Rustle, rustle.
Outside the Plum Blossom Separate Residence, low-ranking cultivators were sweeping fallen tung leaves off the white jade-green stone ground.
Suddenly, a pair of black military boots appeared in their field of vision. The cultivator’s motion paused. He squinted up with a polite smile and declined, “Guest, it isn’t even dark yet. Our estate only opens at the hour of Xu. Perhaps you could come a little later—”
Before he could finish, the moment he saw the visitor’s face, his eyes suddenly widened in shock. His broom dropped straight to the ground.
The cultivator stammered, dumbfounded: “Xi, Xihe Jun?!”
Mo Xi stood tall in his military uniform, layers of lapels neatly crossed, collar immaculate—proper and restrained to the extreme, the very image of a gentleman. He said, “I’m looking for someone.”
“??!” The cultivator’s jaw nearly hit the ground.
This was the Plum Blossom Separate Residence, and Xihe Jun was famously pure, ascetic, and indifferent to desire. And yet he had come here voluntarily—to a brothel—to look for someone? Had the sun risen from the west?!
Mo Xi’s face was cold as frost, his gaze growing even more chilling. “What are you staring at? Am I not allowed to enter?”
“No, no, no!” The young cultivator hurriedly led him inside. “Please, please come in.” Then he asked hesitantly, “May I ask who Xihe Jun is looking for?”
Mo Xi fell silent for a moment, then turned his face slightly away, expressionless. “Gu Mang.”
“Oh—oh! So it’s him…” The cultivator visibly relaxed.
Xihe Jun coming to a brothel was bizarre, but coming to find Gu Mang was perfectly reasonable. After all, their feud was well known—if Xihe Jun was in a bad mood, coming to vent on him was entirely normal.
Mo Xi followed the cultivator into the residence smoothly. As they walked, the cultivator said, “Xihe Jun, Gu Mang is in that dilapidated back courtyard shed. Please be careful of your clothes when you go in, don’t let them get dirty.”
Mo Xi frowned. “Why is he there?”
“Well… it’s a long story. Didn’t Wangshu Jun punish him before? So we made Gu Mang do labor in the courtyard, chopping firewood and such. But a few days ago he must’ve been starving—he actually snuck into the kitchen at night to steal steamed buns.”
“And then?”
“At first stealing one or two wouldn’t have mattered, no one would’ve noticed. But he ate like he was starving to death—he finished four entire steamers. When the cook went in, he was still inside stuffing buns into his mouth. Of course the cook wasn’t happy and went to confront him. And then…”
Mo Xi glanced at the cultivator’s suddenly fearful expression. “Did the cook attack him and trigger the sword formation in his body?”
“Yes! Xihe Jun, you’ve seen that formation too?”
Mo Xi did not answer. Instead, an indistinct flicker of light passed through his eyes; his lashes lowered slightly.
“That cook went too far. Gu Mang resisted hard, and once the formation triggered, he didn’t evade in time—he was cut all over, covered in blood.” The cultivator rubbed his arms as if remembering the scene. “Hundreds of cuts. It was really frightening.”
Mo Xi was silent for a moment. “He’s alright?”
“He’s fine, fine. That sword formation isn’t lethal—lots of cuts, but only surface wounds.” He paused, then added, “Actually, Xihe Jun doesn’t need to worry. That cook was a bastard captured from the Liao Kingdom anyway. When he fought Gu Mang, it was basically dog biting dog.”
“……”
“After that, Mama got angry and locked Gu Mang in the woodshed. Originally we gave him one steamed bun a day, but now Mama said to make it harsher—just one bowl of porridge daily. Teach him a lesson.” The cultivator paused. “Xihe Jun, should I just have someone tie him up and bring him to you? That formation is too dangerous. The injured cook is still bedridden, wrapped up like a rice dumpling for months.”
“No need,” Mo Xi said flatly after a pause. “I’ll go myself.”
Since he did not need to entertain guests, Gu Mang was kept in the most miserable little room in the residence.
People said “lone wolves don’t survive easily,” and Gu Mang’s body had been tempered into something very much like a wild beast. He feared loneliness, often talking to himself. The people of the residence found it unsettling, so they simply gave him a black dog for company.
