The night wind carried a faint chill. Su Ruhan closed the window, then sensed something wrong the moment he turned around. He hurried to Mu Xueshi and found one hand pressed against his chest, the clothing there twisted into a rag beneath his grip.
“No… don’t think… save me…” Mu Xueshi moaned unconsciously, his face distorted with pain.
Su Ruhan anxiously helped him sit and lean against his body, then checked his breathing and pulse. The rhythm was already wildly disordered. Mu Xueshi suddenly shuddered violently, seized Su Ruhan’s arm like a madman, and gasped, “Save me… save me…”
Su Ruhan wanted to channel internal energy into him and steady his mind, but Mu Xueshi could not calm down at all. He could not simply seal Mu Xueshi’s acupoints either, because trapping all that agitation inside might push him into madness. Su Ruhan could only use his own strength to restrain Mu Xueshi and press him back onto the bed.
“Save me… tell me… tell me…” Mu Xueshi suddenly twisted around and clawed at Su Ruhan’s chest, bloodshot eyes filled with unbearable pain.
Su Ruhan finally made out the plea and leaned close to his lips. “Tell you what? What were you saying just now?”
Mu Xueshi’s lips trembled. Without warning, he raked a hand across Su Ruhan’s face, leaving several bloody scratches on his left cheek.
“Tell me… the Third Prince… what does the Third Prince want me to remember? What do I have to remember before he’ll let me go? Please… please…”
Su Ruhan froze. At last he understood what Mu Xueshi was begging to know.
But as for what he should actually do, Su Ruhan’s mind went completely blank.
Something wet suddenly brushed his ear. Su Ruhan realized in shock that Mu Xueshi had begun trying to seduce him in desperation, using clumsy intimacy as though it might buy the answer he wanted.
Su Ruhan’s heart tightened. Remembering Mu Xueshi’s cold gaze from earlier, he finally understood how brutally this medicine could torment a person.
Su Ruhan stopped Mu Xueshi’s movements while forcing his own breathing steady. The more he resisted, the more desperately Mu Xueshi pressed the attempt, his disordered clothing and pleading expression making the situation even more unsettling.
For one instant, Su Ruhan imagined the mockery hidden beneath Mu Xueshi’s desperate gaze: Men are all the same, filthy and base.
Su Ruhan caught Mu Xueshi’s hands and held him firmly against his chest, stopping every attempt to move. Mu Xueshi still did not give up. His fingers clenched painfully around Su Ruhan’s knuckles while he kept whispering, “Tell me… the Third Prince… what does he want me to remember…”
Hearing those words, Su Ruhan no longer knew whose pain he should grieve more.
“Ah…”
A hoarse cry suddenly tore from Mu Xueshi’s throat as the medicine seemed to reach its peak. His reason collapsed. He began biting and tearing at anything within reach, shouting broken phrases such as “Don’t make me remember” and “I hate you,” while also trying to hurt himself with whatever sharp objects he could reach.
Su Ruhan’s face changed. He rushed to stop him and was startled to discover that even with his own strength, restraining Mu Xueshi in this state was difficult.
“Ugh…” Mu Xueshi suddenly coughed up blood, splashing it across Su Ruhan’s face and neck.
Su Ruhan could hesitate no longer. He sealed two acupoints, laid Mu Xueshi flat, and immediately began using internal energy to calm him. Mu Xueshi stared hollowly toward the window and murmured, “Tell me… or kill me…”
Su Ruhan concentrated, pressing two fingers near Mu Xueshi’s chest and sending steady currents of energy into him. At last Mu Xueshi’s breathing began to even out.
Your Highness, forgive me. I cannot keep watching Mu Xueshi suffer like this.
Without anyone noticing, dawn began to lighten the sky. Su Ruhan had struggled with Mu Xueshi the entire night. At last he released the acupoints. Mu Xueshi’s hair was disheveled, his gaze unfocused, while Su Ruhan himself sat exhausted beside the bed.
“Tell me… or kill me…” Mu Xueshi continued repeating the same sentence, as he had nearly the entire night.
Su Ruhan felt suffocated by the pressure in his chest. He watched Mu Xueshi for a long time, then finally sighed. “I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you everything…”
Su Ruhan’s voice remained calm and steady, but he spoke with unusual care, recounting nearly everything that had happened between Mu Xueshi and the Third Prince over the previous weeks. Little by little, Mu Xueshi began to understand the meaning behind the Third Prince’s recent words, and why the prince had treated him so cruelly.
