Inside the treatment room.
A tall, slender man dressed in black stood beside Gu Mang’s bed.
He held a curved saber in his hand. The snow-bright blade was still stained with fresh blood, crimson droplets falling one after another. Gu Mang sat on the bed, gazing at the man slowly approaching him through the translucent gauze curtains.
Perhaps the stimulation from the memories of his origins had already been too great. There was not much expression on Gu Mang’s face. He merely stared at this uninvited guest with an almost icy numbness.
Suddenly, Gu Mang said, “Why did you try to kill Murong Lian?”
The man in black paused.
“…How did you know it was me?”
Gu Mang stared at him.
“Liao trained me like a wolf. I have a wolf’s instincts.”
The man in black said, “I see…”
Gu Mang gritted his teeth.
“Then why did you try to kill him?!”
Actually, he had never expected this person to answer him. But the man in black slowly stopped walking.
Then his low, muffled voice came from behind the black cloth covering his face.
“You’re mistaken. I was indeed the one who attacked Murong Lian, but I wasn’t the one who wanted him dead. I was merely acting on someone else’s behalf.”
“…”
“But I know very well why the person who wants him dead wants his life.” The man in black said, “Murong Lian knows too many secrets. If it were me, I wouldn’t let him remain alive in this world either.”
Gu Mang asked again, “Then what about me? Why did you go to such lengths to kill me?”
“You’re still mistaken. I didn’t come here to kill you at all.”
Gu Mang stared at the blood-dripping dagger.
“Very convincing.”
The man in black stroked the blade and smiled faintly.
“If possible, I would indeed prefer to take your life directly. It would settle everything once and for all, and be the cleanest solution. Unfortunately, that isn’t so easy to accomplish.”
“Yet you have trespassed into the secluded chambers of the imperial palace as if there were no one here. How did taking Gu’s head suddenly become difficult?”
The man in black smiled faintly.
“…As expected, Murong Lian knew too much, while you know too little.”
But he did not seem interested in explaining anything further to Gu Mang.
After all, Chonghua’s royal palace was filled with experts. No matter how good his movement techniques were, if he stayed too long and reinforcements arrived, he could not guarantee that he would still be able to escape smoothly.
So he said, “I came today because I want to tell you a secret that you have been unable to figure out no matter how hard you’ve thought about it.”
Gu Mang narrowed his eyes slightly.
He had more or less guessed the man’s purpose.
According to what the State Preceptor of Liao had said, Gu Mang’s current body was like a vessel already covered in countless tiny cracks. Once the stimulation it carried reached a certain degree, he would completely collapse and become a walking corpse whose entire being had been devoured by the dark demonic aura.
This man had no intention of killing him, but intended to tell him some secrets.
Clearly, he wanted to stimulate his mind once more and completely destroy him from within.
Gu Mang straightened his body, his deep-blue eyes fixed intently on the other man.
It would not be that easy.
The destruction caused by the rumors, Murong Lian’s grave injury, Auntie Lin’s identity, his own blood relatives…
So many storms had already crashed down upon him.
His memories were indeed a tangled mess, fragmented and falling apart, but at least he could still maintain clarity of consciousness.
He knew that once he was swallowed by the dark demonic aura, the situation would become completely uncontrollable.
So he would not fall into the abyss.
But what other secret could possibly break him?
In that brief instant, countless possibilities flashed through his mind.
Those guesses became armor he put on himself in advance.
He thought that no matter what the other man said, he would not be subjected to an even greater shock.
Until the man in black spoke four words.
“The Heavenly Tribulation Oath.”
Before Gu Mang could comprehend the deeper meaning behind those four words, the instinct of a beast already caused a buzzing roar to erupt inside his skull, and his blood unconsciously turned cold.
His lake-blue eyes widened slightly.
He could sense that the defenses he had built high around himself, the armor he had put on, would all be forced to collapse completely because of these four words.
Instinctively, he knew that he should do everything possible not to listen any further.
