On a starless and moonless night, only a gentle breeze swept across the entrance of the Rhinoceros Heart Cave.
When Chu Wen woke up once more, he had already broken free from the memories of his dream.
He touched the corner of his eye.
It was damp.
That hadn’t been a dream; he was truly back.
A heavy stone seemed to press down on his chest, making it difficult to breathe.
The man in black had said those were memories of a past life. In that previous life, had he truly ended up as the Demon Lord?
No wonder he had felt such a lingering tightness in his chest before, as if hatred had pooled up within him, a deep-seated resentment toward everyone in this world. It turned out there had been traces of it all along.
In the past life, they had caused the destruction of his country and the ruin of his family, yet they had remained safe and sound. His descent into demonhood was merely to demand a price, only to be pierced straight through the heart by a single sword.
Thinking of his ultimate ending in those memories, he couldn’t help but scoff softly.
Wansha Shang, you truly are the bane of my Chu country.
When he finally gathered his wits, he picked up the book of Blood Nightmare with its tightly shut eyes and began to survey his surroundings.
The place was shrouded in mist, obscuring a clear view of the area, but through that haze, faint golden rays of light were visible.
Those golden rays verified one thing: an advanced barrier had been set up within a radius of ten li.
Places in the immortal realm equipped with barriers could be counted on one’s hand: one was the Medicine Dispensing Residence where Elder Fang Xiuxian refined pills, another was the artifact repository of the Lingyan Pavilion, and yet another.
With a sudden sense of intuition, Chu Wen turned his head to look upward. Just at that moment, the black fog was blown away, revealing the plaque at the cave entrance.
It was the Rhinoceros Heart Cave, where Wansha Shang was in seclusion.
A faint smile hooked the corner of his lips. What a small world indeed.
Testing the waters, Chu Wen approached the cave entrance with the Blood Nightmare book in hand, only to find that the barrier at the entrance didn’t react at all.
He walked inside as if entering an uninhabited realm.
From the outside, the Rhinoceros Heart Cave appeared to be nothing more than a dark, gloomy little mountain, but its interior was divided into several small chambers. Night-pearls were embedded in the walls of each space, their faint glow illuminating Chu Wen’s path forward.
Walking all the way through, he found no trace of Wansha Shang in any of the preceding chambers, and he gradually reached the final, enclosed space.
That area was different from the others; a barrier was set up at its entrance, but when Chu Wen walked right in, he discovered that the barrier was practically as good as useless.
Perhaps the person who set it up was depleted of spiritual power, leaving the barrier completely incapable of exerting any real effect.
Upon entering, he saw a single person seated in the vast space. That person was dressed in white robes with a full head of flowing silver hair. Though their back was turned to him, the transcendent, immortal demeanor of the individual was still unmistakable.
Without even needing to guess, he knew who this person was.
The sole true immortal in the immortal realm for hundreds of years.
He slowly walked forward, the pebbles underfoot making a faint rustling sound.
Yet the person remained entirely indifferent, still sitting cross-legged with his back turned in absolute stillness.
Circling around to the front of the figure, Chu Wen squatted down.
It truly was his lofty, unreachable Master.
Wansha Shang had long since ascended to immortality, achieving eternal youth with hair like snow and a face like jade. At this moment, his eyes were tightly shut, as though enduring some immense agony.
Someone in seclusion would suffer a severe backlash if forced out prematurely. Knowing that his master’s seclusion time had not yet arrived, Chu Wen grew thoroughly uninhibited.
Gently lifting Wansha Shang’s chin with his hand, Chu Wen noticed the other person twitch almost imperceptibly.
Leaning close to Wansha Shang’s ear like a whispering demon, a fierce glint flashing in his eyes, he chuckled softly and said, “Master, when you killed me in our past life, what were you thinking?”
Naturally, Wansha Shang gave no reply to his question.
Gazing at the face that had obsessed him for an entire lifetime, Chu Wen let out a self-deprecating chuckle.
Because of this very obsession, he had offered up the entire nation of Chu as a price.
At that moment, above the vaulted ceiling, moonlight poured down, forming a beam of light that enveloped the two of them within it.
Slowly sinking to his knees, Chu Wen met the moonlight and leaned in to kiss him.
Since the gods did not favor him, he would simply profane the god.
This obsession spanning two lifetimes, transcending the heavenly dao and bypassing the hatred of a fallen country, was finally fulfilled at this very moment.
