After that, Murong Chuyi gradually became distant from Jiang Yexue.
Jiang Yexue tried several times to apologize to him, wanting to explain everything clearly, but Murong Chuyi had been so deeply shaken that he kept avoiding him, unwilling to be alone with him.
And it was understandable. Murong Chuyi had always kept his heart and intentions upright. Even though they shared no blood relation, he had always regarded Jiang Yexue solely as his nephew. What maternal uncle would not be frightened by such an act?
After being rebuffed several times, Jiang Yexue finally understood that Murong Chuyi would never speak to him again.
Jiang Yexue knew full well the rules of propriety and morality. Although feelings were something he could not control, he had always been perfectly aware that there could never be anything between him and Murong Chuyi. That fleeting touch of their lips that day had been an impulsive act committed when his emotions had collapsed, without a moment’s thought. In all the years he had spent with Murong Chuyi, it had been his only moment of losing control.
He had only wanted Murong Chuyi to know that he had never actually dared to hope for anything from him. But even the chance to make amends for that had ultimately not been given to him by Murong Chuyi.
After falling out with his little uncle, Jiang Yexue became completely alone in the Yue household. No matter how virtuous and wise he was, he was still a young man who had experienced little of the world. Under such circumstances, it was inevitable that pain, resentment, disappointment, and confusion began to grow deep within him. Fortunately, he had always known how to restrain himself and had constantly tried to dispel his emotions.
Until, that late autumn of that year.
That autumn, everyone from the Yue residence went to the northern frontier on His Majesty’s orders to forge weapons and armor.
At the time, Yue Chenqing was still young. He was playful and immature, and no matter how many times his father warned him, he could not resist sneaking off to the countryside every few days to play. But the northern frontier bordered Chonghua and the Liao Kingdom; it was hardly a safe place. One day, Yue Chenqing secretly slipped out, yet even when it grew very late, he still had not returned.
Yue Juntian was frantic with worry, fearing that his son had encountered assassins or an ambush from the Liao Kingdom. He immediately ordered everyone to go out and search for him.
Jiang Yexue and Murong Chuyi were naturally no exception.
——
“Do you remember what happened back then?”
The light from the blood pool in Huntian Cave illuminated Jiang Yexue’s face, as well as Yue Chenqing’s.
“You were so spoiled and willful back then, relying on everyone to dote on you. You had no idea how high the heavens were or how deep the earth was. You did whatever you pleased, running wherever you wanted. To find you, we searched even the most dangerous places in the entire northern frontier, but we couldn’t find a trace of you.”
He lifted Yue Chenqing’s chin and said coldly,
“In the end, it was only because I used a magical artifact I had crafted myself that I finally managed to locate you.”
Yue Chenqing looked utterly broken and confused.
His gaze was unfocused, and Jiang Yexue had no idea how much of his words had actually reached him.
But Jiang Yexue did not seem to care whether Yue Chenqing had heard every word. The secret that had been trapped inside him for so many years had finally reached the point where he could tell someone about it. Even if Yue Chenqing were deaf and blind, even if he were nothing more than a corpse, Jiang Yexue probably would not care anymore.
“I tracked you down and discovered that you had actually crossed through Chonghua’s barrier and run into the territory of the Liao Kingdom yourself.”
“When I found you, your condition was just as miserable as it is now. At that time, the Liao Kingdom’s ruler was repeatedly conducting demonic transformation experiments along the border, and there were large numbers of demonic beasts contaminated by demonic energy roaming the wilderness. You recklessly barged in and, I don’t know what kind of demonic beast injured you, but you collapsed in a patch of grass and lost consciousness.”
When Jiang Yexue reached this point, he let out a self-mocking scoff.
“At that time, no one else had found us yet. It seemed as though only you and I remained between heaven and earth. If I had simply moved my hand, you would have died. Everything you had taken from me could have returned to my side. Whether it was those boring dead things, or Murong Chuyi, that living person, or even the Yue household—everything could have been mine.”
He raised his hand and slowly stroked Yue Chenqing’s throat. Leaning closer, he seemed to be asking someone else, yet it also sounded as though he were asking himself.
Softly, he said, “Yue Chenqing, how was I so stupid back then that I didn’t kill you?”
“……”
Huntian Cave was silent and deep. The only sound was Jiang Yexue’s voice.
