Just as Su Ruhan turned to leave, a sudden, searing pain tore through Mu Xueshi’s abdomen. He collapsed onto the ground, curling up like a shrimp as agonized groans escaped his lips.
At that moment, he noticed a pair of shoes appear before his eyes, shoes he recognized all too well. The person standing there was even more familiar. Joy surged within Mu Xueshi’s heart, but the violent pain wracking his body left him unable to speak. He could only stretch out a trembling hand toward the Third Prince’s ankle. Before his pale fingers could reach him, the Third Prince stepped down hard and crushed Mu Xueshi’s hand beneath his heel.
Mu Xueshi felt his heart turn cold. His body was too weak to pull his hand away. Summoning all his strength, he lifted his head and looked up. The face before him was the same one he had always known. Yet it no longer carried the warmth he remembered.
The Third Prince looked down coldly at the beautiful face beneath him. Strangely, the more sorrowful and pitiful that expression became, the angrier he felt. For a moment he even wanted to grind his heel into that delicate face, yet somehow he could not bring himself to do it. Even the foot pressing on Mu Xueshi’s hand began to unconsciously lessen its force.
Once, he had exiled Mu Xueshi to a barren wasteland and watched as men lashed him with whips. Back then, he had felt nothing. Yet now, after only half a month of living together, after hearing Mu Xueshi circle around him day after day and sweetly call his name “Xi,” he had somehow been disarmed so easily.
The Third Prince snorted coldly and turned away. There was no need to look back. No need for pity. Whatever illness Mu Xueshi suffered was his own problem. He was merely my younger brother, Grand Tutor Mu’s son. With that thought, the veins on the Third Prince’s forehead bulged. In the next instant, he leapt into the air and vanished.
When Mu Xueshi woke again, Su Ruhan was sitting beside his bed. The room in Linhan Palace was so damp that even the quilt felt clammy. Mu Xueshi tried to distract himself from both his physical pain and everything that had happened before, so he kept fussing with the bedding while making idle conversation with Su Ruhan.
This was already the second time Su Ruhan had rescued him and even prepared medicine for him. Mu Xueshi was genuinely moved. He had never imagined that, even as a prisoner in this place, so many people would still treat him kindly.
Su Ruhan did. The Third Prince did too. But the moment Mu Xueshi thought of the Third Prince, the image of his hand being crushed beneath the prince’s foot returned to him, and his chest tightened until he could barely breathe.
Mu Xueshi had never imagined that someone as carefree as himself could become so sensitive to another person’s every action. Even back when he had a crush on a girl, he had never felt anything this complicated.
For the first time, he understood that getting close to another person could hurt this much. If he had known, perhaps he should never have become friends with the Third Prince. Back when he had no friends and no girls liked him, he might occasionally have felt lonely or angry, but he had never known this kind of pain after losing someone.
Was it only because he was too lonely in this world? If he could go back and become Chen Youzai again, surrounded by classmates and his parents, would he forget the Third Prince within a few days?
The Third Prince had put explosives in his mouth to frighten him. He had dragged servants into the courtyard to be beaten and forced Mu Xueshi to watch. He had stepped on Mu Xueshi’s hand. Even if Mu Xueshi had caused him to be injured, the prince should not have refused to let him visit, much less assume he had plotted against him and think him so despicable. That was not merely a matter of trust between friends; it was an insult to his character.
And the Third Prince was always so cold toward him. Even when Mu Xueshi spent every day circling around him, the man barely looked his way.
“No! Why should I forget him? He’s infuriating!”
Mu Xueshi suddenly shouted and hammered his small fists against the hard bed several times. His jewel-bright eyes looked ready to spit fire, and his white teeth bit hard into his red lower lip as though he were preparing to face a mortal enemy.