Those few simple words made Cui Xun’s face turn as white as paper.
He was afraid.
Li Ying had never seen Cui Xun afraid before. In her presence, no matter how difficult his circumstances, he had never revealed such fear. His jet-black eyes completely lost their luster, becoming vacant, hollow, and so fragile that it made one’s heart race. He didn’t answer Li Ying but instead tried to support himself with his palms. Li Ying had been holding the chain between his shackles to prevent him from leaving, but he seemed completely unaware. As he moved, the chain between the shackles pulled taut. Fearing it would hurt him, she released her grip. With a clanking sound, Cui Xun stumbled to his feet and rushed toward the exit as if fleeing. Li Ying pressed her lips together, then stood up and sprinted to the carved wooden door, spreading her arms wide to block his path.
“You’re not allowed to leave,” she said.
Then: “Cui Xun, what are you afraid of?”
She stood before him with her arms outstretched, stubbornly refusing to let him pass. Cui Xun looked at her, his face growing increasingly pale. After a long moment, he finally whispered, “Why did you… have to say it out loud?”
“Why shouldn’t I say it out loud?” Li Ying pronounced each word distinctly. “If I like someone, why shouldn’t I dare to say it? I insist on saying it: I like you, I’m fond of you, I’m infatuated with you. Did you understand? If you didn’t understand, I can say it a hundred more times!”
“Stop,” Cui Xun interrupted, his breathing becoming rapid.
Li Ying suddenly smiled. Delicate crystal tears hung from her eyelashes, as transparent and pure as colored glass. She said, “Cui Xun, don’t you like me? I have a heart, and I can see that you like me too.”
“Please stop talking.” Cui Xun’s tone carried a hint of pleading. He seemed to be in great pain. “If you hadn’t said anything, both of us could have pretended not to know and continued as before. But why did you have to say it out loud?”
He opened his hands, looking at his ten fingers. They were extremely beautiful hands with clean, slender fingers and neatly trimmed, rounded nails. He murmured, “Do you see these hands? During my three years as the Deputy Commissioner of the Investigation Office, it’s been stained with untold amounts of blood. I’m certainly bound for hell. Not even the gods and Buddhas would forgive me. I don’t deserve any love, let alone yours.”
Li Ying pressed her lips together as she looked at his hands. Suddenly, she reached out and grasped all ten of his fingers. “These hands are stained with blood, yes. But they’re also the hope for justice for fifty thousand Imperial Guards, and they’ve supported all of their dependents’ livelihoods. Cui Xun, you’ve done good as well as evil. The good came from your heart, while the evil was against your will. I can’t say you’re a good person, but you’re truly not such a terrible villain either. Why don’t you deserve love? You deserve it more than anyone!”
Cui Xun listened in a daze. Instinctively, he tried to withdraw his fingers from her palm, but she held them too tightly for him to pull away. Cui Xun’s expression grew increasingly pained. “I will go to hell.”
“That’s all right,” Li Ying said. “If you go to hell, I’ll go to the City of Wrongful Deaths. The person who killed me can’t possibly live more than fifty years, can they? Thirty years have already passed, so I’ll wait another twenty years. After they die, I can leave the City of Wrongful Deaths and find you in hell. If you’re being punished in hell, I’ll tend to your wounds. However long your punishment lasts, I’ll accompany you for just as long, until your karmic debt is paid in full.”
A thin mist seemed to cover Cui Xun’s eyes. He blinked, and a few delicate, glistening tears fell from his long lashes. His throat seemed to catch. Lowering his gaze, he said softly, “What about me could be worthy of your affection?”
Li Ying looked at him. She didn’t directly answer his question but instead said, “Cui Xun, I told you before that I found the location of General Guo’s head with Yu Fuwei, but I lied to you.”
She continued, “I went to the underworld with Ashina Jia and found General Guo’s soul. That’s how I learned where his head was. But don’t worry, I’m fine, and so is Ashina Jia. However, besides telling me the location of his head, General Guo also told me what happened when the Imperial Guards were destroyed six years ago. He said he asked you not to die but to live well and seek justice for them. When he told me this, I remembered what you endured among the Türks. You were alive, yes, but in a state worse than death. General Guo probably never imagined that his one request would cause you to fall into such an abyss. Yet even after falling into that abyss, you still kept your promise. You have been working hard to seek justice for them.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “General Guo also asked me if the Türks had mistreated you, if the Zhou people had mistreated you. I told him no. But at that moment, my heart was truly aching. Yet even as I was suffering, I was thinking that I couldn’t show any sign of distress. I couldn’t let General Guo be saddened because he was the person you respected most, and I couldn’t bear to sadden someone you respected. Cui Xun, at that moment, I knew I was done for. I was completely unable to walk away.”
She still held Cui Xun’s hands firmly, refusing to let go. “Cui Xun, you ask what about you is worthy of my affection? You shouldn’t be asking me this question; you should be asking yourself. And you shouldn’t phrase it that way either. You should ask: what about you is not worthy of my affection?”
Her words, pronounced one by one, were utterly sincere. Cui Xun’s expression was more bewildered than she had ever seen. Slowly, he withdrew his fingers from her palm. He still insisted, “Nothing about me is worthy.”
