At this point, Mo Xi had no other choice. He cursed under his breath and pushed Gu Mang back against the wall. His tall frame leaned over him, one hand braced against the wall beside his head, conveniently blocking their faces from view.
The sight before him left Young Master Zhou stunned. He took two steps back, looked at the sign hanging outside Gu Mang’s door, rubbed his eyes, and muttered, “It’s black lettering. There shouldn’t be anyone else in there…”
This was truly putting Captain Mo in an impossible position. Mo Xi had always been an upright, honorable man who never resorted to such lowbrow tactics. Yet after meeting Gu Mang just once, he had fucking managed to do the whole lot—sleeping with a man, putting his name on the board, and sneaking around in this den of vice. And now he even had to put on an act to fool someone.
Gu Mang opened his eyes wide in Mo Xi’s arms. “You…”
“Quiet.”
Mo Xi lowered his head and lifted Gu Mang’s chin. His fingertips were rough, and his grip left no room for argument. Turning his face slightly, he bent down and leaned toward Gu Mang.
Of course, he had no intention of actually kissing Gu Mang. But to keep anyone from noticing something amiss, he still brought their faces extremely close. Their noses nearly touched, their lips almost met, and the faint, elusive space between them seemed to brush against their skin like autumn reeds, sending a tingling sensation through them.
Earlier, when he had been hiding from Matron Qin, Mo Xi had thought his bad luck had reached its absolute limit. Surely nothing worse could happen today.
Apparently, he had been far too naive.
“Don’t make a sound.” Mo Xi held Gu Mang firmly in place and spoke to him in a low, deep voice. “Listen to me.”
Gu Mang, for his part, wasn’t thinking much of anything. Perhaps because of Mo Xi’s profession, the sheer force of his presence and his instinctive command over others were overwhelming. He pressed down on people like a mountain, leaving them scarcely able to breathe. So Gu Mang almost instinctively nodded.
“Come closer.”
Gu Mang moved closer.
From the doorway, the two of them now looked as though they were locked in a passionate kiss. An ordinary person who witnessed such an intimate scene would probably gasp and hurry away.
But a scoundrel like Young Master Zhou was clearly not an ordinary person.
After his initial shock, Young Master Zhou actually grew more excited. He continued walking into the room and laughed. “Oh, how embarrassing! It seems the spell on the sign outside isn’t working properly. I really had no idea there was someone else in here.”
“…”
“Brother, you’ve certainly got some talent! Our Great General Gu is the most prickly thorn in the entire Plum Blossom Courtyard, yet you’ve managed to coax him into letting you hold him and kiss him so obediently. Why don’t you teach me your tricks? We could find some pleasure together!”
The spoiled young master chuckled, his voice slick and oily. “After all, sharing joy is better than enjoying it alone.”
Mo Xi was so furious that he could hardly contain himself. He wanted nothing more than to kick the man to death. But since he couldn’t let Zhou see his face, he could only lower his voice and say icily, “Get out.”
“Hey, you!”
Young Master Zhou’s smile hit a wall. He stared for a moment, then turned vicious.
“What kind of way is that to speak to me? Do you even know who I am?”
Mo Xi couldn’t turn around. He could only keep his eyes fixed on Gu Mang’s face as he said, “Who the hell do you think you are? Can’t you see what I’m doing? Get out while I’m still in a good mood!”
Gu Mang seemed rather interested in watching Mo Xi play the part of a bully. He stared unblinkingly into Mo Xi’s eyes. With their faces only inches apart, that unwavering gaze made Mo Xi feel strangely uncomfortable.
Mo Xi lowered his voice. “Stop staring into my eyes.”
Gu Mang was very obedient. He lowered his lashes and began staring at Mo Xi’s pale, thin lips instead.
Mo Xi: “…”
Seeing that the two were still wrapped up in each other, seemingly treating him as though he didn’t exist, Young Master Zhou raised his voice in anger.
“I’m telling you to let me have him! You’d better know your place and make way for your Brother Zhou! Do you know who I am? I’m from the Military and Government Office!”
Mo Xi’s expression turned icy.
“Lord Xihe, Marshal Mo, is my buddy! Scared now? Believe it or not, all I have to do is report you to him, and he’ll break your legs!”
Mo Xi: “…”
Drunk on his own bravado, Young Master Zhou grew more and more outrageous.
“And you, Gu! You little beast! Last time, you refused to let me kiss you no matter what I said. But now you’re willing to let someone else do it? What’s the matter? Is this man especially good in bed, or is he particularly handsome?”
Gu Mang frowned and was just about to speak.
“Don’t move.” Mo Xi’s lips remained close to his as he murmured the words.
