His voice was not loud, but it was filled with the oppressive weight of dark clouds.
“Lu Zhanxing…” Gu Mang murmured. “Zhan Xing…”
That overly intimate way of addressing him suddenly ignited the fire in Mo Xi’s chest. His sword-like brows drew sharply upward, and he gritted his teeth as he said in a low voice, “Gu Mang, sure enough, in your heart, he really is much more important than I am.”
Gu Mang searched through his pitiful memories and said, “He is my… brother.”
Mo Xi was suddenly stabbed by those words. “Yes. He is your brother.”
When he said this, his voice was extremely low and heavy, as though he were enduring nausea, forcing himself to acknowledge a truth that disgusted him. He breathed heavily and raised a hand to support his brow and forehead, rubbing them as he said in a low voice, “You’re not wrong at all. That good-for-nothing Lu Zhanxing. That foolish pig who acted on impulse. He is your brother.”
Something deep within Gu Mang’s consciousness felt uncomfortable. He frowned. “You can’t insult him. He isn’t a fool, and he isn’t a good-for-nothing.”
Mo Xi said nothing. The movement of his hand massaging his brow stopped, but his hand remained braced against his forehead, making it difficult to see the emotions on his face.
Only after a long while did he say, “Even with your brain ruined, you still haven’t forgotten to protect him?”
For some reason, although he had not raised his voice and there was no distorted fury on his face, Gu Mang found his voice frighteningly cold.
“Marshal Gu, you really are… deeply loyal and devoted to your comrades.”
Mo Xi lowered his hand and raised his eyes. His gaze was dark and deep, glimmering with faint light. He stared silently at Gu Mang for a long time, his expression inscrutable and impossible to decipher.
He suddenly said, “Tell me. About that good brother of yours. What exactly have you remembered about him?”
Mo Xi’s gaze was too heavy. Under his intense stare, Gu Mang lowered his head and looked at his knees. After thinking for a while, he said, “First, I saw a lot of people. They were all blaming me.”
“…”
“They blamed me for not doing what I had promised to do. They said I had forgotten their names.” Gu Mang was dazed. “Then I saw Zhan Xing.”
Mo Xi’s heart tightened, but his expression remained unchanged. “What did he do to you?”
“He… he was smiling at me. He turned around and smiled at me, and then… then he turned and walked away. I wanted to chase him, but I couldn’t catch him. He disappeared among those figures.” Gu Mang said, “Then I remembered that I once had such a… brother.”
Mo Xi said nothing.
Gu Mang hesitantly raised his head and asked, “In the past, did I also have an army like yours?”
“…Yes.”
“And Zhan Xing, was he also in the army…”
Mo Xi said expressionlessly, “Yes. He was your deputy marshal.”
A trace of longing flickered in Gu Mang’s eyes. “Then where is he? Is he also in Chonghua?”
Mo Xi turned his face toward the lattice window. Magpies chirped outside, while daylight filtered through the intertwined-branch patterns of the window lattice and scattered in mottled patches across the floor.
He said, “You’ll never see him again. You don’t need to think about him either.”
Gu Mang was stunned. “Why?”
Mo Xi’s expression was cold and cutting. He casually uttered three words.
“He’s dead.”
After a moment of silence, Gu Mang stared blankly. “What?”
“Dead. His head was severed from his body. He was executed at the Eastern Market, and his corpse was hung there for three days.”
No one knew what kind of hatred could make this normally upright and righteous man so vicious. Poisonous bile surged from the depths of his heart and coated his lips and teeth.
Mo Xi did not look at Gu Mang’s face. He continued staring at the window and the patches of light scattered beneath it.
He said, “I’m sorry. That person hasn’t existed in this world for a long time. Thinking about him is pointless. You’ll only be wasting your own feelings and your own mind.”
Gu Mang’s eyes widened.
He now knew many words and phrases, so he understood everything Mo Xi had said.
But at this moment, he suddenly wished he were still that person in Luomei Villa who could understand only the simplest sentences.
He did not want to understand Mo Xi’s meaning at all.
Gu Mang’s lips moved. He wanted to speak, but his chest was torn apart by pain.
He was not overly shocked.
It was as though, deep in his subconscious, he already knew that Lu Zhanxing was dead. As though many, many years ago, he had already experienced this kind of separation and pain.
But he had never expected this old wound, tangled together with flesh and blood, to be dug open again by Mo Xi and then torn apart and pierced without mercy.
He abruptly lowered his head. His vision became somewhat blurred.
Mo Xi suddenly turned his face toward him and gritted his teeth. “Why are you crying?”
“I… don’t know…”
“It’s been so many years, and you’re still going to grieve for him?” Blood surged violently through Mo Xi’s chest. He continued suppressing himself, but blood vessels had already appeared in his eyes. “Gu Mang, what the fuck is wrong with you? Are you crazy?”