He said, “The Princess is like the bright moon in the sky. When I was among the Türks, I was livestock. In the Great Zhou, I am a vicious dog. For these six years, I haven’t even been able to call myself human. How could such filth dare to covet the moon in the sky? The Princess should be reincarnated and once again be admired by thousands, not trapped here with me in this dirty mire.”
Tears began to flow involuntarily down Li Ying’s face. “What livestock? What vicious dog? What filth? Why do you speak of yourself this way? Even if it’s you saying these things about yourself, I won’t allow it.”
Cui Xun replied with self-mockery: “This is simply the truth. You may silence my mouth, but you can’t silence the endless gossip of the world.”
Li Ying said through gritted teeth, “I will silence the endless gossip of the world. Just wait and see!”
She paused, still unable to accept Cui Xun’s self-loathing. Biting her lip, with tears cascading down, she said, “But before that, I’ll silence your mouth first!”
Suddenly, she rose on her tiptoes, hooked her arm around Cui Xun’s neck, and pressed her lips to his cold ones. Her movement was so swift that Cui Xun had no time to react. When he finally did, he instinctively leaned backward, uttering a single word: “Dirty.”
Li Ying, still holding his neck, replied, “Not dirty.”
Cui Xun tried to push her away, but found that his body couldn’t move at all. It was Li Ying—she had used her psychic power to immobilize him.
Li Ying carefully stood on her tiptoes, kissing him as if she were kissing the most precious treasure in the world. She kissed his lips with near reverence, without any hint of possession. It was as if he weren’t the disgraced Deputy Commissioner Cui Xun but the most wonderful gentleman in the world, worthy of her love, deserving of her purest kiss to soothe his deeply wounded soul.
Cui Xun stared at her face, so close to his own. Her tears seemed to flow to the edge of his lips, warm and salty. These were tears she shed for him. After a moment, she moved away from his lips and looked up at his misty eyes, pleading, “Cui Xun, if I am the moon in the sky, then you are my lunar charioteer. You are not livestock, not a vicious dog, and you are not dirty. Please, don’t speak of yourself that way anymore, all right?”
Cui Xun stared at her, his eyes already slightly red. With a hoarse voice, he said, “I won’t say it anymore.”
He added, “Let me go now. Don’t use your psychic power recklessly; it’s not good for you.”
As soon as he finished speaking, he found he could move again. He lowered his gaze, hiding the crystal tears in his eyes. After a moment of silence, he said, “Let’s both pretend that what happened today never occurred.”
With that, he pushed open the door. This time, Li Ying didn’t stop him. Dragging his shackles, he stumbled out awkwardly. Li Ying bit her lip as she stepped over the threshold, watching his retreating figure. A gust of wind blew past, ruffling his white prison garment, making it appear baggier than it was and accentuating how gaunt his frame had become. Li Ying felt a burning sensation in her eyes as she stood at the doorway, listening to the sound of his shackles as he walked step by step into his bedroom and firmly closed the ornately carved wooden door.
After closing the door, Cui Xun felt as though he had used all his strength. He slowly slid down with his back against the wooden door and sat there for a long time. Then, as if remembering something, his fingers gradually moved to touch his lips, which seemed to still retain her warmth. He found himself craving her warmth, his fingers lingering on his lips for a long time.
When he finally became aware of this, his self-loathing reached its peak.
How could he defile the moon in the sky?
How could he entice the moon to develop feelings for him?
And how could he let the moon willingly remain in the mortal realm for his sake?
He truly deserved to go to hell.
A tear rolled down his cheek and fell onto the black iron shackles. She was such a wonderful person; how could he be worthy of her?
The kinder she was to him, the more unworthy he felt.
Yes, he was unworthy.
Let everything that happened today be just a dream. When the dream ends, he would still be Cui Xun, all alone.
Cui Xun sat on the floor for the entire night, so lost in thought that he didn’t even notice when the charcoal in the room burned out. His prison garment was too thin, and by the next morning, he had developed a high fever. The Dali Temple jailer who came to deliver his meal was startled. Because Lu Huai had strictly ordered that Cui Xun not be mistreated, the jailer didn’t dare to neglect him. He quickly summoned a physician who wrote a prescription, then the jailer brewed the medicine and respectfully brought it into the room.
Cui Xun coughed a few times and said wearily, “Just leave it there.”
The jailer didn’t dare say more, so he placed the celadon medicine bowl by the bed and respectfully withdrew. As he left, the jailer was still pondering the physician’s words: long-term liver qi stagnation, weak constitution, vulnerable to cold, needs to be carefully nursed back to health.
The jailer was somewhat confused. Long-term liver qi stagnation? Cui Xun was typically arrogant, tyrannical, and ruthless. He was always the one tormenting others, not the other way around. How could such a person suffer from liver qi stagnation? And for a long time at that?
And a weak constitution? The jailer found it impossible to associate these words with the presumptuous Deputy Commissioner of the Investigation Office.
The jailer couldn’t help but look back at the tightly closed carved wooden door. He shook his head in confusion, but what he didn’t see was the figure of a woman in a white immortal robe who gracefully entered through the wooden door.