Every syllable he uttered sent a warm breath across Gu Mang’s lips and teeth. Gu Mang was now in a state of innocent bewilderment, and the warm breath stirred something instinctive in him. He tried to pull away, but Mo Xi’s strength was astonishing. With just one hand, he held Gu Mang firmly in place and warned him in a low voice, “You will do as I say.”
Gu Mang glared at him.
Afraid that Gu Mang might do something reckless, Mo Xi suddenly had an idea. He lowered his voice and asked, “Tell me, have I ever beaten you?”
“…” Gu Mang hesitated, then shook his head.
“Has he beaten you?”
“…” Gu Mang nodded.
“Then listen to me and ignore him.”
They were so close that their breaths seemed to mingle deep within their chests. Mo Xi deliberately avoided Gu Mang’s clear, piercing gaze.
“As long as you behave, I’ll make him leave.”
“…” Gu Mang silently nodded.
Meanwhile, Young Master Zhou saw that the two were still clinging to each other, seemingly unable to bear being apart, as though he had genuinely interrupted their plans to go to bed together. His expression grew increasingly lecherous and angry, excited yet resentful.
“What is it, Gu Mang? Cat got your tongue?”
“How unusual! You ignore everyone who comes into your room, but what kind of bewitching potion has this man fed you? Or is it that he doesn’t follow the unspoken rules we all abide by and has secretly given you money, you traitorous beast?” Young Master Zhou approached step by step, his breathing heavy and tainted with alcohol. He muttered, “What makes you, you little slut, so eager to roll around in bed with him…”
Drunk people never seemed to make much sense. Their words jumped from one subject to another, incoherent and disjointed.
After provoking Gu Mang, he turned without warning to provoke Mo Xi as well.
“And you, brother, who exactly are you? Turn around and let your big brother have a look at you! Judging by the way you two are carrying on, you must come here to see him pretty often.”
As he spoke, Young Master Zhou actually reached out with drunken clumsiness to tug at Mo Xi’s sleeve.
“How many times have you had him? What’s our Great General Gu like in bed? Does he satisfy you?”
Mo Xi was probably well and truly disgusted. He suddenly swung his hand back and slapped Young Master Zhou squarely across the face.
The blow was powerful, his hand merciless. Young Master Zhou was sent sprawling to the ground, blood gushing from his nose.
Before Zhou could even get a proper look at him, Mo Xi kicked him over and executed a textbook restraining maneuver. In an instant, Zhou was pinned face-down, his back to the sky and his face to the floor, twisted into a position from which he couldn’t turn around no matter how hard he tried.
“I told you to get out.” Mo Xi’s eyes blazed with fury, his teeth clenched so hard they might have shattered. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Do you not understand plain speech?”
“You dare hit me! You actually dare hit me!” Young Master Zhou screamed. “Y-You’re committing treason! Ow! Ow! Who the hell are you?!”
“…”
“I’ll report you to His Majesty! No, I’ll report you to Marshal Mo! I’ll report you to my father, I—”
A heavy, muffled clang interrupted him.
Mo Xi had thrown something down beside Zhou’s face. Zhou blinked blearily at it, then broke out in a cold sweat. Most of the alcohol drained from his head in an instant. He let out a ridiculous little squeak and fell completely silent.
Mo Xi’s face had twisted with disgust at the obscene things Zhou had said. He spoke in a chilling voice. “Still planning to report me?”
“No, no! I won’t report you!”
“Still planning to come here and look for him?”
“No! I won’t! I won’t!”
Mo Xi released him and gave him a kick. “Get lost! Don’t let me see your face again.”
Young Master Zhou scrambled to his feet and stumbled away as fast as he could, not daring to look back even once.
Mo Xi stood motionless for a while, his expression cold as he tried to calm his anger. Then he bent down, picked up the golden command token of the Chonghua Military and Government Office from the ground, and tucked it back beside the hidden mechanism box beneath his sleeve. Turning around, he glanced at Gu Mang.
Gu Mang was standing quietly against the wall, his hands clasped behind his back, watching everything with docile curiosity. He hadn’t said a word.
Mo Xi suddenly felt even more irritated. After a pause, he said, “Let’s go.”
“He’s afraid of you,” Gu Mang said abruptly.
“…”
“And you’re afraid of him, too.”
Mo Xi felt as though he’d been insulted. He whipped around and glared at Gu Mang with a fierce, murderous look. “What do I have to be afraid of him for?”
“You’re afraid he’ll recognize you.”
“…”
Mo Xi paused. The hostility in his expression subsided, though he still looked thoroughly displeased.
“You certainly know how to mind other people’s business.”
“Did he recognize you?”