Gu Mang merely held his head and murmured, “You don’t understand. You don’t understand…”
“What don’t I understand?!”
Gu Mang’s instinctive defense of Lu Zhanxing caused Mo Xi’s heart to seize. He suddenly flew into a rage and swept the bowls and cups from the bedside table. Shattered porcelain clattered all over the floor.
Mo Xi abruptly stood up, seized Gu Mang by his hair, and forced him to raise his head so that he could do nothing but look directly at him.
“Do you know what kind of thing Lu Zhanxing was?” he almost snarled through clenched teeth. “Do you know what kind of good-for-nothing he was?!”
“…”
“Yes, he was your brother.”
Mo Xi’s gaze seemed almost determined to probe all the way inside, to tear out Gu Mang’s heart, liver, lungs, and bowels and crush them in his own palm, so that Gu Mang would never grieve for anyone else again.
He hated so much.
Longed so much.
Was so completely at a loss.
His hand was even trembling slightly as Mo Xi said furiously, “But it was this very good brother of yours who, in a moment of impulse on the battlefield, killed the envoy! It was him who caused a catastrophe and ignited the hatred of the other two neutral nations! It was him who redirected the disaster toward the east, leaving Chonghua caught between enemies on both sides and causing countless innocent people to suffer and die!!”
“You can’t remember any of this anymore, can you? Fine! I’ll remind you! I’ll tell you!!”
“Your comrades! Mine!! Our comrades were surrounded because of his recklessness! Millions of Chonghua’s subjects had their families destroyed and were driven from their homes because of his anger!! Your brother!! It was all because you spoiled him! You protected him!!!”
The rage Mo Xi had suppressed for so many years erupted all at once. The flames of that fury nearly burned straight through Gu Mang.
“What brother…?! He killed the negotiating envoy just for the sake of momentary satisfaction, disregarding your orders. Is that what you call a brother?!! He pushed you into the fire pit and left you trapped between internal and external enemies. Is that what you call a brother?!! Your lifelong dream was to let even slaves rise above their station and establish merit and a career. You worked so hard for so many years, weathering wind and rain, hovering between life and death, and one impulsive act from him buried everything you had worked for. What the fuck kind of brother is that?!!”
As Mo Xi spoke, the veins on his hands bulged. Blood suffused his face, and the veins in his neck throbbed visibly.
He pressed his gaze against Gu Mang’s eyes, staring at him relentlessly, pouring all his surging hatred and unwillingness into him.
Mo Xi roared, “Gu Mang, remember this clearly. If that beast Lu Zhanxing had never existed, none of that shit would have happened back then! The aristocratic clans wouldn’t have found an opening to seize upon and spread their arguments. His Majesty wouldn’t have had the opportunity to strip you of your authority! So many innocent cultivators… common people… none of them would have died!! You wouldn’t have… you wouldn’t have…”
He was panting, and suddenly he could not continue.
Slowly, he loosened his grip on Gu Mang. His eyes held both a raging sea of hatred and an endless expanse of sorrow.
He turned his face away and quickly wiped away the moisture before his eyes.
The bitterness in his throat blocked the rest of the words.
These years had been too bitter.
Enduring them had been too bitter.
It had truly been too bitter.
If there had been no Lu Zhanxing…
You wouldn’t have been driven into a dead end.
You wouldn’t have defected to Liao and offered yourself to the demonic path.
We wouldn’t have… wouldn’t have ended up like this today.
“And after all that… you still can’t forget him. You still consider him your brother.”
A thin layer of mockery covered Mo Xi’s face, pressing down all that sorrow.
He murmured, “You still won’t even let me insult him.”
“Fine. I understand.”
Mo Xi lowered his eyelashes and gave a soft, bitter laugh.
“Past, present, future. No matter when. No matter whether what he did was right or wrong. No matter whether he was alive or dead. I… I…”
I’ll never be able to surpass him.
His lips trembled, then abruptly pressed together, and he fell silent.
He was so proud.
He had already torn his heart and lungs open and given everything he had, yet he had still been cast aside.
He had still become nothing more than an abandoned pawn in Gu Mang’s life.
How could he summon the courage to tell Gu Mang his complete feelings again?
Mo Xi desperately suppressed his trembling emotions, afraid that if he continued speaking, he would lose control even further.
His Adam’s apple rolled.
After a long while, he slowly and hoarsely uttered a sentence, almost like a sigh.
“Gu Mang. He is your brother, but what about me…?”
What about me?
What am I to you?
Once, you abandoned me for your brother.
You gave me up for your ideals.
For the sake of your comrades, you pushed me into the depths of hell.
Seven years.
I have wandered in this hell where neither life nor death exists for seven years—when you were risking everything for them, did you ever think of me?
Did you want me to cross swords with the person I once loved most, or did you want me to leave with you and abandon Chonghua, which the Mo family had protected for generations?
