“Lord Xihe, what do you think I’ve been hiding from you?”
When Gu Mang asked this question, the expression on his face was indescribably indifferent. His smile and mischievousness had disappeared, yet his sharpness and ruthlessness had not been unsheathed. He simply looked at Mo Xi like a stranger.
Naturally, Mo Xi could not say, “Are you planning to betray the kingdom and leave?”
So he closed his eyes briefly and said quietly, “I know you still harbor considerable resentment toward Chonghua, toward His Majesty. I—”
“Don’t.”
Gu Mang raised a hand, his fingertip touching Mo Xi’s lips. He stared at him and suddenly smiled again. The smile was three parts sweet and seven parts dangerous, merely floating upon the surface of his face.
“Beauty, people can sleep around, but you can’t speak carelessly. My military rank has now been stripped, my remaining troops are imprisoned awaiting judgment, and my brothers are to be executed at the Eastern Market three days from now. And at a time like this, you’re coming to discuss whether I’m dissatisfied with His Majesty. Are you trying to get me charged with another offense and send me even deeper into damnation?”
“…I never wanted to treat you that way.”
“You don’t think that now, but that doesn’t mean you won’t think it in the future. The favor of a beauty is the hardest thing to shake off, especially a beauty as gorgeous as you.”
Gu Mang’s fingertip slid along Mo Xi’s lips, down to his jaw, and gently tilted it upward.
“I have no choice but to be on my guard.”
“Gu Mang.” Mo Xi looked at him sorrowfully with his dark eyes and said hoarsely, “My feelings for you are sincere.”
“You nobles are simply too accustomed to bestowing things upon people. You give jewelry to coax women and wealth and authority to coax men. When none of those things work, you simply give away your own sincerity as well. How could I dare accept it?”
Gu Mang sighed.
“People’s hearts can change. His Majesty once poured his whole heart into treating me well, too. When I was expanding Chonghua’s territory, I never imagined that after the new ruler ascended the throne, he would treat me like this.”
After a pause, Gu Mang said, “I can’t see through people like you.”
“Including me?”
“…”
The smile at the corner of Gu Mang’s lips deepened.
He possessed precisely this kind of ability. When he was happy, a single line of his smile could make someone feel as though they were bathed in a spring breeze. When he was displeased, that spring breeze would instantly become freezing rain.
Gu Mang raised his hand and patted Mo Xi’s cheek.
“Darling, including you.”
Before his hand could fall away, Mo Xi caught it.
Gu Mang’s lashes fluttered. He slowly raised his eyes to look at him.
“Let go.”
Mo Xi did not.
He was undoubtedly hurt. He was desperate. Yet as those emotions accumulated deeper and deeper, they were like dark clouds pressing down upon the horizon, gradually making the aura surrounding him increasingly obsessive and gloomy.
“How do you want me to prove it?”
The force with which Mo Xi gripped his fingertips grew tighter and tighter. An indistinct, dark radiance flickered within his eyes.
“Gu Mang, at this point, is it only someone from the same background as you whom you’re willing to believe? Is it only when Lu Zhanxing stands before you that you’re willing to listen?”
Gu Mang’s expression remained unchanged.
“Lord Xihe must be joking. I, Gu Mang, am nothing but a lowly slave. You people have always been unwilling to believe me. What right do I have to choose?”
Mo Xi looked at his face.
He suddenly realized that Gu Mang, at this moment, already possessed the same expression as the traitorous general who would later defect to the enemy camp.
Concealed within his eyes was already resolve.
The Gu Mang before him was like a person standing at the edge of a sheer cliff, capable of plunging into that bottomless abyss at any moment.
Mo Xi’s Adam’s apple moved up and down.
So many things, when viewed in retrospect, had shown signs from the beginning. It was only that he had been young then and had failed to understand the real Gu Mang. Because of that, he had missed all those minute details that foreshadowed the future.
He suddenly closed his eyes, then slowly released Gu Mang’s fingers.
“…I’m sorry.”
“What are you apologizing to me for?”
“The day you returned from the campaign, I wasn’t able to be there for you.”
Gu Mang was silent for a while before smiling.
