The guest room in the southern courtyard was somewhat colder than the warm hall.
The afternoon sunlight filtered through the paper-covered window lattice. It brought not the slightest warmth, instead making the smell of medicine and blood inside the room all the more distinct.
Before entering, Su Muchen had still been planning to discuss returning with Xiao.
The supply of antibiotics, replenishing the IV fluids, and the feasibility of a blood transfusion.
As long as they returned to their world, none of these would be problems. He could also send Xiao to a hospital for further examinations and treatment.
The moment he pushed the door open, his footsteps abruptly stopped.
It had only been a short while ago that Chi Banyue had sent word before they set out, saying that Xiao had awakened and his fever had gone down somewhat.
Yet at this moment, the atmosphere in the room was as heavy as a pool of dead water frozen solid.
The room was so quiet that even the sound of a needle falling could have been heard.
Xiao was reclining on the bed, with two thick cushions casually propped behind his back.
His face, which had always carried a certain cool sharpness, was now deathly pale from excessive blood loss, almost translucent, while the lingering flush of fever stained his brow and cheeks.
At first glance, he really was awake.
But Su Muchen had been with him for far too long.
Long enough that he could immediately sense something was wrong with just one look.
There was something wrong with Xiao’s eyes.
In the past, whether Xiao was fooling around at Guichen Studio or calculating against the Sheng family with a clear mind behind the scenes, there had always been a sharpness and pride in the depths of those eyes, as though he could see through the ways of the world.
But now, those eyes were hollow. Deep inside was nothing but the ashes left after a fire had burned itself out.
This was not merely exhaustion from depleted energy.
It was a withering that resembled a heart that had already died.
Xia Lanshi had been sitting in a chair beside the bed for a long time. He had merely changed his posture, and faint shadows of exhaustion showed beneath his eyes.
When he saw Su Muchen enter, he did not get up. He merely gave a slight nod.
When Xiao saw Su Muchen, Xiao Yuan, and Chi Banyue enter together, his eyes moved sluggishly.
He looked at Su Muchen. His cracked lips twitched slightly, seemingly wanting to pull out the lazy, roguish smile he usually wore, but in the end, he could not even manage the slightest curve.
“Congratulations…” Xiao spoke.
His voice was utterly devoid of inflection.
“You can… open the door successfully now.”
Before Su Muchen could respond, he continued with an extremely polite, completely emotionless sentence:
“And thank you for saving me last night.”
He pronounced both sentences clearly, yet they were as flat as a person reporting the completion of a task.
There was not the slightest trace of a living person’s emotional fluctuation.
Su Muchen’s heart sank sharply, but he forcibly held himself back.
He took a deep breath and quickly walked to the bedside before sitting down.
“I’ll check your wound.”
Xiao said nothing. He merely nodded mechanically.
Su Muchen skillfully untied the triangular bandage and loosened the collar around Xiao’s shoulder, beginning to unwrap the layers of elastic bandage.
“Does the wound hurt?” Su Muchen asked quietly as he cut through the bandages.
“…A little.”
“Are you dizzy?”
“A little.”
“Do you want to eat anything later?”
“Anything is fine.”
Su Muchen’s fingers paused at the edge of the bandage.
Question and answer, orderly to the point of being frightening.
The more he asked, the stronger the uncomfortable premonition in his heart became.
In the past, Xiao would have said, “You’re being so concerned about me. I’m going to get embarrassed,” or, “Young Master, why are you being so gentle today? Is the sun about to rise in the west?”
Or perhaps he would say nothing at all and simply smile, but that smile would have warmth in it.
The person in front of him now was merely answering questions, as though completing a task that had to be done.
He looked almost like an empty shell with nothing left except the instinct to respond.
When Su Muchen tore away the final blood-soaked layer of gauze, his expression tightened slightly.
The wound had completely stopped bleeding. Even the torn edges of flesh had begun to show fresh pink tissue, with not the slightest sign of infection.
This astonishing rate of recovery was far beyond what modern medicine considered normal.
At the same time, Su Muchen’s gaze fell upon the area beneath Xiao’s right shoulder.
The same Bianhua mark he had seen last night was still there. It was not as vivid as before, but it remained clearly visible, emerging from deep beneath the skin.
Xiao did not look at him.
He merely lowered his head as though waiting for the next instruction.
To coax Xiao into saying a little more, Su Muchen deliberately slowed his voice while cleaning the edges of the wound with iodine.
“This thing… when I gave you a physical examination at Guichen Studio before, why didn’t I see it?”
