The shouting and uproar continued for an unknown stretch of time. From the window, the sky above the direction of the temple was still a blazing, fiery red, and even from a great distance, the air remained thick with the acrid smell of smoke.
Shen Que was alone in the small building. The chaotic light from outside filtered through the window, projecting a faint shadow of him onto the wall.
He had shoved the redwood box containing the mother Gu into his bag and hidden it under the bed. In his current state of extreme mental confusion, this was the safest hiding place he could think of.
Time seemed to drag on in the suffocating silence. An uneasy dread coiled tightly around Shen Que’s heart like a vine, tightening little by little until he could hardly breathe. Finally, he couldn’t stand it anymore and got up to go downstairs.
The moment he pushed the courtyard gate open to step out, Shen Que suddenly froze.
Several silent figures stood quietly in the shadows. Without exception, they all turned to look at him the moment the gate opened, their gazes carrying a silent scrutiny and oppressive pressure. The murky night had become the perfect cover for them.
Shen Que’s heart sank abruptly. Seeing the person in charge walk toward him, he instantly sensed something was off and forced his tone to stay steady as he asked, “Ke Di, what are you doing here?”
“Of course, it’s to ensure your safety. The temple caught fire, and important tribal property was stolen. It’s very dangerous outside. He is worried about you.”
Both of them knew exactly who the ‘he’ was referred to.
Shen Que couldn’t clearly see the expression on Ke Di’s face, but he could hear the subtle mockery in his words.
“Where are you going?”
“Old Qiu and the others got separated from me and haven’t returned yet. I want to go look for them.”
“No need to worry. He will help you find them.” Ke Di hesitated for a moment, shook his head, and let out a faint, indifferent sigh as if casually and unintentionally letting something slip. “It’s just that it may be a little delayed. He’s currently searching for the person who stole that important item. But it won’t take long. Anyone who has come into contact with it has already been marked; they won’t live much longer. There’s no worry about not being able to find them.”
Shen Que’s back instantly went rigid. How could he not understand the implication of Ke Di’s words?
They might have been exposed.
“Do you need me to escort you back up?” Ke Di continued with a forced, unnatural smile. “The area around this small building is already filled with people who’ve come to ‘protect’ you. It would be better to go upstairs and wait calmly for him to come back.”
Shen Que ignored him. He turned and looked at the small building where he had lived for so long. At this moment, it felt as though the darkness had cut it off and turned it into an isolated island, making every passing second of waiting here unbearably painful.
As the night deepened, the entire village finally fell silent once more.
In the suffocating silence, a faint chime of silver bells drifted in from afar, unhurried and steady, breaking apart the night that had nearly congealed into stillness.
Sheng Qixiao is back.
The footsteps stopped for a brief moment outside the door. Then, with a soft creak, it was pushed open.
Shen Que’s figure froze by the window. He was straddling the windowsill with half his body leaning out and one foot suspended in mid-air. He turned his head and glared at Sheng Qixiao without speaking, but his body language clearly conveyed that if Sheng Qixiao took one step closer, he would jump down without hesitation.
Sheng Qixiao stopped at the doorway. A soft chuckle escaped his throat, but he genuinely did not approach any further. He simply pressed his palm tightly against the door panel, applying so much force that his fingertips turned white. He had lost the appetite for riddles and went straight to the point, “The Gu container has poison on it. The poison will take effect within twelve hours. Shen Que, do you want to guess who will drop dead at dawn?”
Shen Que’s back was pressed tightly against the window frame. His pupils suddenly contracted as he unconsciously swallowed. His hand, hanging outside the window, instinctively brushed against the edge of his robe before slowly curling into a tight fist.
So Ke Di was telling the truth, there really was poison on that box. Then Old Qiu and the others…
Sheng Qixiao tapped twice on the door panel, the two dull thuds signaling his dwindling patience, before slowly stepping inside. The dim candlelight in the room finally caught half his face, revealing a faint, shallow dimple at the corner of his cheek.
His gaze locked onto the leg Shen Que was precariously supporting on the floor, then slowly moved up before finally settling on his face, which was tense with shock and anger. Sheng Qixiao’s voice was soft, carrying a faintly soothing undertone: “Shen Que, I like you; you know that.”
