“You know you are in the wrong too, risking your life just for some broken bracelet!”
Qingmo stood up, looking down as he pointed disapprovingly at the sleeping figure. Aside from a slightly heavier breath, the other person did not react at all.
Watching the pale, handsome face furrowed in a tight frown, Qingmo felt a complex mix of emotions. In truth, he knew Suyu was not doing this for the bracelet; it was merely an unresolved obsession with his beloved.
Rumors could not be taken at face value. Suyu’s attitude toward his lover was nothing like the tales suggested, the person was not a caged canary, but a genuine, unrequited devotion he could never attain.
Unknowingly dreaming of something once more, Suyu murmured a few incoherent words in a low voice. Qingmo leaned in closer to listen, but was suddenly yanked forward by a strong pull.
“Hey!”
He had every reason to suspect this fellow was simply faking sleep.
Just as he tried to struggle, the other person pulled him into an even tighter embrace, burying his face in Qingmo’s shoulder as he began to sob. “Do not leave, I beg you…”
He was probably reliving a parting from his beloved, so Qingmo stopped moving and let himself be held.
“…You lovers with brains full of romance are simply born to torment me.”
Though he complained aloud, sympathy filled his heart. Qingmo had witnessed everything Suyu had done, even if mistakes had been made in the past, his sincere repentance now was more than enough to make up for them.
Yet he was not that beloved partner, nor had he experienced that sort of hurt. Ultimately, he had no right to make decisions on someone else’s behalf.
Acting on a sudden impulse, Qingmo reached out and gently patted Suyu’s back. “Stop crying. I am not leaving, I will stay with you.”
Those words seemed to carry some magical power, causing the unconscious man to instantly relax quite a bit, though he still firmly trapped Qingmo in his arms, terrified that the other might run off at any moment.
Awkwardly shedding his outer robes, Qingmo found himself growing sleepy the moment he brushed against the pillow. Since he had been forcibly dragged onto the bed anyway, keeping a wounded patient company for a nap was hardly a crime.
Sleepiness washed over him like a tide. Just as his head drooped, a strange object suddenly wedged itself between them, shocking him completely awake.
“What…”
He fished the object out from under the blankets and voiced his shock, “What on earth is this?!”
A soft, white, fluffy appendage was wrapped around his wrist, stretching straight one second and curling into a ball the next. Its texture was wonderfully plush, based on his years of experience petting furry creatures, it was an absolute top-tier specimen.
Yet it had no business being in a bed!
The tail-like little fluff ball slipped out of his grasp, wrapped around his waist, and pulled him closer to Suyu’s chest. At the same time, Suyu tightened his grip with both arms, resting his head restlessly against Qingmo’s neck.
Only then did Qingmo realize that this exceptionally tactile tail seemingly belonged to Suyu.
Feeling his mind spin in confusion, he massaged his throbbing temples while thoroughly enjoying the soft, cuddly embrace the tail provided.
Having known Suyu for so long, he had never once learned what the man’s true form was. Demons attained human form through later cultivation, and given Suyu’s immense power nourished by the spiritual energy of the Heavenly Dao, no one had ever dared suspect under such gifted conditions that he was actually a furry creature.
Clutching the wonderfully soft tail, Qingmo negotiated with Suyu in a self-dialogue. “I let you hug me, so letting me hold your tail is only fair.”
Naturally, the other person offered no reply.
The night passed peacefully, and both of them slept exceptionally well.
Early the next morning, Suyu blinked awake in a hazy fog, unable to distinguish dream from reality.
He had returned to his past life, where Qingmo had been driven to attempt suicide. No matter how bitterly Suyu pleaded, it yielded no results, leaving him no choice but to forcibly restrain the man.
Qingmo had wept for a long time, crying until his throat was hoarse, only falling asleep in his arms out of sheer exhaustion.
Right now, he was indeed holding someone in his arms.
Lowering his gaze, Suyu stared at the long, delicate eyelashes, his heart aching as though pricked by needles. He lowered his head and pressed a kiss to the person’s forehead.
