“Now that you’ve admitted it, cease your pretense. When you were serving your sentence, did you not wag your tail and beg enough already?”
All light had faded from Mu Xueshi’s wide eyes. He merely shook his head and lowered his gaze to the ground, idly picking at grains of dirt with his slender fingers, counting them one by one as though nothing else mattered.
When he sensed the Third Prince drawing nearer, he suddenly lifted his head.
“Th-that child… Ying… You’re not going to kill him too, are you?”
The Third Prince’s expression darkened at Mu Xueshi’s excessive concern for others.
“You do not worry for your own life, yet you have leisure to pity others?”
“It’s not pity,” Mu Xueshi replied quietly. “It’s guilt. A life is precious. Because of my momentary recklessness, so many have died. Third Prince… may I beg one thing of you?”
That single word—beg—made the Third Prince’s gaze sharpen.
The former Mu Xueshi would rather die than show supplication, let alone speak it aloud. If he now bowed his head, it must be for something he deemed unavoidable.
The Third Prince remained silent.
Taking this as permission to continue, Mu Xueshi spoke without hesitation.
“If Your Highness can spare that child, I am willing to return to serve my sentence. I can even become the Mu Xueshi you are familiar with again. Whatever you demand—I will endure it. I can be an ox or a horse if need be. But I cannot stand by and watch someone die because of me. I despise those who could lend a hand yet choose indifference—let alone when the death is caused by my own actions…”
From rebuking the Third Prince on Su Ying’s behalf to now risking his own life to plead for him—this had far surpassed the bounds of mere acquaintance.
A surge of inexplicable resentment rose within the Third Prince.
Such earnestness could only mean one thing: Mu Xueshi had grown fond of the child.
“If your life were required in exchange for his, would you give it?”
This time Mu Xueshi fell silent.
His face clearly answered: no.
The child was innocent, yes—but he had trespassed of his own accord. Compared to him, the servants who had died were even more blameless. Even if the child now stood in danger because of him, there was no reason to throw away his own life for a stranger.
That was not kindness.
That was foolishness.
Seeing the hesitation on Mu Xueshi’s face, the Third Prince let out a cold laugh.
“The difference between you and Su Ying is this—he wishes to live yet cannot, while you wish to die yet are unable.”
To the prince’s surprise, Mu Xueshi did not collapse beneath those words. Instead, he patted his own chest in visible relief.
He had entirely misunderstood.
In his mind, the Third Prince was hinting at their close bond—implying that no matter who else died, he himself would not. With that assurance, perhaps if he behaved properly, he could yet plead for the child.
“I am Mu Xueshi. Genuine, without substitution.”
He rose, thumping his chest solemnly.
The Third Prince arched a brow. “Were you not a heavenly general descended from the skies? How have you become Mu Xueshi again?”
Mu Xueshi rolled his eyes inwardly, cursing the prince’s long memory.
Carefully, he replied, “If Your Highness feels insulted, then let Xueshi bear that disgrace in your stead. From this day on, I shall be the devil, and you the one who subdued me.”
For a moment, the Third Prince nearly surrendered to laughter at such naïveté. Did he truly believe that returning mockery in equal measure would settle the matter?
How could someone be this foolish?
Yet—
This half-true, half-false Mu Xueshi intrigued him more than ever.
Whether he was genuine or counterfeit, the Third Prince intended to play this game thoroughly.
Futile Devices Scans 
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