Xiao turned his head slightly, his tone still indifferent.
“That is the Gatekeeper mark of someone chosen by the Door. Its name… is the Return Mark. Normally, it hides beneath the flesh and is extremely faint, even invisible. It only appears when the body temperature is extremely high, when emotions fluctuate too greatly, or under certain emergency circumstances.”
Su Muchen did not continue asking about it.
He had already gotten what he wanted.
Not an explanation of the Return Mark, but confirmation.
The way Xiao answered questions was like someone checking items off a list one by one.
Normally, Xiao would find all sorts of ways to avoid answering questions directly.
Su Muchen quickly finished treating the wound, expertly bandaged it again, and secured it with a triangular bandage.
Xiao seemed to see through Su Muchen’s intentions. He wearily closed his eyes.
“…Don’t worry. The Door has given Gatekeepers certain special abilities. This body’s recovery is stronger than an ordinary person’s. I won’t die. I’ll be fine after lying here for a while.”
That completely unconcerned attitude toward his own life finally made Su Muchen angry.
But when he saw Xiao’s face, pale as paper, he could not bring himself to speak harshly. He merely patiently urged him,
“If you won’t die, then let’s go back as soon as possible. Can you ‘open the door’ right now? Let’s go back. You’ve lost too much blood. If you can return and receive a transfusion, you’ll recover faster.”
“…I’m not going back.”
Xiao kept his eyes closed as he suddenly uttered those four words.
Su Muchen froze, his hands stopping.
“What?”
“I said I’m not going back.”
Xiao opened his eyes. There was a resolute, deathly stillness in them.
“As for the transfusion, forget it. My blood type is rare. I’m type A, Rh-negative, same as you. The Rh-negative blood that can be obtained in our world is already pitifully scarce. It’s not worth wasting it on my life. If I lie here in Dasheng, the Door’s power will naturally keep me alive.”
Su Muchen almost cursed him outright, but forcibly swallowed the words that had reached his lips.
He took a deep breath and continued asking as calmly as he could.
“Is it because something happened to the Door and you can’t return? Or because you can’t open it?”
“No.”
Xiao’s tone was somewhat airy, somewhat casual.
“It’s because I don’t want to.”
“What the hell are you messing around for?!”
Su Muchen shot to his feet, his face going pale with anger.
“You can’t stay here! The Door will—”
“Su Muchen!”
Xiao coldly interrupted him.
Those emotionless eyes shifted slightly to the side, passing over Xia Lanshi.
He was warning Su Muchen not to reveal the trump card of the Door in front of Xia Lanshi.
“My life is my own. I decide what happens to it.”
Xiao withdrew his gaze and spoke each word distinctly, his tone cold to the point of cruelty.
When those words fell into the air of the southern courtyard, Su Muchen’s fingers tightened.
“Your life is your own?”
All the tension, fear, and anger he had suppressed throughout the night were completely ignited by that sentence.
“Have you ever thought about why we saved you last night?”
His entire body trembled with anger, and his eyes instantly reddened.
“We saved you so you could live, not so you could give up on your life! Do you know how long Jingyuan and I searched for you in the snow last night? Do you know that Xia Lanshi stayed here guarding you for the entire night? Everyone went to such lengths to drag you back from the gates of death, and now you’re sitting here casually telling me that your life is yours to decide?!”
The more Su Muchen spoke, the more agitated he became.
He was just about to blurt out, If you had planned to give up from the beginning, why didn’t you just die in the snow last night?
But a warm palm covered in rough calluses firmly enclosed his clenched fist.
Xiao Yuan had approached at some point.
He said nothing.
He merely used an irresistible yet exceedingly gentle force to pull Su Muchen half a step behind himself.
Xiao Yuan understood Su Muchen far too well.
Normally, he was mild-tempered. But whenever a patient’s life or death was involved, anxiety would overwhelm his reason.
If he allowed Su Muchen to say something harsh and final in the heat of anger, once he calmed down, the person who would suffer the most—and blame himself the most—would ultimately be Su Muchen himself.
The warmth in his palm gradually brought Su Muchen’s furious reason back.
He gritted his teeth, his chest rising and falling violently, but in the end, he firmly closed his mouth.
Xiao said nothing more.
He merely lowered his eyes, like a tightly closed door.
Xia Lanshi, who had been sitting quietly to the side, studied Xiao and Su Muchen with his clear eyes before finally fixing his gaze on Xiao’s lifeless face.
“Xiao.”
Xia Lanshi finally spoke.
His voice was like jade striking porcelain, cool and precise.