Yet just like a moth drawn to a raging fire, knowing that it could only lead to death, he still murmured,
“…What?”
“Have you never carefully thought about why the Lord allowed Mo Xi to take over the remnants of your army?”
The black-clad man’s words pierced into Gu Mang’s ears like sharp needles.
“Back then, the Lord had intended for him to take over the Redfeather Army. Why do you think someone of the purest noble bloodline like him eventually became the commander of your Northern Frontier Army?”
Coldness spread out from Gu Mang’s chest.
The black-clad man clicked his teeth ominously.
“It was because of the Heavenly Tribulation Oath.”
Like thunder dying away.
His entire body burned from within.
“Right after you personally stabbed him, he still knelt before the Golden Hall for three days and three nights, dragging a sickly body, pleading for the remnants of your army in Chonghua.”
The black-clad man spoke slowly.
“Someone as proud as him… During that period, he practically trampled himself into the mud.”
“He spoke on your behalf before the entire court. He defended you. And what did he get in the end?”
“Nothing but that one heart-piercing stab from you!”
“Do you know how many people in Chonghua laughed at him back then?”
“He already had many enemies. Those nobles who had always been inferior to him all came out to mock him. They said he was incapable of judging people. They said he had been bewitched. They even said that the reason a traitor like you had emerged from the nation was because he had failed to see through you in time.”
“They believed that if he had recognized your true nature sooner, those innocent people would never have died in vain.”
“They blamed the defeat and the losses on him.”
“On one side was his country and family condemning him. On another was your abandonment of him. On one side was hatred toward a traitor. On the other was his long-standing affection for you.”
Every word the black-clad man spoke was extraordinarily clear, as though he wished each one to become a sharp needle and pierce straight through Gu Mang’s soul.
“You think you were the only one suffering, the only one enduring pain that could not be spoken?”
“When you were in hell, he was also living a fate worse than death in the cracks between everything.”
“The difference was that when you went to hell, you at least knew what you were doing it for.”
“But he was utterly lost in that narrow space between everything.”
“All of you hid things from him. All of you made choices on his behalf, disregarding what he truly felt.”
“Gu Mang…”
The black-clad man’s voice seemed steeped in poison between his lips and teeth.
“It was you who forced him into this.”
Gu Mang abruptly recoiled into the depths of the curtains as though stung by a venomous snake or scorpion. His face was as pale as paper.
“No… That’s not true…” Gu Mang clutched his head and curled up beneath the bedding and curtains. “It’s not…”
“How is it not? How could it not be?”
“Gu Mang, you extinguished his faith, his dignity, and his light.”
“All because you arrogantly assumed that he would follow the path you arranged for him and live a spotless, carefree life from then on.”
“How stubborn and self-righteous you were!”
A splitting pain tore through his skull.
Gu Mang curled up like a trapped beast, letting out a low, mournful whimper.
“It wasn’t like that… I didn’t want him to become like this…”
“And what difference does it make that you didn’t want it?”
The black-clad man’s voice was almost mocking.
“The facts have already become reality.”
“Precisely because you concealed everything, you allowed the Lord to use the lives of those thirty thousand surviving soldiers to threaten the two of you a second time.”
“The first time, he threatened you into becoming a spy.”
“The second time, he threatened him into never being allowed to rebel.”
“The Heavenly Tribulation Oath.”
The black-clad man spoke those words to him with malicious satisfaction.
“For the sake of someone he believed had left him forever, your Lord Xihe reduced ten years from his lifespan and swore an oath never to betray the Lord and never to betray Chonghua.”
“Gu Mang, when you were pitifully complaining your grievances to him, did he tell you any of this?”
It was a question whose answer the man already knew.
Yet it struck Gu Mang like a whip lashing his body, making him tremble from head to toe. His lips turned pale and blue as they quivered.
Did he tell you any of this?
Before his eyes, Mo Xi’s handsome, deeply defined features seemed to appear once again.