“Qingmo…”
The person in his arms let out a low murmur, the sound Qingmo made only when he felt completely safe. A rare, unnoticeable smile curved the corners of Suyu’s lips.
Suddenly, Suyu caught sight of the white jade bracelet resting on the bedside table.
His hazy consciousness snapped entirely awake. This was no Qingmo, this was the Ghost Fiend, a figure feared across all six realms. Since when did the Ghost Fiend ever need reassurance from him?
“Mnh…”
Struggling to pry his eyes open just a crack, Qingmo found Suyu staring right at him, rolled over lazily, and mumbled, “Mmh, you are awake…”
Suyu felt a flicker of astonishment upon realizing they were sharing a bed yet again. He tried to lift a hand to stroke Qingmo’s head, only to find his arm aching so severely he could not raise it.
“Ugh!”
The groan of pain startled Qingmo fully awake, causing him to bounce straight out from under the blankets. “Your injuries are not healed yet, do not move!”
Memories from before the injury rushed back in an instant. Guarding his properly treated wound, Suyu slowly sat up. “Yesterday…”
“You still have the nerve to speak!” Qingmo ruffled his messy hair in frustration. “Is a bracelet more important or your life? Are you trying to get me killed?”
Bringing that bracelet back might not even succeed in coaxing Suyu’s lover back, but if Suyu suffered any mishap, Qingmo would definitely have no way to report back to the Heavenly Dao.
Lost in thought for a moment, Suyu shook his head. “None of that matters… How is that demonic beast?”
“I have tied it up.” Qingmo rolled his eyes in profound speechlessness, chattering away, “I will never understand you romantics. How much is affection worth anyway? Losing your life means you have truly lost everything.”
He was a prime example himself, letting his emotions get the better of him had cost twenty-three lives and turned him into an injustice-fueled ghost.
Suyu fell silent, his fingers gripping the quilt tightly.
Sitting on the edge of the bed with his back turned as he put on his shoes, Qingmo suddenly froze, holding a single flower petal between two fingers right behind his head.
“Dream-Entering…” Suyu’s heart skipped a beat.
“While the Blood Skeleton is the main culprit driving the demonic beasts mad, I reckon this flower is not entirely innocent either.”
Noticing a damp, dried stain of tears on Qingmo’s shoulder, Suyu figured out how they had ended up sharing a bed yet again, he must have pulled the man in himself.
Having spent many years without dreaming of his past life, the influence of the Dream-Entering flower was likely to blame. Instead of soothing his mind, it had dragged the deepest, most painful agony right back out from his soul.
“If Bai Yingfei cannot even pick a decent partner, do not blame me for playing the villain who breaks up mandarin ducks.” Qingmo spoke as though it were the most natural thing in the world, before turning his criticisms back onto Suyu. “From now on, whenever I see a romantic fool, I will beat them up. I have had enough of you lot!”
Clutching the blanket, Suyu did not dare utter a sound. Just as Qingmo finished dressing and tidying up, the conversation abruptly pivoted. “You were crying your heart out last night. Did you dream that your lover did not want you anymore?”
Fair, accurate, and piercing.
“…Yes.”
“I knew it.” Qingmo wore an expression of absolute certainty. “Still, you slept quite peacefully in the second half of the night and did not wake me up.”
Given how deeply he slept, unless the roof collapsed, nothing should have woken him.
Knowing he was in the wrong, Suyu did not dare voice the truth. Instead, he watched as Qingmo suddenly slapped his own forehead upon recalling some vital matter.
The next second, Qingmo climbed right back onto the bed and lunged toward Suyu’s waist with lightning speed to flip open his hem.
Suyu: “!!!”
“What are you doing?!”
To make tending to his injuries easier, Suyu was only wearing an inner tunic, and Qingmo’s sudden yank exposed everything down to the bare essentials.
A deep crimson flushed across his face as he curled up beneath the blanket, his gaze sharp and guarded as though facing some notorious bandit or depraved scoundrel.
With a brazen display of unrighteous confidence, Qingmo put his hands on his hips. “We are both men, what is there to be afraid of seeing? Whatever you have got, I have got too!”