“The reason you want to stay here isn’t because you don’t want to live. It’s because the Door’s loss of control this time… produced consequences in Dasheng that you have no choice but to stay behind and deal with, correct?”
The room immediately fell into complete silence.
Xiao turned his head and looked at Xia Lanshi, whose mind was so delicate it was almost uncanny.
After a long moment, a short, self-mocking sigh escaped him.
“…Truly, nothing can be hidden from Chief Administrator Xia.”
Xiao wearily leaned back against the cushions. His gaze passed through everyone, seeming to fall upon that blood-red door from last night.
“Last night… I originally intended to use the ‘Gate Sacrifice Ritual’ to have that door completely devour Sheng Chengxiu’s soul.”
At the words “Gate Sacrifice,” Su Muchen’s entire body trembled.
He remembered the blood-red door covered in bizarre Bianhua flowers that he had seen last night. In an instant, it connected with those words in his mind.
Those writhing threads within the red light.
That entangled figure.
“So… that was the Gate Sacrifice.”
Su Muchen murmured.
“Yes.”
Xiao pulled the corners of his lips into a self-mocking smile.
“This is an unspeakable secret passed down through the generations of a branch of the Su clan. That door needs living souls offered as sacrifices every so often. If it goes without sacrifices for too long, it will gradually become unstable.”
Xia Lanshi asked, “That is also one of the Gatekeeper’s duties? Then who did you use as sacrifices in the past?”
His voice was gentle and clear, without much emotion. He was merely confirming the matter.
“That is indeed one of the Gatekeeper’s duties. We have to maintain the Door’s balance.”
Xiao no longer cared about putting this matter on the table.
“Fortunately, there are always villains in this world who develop improper intentions toward the Door. We simply went with the flow and used the souls of such people to feed it. Those whose souls are taken are left with nothing but withered bodies devoid of souls. Among them… the Sheng family and their lackeys were sacrificed the most.”
“The Door can take a person’s soul.”
Xiao Yuan took over in a deep voice, his dark eyes narrowing slightly.
“Last night, you lured Sheng Chengxiu there precisely because you wanted him to become this sacrifice.”
This was Xiao Yuan’s habit.
He would never allow Xiao to control the entire rhythm of the conversation.
Whenever Xiao revealed one piece, Xiao Yuan would dismantle one more piece of his hidden cards.
“Yes. I calculated everything.”
Xiao’s breathing became somewhat labored. At last, the deathly stillness in his eyes cracked, revealing a fissure called regret.
“But no matter how carefully I calculated, I made one mistake.”
He slightly raised his eyes and looked at Xiao Yuan.
“Sheng Chengxiu actually had the Emperor’s blood hidden within him. And… under the extreme stimulation of last night’s sacrifice ritual, he awakened.”
Xia Lanshi’s brows drew together slightly.
His previous deduction—that Sheng Yuanli and the Xia family’s collateral branch had joined forces to steal the blood—had originally lacked further evidence.
Now, in another world, a member of the Sheng family possessing the Emperor’s blood had appeared.
This plan was no longer an inference.
It was a certainty.
He said quietly, “Just as I thought.”
“I saw a cold white light at the time. That is a color that only the ‘Lord of the Door and the Door Key’ can manifest. Sheng Chengxiu didn’t die. After being swallowed by the Door, he was sent to Dasheng.”
Xiao’s face was deathly pale, utterly devoid of life.
The room remained silent for a moment as everyone processed the information in their own way.
“That’s impossible!”
Su Muchen could not help stepping forward.
“Isn’t there only one Lord of the Door? The current Lord of the Door is clearly Xiao Yuan.”
“In the same world, there can indeed only be one awakened Lord of the Door, one Door Key, and one Gatekeeper.”
Xiao’s voice grew lower and lower, carrying a heavy weight that seemed almost suffocating.
He took a breath before continuing.
“Sheng Chengxiu originally would never have awakened. The ancestors of the Sheng clan used certain means to obtain the Emperor’s bloodline. That incomplete chapter Sheng Chengxiu showed us did not originate from our world. It was brought over from Dasheng four hundred years ago.”
At the time, what he had confirmed was not merely the contents of the incomplete chapter in Sheng Chengxiu’s possession, but also its physical appearance.
With one glance, he had already recognized that the writing on its cover used the distinctive calligraphic style of Dasheng.
And the binding along its edge did not belong to any dynasty from their world.
“That incomplete chapter recorded the words ‘the sun and moon are the same, but the sequence of time differs.’ It was referring to Dasheng and our world.”
