Zhang Qinglian’s Jade Spider Arts, there was another one.”

“That wasn’t a good book.”

I opened my eyes.

He recounted calmly. “…It’s crude martial arts passed over from Tianzhu. It didn’t have much use, originally. It explains how to take the martial arts of an expert as one’s own…via bedchamber arts…and I don’t know where Zhang Qinglian came from. After he caught me, he knew that I could speak Sanskrit, and ordered me to translate it. I don’t want to teach him and want him to deal with it himself, of course… but he has Jinfeng, so he can threaten me to do anything… I was forced to translate it for him, but one or two sentences out of every ten were fake. The method I fabricated was built off of the martial arts Zhang Qinglian learned, so he naturally couldn’t find out… The initial practice was still effective and he gets more addicted to it with each day, while I count down the days until he dies from his tendons bursting. The initial practice was still effective, and he gets more addicted to it with each day, and I count down the days until he dies from his tendons bursting… That night, he was aware that his martial arts greatly advanced and was very proud of himself, saying that tomorrow, he’d also bring Jinfeng out to play with — it’d usually put him a good mood to see me suffering… I was worried, and just when he… made a risky move, it luckily went into effect. He suddenly qi deviated, his whole body turned blue, and he couldn’t breathe…”

I suddenly felt a chill on my back, turning to stare at him. “And then you peacefully slept in the same bed as a corpse?”

What kind of guy is he?

“No!” Jinzi was somewhat indignant. “I only closed my eyes and thought about what to do next. Then you woke up.”

“…At first I thought he hadn’t died, and that his qi only got temporarily blocked. I’m anxious about whether he’d see right through me… but something was off. When you told me you lost your memory, I half believed it, half didn’t… I thought that it was some kind of ruse… After that I felt more and more that something was off. Even if there’s memory loss, how can someone not even remember how to put on clothes? The character’s changed, the artistic talent’s suddenly surged, the preferences and temperament are completely different… there’s ancient theories about reincarnating into someone else’s corpse, as well as a lot of legends. I don’t normally believe in the supernatural, but there isn’t any other explanation…”

“When were you sure that I wasn’t Zhang Qinglian?” I ask frostily.

“…I can’t remember, but I knew three or four days after you came to.”

I’m sorely disappointed and enraged, anger burning from my chest to the crown of my head.

So he was well aware of everything early on! Looking at me indifferently on the sidelines while I took great pains to cover it up! I was played the fool.

The sharp pain from my wounded pride is intolerable.

I sat up and laughed bitterly. “Well then, did you have a lot of fun messing with me? Did it make you feel giddy inside?” The more I talk the more I’m unable to control my fury, my primal instinct throwing out the thorns in my side that I’ve had for a long time. I pull open the front of my robes, exposing chest and shoulders as white as jade, and point at them. “This body is really beautiful, even more gorgeous than my original one…in fact, you’ve lusted after it for a long time, right? What a shame that it’s your greatest enemy that you can’t even live under the same sky with… love and hate are intertwining, alas! Makes your heart hurt a lot, yeah? It’s great now that this body’s changed owners! I could have been any random shmuck, but the point is that I’m not Zhang Qinglian… now there aren’t any problems for you! You can do what you want with a clear conscience… how very lucky you are, Yao Jinzi!”

I raised my head to look at him provocatively, but uncontrollably jumped a little in fright. Jinzi still had no expression, but what’s rising in his eyes… isn’t just rage.

My mouth is open but nothing comes out.

“You…” He’s speechless from anger, voice hoarse, fists clenched tightly, constantly trembling…

There’s many things in his eyes, seeming like he’s deeply hurt, and despairing, and suffering, and aggrieved, all heavily interwoven, wanting to retort but unable to speak. I was still staring there when he turned and walked out.

There’s only me left in the room.

I smiled sarcastically, falling to the bed in dissatisfaction. How I loathe for my abilities and personality to be like this. I love to thoroughly analyze everyone’s hidden mental layers, including my own: all the greedy, petty, filthy, cagey, ugly, real things. It’s why I always like face-to-face confrontations.

What can this bring me, apart from pain?

It was this way before, and it’s still this way now.

It’d be better if I didn’t go looking.

It’d be better if I didn’t want to.

There was someone who said to me before that seeing things too clearly is agonizing, unless you already have a conception that matches that insight. Yet, even if you can be lenient, there’s nothing to be done about it…

I couldn’t contain myself. Every time Jinzi focuses on my face, my mood plummets; I’m unable to convince myself that it’s only my soul that he loves…

This is my first time falling asleep alone since I’ve been sleeping with Jinzi. It’s early summer already, yet I can’t stop feeling somber, my body cold and dry heat in my heart.

Unable to sleep, I get up and take off all my clothes, resuming my habit of sleeping naked.

I lay flat on my bed. The moon’s light shines clearly through the clouds and the latticed window, enveloping me.

I deeply wished for a moment that this moonlight was some kind of acidic solvent that could painlessly dissolve my current body and preferably re-mold it into my original form.

This is the first time in this era that I’ve had a sense of world-weariness, exhausted in both body and mind.

It doesn’t matter, though. I know that I’ll get up and go to Court tomorrow as I usually do, regardless of how worn-out I am mentally.

Tomorrow, I’ll think of who the main employer of the assassins is, and find the continuous energy to deal with a violent hurricane.

I’ve been like this since forever, able to prop myself up solely through the force of habit.