“No wait, what you have got, I do not…” Distracted by his own logic, Qingmo almost forgot his original purpose. “The tail, show me your tail!”
“What… tail?” Suyu wore a look of utter bewilderment, completely unaware that his tail had been exposed during his distress the night before.
“Do not play dumb, I saw it! A big, fluffy white tail, super soft!” Salivating at the memory of that texture, Qingmo demanded, “What on earth is your true form? A wolf? A fox?”
Only then did Suyu realize what tail he was talking about.
Qingmo continued his guesses, “It could not be a dog… Wait, the squirrel tail I pet last time was pretty big too…”
Seeing him veer further and further off course, Suyu silently lifted the blanket, letting a long, cotton-soft tail wrap completely around Qingmo’s waist.
“I am a cat.”
A white cat with heterochromatic eyes.
Yet cats were natural enemies of dogs, watching Qingmo hold his tail with utter delight, looking for all the world like he had a happy dog tail wagging behind him, Suyu felt a helpless resignation.
“How are you a cat? That lacks so much dignity. I always thought you were a true dragon or something.” Though he complained, Qingmo stroked the tail more happily than anyone else.
“My father bought me on the street for fifty silver coins. If I had been a dragon, the price would not have been nearly that low.”
Back then, he had been nothing more than a tiny, unawakened kitten huddled in an iron cage with his siblings against the bitter winter wind, spotted by Liuze as he passed by and brought home. Though his earlier memories were hazy, he could still imagine the envious gazes the other cats had given him when he was taken away.
A quick calculation revealed over a thousand years had passed since then. Those cats had probably assumed he had found a wealthy household where he would never worry about food, unaware of what kind of expressions they would wear seeing everything he possessed now.
His father had saved his life and bestowed upon him a status and respect most people could only envy. That grace was likely impossible to repay.
Just as Liuze often said: “I raised you out of my own unilateral wish, not demanding any repayment from you.”
“Fifty silver coins?” Qingmo stared in shock. “Your foster father must have been scammed. What decent cat costs that much?!”
While Suyu was indeed rather stunning with his rare heterochromatic eyes, he had just been an ordinary kitten at the time, and standard cats did not fetch that price.
“Indeed, he was scammed.” Suyu nodded, still finding it amusing in hindsight. “Later on, I heard from my older brother that He punished the cat dealer, that fellow was probably too terrified to ever touch a cat again for the rest of his life.”
“That is more like it.” Completely satisfied with the ending, Qingmo fondled Suyu’s tail with reluctant affection, before pivoting to envy the man’s beloved. “Your lover is so lucky. Sleeping while hugging a cat this big must feel amazing.”
Suyu’s expression dimmed as he recalled Qingmo’s desperate struggles in the dream. “I only pray he does not loathe me. How could I ever dare hope for his affection…”
Qingmo gave a light hmph. “Some people just do not know how lucky they are.”
A knock sounded from outside the door. Suyu quickly retracted his tail, while Qingmo, caught off guard, continued hugging empty air with a lingering look of longing.
When Jiang Hong entered, he still felt a sense of lingering guilt, not daring to meet Qingmo’s eyes. “Greetings, Lord Ghost Fiend.”
“Are the sugar paintings sold out?”
“They are sold out… Uh, no!”
Leaning against the head of the bed with a gentle, quiet demeanor, leaving no trace of the person who had been teasing with a cat tail just moments before, Suyu defused the tension for him. “Jiang Hong, how did the investigation go?”
Hurrying over to the bedside, Jiang Hong reported, “Replying to Your Lordship, your subordinate had men trace the origin of the demonic core, and discovered it came from the Merfolk tribe.”
Merfolk again.
Suyu felt an increasingly ominous premonition. “Has the person spreading demonic cores in the city been found?”
“They were found, but that person possesses extraordinary martial prowess and acts with extreme stealth. Your subordinate followed their trail all the way and discovered…”
Suyu raised his eyes, signaling him to continue.
“Discovered that the person vanished right near the City Lord’s Mansion.”