“…” Mo Xi’s voice was cold and stiff. “No.”
It was as though the scorching breaths he’d exhaled against Gu Mang moments ago had never existed.
“But he saw your token…”
“That is a token issued to all senior officials of the Military and Government Office. It doesn’t have a name on it.” Mo Xi adjusted the mechanism box beneath his sleeve and glanced at Gu Mang. After a moment of silence, he added, “…You used to have one, too.”
Gu Mang looked surprised. “I used to have one?”
But his bewilderment seemed to wound Mo Xi. Mo Xi no longer wished to say another word to him. He pushed open the door and strode out into the vast night, his tall figure disappearing into the endless shadows and lamplight.
Once he reached the street outside, the cold night wind blew continuously across his face. He tried to calm himself down, but failed again and again.
So this is what the outline meant when it said something was wrong with his body?
He had committed every manner of wickedness and injustice, yet in this book, he could simply forget his past and wipe his slate clean. He could escape the torment of his conscience both awake and asleep. All it took was a character setting that made him lose his mind, and he could live in blissful freedom—
Coward!
Gu Mang, just how cunning are you? How many ways have you come up with to escape responsibility?
So what now?
Two years ago, in the hospital, Mo Xi had watched helplessly as the gravely injured, unconscious Gu Mang was wheeled into the operating room. All the regrets and grievances he’d carried had abruptly come to a halt.
Two years later, here he was. Gu Mang was still alive, standing right before his eyes, and yet Mo Xi still couldn’t see even the slightest trace of remorse in his eyes. He couldn’t coax a single sincere word out of his mouth.
If this book truly contained Gu Mang’s secrets, his hopes, and his unwillingness to surrender, then by this point, Mo Xi had discovered only one conclusion—one that filled him with the utmost anger and the deepest disappointment.
He would rather sell his body than reflect on his sins.
He would rather be an idiot than face reality.
This is what you’re trying to tell me, isn’t it?
—“As long as I’m alive, as long as I can live easily and happily, I’ll do anything.”
On the deserted street in the dead of night, Mo Xi stopped and took a slow breath.
His hand trembled slightly, beyond his control. Suddenly, a brilliant blaze of light burst into his palm. A fireball erupted into existence, and he hurled it toward the distant river as though venting all his fury. It struck with a thunderous explosion, sending up a vast plume of hissing smoke.
Coward.
On the final night before the army’s triumphant return to the capital, he had sat alone in his tent beside the Fushui River, eyes closed, chin resting on his hand, recalling the scattered fragments of the past. Some had happened in reality; others belonged to Lord Xihe. But no matter whom those memories had once belonged to, they were all his now—twice the love and hatred, twice the concern and heartache.
He remembered how they had gone together to the ice rink north of the city to skate on real ice for the first time. How they had bought alcohol and drunk it together for the first time. How they had quarreled over a girl for the first time. How, at eighteen, they had stayed up all night together for the first time, waiting for the dawn to break.
He remembered how they had practiced their cultivation techniques together, how they had been wounded together for the first time while exterminating demons, and how they had first stepped onto the battlefield side by side.
Mo Xi had shared many of the firsts in Gu Mang’s life.
And years later, in the cold, lonely military tent beside the Fushui River, on the night before he was to reunite with Gu Mang across two different worlds, Mo Xi couldn’t help wondering—
Would Gu Mang’s last time also belong to him?
There were now countless people in Chonghua who hated Gu Mang and held grudges against him. Mo Xi didn’t want to let them have the first trial of Gu Mang, or the first torture inflicted upon him. He had returned to the capital too late, and had long since lost any chance of being the first to judge Gu Mang or the first to torment him.
But he wanted to be the last.
If Gu Mang had to die someday, then Mo Xi wanted to be the last person to pass judgment on him, the last person to torture him—and then to hold him in the palm of his own hand.
To crush him into bloody pulp, scatter his ashes, and grind his bones to dust.
He wanted to demand a truthful answer from Gu Mang’s lips, to ask him for one sincere confession.
Only then could the love, hatred, and tangled grievances that had bound them for all these years finally reach an ending that would at least allow Mo Xi to breathe again.
But now he had come to Plum Blossom Courtyard, and once again, things had unfolded in a way he never expected. He had arrived full of anticipation, only to leave without a single truthful answer or any understanding of Gu Mang’s true feelings. Gu Mang didn’t even remember who he was. He would rather be an idiot, would rather sell his body for the pleasure of others, than offer Mo Xi even one word of repentance.
So it turned out that between them, whether they were poor or rich, right or wrong, honored or disgraced, in whichever world or whatever form of existence—
In the end, Mo Xi was still the one who wanted something he could never have.