Gu Mang stared blankly at this person. Hesitation and vigilance, confusion and bewilderment all passed through his eyes like a horse running past.
In the end, he stepped forward and cautiously reached out to touch Mo Xi’s neck.
Mo Xi suddenly lifted his head, eyes red-rimmed as he glared at him.
His breathing was slightly heavy from emotional agitation. His clothes hung slightly open, and the lotus curse mark on his neck rose and fell with his pulse, beating vividly at the artery. Even though he was not someone refined by any demonic refinement, his expression at this moment was no different from a beast.
“What are you doing.”
“I…” Gu Mang said blankly. “But I… don’t know you…”
“……”
“Why do you also have this…”
Mo Xi was sharply struck by those words. Pride and resentment made him turn vicious. He grabbed Gu Mang’s hand and barked, “—I never needed this thing. It was you who forced me.”
“……”
Gu Mang looked up at the man whose reason had collapsed.
In this dark woodshed where no one could see them, Mo Xi—Xihe Jun—who was already of age, was losing control like a youth from yesterday.
“Aren’t you the one all along?” Mo Xi’s chest heaved. His eyes were red at the corners. “You were the one who came to provoke me, you were the one who came to find me…”
In moments of hardship.
In moments of success.
In times of poverty or fortune, or when the future was uncertain.
It was always you who walked toward me smiling.
“You made me believe…”
Believe that in this world there was still friendship without return, that there was still someone who would treat another without asking for anything back.
Believe that in this world there was still kindness, sincerity, and unwavering loyalty unto death.
“You pulled me back—”
Mo Xi had truly lost his rationality.
He had suppressed it for so long, waited for so long, waiting for this day just to ask Gu Mang one honest answer.
Wasn’t he just trying to see what exactly was in Gu Mang’s heart?
Why couldn’t he even get that one moment of relief?
Deceived, abandoned, betrayed.
Saying “I like you” was fake, saying “I am willing” was fake, saying “I will never leave” was all fake.
Nothing remained.
Only the lotus markings on his neck, proving what had once happened between them.
Proving the naive, ignorant, fearless, wholehearted boy he once was.
Foolishly wanting to give his heart away.
Foolishly believing every promise could come true.
So foolish that even today… it still hurt.
His overstrained emotions made his vision blur.
In that haze, he seemed to see again the young man standing on the ship deck, so far yet so near, so familiar yet so strange, facing the sea wind, wearing black robes, bandages wrapped at his waist, headband crooked, smiling coldly:
“I might really kill you.”
Mo Xi seized him and slammed him against the wall, as if losing track of time itself.
“I know you would kill me… haven’t you already stabbed me once? Why didn’t you strike a second time at Wangshu Manor?!”
He knew he had lost control. Knew it was ridiculous.
But when someone who had suppressed himself for so long finally exploded, how could he stop?
Especially when what Mo Xi had always wanted was only one turn back.
One answer.
“You made me believe… and then you made me disbelieve again…”
“You said I had nothing I cared about, nothing I could lose…” his voice lowered, turning hoarse, “but do you know what I lost after you walked that path?!”
Do you know what I lost?
Mo Xi suddenly turned his face aside, lowered his head, and after a pause, spat out two broken words through clenched teeth:
“You don’t care about anything… it was never me.”
“It was you.”
“……”
“I want nothing more than to—”
He suddenly stopped.
Because Gu Mang had reached out and gently, hesitantly, cupped his face, saying:
“Don’t… be so sad.”
Mo Xi froze and turned his head back.
Those ocean-blue eyes met his.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gu Mang said slowly.
“But… can you not be so sad?”
Like molten steel plunged into water.
The raging heat died in an instant.
Reason slowly returned.
Gu Mang looked at him and said carefully:
“You are not a bad person…”
“I don’t know you… but you are not bad…”
“So… don’t be sad…”
Mo Xi’s chest felt an indescribable pain—hatred, agitation, anger, and something else he could not name.
He looked at that familiar face, at those unfamiliar blue eyes.
Once upon a time, it was also this same person—looking at him with deep black eyes, smiling, calling him again and again:
“Mo Xi.”
“It’s fine, don’t be sad.”
“No matter what happens, we’ll always be together. No matter how hard it gets, I’ll endure it.”
“Let’s go home together.”
An overwhelming exhaustion surged up.
Mo Xi closed his eyes, weary and restrained:
“…I’m not sad.”
Even though he hated him so much he wanted to strangle him with his own hands.
But when Gu Mang gently asked him not to be sad, he suddenly remembered—
Years ago, Gu Mang sat by a bloodstained trench, playing that ridiculous small suona instrument, blowing a chaotic tune while tears shimmered in his eyes as he played “Hundred Birds Paying Homage to the Phoenix” for the dead.
Gu Mang had a heart.
Mo Xi knew that.
He still wanted to believe.
“…Forget it. If you can’t remember, then forget it.”
Mo Xi’s voice was hoarse.
“I’ve said too much.”
“No matter if you truly forgot everything, or are pretending to forget everything,” he said slowly, standing upright and adjusting his clothes so that not a single crease remained, covering the lotus mark on his neck, “I will wait.”
“I will wait for an answer. I will wait for your truth.”
His eyes were still slightly red.
Gu Mang asked blankly, “You… will wait for me?”
“Yes. I will wait for you.”
“No matter what, I will wait.”
“But remember this—if you lie again, if I discover you are still lying…”
“I will make you wish you were dead.”
Silence.
Gu Mang thought for a moment, then asked innocently:
“What does… wish you were dead mean?”
Mo Xi: “……”
Gu Mang looked up again:
“You didn’t kill me. You didn’t hit me.”
“…I don’t hit idiots.”
Gu Mang stared at him for a while, then suddenly leaned closer and sniffed him.
Mo Xi blocked him with his hand. “What are you doing.”
Gu Mang licked his dry lips and said softly:
“Remembering you.”
“……”
“Thank you,” Gu Mang said, curling back into his corner. “Only you are willing to let me ‘wish I were dead.’”
Mo Xi’s chest tightened slightly.
He went out, brought back food and hot soup, and fed the starving man.
“Eat.”
“…But you didn’t—”
Before Gu Mang could finish, Mo Xi slapped the food onto his face.
That night, Mo Xi returned to his residence.
“Master, you’re back—ah! Your eyes—”
“It’s nothing.”
“Your eyes look…”
“Wind and sand.”
He walked away without looking back.
Later, he stood in the corridor under the moonlight, unable to sleep, thinking of Gu Mang’s face.
“…Am I really waiting for you?”