Mo Xi, whose entire body had been paralyzed by the poison, Murong Chuyi, who was gravely injured and unconscious, and little Lan’er, who had long since been turned into a puppet—all of them were nothing more than ants before him now.
They were witnesses to his turning the tables and becoming the victor.
As he spoke, his expression gradually became twisted. When he stared into Yue Chenqing’s eyes, he could no longer see any trace of the gentlemanly person he had once been reflected in them.
But so what?
He had long since severed himself from his former self.
“Your foolish big brother,” Jiang Yexue said quietly. “He really was unbelievably foolish. His life had already been made so miserable because of you. Yet because he thought of you as Murong Chuyi’s nephew, as his own younger brother, not only did he refuse to kill you, he even worried about you. When he saw that you were about to die, after sending up a signal flare, he ignored the demonic contamination and transferred the demonic energy from you into himself, then sent his spiritual power into you to keep your dying life hanging on.”
At this point, Jiang Yexue tilted his head back and laughed softly.
“Tell me, how ridiculous was he… How ridiculous was I back then?”
“I kept you alive until Yue Juntian arrived, but I myself had already been contaminated. But what about our father? When he saw how badly you were injured, all he cared about was taking you back to treat your wounds. He didn’t notice my condition at all.”
“But…”
He closed his eyes. It was impossible to tell what emotion lay behind those words.
“It was also fortunate that he didn’t notice my condition.”
“Back then, in order to keep you from being devoured by the demonic energy any further, I transferred all the demonic energy you could no longer withstand into my own body. It was an extremely dangerous thing to do. Because if that layer of demonic energy could not ultimately be completely purged, Chonghua’s laws required the infected person to be executed.”
“It was truly fortunate that when Yue Juntian found us, his eyes contained only you, and he regarded me as if I were nothing. Jiang Yexue sneered. “In his eyes, I had always been nothing more than a dispensable bastard son. If I threatened his reputation and became a stain upon his name, he would have offered me up without hesitation and had me executed.”
“My mother was right. Yue Juntian is cold and ungrateful. To protect himself, there is nothing he would not do, nothing he would not sacrifice. And how much more so when it came to me, whom he had long since grown tired of?”
“So I told no one that I had been poisoned by demonic energy. After returning to camp with all of you, while everyone’s attention was still focused on you, I quietly went back to my room alone.”
“Yue Chenqing…” He sighed. “You could never imagine how much pain I was in that night.”
He said the word “pain” very lightly, but the color in his eyes was extraordinarily deep.
“My insides felt as though they were burning with fire. Living was worse than dying. Those words don’t even begin to describe it.”
“Oh.” Jiang Yexue paused, then smiled faintly. “Sorry. I forgot that you’re the young master of the Yue household, and that you were protected far too well from childhood. You’ve never suffered any hardship. How could you possibly understand any of this?”
“After that, I tried countless methods to purge the poison from my body, but none of them worked. That kind of demonic poison was something Chonghua had never encountered before, and there was simply no way to suppress it. Instead, it spread through my body more and more severely.”
“During that period, I often felt as though I were struggling and trapped. I felt the hatred and resentment inside me becoming so vivid—so vivid that even I found them unfamiliar.”
“……”
“I struggled for a very long time.”
That bloody nightmare had already passed. Anyone could imagine how painful the battle between his humanity and demonic nature had been back then, yet now it had all become nothing more than lightly spoken sentences from his lips.
Jiang Yexue was silent for a moment before saying, “Until one day, I suddenly felt that there was no need to struggle anymore.”
“Yue Chenqing, I became like that because I was trying to save you. But when I was suffering beyond endurance, who could I tell? From childhood until then—enduring, forgiving, yielding, being humble and gentle—in the end, this was what I got.”
“I had enough. I finally understood. So what if we were brothers? I hate you! I refuse to be that fool I once was!”
Although Mo Xi’s entire body was stiff and numb beyond remedy, he could hear every word Jiang Yexue said. He closed his eyes, and before him seemed to appear the image of Jiang Yexue when he was young—gentle and obedient, mild toward everything, kind to everyone.
Suddenly, that image shattered, replaced by Jiang Yexue’s icy, sinister mockery echoing through Huntian Cave.
“My mother was right. You really did take everything from me. If you didn’t exist, all of those things should have been mine! Why should I have yielded to you?”
“Even your life… Yue Chenqing, I have spared your life twice. It was because I granted you those two chances that you were allowed to live all these extra years!”