That black dog now sat outside the shabby little room. The moment it saw someone approach, it erupted into frantic barking. Mo Xi’s eyes were like blades; he glanced at it once, and the dog immediately wilted.
“Xihe Jun, even the dog is afraid of you.”
…Nonsense. He had killed far more than a dog. Of course it would be afraid.
Mo Xi stepped over the stone steps in black boots, then pulled aside the heavy curtain. His gaze swept through the narrow, dim room.
Unlike the lavish decor elsewhere in the residence, this room was bare on all sides—only firewood and a few broken jars remained.
Gu Mang crouched in a corner like a beast. Hearing someone enter, his ears moved. He lifted his head and looked over silently.
The attendant said hurriedly, “Xihe Jun, be careful. He’s hostile to everyone right now and reacts violently.”
Mo Xi seemed unconcerned. He only nodded slightly. “You may leave.”
The attendant hesitated. Although Wangshu Jun often said it didn’t matter if Gu Mang died, everyone knew that was only talk. If Gu Mang actually died, they would all suffer.
Looking at how much Xihe Jun hated Gu Mang… would he dismember him the moment it got dark?
Mo Xi said again, “I want to be alone with him.”
The attendant, seeing the deep gloom in his eyes, dared not refuse. “Yes.”
After he left, Mo Xi released the curtain. The heavy, filthy fabric fell behind him, plunging the room into darkness. There wasn’t even a candle.
In the darkness, only Gu Mang’s eyes gleamed faintly.
Mo Xi frowned. Something felt wrong.
Those eyes—
He raised his hand. A flame ignited instantly in his palm, illuminating the space as he walked toward those twin points of light.
Gu Mang had been imprisoned for five days; his mind was already disoriented. And having not seen such harsh light for so long, he let out a low animal-like growl. When he realized the man would not stop, he tried to flee like a wounded beast—but he was too weak. After only a few steps he staggered and fell.
Mo Xi stopped in front of him. Firelight finally fell upon Gu Mang’s disheveled form.
Gu Mang, unable to escape, turned back and glared at him.
Something was wrong.
In their previous encounters, Mo Xi had never seen Gu Mang’s face clearly due to dim lighting and emotional turmoil. Only now did he realize—
Those eyes were different.
The familiar laughing black eyes were gone.
In their place were a pair of deep blue pupils, dotted with faint luminous specks in the darkness.
A pair of wolf’s eyes.
He knew the Liao Kingdom had modified Gu Mang’s body, blending beastly traits into him—but seeing it with his own eyes, watching what he once knew being replaced, Mo Xi’s hand still trembled.
He seized Gu Mang’s chin and stared hard into those ocean-blue eyes.
Who?
Who is this?!
The flame in his other hand flickered violently with his rage, turning almost white-hot. His gaze swept over Gu Mang like a blade.
Perhaps his stare was too oppressive, because Gu Mang suddenly struggled again. In his panic, several blinding blue flashes erupted—the sword formation activated once more. Dozens of invisible blades shot out from his body, all turning toward Mo Xi—
But in that instant, something strange happened.
The blades, upon touching Mo Xi, dissolved into crystalline feathers that drifted softly to the ground.
Gu Mang froze.
Mo Xi, however, acted as though he had expected this. He tightened his grip and pulled Gu Mang back into his arms.
“……”
Gu Mang struggled violently.
Mo Xi barked, furious, “Don’t move!”
At the sound of his voice so close, Gu Mang abruptly looked up—panic doubling in his expression. Without the sword formation, he was like a lone wolf stripped of its claws.
“Don’t…” he stammered.
Mo Xi’s chest rose and fell. “Don’t what?”
“Don’t… kill me.”
Mo Xi went still.
Those blue eyes trembled with the instinct to survive. Gu Mang pleaded clumsily, brokenly:
“I… want to live…”
Something in Mo Xi’s chest cracked.
He remembered—
“I want to live! Is it so wrong to want to live peacefully?! Mo Xi, do you understand me?! I can’t live like this! I can’t sleep without seeing dead faces! Do you know what it feels like to want to die every day?! You don’t!!”
