Futile Devices Scans

An eidetic memory is not necessarily a blessing. Wei Fu understood that from a very young age.

He could clearly remember every wrong anyone had ever done to him, and could accurately recount the time, place, cause, and circumstances. He could even recall the tone of voice and emotions involved. Yet the responses he received were always the same: Why are you so vindictive? You think too much. Is it really worth making such a fuss over something so trivial?

In that sense, forgetting is a form of protection, both inwardly and outwardly.

For a very long time, however, there was one thing he alone had forgotten: why he had become mute.

Whenever thunderstorms came, he would have the same nightmare.

In the dream, a pair of hands clamped around his throat. He could neither cry out nor breathe. Lightning illuminated a pitch-black room, revealing the gleam of a blade and a figure slashing downward against a whitewashed wall. Blood sprayed in an instant, and he would wake up gasping, suffocated by the breathlessness from the dream.

Wei Fu had always believed the dream couldn’t be real. After all, no one would be foolish enough to choke someone with one hand while simultaneously cutting their throat with a knife. That was practically asking to stab your own hand. How absurdly awkward a position would someone have to choose for that?

It wasn’t until he was fifteen, when he and Yu Gong Zhao Ye were stranded in the wilderness together. After being drenched by rain and falling into a burning fever, he slept in a mountain cave. Perhaps because he had suffered too many shocks beforehand, he dreamed the same dream again that rainy night.

And this time, he finally saw the face that had always remained hidden in the darkness—or rather, it wasn’t that he saw it. He remembered it. The true memory, long buried beneath pain and terror.

Thunder and lightning echoed outside his fading consciousness, stirring the torrential rain within his memories and washing over the long-forgotten dream.

Long-forgotten indeed. Wei Fu thought hazily. Ever since that night when he was fifteen, he had never dreamed it again.

Could this be another brush with death?

His field of vision was narrow. Everything around him seemed huge and dark. The black ceiling loomed overhead like the sky itself. The railing beside him was cold and hard. The room alternated between bright as day and dimly lit by a faint yellow glow. Whenever lightning flashed, he could see countless clawing shadows outside the window.

A drenched figure stood before him.

The man lowered a pale, handsome face to look down at him. Wet black hair clung to his cheeks like twisting snakes. His brows and lashes were pitch black, his eyes dark and sunken, his lips devoid of color. Apart from black and white, there seemed to be no other color on him. He looked like a drowned ghost crawling from beneath icy waters and snow.

The ghost blinked. A droplet slid from his lashes like a cold tear and splashed onto Wei Fu’s face.

A little frightening, but not terribly so. Perhaps because he was too handsome. Even as a ghost, he was an oddly pleasing one.

Wei Fu reached out, wanting to touch him.

Instead, the ghost’s hand descended first. The hand blotted out the sky. Wet and cold, it settled around his neck. Uncomfortable, Wei Fu twisted and struggled. His mouth puckered, ready to cry. Yet the fingers only tightened. The man studied him intently, then smiled.

“So you’re that bastard child.”

Bang!

The door was kicked open from outside.

It slammed against the wall repeatedly as wind, rain, and thunder burst into the room alongside a woman. The moment she saw someone standing by the bed, she cried out sharply, “Let him go! Don’t touch him!”

The man held the three-year-old child by the throat. Beneath his fingers, he could feel the vigorous pulse beating against his skin. Seeing the woman draw her sword and point it at him in panic, he suddenly tightened his grip. The child could no longer endure the pain and finally burst into loud sobs.

“Long time no see, Mother. You were quite difficult to find.”

“Let him go.”

Holding her short sword level, the woman approached cautiously, as though facing a beast lurking in a stormy forest. Her voice trembled with fear. “The child is innocent. If you want to kill someone, kill me. Torture me if you must. But don’t hurt Guanlang.”

“Guanlang?”

He glanced down at the toddler gasping and crying amid the pillows. Though the child was still young and not yet fully grown, the shape of those eyes was unmistakably identical to both his own and the woman’s. He sneered.

“A fine name.”

“From the moment you walked in, you haven’t called me Mother even once. Tell me, how can I leave him alive?”

“Yu Lan!”

The words cut deeper than a knife. Tears immediately welled up in her eyes.

“I wronged you… If you hate me, resent me, blame me, then vent your anger on me. Don’t involve the innocent. I’m begging you—please let Guanlang go first. Please?”

In the end, it always came back to this child. His grip shifted downward. Seizing the toddler by the collar, he lifted him from the pile of pillows and dangled him in the air. The child’s sobbing grated on his nerves. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the woman recklessly rush forward several steps. His anger surged.

Have you ever worried about me like this?

His gaze swept across the barren room. Contempt and disdain were plain on his face.

At last he spoke arrogantly. “Mother, you’ve spent years hiding and fleeing, hunted everywhere by Father’s men. You’ve suffered enough. Since you know you were wrong, sever those useless attachments and return to Beizhu Palace with me.”

The woman’s tentative advance halted. She shook her head. The refusal escaped instinctively.

“No.”

Thunder rolled overhead. A brilliant flash illuminated the room stark white.