When his long eyelashes lowered, they concealed everything within his eyes, even the ruins hidden there.
Mo Xi had pressed his forehead against Gu Mang’s and whispered,
“Senior Brother, it’s all right now. It’s all over. We still have a lifetime ahead of us.”
He had risked his spiritual core shattering to uncover the truth behind Gu Mang’s alleged treason.
He had brought Gu Mang through the waters and back to shore.
He had heard Gu Mang’s pain.
He had understood Gu Mang’s sorrow.
He had promised that no matter what happened next, he would bear it together with Gu Mang.
He alone had never shown Gu Mang his own wounds.
He alone had never told Gu Mang that their “lifetime together” was actually no longer complete.
Those ten years of lifespan had already, without almost anyone knowing, become an oath to protect the remnants of Gu Mang’s army.
“Do you know what the most laughable thing is?”
The black-clad man saw the pain of Gu Mang teetering on the brink of collapse.
He stepped forward, his eyes overflowing with malice.
“The most laughable thing is this, Gu Mang.”
“That oath of his was completely unnecessary.”
“You and the Lord had already made an agreement long ago, yet you let him remain like an idiot, knowing nothing and anxiously losing sleep day and night.”
“Actually, even if he had not made that oath, would the Lord really have made things difficult for your surviving soldiers?”
“No.”
His venom poured out steadily, sinking into Gu Mang’s flesh and bones.
He was certain of victory.
From Gu Mang’s expression alone, he could tell how chaotic and shattered his mind was at that moment.
He was like a spider waving its eight limbs as it walked through the web it had carefully woven, approaching the prey trapped within and unable to escape.
Then came the final blow, like a cudgel crashing down—
“The brilliant scheme you all joined together to carry out targeted him first.”
“Gu Mang, if I were any relative who cared about Mo Xi, my greatest wish would probably be that he never met you in this lifetime.”
It was as though a porcelain surface were slowly developing countless fine cracks, making an unsettling sound as it fractured.
“You ruined his life.”
It was as though a bowstring suddenly snapped.
Gu Mang let out a pained howl, his forehead crashing heavily into the bedding.
His back was arched, his fingers buried in his hair, and a beast-like whimper came from his throat.
The Heavenly Tribulation Oath.
The Heavenly Tribulation Oath…!!!
The wind from the academy grounds many years ago seemed to rise once again.
The white birch trees rustled.
Beneath the tree, the beautiful young man holding a zongzi and taking tiny bites noticed his gaze, paused, and quietly turned his eyes toward him.
Those black eyes, untouched by even a speck of dust.
That young man whom he had thought, from the very first time they met, was as rare and precious as uncut jade…
In the end, he had become the first piece to fall on their chessboard.
And Gu Mang had remained completely unaware of it all this time.
“Lord Xihe, Lord Wangshu, Lu Zhanxing… Gu Mang, you think none of these people’s sacrifices have anything to do with you.”
“You’re wrong.”
“When you became the Lord’s trusted aide and schemed for the justice and righteousness you believed in, all of them became pieces in your hands.”
“You will never… ever be able to separate yourself from this.”
After saying this, the man in black placed a narrow jade slip before Gu Mang’s bed.
It recorded the events surrounding Mo Xi’s oath.
He glanced unobtrusively outside.
He knew he could not stay any longer.
Powerful spiritual energy was already approaching the treatment room.
He had to leave now.
But he was confident.
He knew that Gu Mang would have an extremely difficult time enduring this blow.
Moreover, he had managed to steal out the jade slip recording this cruel history and deliver it into the hands of this already-collapsing man.
The man in black said quietly,
“If you don’t believe what I’ve told you, the jade slip cannot lie.”
“So take a good look at it and see just how terribly that one wrong decision you made back then forced him to suffer.”
With that, he returned the blade to its sheath.
Before Mo Xi and the others could arrive, he shot up the eaves like a bolt of lightning and quickly disappeared.