“You were fighting on the front lines yourself at the time. I’m not unreasonable. Besides, even if you had been in court that day, what could you have done? Could you have changed anything?”
He sat down before a table covered with Shu embroidery and brocade, then raised his hand and poured two cups of tea.
At this time, Gu Mang’s arms were still honey-colored, his muscles taut and defined, unlike the pale appearance he would have later.
He pushed one cup of tea toward Mo Xi, drank from the other himself, and then said,
“Lord Xihe, this is the new ruler’s decision regarding my punishment. It isn’t something that can be changed simply because you plead for me. I have never resented you for not being beside me that day. But to speak honestly, we really aren’t people who walk the same path. Our principles differ, so we cannot work together. You don’t need to apologize to me.”
Mo Xi said, “I’m not only apologizing to you. Can you let me finish?”
Gu Mang smiled indifferently.
“All right. Go ahead. Since you’re not only apologizing to me, then who else are you apologizing to?”
“The seventy thousand souls of Fengming Mountain.”
“…”
“I’m sorry, Gu Mang. Chonghua owes you seventy thousand graves, each bearing a name.”
The smile on Gu Mang’s face gradually faded. His lashes trembled faintly as they lowered, and then he sighed.
“Mo Xi, this happened so long ago. I’ve already come to terms with it. Why bring it up again?”
“…”
Mo Xi looked at this Gu Mang who was soaking himself in a pleasure house, calling a songstress to play a requiem for the dead.
This so-called “man who had come to terms with it.”
After a brief silence, he said, “The memorial tablets you wanted for them—I will ask His Majesty for them on your behalf.”
Gu Mang had been idly playing with the cup in his hand.
At those words, he suddenly looked up.
For some reason, his expression changed slightly.
“Who told you to meddle in other people’s business?”
“This isn’t someone else’s business.”
Gu Mang’s brows immediately furrowed, his expression nearly that of a threatening tiger or wolf.
“Listen to me, Mo Xi. Although my army has scattered now, they were all soldiers I personally trained. Whether they lived or died, they were the same kind of people as me. They are not like you. I don’t need you to stand up for me!”
“They deserve those memorials. Every fallen hero does. You were right to ask for them. If you cannot ask, then I will.”
A stretch of silence.
The room was as still as a dead sea.
Gu Mang continued staring at Mo Xi without saying a word.
After a while, he suddenly lowered his head and abruptly closed his eyes.
It was the first time since entering the room that Mo Xi had seen a crack appear in the false, icy mask Gu Mang wore.
The sorrow behind it surged forth almost like a rising tide.
Gu Mang lowered his head, his face falling into shadow, and gave a soft laugh.
“Lord Xihe, you’re joking. What heroes… They’re nothing but ants.”
“…”
“Memorials? How could ants deserve them? Even if you erected them, it would merely be a joke. Who would go to worship them? And who would respect them?”
Gu Mang’s slender fingers gripped the porcelain cup as he stared at the tea and the reflection within it.
“Even if they’re erected, they’ll only be a fleeting illusion amid broken bricks and ruined stones. I’ve long since stopped asking for them.”
“…”
“You don’t need to meddle in this either. This is the business of us commoners. It has nothing to do with you, Lord Xihe.”
“Gu Mang…” Mo Xi’s throat felt constricted. After a long while, he asked, “…What exactly do I have to do for you to stop being like this?”
“You don’t have to do anything.”
Gu Mang placed the teacup back on the table.
“Just obediently stay away from me. Time will smooth everything over.”
But time could not smooth away hatred.
Time could not untie the knot in your heart or stop you from throwing yourself into the abyss with everything you had.
It would only wear you down until you became increasingly unrecognizable—your black eyes withering into blue, your skin covered in scars, your reputation ruined in the mire.
Time could only return to me a broken, shattered version of you.
Gu Mang, I have come here from the future.
I have already seen how this ends.
Every breath felt as though a knife were twisting through his heart. Mo Xi endured the agony, his fingernails digging deeply into his palms.
He said quietly, “Then what about you, in the future…?”
“The future?”
“What are you planning to do from now on?”
“What else can I do? Wine, meat, pleasure, beautiful women.”
