TSMITB Chapter34

Shen Que instinctively closed the book he was looking through, then nonchalantly lifted his eyes. “Nothing much, just thinking about the book you gave me earlier. I can’t quite understand it.” He paused, then asked casually, “By the way, where did you get those books?”

Sheng Qixiao slowly stepped in. “The temple has a Scripture Repository, there are many books there.”

“Oh? I didn’t notice that today. But didn’t you say the temple only allows entry and exit during festivals? You’ve brought back books multiple times already. Did you steal them?”

A barrage of questions burst from Shen Que’s mouth. His tone wasn’t particularly forceful, and by the end, it even carried a playful hint as if he were just genuinely curious.

Sheng Qixiao’s eyelashes fluttered, subtly avoiding Shen Que’s gaze. “That place still requires regular cleaning. I can go in, and whenever I come across anything interesting, I bring it back for you to read.”

The excuse was full of holes. Shen Que scoffed inwardly but feigned belief. “Can you take me to see it tomorrow?”

He made the request offhandedly, yet his heart thudded hard in his chest as he waited for Sheng Qixiao’s response.

He didn’t believe that a village this size wouldn’t have relevant records in its books. He had to go look for himself.

Sheng Qixiao would never hand over books related to Gu arts; whatever he brought had clearly been screened as harmless reading, while anything that truly touched on the tribe’s secrets would never be shown to an outsider so easily.

Only by going himself would he have a chance to find what Sheng Qixiao was unwilling to let him see.

Even if they ultimately failed to find the “mother Gu,” they could at least bring back some useful information, better than returning empty-handed and watching Shen Yi…

At this point, he truly had no other choice. The closer the deadline, the more chaotic his mind became; he could only try his luck.

“Alright, I’ll take you tomorrow.” Sheng Qixiao’s hand, concealed within his wide sleeve, clenched into a fist at once before slowly loosening, his fingertips twitching faintly as he agreed without a trace of expression.

To Shen Que, that reaction only made him seem all the more reluctant and unwilling.

Shen Que sighed inwardly, convinced that the more unwilling Sheng Qixiao was, the more he had to go.

However, he completely overlooked the smile that was gradually seeping into the depths of Sheng Qixiao’s eyes.

The Scripture Repository was not as magnificent as Shen Que had imagined. It was just a side hall built adjacent to the main temple, not very wide but long in depth. Rows of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves were neatly arranged, housing thousands of ancient volumes.

The hall lay in silence under dim light; no candles burned, and only a single shaft of sunlight slipped in through a high, narrow window. The moment the doors were thrown fully open, countless specks of dust drifted through the beam. The air was filled with the musty smell of wood and paper that had been kept away from daylight for years, adding a heavy sense of oppression to the already confined space.

“It seems like you’re not exactly diligent with your cleaning,” Shen Que lifted a hand and waved it before his face, brushing away the stale, musty air, a faint smile playing on his lips as his tone turned teasing.

Sheng Qixiao didn’t take the bait but pushed him further inside. “What do you want to see? Go look for yourself, I’ll wait for you outside.”

“Why? How many Scripture Repositories does your stockaded village have?”

“Just this one,” Sheng Qixiao shook his head with a trace of helplessness. He hadn’t expected Shen Que to so directly express his suspicion, so he could only pretend to be oblivious, “I don’t like reading.”

Shen Que arched a brow and glanced back at Sheng Qixiao with clear interest. “So there are things you don’t like doing too? That’s rather surprising.”

The wheels of the wheelchair clattered across the stone floor with crisp, rhythmic sounds. As he looked at the seemingly endless rows of bookshelves stretching before him, Shen Que suddenly felt the task ahead was anything but easy.

Suddenly, a long, blue-green creature flashed past a bookshelf two aisles away from Shen Que. Shen Que was startled and quickly spun the wheels to turn, the sound of wood scraping against stone becoming particularly distinct in the extremely quiet space.

Ignoring everything else, Shen Que pushed himself up from the wheelchair’s armrests, stood, and even rose onto his toes as he slipped behind the bookshelf, then rounded the corner.

The snake’s small, mung-bean-sized eyes blinked twice as they met Shen Que’s gaze.

The cover of the book Xiao Pao was holding in its mouth had several shallow teeth marks, which were likely left during the process of Xiao Pao dragging it.

Shen Que leaned one hand against the bookshelf and extended the other, curling a finger at Xiao Pao in a beckoning gesture. “Hand it over,” he threatened.

Xiao Pao paused for a moment, then its teeth relaxed, and the ancient volume dropped to the floor.

Shen Que quickly snatched it up before roughly flipping through it. Only when he saw that there was no damage did he feel relieved. When he looked up again, Xiao Pao was already gone.

Shen Que leaned against the bookshelf and let out a long sigh of relief.