And right then, beneath the moonlight, the person before him slowly opened his eyes.
＊
At the hour of Zi, inside the side chamber.
After Chu Wen left, Mo Yu spent half the night lost in thought inside the room.
Yet he still couldn’t make sense of his own feelings.
Clearly, he had despised Senior Brother intensely before, hating him enough to want him dead, longing to consume his flesh and drink his blood. But ever since hearing the other’s innermost thoughts, his hatred had gradually transformed.
Like something slowly fermenting, it had ultimately morphed into an emotion so ambiguous and undefined that even he couldn’t put a name to it.
The candlelight flickered unsteadily, agitating the restlessness within his heart.
Taking a deep breath, he remembered that Chu Wen was still outside, and the top priority right now should be finding him and bringing him back.
With the night deep and heavy, and well aware of his own limited abilities, Mo Yu packed the talismans and pills he had previously prepared and headed out.
Passing by Li Jingsheng’s room, he noticed that the candle inside was still burning.
A sense of doubt arose in his heart. It was already the hour of Zi, why hadn’t Senior Brother gone to sleep yet?
He gave a tentative call.
“Senior Brother.”
There was no response from within.
He knocked on the door.
“Senior Brother, are you asleep?”
Still, silence answered him from inside.
An ominous foreboding surged into his mind. He anxiously pounded on the door: “Senior Brother, if you don’t answer me, I’m coming straight in!”
Given the commotion Mo Yu was making, if the person inside were fine, there ought to have been some kind of reply.
Yet there was none. The room remained dead quiet.
Driven by anxiety, Mo Yu forced the door open.
He discovered that Li Jingsheng was still lying in bed, his complexion flushed red and his brows knitted tightly together, as though enduring severe pain.
Stiding quickly to the bedside, he reached out to press his palm against the other’s forehead.
Burning hot.
At that instant, only a single thought occupied Mo Yu’s mind: Senior Brother has a fever.
Just as he was about to withdraw his hand, the other person unconsciously nuzzled against his palm as if seeking comfort.
Perhaps his hand felt refreshingly cool, while the feverish person was uncomfortably hot, prompting an instinctive desire to draw closer.
Lowering his gaze, Mo Yu saw that the person in delirium had a rosy complexion, his previously furrowed brows relaxing slightly as he rubbed his face against his hand once more.
A soft murmur escaped his lips: “It feels so good.”
It looked precisely like a pampered little cat acting spoiled.
Meanwhile, Mo Yu’s thoughts were drifting to an entirely different matter.
Senior Brother’s face is so soft.
Driven by an irresistible impulse, Mo Yu pressed his hand flat against the skin. The other person, as if having seized upon a favorite toy, actually drifted along the direction of his hand.
The youth on the bed had shed his usual arrogance; right then, he resembled a fledgling chick stripped of its protective shell, exceptionally docile.
It was the first time Mo Yu had ever seen Li Jingsheng like this: obedient, submissive, entirely devoid of hostility.
He lingered for a little longer before finally rising to prepare fever-reducing medicine.
The vexation that had plagued him back in the side chamber was cast to the winds; at this moment, his mind held room for nothing except Li Jingsheng’s safety.
He remained busy all the way from the hour of Zi to the hour of Yin before Li Jingsheng’s fever finally broke.
As the morning sun rose in the east, he was in the midst of swapping out the cooling damp cloth on Li Jingsheng’s forehead.
Sunlight streamed into the room, making the floating dust motes dance in the air.
Amidst the faint morning light, the gaze Mo Yu cast upon Li Jingsheng held a cautious tenderness that he himself had never noticed.
Senior Brother, what kind of person are you, really?
＊
Bathed in moonlight, the person before him seemed as distant and untouchable as the moon in the sky.
Looking at his sanctified Master, only a single thought filled Chu Wen’s mind.
Sully him!
Since the moon would not bestow its pity upon him, he would pluck the moon down to play with it in his hands.
Yet he hadn’t expected the other person to wake up so swiftly.
Wansha Shang appeared severely injured; upon waking and spotting Chu Wen, he lacked even the slightest shred of strength left to push him away.
He bit down hard on the other’s lower lip, causing Chu Wen to snap back to reality.
Wansha Shang had forced his way out of seclusion and his physical body was utterly depleted, forcing him to brace his hands heavily against the ground just to keep from collapsing.