Gu Mang said, “His Majesty stripped me of my position, but at least he left me my money. From now on, I, Gu, can spend my days freely. That’s pretty good, too.”
“Nothing else you want?”
“Nothing else.”
Mo Xi’s lips moved slightly, but he did not speak immediately.
He desperately wanted to tell Gu Mang, Stop lying to me. I know everything that happens eight years from now. I know what kind of road you will walk if I leave you alone, and that you will never turn back.
But he could not say it.
Ancient books had recorded this long ago: if one revealed within the Time Mirror that one came from the future, one would become trapped within the mirror forever, never able to escape.
Yet Mo Xi truly wanted to know what had happened back then.
He wanted to know what Gu Mang had been thinking.
He wanted to know what he should have done back then to stop Gu Mang from stepping into darkness.
How many knots had there been in Gu Mang’s heart at that time that needed to be untied?
Besides His Majesty’s cruel words and Gu Mang’s own disheartenment—
What else?
Was there another knot in his heart that Mo Xi did not know about, or had overlooked?
Within this dim, warm chamber, Mo Xi stood beside the Gu Mang from eight years ago, thinking like a trapped beast.
The knots in his heart… What other knots did I already know about…?
Suddenly, a flash of inspiration broke through his mind.
Mo Xi’s heart abruptly turned cold.
He suddenly remembered an old matter he had long forgotten.
Back then, when he returned from the northern border and learned that Gu Mang had betrayed them, he refused to believe it. He had frantically questioned every person who knew the details.
And at the time, the others had told him:
“After you left, His Majesty summoned Gu Mang to the palace once. Seeing that Gu Mang was dispirited and aimless all day, His Majesty remembered that he still had some usefulness and felt it would be a pity to let his abilities go to waste. So he assigned him a task. After Gu Mang accepted the assignment, he left Chonghua and never returned to report.”
Mo Xi had asked repeatedly what task His Majesty had assigned Gu Mang, but everyone said they weren’t very clear.
“I heard it was only some small matter. Something about getting him to pull himself together, I think. But Gu Mang didn’t want to listen and came out very quickly. He didn’t even stay in the main hall for the length of a single incense stick.”
“It should have been a very minor assignment. Really, it was nothing.”
Mo Xi had paid attention to this detail at the time. But after asking about it countless times and repeatedly receiving the answer that “His Majesty wanted Gu Mang to pull himself together, but Gu Mang refused,” the detail had gradually faded from his memory as time passed.
But now, as he recalled the matter again, Mo Xi couldn’t help feeling his palms grow slightly sweaty. He clenched both hands.
He had personally witnessed His Majesty’s attitude just now.
His Majesty clearly intended to test Gu Mang’s loyalty.
How could he possibly have been concerned about Gu Mang’s well-being at a time like this?
That assignment absolutely could not have been what they had claimed.
Mo Xi looked at Gu Mang’s face beside the red candlelight.
If Gu Mang had not yet completely made up his mind to betray the kingdom, then Lu Zhanxing’s death and the assignment His Majesty gave him were very likely the final two pushes that sent Gu Mang plunging into the abyss of vengeance.
His heartbeat grew faster and faster.
The more conversations he had with these people from the past, the more deeply he thought about them, the more he felt that something was wrong everywhere.
…
What happened back then definitely did not end there.
Something else must have happened.
He had to find out what His Majesty’s final assignment to Gu Mang had been.
Fortunately, the flow of time inside the Time Mirror was completely different from that of the real world. One or two days inside the mirror amounted to no more than a short while outside.
Mu Rong Chuyi and Jiang Yexue could not possibly defeat the Shanjiao and rescue them from the mirror within such a short period.
He still had time.
He could investigate more details within the passage of time eight years ago.
In the end, Mo Xi still left Xinghua Pavilion.
Although he desperately wanted to spend one ordinary night with the Gu Mang from the past, reason ultimately prevailed.
After leaving, he went to find the third old acquaintance he had come to see.
In the deepest prison cell of the Celestial Prison, a dim oil lamp burned, emitting a faint blue radiance.
Other than that, there was no other source of light.