Fortunately, he had arrived in time; any later, and the book would most likely have already vanished.

No wonder Sheng Qixiao was so generous in letting him enter alone; it turned out he intended to secretly instruct Xiao Pao to quietly remove the ‘unmentionable’ important books.

After his breathing calmed down, Shen Que belatedly looked down at his legs. Aside from a slight discomfort in his knees, the rest had basically healed completely.

Outside the door, Xiao Pao flicked its tongue and rubbed its head against Sheng Qixiao’s jaw to ingratiate itself. “He came too fast. If he had been a bit later, I could have put the book down before slipping away.”

Xiao Pao turned its head toward Shen Que in the room, watching as he idly pulled a few more books from the shelf before slowly settling back into his wheelchair. It flicked its tongue in confusion. “But he can’t understand any of those books right now.”

Sheng Qixiao tapped the top of Xiao Pao’s head with his finger, “He will definitely understand, that book.”

The sound of the wheelchair rolling across the floor grew from distant to near.

“Sheng Qixiao, I’d like to take these books back to look at.”

“Alright.” Sheng Qixiao agreed without turning his head.

Shen Que frowned. He agreed so easily?

“He’s frowning.” Xiao Pao shrank into Sheng Qixiao’s neck. “You agreed too quickly.”

“Which books did you take?” Sheng Qixiao immediately turned around and bent slightly, making a move as if to take the books Shen Que was protecting in his arms.

“I’m hungry, let’s head back quickly.” With that, he turned the wheelchair, subtly positioning it to block Sheng Qixiao’s path.

Xiao Pao’s tail curled up before loosely covering its eyes. “There are actually two humans with such terrible acting skills.”

The window in the room stood half-open, and the night breeze, carrying the distinct cool, damp scent of the mountains, drifted softly inside.

Shen Que gripped the page recording the “Fate Gu” so tightly that his fingertips went pale, the paper’s edge crumpling under the force of his hold.

The diagram of the “Fate Gu,” drawn in simple lines on the yellowed page, was already deeply imprinted in Shen Que’s mind. It was clear this book was essentially an encyclopedia of Gu insects.

“What are you looking at?” Sheng Qixiao had somehow silently appeared behind Shen Que again. “Where did you get this book?”

“The Scripture Repository. What’s wrong? Are you surprised? I was just about to ask you, didn’t you say your people don’t raise Gu? Then what is written here?” Shen Que rose from his wheelchair and walked toward Sheng Qixiao step by step, the distance between them steadily shrinking. He could already catch the other man’s distinct, clean scent; one that should have been reassuring, yet now felt bitterly ironic.

Sheng Qixiao lowered his eyes. He neither backed away nor refuted but simply looked at him quietly until Shen Que’s anger dissipated somewhat in the silence. Then he spoke in a low voice, “I did not lie to you.”

“Then what is this?” Shen Que slammed the book against Sheng Qixiao’s chest, creating a muffled sound. He stared intensely into Sheng Qixiao’s eyes, trying to find a trace of a lie.

But whether Sheng Qixiao was simply too skilled at acting, or had truly not lied to him, there was no trace of guilt or panic in his eyes; only a deep, almost lifeless calm. This stalled the series of accusations Shen Que had prepared in his throat, forcing him to change his strategy, “Did you never trust me, which is why you wouldn’t tell me? I thought we were…”

His voice was very soft and restrained, and by the end it even carried a faint, sorrowful note of betrayal; like a supple hook, gently twisting and wrapped in a harmless facade, trying to draw out the truth from someone who was supposedly still lost in a tender illusion.

Sheng Qixiao surely knew what Shen Que was planning, but he was happy to cooperate. Days like this,bdays where he was carefully deceived by Shen Que and treated like a fool, might never come again in the future.

Then he answered with an air of melancholy, his tone softening, “There once was.” It was unclear which question he was answering.

With eyes deep as a dark pool, Sheng Qixiao’s expression remained unchanged, still gentle. His well-shaped lips parted and closed as he said, “But Gu arts have long been forbidden in the tribe. The related texts were sealed in the deepest part of the Scripture Repository, never to be touched again; that’s why I asked you where you got this book from.”

“Where did I got it? Of course, I got it from your pet! Didn’t you instruct it to take the book away? What, it didn’t tell you I discovered it?” Shen Que made no attempt to hide the scrutiny in his eyes at the. The fury of being fooled had long since burned away any desire to continue the pretense. He didn’t believe a single word of Sheng Qixiao’s explanation.

Sheng Qixiao raised a hand and gently touched Shen Que’s tightly furrowed brow, sighing, “I didn’t lie to you; I truly do not know how to raise Gu. Those things were once regarded as ominous. I didn’t want you to see them; I didn’t want you to be contaminated by the slightest bit of impurity. As for Xiao Pao…”

Shen Que turned his head away, avoiding his touch and refusing to hear any further explanation. A wave of exhaustion and helplessness surged through him, leaving him without even the desire to speak.