Shen Que’s Adam’s apple bobbed. He was confused but extremely cooperative. “I know.”
Sheng Qixiao nodded and continued, “They have been locked in the cave beneath the temple.”
“……”
Shen Que’s breathing stalled for a moment. He knew exactly the place Sheng Qixiao was referring to, which only heightened his unease. That cave was constantly shrouded in toxic mist; combined with the Gu poison sealed in the redwood box, Old Qiu and the others’ condition was already clear without needing to see it.
Tonight was windless; the bamboo forest outside the window was unusually quiet. Shen Que remained silent for a long time. The leg suspended outside the window was slowly drawn back and placed on solid ground.
He turned away from the open window and slowly walked toward Sheng Qixiao. The anger and shock that had been on his face were completely replaced by an almost unnervingly calm composure.
“Sheng Qixiao.”
Shen Que stopped in front of Sheng Qixiao and looped his arms around his neck in a nearly intimate gesture. The distance between them instantly vanished. His warm breath fell on Sheng Qixiao’s neck as if intending to whisper to him.
Before Sheng Qixiao could react, a cold light flashed in Shen Que’s hand, and a small, ice-cold, sharp knife was pressed against his throat.
“Let them go!” Shen Que’s voice dropped to an extreme low, each word forced out between clenched teeth, carrying the savage intensity of a desperate wager.
Sheng Qixiao appeared to have expected it; he stood rooted in place without the slightest movement, even tilting his head slightly as he met it on his own initiative.
The tip of the knife pressed in, producing a faint sting. A warm drop of blood welled up and slid down his neckline, before vanishing into the intricate, solemn garments Sheng Qixiao was wearing that day.
Yet he didn’t even blink. Instead, he lowered his eyes, looking at the person who had, for the first time, willingly “thrown himself into his arms,” without the slightest trace of fear as though the one with a knife pressed to his throat was not him at all.
“Let the people go if you don’t want to die!” Shen Que added some force to his hand, the blade lightly cutting into the flesh.
Sheng Qixiao let out a hiss in cooperation as if the pain were real. Shen Que frowned, and an ill-timed hesitation rose inexplicably in his heart; before he could act, Sheng Qixiao’s voice had already reached his ears.
“Then kill me, let us be buried together at the bottom of the river, together for eternity.”
The tone carried clear expectation.
“Cutting this shallow won’t kill me. How about I help you?”
After saying that, he even lifted his hand as if to seize the small knife in Shen Que’s grip, stepping forward and leaning in more eagerly, almost offering his own neck toward the edge of the blade.
“You lunatic!” Shen Que stared at him in disbelief, silently cursing him for being insane before quickly withdrawing his hand, knowing the path of threat was futile. With a change of thought, he quickly retreated backward, rapidly heading towards the wide-open window.
But Sheng Qixiao naturally would not let him have his way.
In an instant, a cold hand clamped precisely onto the back of Shen Que’s neck, the overwhelming force yanking him sharply backward and forcing him to turn around. At the same time, another hand shot up like iron tongs, locking tightly around his throat.
The force was precisely controlled, not enough to choke him but sufficient to render him completely exhausted and unable to move or resist further.
The moonlight finally generously poured in, illuminating their faces with different expressions.
A faint purple glow flashed in Sheng Qixiao’s eyes, meeting Shen Que’s gaze directly and undisguisedly.
“Shen Que.” Sheng Qixiao’s voice was low and hoarse, carrying an undeniable command, “Kiss me.”
Shen Que tilted his head upward, anger still lingering between his brows, yet his eyes had somehow gone hollow and unfocused, as though something had been drained out of him. His obedience was almost awkward; he blankly pressed his lips against Sheng Qixiao’s cool ones, like a puppet entirely under Sheng Qixiao’s control.
This kiss, from shallow to deep, was also entirely dominated by Sheng Qixiao; the time their breaths mingled was endlessly prolonged, carrying a thick sense of plunder.
It wasn’t until the last bit of air in his chest was taken away, close to suffocation, that Shen Que suddenly regained consciousness, but by now, it was already too late to withdraw.
Shen Que was entirely imprisoned in Sheng Qixiao’s embrace; the small knife from before had long since been tossed by Sheng Qixiao into some corner unknown.