Hearing this information, Xia Lanshi became even more certain that his previous deduction had been correct.
He simply had not expected that something had already happened long ago.
He said, “So… the ancestor of the other world’s Sheng clan was originally from Dasheng. The Dasheng Sheng clan’s plan to steal the blood succeeded once before, and that incomplete chapter was also lost to the other world at that time.”
“In our world, that bloodline has been secretly passed down for hundreds of years. As long as it wasn’t stimulated, it would never awaken. Sheng Chengxiu would have remained an ordinary mortal for his entire life.”
“Yet… last night’s Gate Sacrifice completely awakened him.”
Xiao closed his eyes, his expression grave.
“…I… was the one who awakened him.”
Xiao Yuan stepped forward.
He looked directly at Xiao and raised the most crucial concern.
“If I remember correctly, one of the conditions for opening this Door to Dasheng, besides the Emperor’s blood, is also the ‘Door Key.’ Mu’an is already my Door Key. How could he resonate with Sheng Chengxiu?”
“The circumstances at the time were unusual. The records kept by the Gatekeepers of my Su clan have never documented such a precedent.”
Xiao’s breathing was somewhat unsteady, but he continued.
“It may have been my blood, the forbidden technique of the Gate Sacrifice Ritual, and Sheng Chengxiu’s Emperor’s blood resonating under extreme conditions, causing the Door to temporarily lose control and open.”
“Of course, there is another possibility…”
Xiao turned his head and voiced another possibility.
“That there is still a surviving bloodline of the Su clan here in Dasheng. Someone is still alive. And among them, someone may have unknowingly become Sheng Chengxiu’s ‘Door Key’ in Dasheng.”
“However… I’m not certain about that.”
Xia Lanshi’s fingers stopped against his knee.
Indeed, if another world contained a member of the Sheng clan possessing the Emperor’s bloodline, then it was possible that Dasheng also contained a surviving bloodline of the Su clan.
And what Xiao had said was—
“There is a surviving bloodline of the Su clan. Someone is still alive.”
He thought of the abandoned ancient shrine in Linbei City, which had now been removed and replaced by the Martyrs’ Shrine.
Beneath it was a hidden ancient door unknown to the public.
He had already investigated the origins of the ancient shrine before, but strangely, all the documents and records stopped at a certain point.
As though someone had deliberately erased it from history.
“So you’re saying that you want to shoulder all of this responsibility alone?”
Xiao Yuan’s voice sank, carrying the pressure unique to someone in a position of authority, striking directly at the heart.
“Because you were the one who let him in, you plan to die in Dasheng to atone for it?”
Those words were like a mirror reflecting the similarities between the two men.
Xiao Yuan was also accustomed to carrying every calculation and every sin alone.
With one glance, he saw through Xiao’s death-seeking silence.
“If you die, then what?”
Xiao did not answer.
He merely clenched the fingers gripping the brocade quilt until his knuckles turned white.
“If Sheng Chengxiu is alive, the balance of Dasheng may be disrupted.”
Xia Lanshi quickly regained his composure, his mind racing.
“This man is not only tremendously ambitious, but also knows the secrets of the Door inside and out. Once he adapts to the environment of Dasheng, or those disloyal elements in the imperial court find him first, the consequences will be unimaginable.”
At this, Chi Banyue’s expression completely changed.
She exchanged a glance with Xia Lanshi, and both saw the sense of catastrophic danger in the other’s eyes.
Xiao Yuan’s expression also became solemn.
“If he truly awakened the Emperor’s blood, then he will be able to open the Door.”
This matter was indeed serious.
And it would introduce a potentially fatal variable into the entire plan.
Su Muchen stood beside the bed.
“So you’re not going back because you think—”
Xiao interrupted him.
“I was the one who brought him here… He was never supposed to come.”
His breathing became increasingly disordered, and his voice grew broken, yet he continued stubbornly.
“Absolutely cannot let Sheng Chengxiu… and Sheng Yuanli—”
Xiao suddenly fell silent.
Just as everyone was puzzled,
he suddenly struggled to sit up.
His pupils contracted violently, and his tone abruptly became urgent as he looked toward Xia Lanshi.
“Sheng Yuanli has… the remaining… other half of the fragment from back then—”
His voice stopped again.
Before he could even utter half a syllable of the final word, Xiao’s voice was abruptly severed as though an invisible, razor-sharp garrote had cut straight through it.
It was as though something from inside had clamped down on his throat.
“Urgh—!”
The veins in his neck bulged.
His entire body arched forward in agony as he raised a hand and clutched his throat.