In that instant, he clearly saw the terror and hatred etched into her eyes. Toward him. Toward his father. Toward Beizhu Palace. Toward everything she had abandoned.

She had never regretted leaving.

Because seeking advantage and avoiding harm are human instincts. If someone is willing to risk death to escape something, then what they are fleeing must be even more terrifying than death itself.

Throughout his childhood, she had never once called herself his mother. Perhaps she had never wanted him in the first place. Only then did he realize how foolish and oblivious he had been, incapable of seeing how desperately she wished to avoid him.

Suddenly, he felt like the rain outside. The more he tried to draw close to someone, the more he drenched them. An annoyance. An unwelcome burden. People didn’t appreciate him. They only wanted to run away.

“Do you really think you’ve done nothing wrong?”

She gazed at him sorrowfully through eyes identical to his own. Just like during all those years they had spent together, those eyes held endless melancholy but very little warmth. It was not the gaze of a mother looking at her child.

“You don’t know what my life in Beizhu Palace was like…”

I don’t know?

He wanted to roar the question. What should I know? Were all those years we spent together a lie? Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you give me a chance to make things right? Why did you simply leave me behind without ever looking back?

But the illusion had already shattered. No matter how much he questioned, doubted, or struggled, he would only muddy the waters further. The past could never be pieced back together.

They stood facing each other. Neither took another step forward. Neither shed a tear. Only the pouring rain and the howling child cried for them both.

“You won’t return.”

He delivered the final verdict in the form of a question. The woman’s lips trembled. She seemed about to speak, but swallowed the words instead. Silently, she nodded.

“Good.”

He nodded as well. Casually tossing the child back onto the bed, he seized his throat once more. With his other hand, he drew a dagger from his waist.

Calmly, he said, “I came under Father’s orders to personally dispose of this bastard child.”

He changed expression too quickly. Moved too quickly.

Before the woman could react and scream No!, the blade plunged mercilessly toward Guanlang’s chest.

“Big Brother!”

A sharp cry rang out, faster than the knife itself. Like lightning breaking through a window, it lashed across his spine. His hand twitched involuntarily. The child burst into even louder sobs.

“It hurts… Big Brother hurts…”

Nonsense. Big Brother doesn’t hurt.

Perhaps because the pain was too great, the child instinctively identified the culprit. Tiny hands clutched his wrist while he cried pitifully, “Big Brother… don’t grab… Big Brother…”

His own mother refused to acknowledge him. Yet this bargain-bin little brother called him Big Brotherwith remarkable fluency. Of course, the brat knew nothing. He probably called every older male that. By sheer coincidence, he had stumbled upon the correct answer.

“Shut up.”

The words came out viciously.

The dagger traced a line of blood through the air. For a moment, the world fell silent.

The short sword pressed against his chest trembled violently. It was forged from rare meteoric iron, sharp enough to sever any blade in existence. It could have pierced straight through him, taken an arm, or killed him outright.

Blood poured forth, soaking his already wet clothing. But that was all. The sword tip had only broken the skin.

At the moment when one strike could determine life or death, she finally showed him mercy. Pity. The very thing he had once desperately longed for. Now it came far too late. It was useless.

The child lay unconscious, blood spreading beneath his neck in a dark crimson pool. He withdrew his blood-covered hand.

“Take him back.”

“Palace Master Xie?”

“Xie You Lan!”

His eyelids felt heavy. The voices around him were noisy. His mouth tasted bitter. There was a faint metallic tang of blood, the taste of medicine he couldn’t identify, and a lingering trace of salt.

Wet clothes clung to his skin, cold and clammy, making him wonder if he was still dreaming. Only the warmth in his hand felt real.

He flexed his fingers experimentally and realized someone was holding them. Curious, he forced his eyes open.

The first thing he saw was Cheng Yu, frowning down at him.

Not the peach blossom eyes inherited by his family. Instead, gentle amber-colored drooping eyes.

Xie You Lan smiled.

Cheng Yu worriedly pressed a hand to his forehead.

“This is bad. Did you hit your head? You seem to have gotten stupid.”

Xie You Lan: “…”

He endured the discomfort of his soaked clothing and sat up, surveying his surroundings. They were no longer on the boat, not even on the lake. Instead, they had somehow been transported to a wild mountain clearing.

Overhead stretched a cloudy sky. Steep curved cliffs surrounded them on all sides, covered in wild grass and trees. Not far away stood a dark cave tall enough for a person to enter. Faint sounds of water echoed from deep within, and occasionally damp breezes drifted out.

He looked at Cheng Yu, then felt the back of his head, then the top of his skull.

Satisfied that he was conscious, sane, and possessed normal vision and intelligence, he came to a conclusion.

They were in… a pit?

“Where is this place?”

Nearby, Yu Gong Zhao Ye was gathering branches for a fire. Without looking up, he replied coldly:

“The Underworld.”

Already?

Xie You Lan let out an understanding “Oh.”

He placed his right hand back into Cheng Yu’s grasp. Resting his free left hand across his abdomen, he peacefully lay back down with his head on Cheng Yu’s lap and closed his eyes.

Everyone: “…”

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