Lu Zhanxing lay on his back on the cold stone bed, legs crossed, humming a little tune while tossing two dice he had somehow acquired.
He wore a loose, clean prison uniform. The snow-white collar contrasted with his wheat-colored, rugged face.
Perhaps because his execution was approaching, or perhaps because he was exceptionally skilled at getting along with people, the jailers had not made things difficult for him.
There was a small table inside the cell. There was even a jug of wine on it. Judging by the style of the bottle, it should have been the Baihua Brew that Chonghua uniformly distributed to its jailers.
The first person Mo Xi should see upon entering the Time Mirror was His Majesty.
A ruler who was still young and inexperienced.
The second person he wanted to see was Gu Mang.
An old friend who had not yet lost his soul.
The third person he had to see was Lu Zhanxing.
—A dead man from his memories.
Mo Xi stopped before the cell and said to the warden who had led him there, “You may leave.”
“Yes.”
Lu Zhanxing did not recognize Mo Xi’s voice at first. He thought another bored prison guard had come looking for someone to chat with.
So he lazily sat up on the bed, propped one cheek up with one hand, and continued tossing the two dice with the other.
“Fortune-telling, divination, destiny and prospects, words spoken by a man on the verge of death are especially effective. Your Brother Lu can glimpse the Heavenly Dao with nothing but two dice. Twenty silver shell coins per fortune. Questions about romance cost double.”
Mo Xi entered his cell and removed the black hood of the cloak draped over him.
Lu Zhanxing lazily lifted an eyelid.
The moment he saw Mo Xi’s face, he froze.
The dice he had tossed into the air fell untouched and rolled clattering toward the edge of the bed.
“…Lord Xihe?”
Mo Xi glanced at his dice and the wine on the table. After a moment, he said, “This is the first time I’ve seen someone serve a prison sentence like you do.”
Lu Zhanxing sprawled sideways on the bed, baring his teeth in a grin. He fumbled around and retrieved the fallen dice, gripping them in his hand.
“Want your fortune told? There are only three days left before this establishment closes for good. Don’t miss your chance while passing by.”
Mo Xi sat down opposite him.
“Why don’t you tell your own fortune?”
“I already did.”
Lu Zhanxing swung his filthy feet.
“Your Brother Lu, the Great Swindler, is a man who either succeeds and leaves ten thousand corpses behind, or fails and still leaves ten thousand corpses behind. I’ve been locked up for more than half a year. I’ve calculated my own fortune a hundred or eighty times already. Nothing left to calculate.”
Mo Xi raised his hand and cast a soundproof barrier around the prison cell.
Lu Zhanxing asked, “What are you doing?”
“I came to ask you something.”
Lu Zhanxing still wore his crooked smile.
“About romance?”
“About your grievance.”
Lu Zhanxing toyed with the two dice in his hand without speaking.
After a long while, he laughed.
“You’re feeling so generous?”
“Gu Mang doesn’t want you to die. So I came to ask you, Lu Zhanxing. In the battle at Fengming Mountain, do you have any grievance you wish to voice?”
Lu Zhanxing rolled the dice onto the stone bed.
The result came up.
He wasn’t satisfied, so he scooped them back into his hand and rolled again.
Again and again.
After several attempts, he finally rolled a pair of sixes.
Only then did he stop.
He raised his head and flashed Mo Xi a toothy grin.
“Of course I do. His Majesty imprisoned me because I killed the envoy. I, your grandfather Lu, did what I did and will take responsibility for it. But Chonghua sentenced Gu Mang and thirty thousand of his remaining troops severely because of my one mistake. Tell me, what was that for?”
There were not many people in this world who could provoke Mo Xi’s anger with just a few words.
Lu Zhanxing was certainly one of them.
What did he mean by “I did what I did and will take responsibility”?
This reckless fool only knew how to pursue momentary satisfaction. He had never understood that the world contained political maneuvering and factional struggles. He had simply followed his own desires and his passionate impulses, pushing Gu Mang into an impossible situation.
Mo Xi gritted his teeth.
“Why couldn’t you control yourself back then? No matter how improper or suspicious that envoy was, did you have the right to kill him?!”