When you left in fury for their sake, did you ever consider what I was supposed to do?!
Just because I cared about you, because I cherished you, you didn’t hesitate to hurt me again and again, putting me at the very bottom of everything you had to consider.
Is that it?
Gu Mang looked at the man’s face, which was desperately holding itself together yet had almost completely shattered.
He could not describe what he felt inside.
He only felt terribly sad.
Hearing that Lu Zhanxing was dead made him sad.
Hearing those soldiers in his dreams call him Marshal Gu made him sad.
But looking at Mo Xi now, he felt an entirely different kind of pain.
That pain made him uncontrollably raise his hand. After hesitating, he finally tremblingly cupped Mo Xi’s face.
“That’s not it. You are my…”
My what?
The answer seemed to be right at the tip of his lips, yet he could not utter it.
It was as though the intimate memories they had shared yesterday were still in his heart, yet he could not dig them out.
Mo Xi turned his face toward him, seemingly waiting for Gu Mang to finish that sentence.
But after a long exchange of gazes, Gu Mang’s throat remained blocked. He said nothing.
And amid that silence and waiting, Mo Xi’s eyes slowly became wet and red.
He pushed Gu Mang’s hand away and said, “You don’t need to rack your brain anymore. I’ll say it for you.”
“To you, I am nothing. We never had anything in the past either. You were merely putting on an act, while I was foolish and young.”
Word by word, he spoke while staring at Gu Mang’s face with bloodshot eyes. His tone and expression were both vicious, yet every single word he drove into Gu Mang was stabbing his own heart instead.
“Lu Zhanxing is your brother. I am not.”
“Establishing merit and building a career is your dream. I am not.”
“Your countless comrades are the blood of your heart, your obsession, the past you can never abandon or let go of. I am not.”
Gu Mang slowly shook his head.
He looked at this extremely powerful yet extremely lonely man, and the pain inside his heart grew deeper and clearer.
“What you’re saying isn’t right… It isn’t like that…”
Mo Xi suddenly gripped his wrist. His eyes trembled as he stared at Gu Mang’s face.
“Then what else could it be?”
He pulled Gu Mang’s hand toward him, his strength frighteningly great.
He forcibly pressed Gu Mang’s hand against the left side of his chest, close to where his heart was beating.
“Do you know? There’s a scar here. You left it on me.”
Gu Mang’s eyes widened slightly.
Mo Xi almost laughed in self-torment.
“Gu Mang, I’ve always wanted to ask you something. If the person who stood in your way back then had not been me, but Lu Zhanxing, could you still have brought this blade down?”
“I… hurt you?”
Mo Xi turned his face and leaned close to his ear, speaking softly.
“You almost took my life.”
Just because back then, I loved you so fearlessly, without regard for life or death.
Gu Mang reacted as though he had been scalded and tried to pull his hand away, but Mo Xi was holding it down so tightly that he could not move it. All he could do was feel the strong thumping of the heartbeat beneath his palm.
How could he have wanted to kill him?
Clearly, in his memories, he saw how close and intimate they had been. How could he have merely been putting on an act?
Although he could not remember many things completely, he could still recall the happiness and warmth of that night when he came of age.
How could it have been fake?
“Confused, aren’t you?”
Mo Xi pressed close to the shell of his ear, his breath within inches, moist and scorching.
“Actually, I can’t understand it either. Seven years ago, you pushed me into hell. I’ve spent seven whole years thinking about it, and even today I still can’t understand how you could be so heartless.”
His voice was so low, yet the hatred in his clenched teeth was so intense.
“I don’t understand you, Gu Mang. Do you think I’ll forgive you again and again without any bottom line, so you can trample all over me? Or is it because—”
He paused, his throat rolling.
“Actually, there was never a place for me in your heart.”
So you could treat my heart like mud beneath your feet, indifferent to the fact that I was caught between enemies, forced into impossible choices, unable to repay both gratitude and loyalty.
Gu Mang was forced into a corner by these bloody questions. He felt that his pitiful brain was about to stop functioning.
He had only one ladleful of memories, yet Mo Xi wanted to scoop an entire sea of affection out of him.
“I don’t know…” he murmured. “I really… really don’t know…”
“You know. The answer is buried inside your heart.”
Mo Xi spoke quietly.
“I’ll keep you here and wait for the day you remember. I will make you kneel before me and give me an answer. An apology.”
After saying this, his slender, cold, pale hand loosened and released Gu Mang’s tightly held hair. Then, filled with threat, he patted Gu Mang’s back twice.
“My patience isn’t actually much better than Murong Lian’s.”
“…”
“So.”
He slowly increased the distance between them. His eyes, as endless as a boundless long night, stared at Gu Mang’s face.
His fingertip lightly touched the side of Gu Mang’s forehead as he said in a low voice,
“Senior Brother, don’t make me wait too long.”