With a raspy voice that wasn’t loud yet carried unmistakable fury, Wansha Shang demanded, “What are you doing?!”
Chu Wen had already straightened up by then, using his thumb to wipe away the trace of blood staining his lips.
Gazing at the smear of crimson on his thumb, he chuckled lightly, then squatted back down and smeared that streak of blood across Wansha Shang’s lips.
The vivid red hue contrasted sharply against his mouth, lending the other man a somewhat bewitching allure.
Instead of answering the question immediately, he took a moment to admire the sight.
Wansha Shang already possessed silver hair and a youthful visage, dressed entirely in white like an unreachable immortal, but at this moment, the splash of vivid red on his lips gave him the mesmerizing aesthetic of a violation.
It looked like an immortal plunging headfirst into the mortal dust.
Infatuated, Chu Wen looked at Wansha Shang, his thumb tracing back and forth across those lips as he spoke in a frivolous tone, “What am I doing? Naturally, I want to do you, Master.”
The chamber was dead quiet, broken only by the sound of their conversation, while the abandoned Blood Nightmare book lay ignored off to one side.
Clearly not anticipating such blunt and vulgar phrasing, Wansha Shang trembled all over with rage, gritting out each word syllable by syllable: “You dare?”
Laughing as though he had just heard a ridiculous joke, the corners of Chu Wen’s mouth hooked upward: “Why wouldn’t I dare? Master, didn’t you already know in our past life that I fancied you?”
“I’ve endured for two lifetimes, what else is there that I wouldn’t dare?!”
Wansha Shang’s pupils dilated slightly, as though hearing something beyond belief.
That expression pierced deeply into Chu Wen’s heart.
Pinning the other’s chin in his grip, his tone grew fierce yet trembled slightly: “What are you shocked about? Are you shocked that I recovered my past-life memories? Or are you shocked that I’ve loved you for two lifetimes?”
If it were the former, Chu Wen might have deigned to explain his origins, but if it were the latter.
The frost in Chu Wen’s eyes deepened.
Forced to tilt his head slightly upward, Wansha Shang stared back at him under the spilling moonlight. He looked like a drift of flawless white snow, save for that single patch of red lending him a touch of worldly reality.
Gazing down at him with immense satisfaction, Chu Wen looked as though he were admiring a meticulously carved work of art.
Lifting his gaze to meet him, Wansha Shang forced out the question: “How much do you know?”
It was the former question.
For some reason, a wave of relief washed over Chu Wen.
Releasing his grip on the other’s chin, his tone turning genuinely gentle, he asked, “What is it you’re afraid I know?”
“Are you afraid I know that your ascension to immortality invited divine punishment and caused the destruction of my Chu country?”
“Or are you afraid I know that in my past life, I finally colluded with the demon race and plunged all living beings under heaven into misery?”
Reaching out once more to press against Wansha Shang’s lips, his voice dropped to a soft, lullaby-like cadence: “Or perhaps you’re afraid I know that in the previous life, I was ultimately killed by your hands?”
Hearing him recount so much, Wansha Shang realized he had indeed recovered the memories of his past life.
And not just fragments.
The entirety of them.
Closing his eyes to shut out the sight of Chu Wen, that simple action seemed to incense the other further.
Applying sudden force, Chu Wen thrust his fingers directly into Wansha Shang’s mouth.
“What? Hating me this much? Does even looking at me feel nauseating to you?”
Clearly made deeply uncomfortable by the intrusion, Wansha Shang mustered all his remaining strength and bit down hard.
Yet Chu Wen showed no intention of pulling his hand back, merely remarking, “Go ahead, keep biting. Let’s see how long your current strength allows you to keep this up.”
Hearing that, Wansha Shang slackened his jaw. With his spiritual energy already exhausted from employing the reincarnation talisman, compounded by forcing his way out of seclusion, managing to stay conscious without suffering a complete deviation was already a minor miracle.
Seeing him stop biting, Chu Wen finally withdrew his fingers.
He picked up the nearby Blood Nightmare book and pressed the blood-stained fingers against its single eye.
Instantly, the tome emitted a faint red glow, and the eye on the cover slowly blinked open, a blood-red eye featuring a pitch-black pupil.
Instead of remaining wide open, it rolled its eyeball around before blinking shut once again. As the crimson eye closed, the book gradually settled back into tranquility.
Bathed in moonlight, the Rhinoceros Heart Cave was destined to remain far from peaceful tonight.