Before Gu Mang truly fell, he had once screamed those words at him, wild-eyed and bleeding.
Mo Xi understood his pain.
But there had been nothing he could do then—only watch him scream, wait for him to heal slowly, for the wounds to close.
Gu Mang had stopped shouting afterward, but something in him had never returned. A wall had formed, invisible but real.
Later, Mo Xi was sent away from the capital. When he left, Gu Mang smiled and joked about becoming a villain. He didn’t believe it.
When he returned, Gu Mang had already fallen—drunk in brothels, ruined beyond recognition.
Soon after, he betrayed the country.
The wounds had never healed. New scars layered over old ones.
Wanting to live—yet wanting to die every single day.
A cycle of ruin.
The blue-eyed Gu Mang whispered again, like a wounded animal:
“I want to live…”
“I won’t hurt you,” Mo Xi said, closing his eyes.
The man in his arms trembled.
Starved nearly to bone, hollowed at the cheekbones, dark hair falling messily by his face.
He kept staring at Mo Xi. Mo Xi let him look. For a long time.
Only then did Gu Mang’s trembling ease slightly.
But the moment Mo Xi moved, fear returned instantly.
“…It’s me.”
“……”
“You don’t remember me?”
A pause.
“…Forget it if you don’t.”
Gu Mang remained silent.
And just as Mo Xi’s agitation began to rise again from that silence, Gu Mang suddenly said:
“You slept with me.”
“……………………”
“Listen,” Mo Xi snapped through gritted teeth, “never say that word in front of me again. I came to talk to you that day, not to—” He could not bring himself to say it. Finally he ground out, “We were talking.”
“Talking…” Gu Mang murmured, slowly relaxing a little.
Then he asked, very softly:
“…Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why is my… sword gone? I can’t hit you.”
Mo Xi did not answer immediately. His expression darkened.
Why?
At that banquet in the Plum Blossom Residence, someone had once said no one knew the secret of Gu Mang’s sword formation anymore. They were wrong.
There was someone who knew it very well.
Mo Xi.
He looked at Gu Mang’s face, still holding him down with one arm. His other hand left Gu Mang’s chin and slowly slid down his neck.
His fingers stopped at the lotus curse mark.
Mo Xi stared down at him in silence, eyes reddening, as if on the verge of biting into that mark and tearing him apart—ending him, so he would never betray again, never disappoint again.
So he would finally behave.
Gu Mang’s lips moved, whispering something in fear.
Mo Xi finally spoke, low and heavy:
“Stop chanting.”
“!”
“No matter how you call it, it won’t respond.”
Gu Mang’s eyes widened. “You… know?”
“I know.” Mo Xi’s gaze rose from the mark and sank deeply into those blue eyes.
“The formation can be triggered automatically. But if you sincerely ask it to appear, it will also respond.”
Gu Mang’s face turned even paler.
“But if I do not allow it,” Mo Xi continued, voice tightening, “it will not appear.”
“Because it does not only listen to you.”
“It also listens to me.”
“The owner of this formation is not only you.”
With each word, Gu Mang’s face lost more color, until it was nearly paper-white.
“Wh… why…”
Mo Xi looked at him, his breathing heavy, pain and hatred tangled so deeply they could no longer be separated.
“Gu Mang,” he said hoarsely, eyes closing for a moment, “have you truly forgotten everything?”
Gu Mang stared back at him, confused, animal-like.
“You… it can’t stop you…” he murmured. “Why… does it listen to you?”
Mo Xi’s expression was unreadable—cold and aching at once.
“It listens to me,” he said.
Then his emotions finally broke.
“Because your seal was made with my blood!”
“Because your mark was carved by my hand!”
“Because the one who created this formation was never you—it was me!”
Gu Mang froze.
Mo Xi tore open his collar abruptly, revealing his neck.
“Do you see it?” his voice shook. “The same mark! Your blood! You did this!”
“For you…”
He shoved Gu Mang away as if unable to bear touching him any longer.
Mo Xi covered his eyes.
His final words broke.