He had to admit that he seemed to have never truly understood Sheng Qixiao. Sheng Qixiao’s thoughtfulness and care for him during this period were not fake, but this blatant deceit was right before his eyes.

He had originally wanted to accuse him of lying, but the words caught in his throat. When had he ever cared whether Sheng Qixiao was sincere or disingenuous? They had no relationship to begin with. Trading pretense and exploitation for deception did not seem to involve any moral debt. All he was really after was Sheng Qixiao’s protection during his days in the mountains.

He looked at Sheng Qixiao’s face so close before him and saw the unbroken tenderness in his eyes, and his heart sank heavily.

He knew Sheng Qixiao was lying, and he wasn’t even willing to offer a decent excuse.

Yet, he couldn’t bring himself to be angry. For a moment, he even wanted to simply believe his words. Was it because he didn’t want the final memories of his time in the mountains to be only arguments and suspicion after he left?

Shen Que, what exactly are you thinking?!

Shen Que shook his head, all expression vanishing from his face. He tossed the book onto the bed, his shoulders drooping as he said, “Fine, I believe you. I want to sleep now, please leave.”

It looked like Sheng Qixiao wanted to say something more. His lips moved, but in the end, he said nothing.

Shen Que watched his retreating figure, and for an instant, a complex emotion too fleeting to catch or name rippled through his chest.

Suddenly, Sheng Qixiao paused, but he did not turn around. His voice carried a strange yet expectant excitement. “Shen Que, you understood the writing on it.”

Shen Que’s heart skipped a beat. He immediately grabbed the book and opened it. It was full of unfamiliar ancient Miao script, yet when he had flipped through it just now, the meaning conveyed by the text and illustrations had somehow flowed into his mind without any hindrance.

What was going on?

Shen Que’s body instantly froze, his blood seemingly congealed at that moment.

The rustle of mountain wind sweeping through the bamboo forest reached his ears, yet it sounded like a haunting, demonic melody drawing him deeper into an unknown abyss.

“What do you know? What are you plotting?”

Sheng Qixiao shook his head. “Who knows?” Let’s wait and see.

The room door was then slammed shut with a bang.

The little snake in his sleeve stirred restlessly. Sheng Qixiao gently patted it and whispered, “Don’t rush.”

He knew that Shen Que’s suspicion of him could not be eliminated no matter what.

Excellent.

He had long lost the patience to wait for Shen Que to come to him willingly anyway.

He knew that Shen Que was constantly calculating how to get what he wanted and then leave him without hesitation. Now, he had to keep Shen Que by his side no matter what method he used. Shen Que belonged to him in the first place.

Moonlight streamed through the window, casting a long shadow of him that stretched across the floor and met Shen Que’s shadow on the other side of the door; seemingly close, yet impossibly distant, like a silent tug-of-war with no end and no victor.

The Moon Glazing Festival arrived as scheduled.

This ancient Miao village, surrounded by mountains and isolated from the world, came alive without warning.

Shen Que leaned against the railing while watching the crowds of unfamiliar faces, dressed in various Miao costumes and wearing intricate silver ornaments, arrive one after another on the flagstone path not far away, filling the air with laughter and noise.

In just one night, the outer village tribespeople poured in like a tide. Shen Que didn’t know where they came from, only that joy radiated from every face: the joy of reuniting with family.

But this kind of joy could not affect him in the slightest; his own family member was still critically ill in a hospital bed.

Shen Que turned back to his room in annoyance only to hear the chime of a message notification.

In the corner, the long-silent phone suddenly lit up, its glow stark and conspicuous in the dark room, an unread message quietly waiting on the screen.

His heart skipped a beat. Shen Que quickly opened it, but after scrolling through the chat history, there was no new message. The signal icon at the top of the screen remained greyed out.

Was it auditory hallucination?

His scrolled up and down insistently. As if guided by a supernatural force, Shen Que clicked into the top chat box. The last message in the conversation was still the unclear voice message the master had sent earlier.

The loading icon beside the voice message continued to spin. The familiar “voice-to-text conversion failed” notice he had seen countless times before disappeared after a brief pause, replaced instead by a single line of small text that suddenly popped up:

—You must leave before the Moon Glazing Festival arrives.

With a “rumble,” the night over E’yun Mountain was illuminated by sheets of bonfires. The smell of burning wood and dry leaves drifted from afar, weaving an invisible net that stirred up boundless restlessness deep within people’s hearts.

Shen Que sat blankly by the bed with his eyes locked on those few words, motionless for a long time until the screen went dark and the room sank into a murkier gloom.

He was trapped at the center of this net, unable to find the exit.