The moment Su Ruhan finished, dawn broke fully. A beam of morning light entered the room and stung his eyes.
“I’m leaving. Remember to take care of yourself.” Su Ruhan walked toward the door. Before stepping out, he looked back once. Seeing Mu Xueshi apparently asleep, he quietly opened the door and left.
The Third Prince stood in the place where Su Ruhan usually practiced swordsmanship, his long sword moving through the air. White petals covered the ground, all cut from the branches by his blade. Dressed in fitted white robes, his expression distant and his movements swift, he seemed almost part of the field of fallen blossoms.
The Third Prince outside and the person inside, beautiful enough to belong in a painting, looked almost like a pair created by heaven itself.
The Third Prince’s sword suddenly pointed toward Su Ruhan and stopped at the tip of his nose. Su Ruhan stood perfectly straight like a stone statue, fatigue visible across his sharply defined face.
“You do not need to tell me anything.” The Third Prince withdrew the sword and walked toward his bedchamber, leaving Su Ruhan standing alone.
The room was not in the disorder the Third Prince had imagined. Everything was arranged neatly. The cold figure he expected to find on the bed was instead seated upright beside the large desk.
Mu Xueshi’s complexion was poor, but his spirit seemed unusually clear. He held a tea bowl while beautiful fingers moved lightly across the tea ware, a faint smile on his face.
The sight felt so unreal that the Third Prince did not dare persuade himself to believe Mu Xueshi had remembered everything. He understood too well the despair that followed hope and could only stand silently at the doorway.
“Why doesn’t Your Highness come in?” Mu Xueshi glanced at him, undisguised mockery in his eyes.
The words “Your Highness” immediately told the Third Prince that his hope had been premature. Even so, Mu Xueshi getting out of bed, sitting here, and willingly speaking to him was already an enormous change.
The Third Prince steadied his voice and asked calmly, “Awake?”
“I never slept,” Mu Xueshi answered crisply.
The Third Prince noticed that Mu Xueshi had deliberately groomed himself. His shoulder-length hair was loosely pinned with a patterned hairpin. A pale-blue robe fell to his knees above ivory trousers, and his bare pale feet rested against the floor. The Third Prince remembered how Mu Xueshi once liked rubbing his feet against the prince’s and called it “rub-rub.”
Mu Xueshi looked so beautiful today that he seemed almost unreal. The Third Prince crossed the room and sat beside him. Mu Xueshi did not resist at all.
“Your Highness, I remembered everything.” A clear smile curved Mu Xueshi’s lips.
I remembered everything… I remembered everything…
The words echoed again and again through the Third Prince’s mind, difficult to believe. He tried to remain rational, but joy surged through him like a tidal wave, leaving him almost dizzy.
In the next instant, the Third Prince had already pulled Mu Xueshi into his arms. His breathing unsteady, he asked, “What did you remember?”
Mu Xueshi smiled, his voice drifting softly through the room.
“I remember the horse you gave me and how we rode together to have fun. I remember you openly defying the Emperor in the hall to clear my name. I remember Gu Master Mo Ru deceiving me into thinking you were badly poisoned, and how I waited in the grass for the Yinglan flower to bloom for you. I remember us going to the lake to watch fireflies, and the lantern you gave me…”
“Enough…” The Third Prince’s hand trembled slightly as he stroked Mu Xueshi’s hair. “It is enough that you remember.”
“Because I never forgot.”
The heat in the Third Prince’s gaze slowly cooled. He gently pushed Mu Xueshi back, stared at him, and asked, “What did you say?”
Mu Xueshi looked directly back. The killing intent in his eyes grew stronger.
“I said I never forgot. I remember perfectly well how I deceived you. Your Highness, do not think you are the only person who knows how to torment someone. I, Mu Xueshi, know how too.”
“Why deceive me? Why torment me? Young Master Xue, perhaps you should explain it so I can learn from you.” The Third Prince’s voice became still as dead water, and even the air around them seemed to stop.
Mu Xueshi slowly closed his eyes and turned toward the window. “The deception is that I knew exactly how I had treated you during those days. And the torment is that every bit of tenderness and care I gave you then was only so I could use it now to take revenge on you.”
Every bit of tenderness and care I gave you then was only so I could use it now to take revenge on you.