“And your fourth uncle…”
When he spoke of Murong Chuyi, a damp, twisted desire veiled the malice in Jiang Yexue’s eyes.
“You think he ignores you, distances himself from you, scolds you, and refuses to look at you because he doesn’t like you?”
“Hahahaha… What a joke!”
“I’ll tell you. That’s not it at all. The person he loves most in all of Chonghua is you. Because you are the son of your lofty, untouchable mother…”
“Murong Huang’s son. So even if it costs him his own life, he will protect you!”
Yue Chenqing’s body suddenly trembled. He raised his tear-filled face.
“The real reason he won’t pay attention to you is… because I made a move against him.”
Jiang Yexue’s eyes narrowed slightly as he said slowly, “After I began living according to my own desires, the demonic energy inside my body no longer caused me pain. Instead, I found that I could use it.”
“And then I discovered… there were truly far too many things that demonic energy could be used for. But the one I liked most was that I could use it to contaminate another person’s body, so that from then on, that person would be unable to get close to anyone other than me.”
Yue Chenqing’s damp eyelashes trembled. An overwhelming fury rose from his chest. His devastated expression remained, but shock and rage brought focus back to his hollow eyes.
He murmured, “You controlled him…”
“No. I never controlled him.” Jiang Yexue said indifferently. “The demonic energy was impure, so it didn’t have that much power. It was simply that every new moon and full moon, he would suffer from an unbearable burning torment. Only drinking the blood from my neck or taking the finest-grade Heart-Calming Grass could relieve it.”
“Unfortunately, under normal circumstances, he would rather meditate and endure the new moon and full moon by himself than come looking for me. Only when even the Heart-Calming Grass could no longer ease his suffering would he lose control of himself and be forced to come to me.”
At this point, he seemed to remember something and turned to glance at Mo Xi.
With a smile, he said, “Lord Xihe, you’re brilliant enough to have figured out that the day you came to the academy looking for me, when you saw my room in disarray and blood on the floor, it was because of this.”
“He truly couldn’t endure it anymore, so he came to me. He had completely lost control that day and smashed things all over my room. I fed him my blood and Heart-Calming Grass, then carried him to the bed to lie down…”
Yue Chenqing let out an enraged roar and interrupted him.
“Jiang Yexue!! How dare you force yourself on him like that—I’ll kill you!! I’ll kill you!!!”
But Jiang Yexue trapped him with the mechanisms built into his wheelchair and said lightly, “Why are you shouting?”
“I would never force Chuyi. He was suffering terribly and called me a beast. I could have simply violated him, but I never did. That day, I merely fed him my blood as usual, then carried his exhausted body to the bed so he could rest. I have absolutely no interest in rape.”
“Compared to forcing him, I would much rather watch him lose his sanity little by little on his own. Watch him become more broken each time the poison flared up. I want him to kneel down and beg me to take him. That is the kind of situation I enjoy.”
Yue Chenqing was truly on the verge of madness, and seeing his expression only made Jiang Yexue even more pleased.
He said, “This principle of mine concerning him has never changed, whether it was before my mindset changed or afterward.”
“I only want him to say, of his own accord, that he wants me. If he doesn’t say it, I won’t touch him.”
“Of course, I have to keep him by my side. No one is allowed to look at him, and no one is allowed to get close to him…”
“For that reason, I placed a black magic curse on him. As long as he becomes too intimate with someone, the poison in his body will be transmitted to that person. And I forbade him from telling anyone about it. The moment he does, he will immediately lose his sanity and become a beast of desire that knows only to submit himself to me.”
“So, you see.” Jiang Yexue sneered. “Although I can’t have him, there are no longer any eyesores around him.”
“I can wait for him forever. Ten years. Twenty years. I could even tolerate him remaining stubborn and refusing to submit to me forever.”
“But I will never allow anyone else to surround him. Especially you.”
Yue Chenqing said, “You… you’re completely insane!!”
“So what?” Jiang Yexue said without a ripple in his voice. “I’ve been tired of being a gentleman for a long time. There’s nothing wrong with being a madman, either.”
“Besides, you don’t need to be so angry. There are plenty of truths in this world that are even more chilling.”
“For example, did you know that His Majesty already knew long ago that I was using black demonic energy to harm people—and that he was the one who once fully supported me in doing so?”