And he had completely become the fish on Sheng Qixiao’s cutting board.
Sheng Qixiao restrained all of Shen Que’s resistance, and the deliberately composed calm on his face quietly dissolved, exposing his most unmasked, darkened nature beneath.
The illusion he had used on Shen Que had failed.
This realization almost annihilated all his reason.
The illusion was called “Thread of Affection”, effective only on those whose hearts were tied to the caster; the stronger the affection, the longer it lasted.
During the ceremony at the temple, he had also used this trick fearing Shen Que would not cooperate. When Shen Que was guided, step by step, to “willingly” approach him, he was undoubtedly pleased.
That could at least prove that Shen Que had some affection for him, and that affection was even strong enough to last through the entire ceremony. However, he also knew that within that slight affection, there were more or less some feelings left over from the past.
But now, only a few short hours had passed, and Shen Que could so easily break free, and quickly regain consciousness…
Sheng Qixiao could no longer maintain that facade of ease and control. He rubbed Shen Que’s Adam’s apple with his fingers, asking as if talking to himself, “Why… why don’t you like me? Why? Haven’t I been good to you? Haven’t I been lenient enough with you? I even tolerated your stupid companions, time and time again. Why don’t you like me?”
His breathing, which hadn’t yet recovered from the long, suffocating kiss, was once again controlled by Sheng Qixiao; the action was unprecedentedly vicious. No matter how confused Shen Que’s thoughts were, he realized that Sheng Qixiao was acting strangely at this moment. He grabbed Sheng Qixiao’s arm that was choking his throat tightly with both hands. “Let… go, Sheng Qixiao! Stop being crazy!”
“Why don’t you like me?” Sheng Qixiao stubbornly repeated the question.
“I don’t dislike you!” In a moment of desperation, Shen Que forced down the surging fear in his heart, doing his best to make his eyes look affectionate and wronged. His voice was hoarse and trembling from lack of oxygen. “I was just too anxious, I’m worried about them.” Sheng Qixiao looked at him in silence, his gaze wavering for a moment. After a pause, a smile slowly surfaced on his face, as though the anger from earlier had never been real at all. “I believe you.”
Shen Que’s eyes brightened, and he was about to continue his performance, but Sheng Qixiao’s next words froze him in place.
“I believe that you like me, I believe that you wouldn’t deceive me.” He paused, then said, “But someone else doesn’t believe it.”
“Who?”
Sheng Qixiao held Shen Que by the neck and pulled him closer. Through several layers of fabric, a certain spot was unreservedly burning him. “It does.”
The final syllables of those two words were drawn out, laced with a deliberate, almost taunting malice and a thin edge of perverse satisfaction.
Shen Que’s face instantly turned ashen, his teeth grinding audibly, “What do you mean?”
How could he have forgotten that the current Sheng Qixiao was not the pure youth from their first meeting and that even everything before had been a disguise and a pretense?
“What you think in your heart is what I mean.” Sheng Qixiao’s smile grew wider, but there was no trace of laughter in his eyes. “Prove it to him. Don’t hesitate for too long. I will always be patient with you, but the lives of your companions might not be able to wait that long.”
Sheng Qixiao released Shen Que’s neck and gently took his hand, then forcefully pried open his tightly clenched fingers one by one. In the dim light, the intersecting lines on his palm faintly glimmered with a pale violet glow. Sheng Qixiao brushed them lightly with his fingers; the light dimmed somewhat, yet still did not fully fade away.
Those were the marks left by the ‘gu’ poison from the red wooden box.
“You are really disobedient. This hand is so beautiful; it would be a shame if it were crippled.” Sheng Qixiao continued to fan the flames while observing Shen Que’s expression. “But don’t worry, the fate of your companions will be many times worse than yours. Perhaps they won’t even need to wait until dawn, and they’ll…”
The words that remained unfinished utterly ignited the fury Shen Que had been forcibly suppressing to its limit.
“Go to hell, Sheng Qixiao!” Shen Que suddenly broke free from Sheng Qixiao’s restraint, using almost all his strength to fiercely slap him across the face.
A crisp sound of a slap exploded in the dead silence of the small building.
