Chapter 6
Edward Quan ·
With the last of my strength, I leaned against the foot of the marker.
The silence around me was frightening.
There was only my own ragged breathing.
Everything was still dark.
Warmth was leaving me fast.
This time, I probably wouldn’t survive.
Just as I was about to give up, frantic hoofbeats sounded in the distance.
“A-Yue! Where are you?”
Linyuan.
He had come.
I curled my lips.
“Brother!”
The footsteps stopped.
Then he rushed toward me like a madman.
The heat of a torch approached. Hands smelling of blood suddenly lifted me.
“A physician! Someone fetch a physician!”
Warm drops fell on my face.
Was he crying?
“Hold on! I won’t let you die!”
He held me tightly, his voice breaking.
“You called me Brother. Explain yourself.”
“I don’t believe it. A-Yue is dead. I gathered her body and buried her myself.”
“But why are you…”
His words tangled. His whole body trembled.
With difficulty, I raised a hand and nudged his saber.
The protective bell gave a faint chime.
“Brother…”
He went rigid. Even his breathing seemed to stop.
He bent close to my lips.
I forced out each word.
“Before your bed… beneath the third brick on the left… you hid… the wooden goose I gave you when I was eight…”
“We promised… to go to the desert together… to watch the wild geese…”
His pupils contracted.
As though all his strength had drained away, he tightened his arms around me.
Only the two of us knew that secret.
No one but the real Xie Linyue could have known.
“A-Yue…”
He let out an anguished cry.
His tears fell so hot they seemed to burn my skin.
“It really is you…”
He frantically pressed against my chest wound, desperately channeling his inner energy into me.
“Don’t be afraid. I’ll take you home.”
“I’m sorry… I’m late… I’m so sorry…”
He knelt among the corpses, holding me and weeping until his voice went hoarse.
The apology he owed me ten years ago had finally come.
But I no longer needed it.
In the end, Linyuan did wrest my life back from the King of Hell.
“A-Yue.”
As soon as I woke, he hurried close, his voice careful and tentative.
“Does it still hurt?”
I smiled coldly.
“Why are you watching over me, Lord Xie? Shouldn’t you be with your pregnant wife?”
His breath caught.
“I didn’t know it was you…”
He reached to stroke my head, but his hand remained suspended. He didn’t dare lower it.
I turned away from his breath.
Did he truly care about me?
As I avoided him, his hand fell helplessly.
“You hate me.”
He slowly came closer.
“Is there something you want to ask? Ask me. I’ll tell you everything.”
I nodded, my voice calm.
“You must have guessed what I want to know.”
“I didn’t die ten years ago.”
“But you personally collected my body and buried me.”
“Who found that body for you?”
He froze.
A thought rose in his mind that he couldn’t suppress.
Only after a long time did he speak.
“Shen Zhiwan?”
When I nodded, he fell to his knees.
“She lied to me… She deceived me with a false corpse for ten years…”
“But A-Yue, I didn’t break my promise! I really came back!”
He wept with heartbreaking force.
“As soon as she was safe, I led men back into the city!”
“The ancestral hall had burned down. There was a woman’s body inside, dressed like you, built like you. Even the old scar on her forehead was there!”
“She’d been tortured beyond recognition. Her face was destroyed. I thought you were dead! I thought I’d killed you by coming too late!”
He gripped me.
“I’m a beast! She deceived me, and I married the woman who hurt you!”
His anguished cries made my newly stitched wound throb.
His hand stopped half an inch from the corner of my eye.
“Your eyes… How did you lose them?”
“The rebels… What did they do to you?”
The fire outside the ancestral hall ten years ago rose before me again.
I answered coldly.
“They said I liked glaring at people. They drove a blade into my eyes and gouged them out while I was alive.”
“I thought you would come back.”
He covered his face desperately.
Tears kept pouring between his fingers.
“I’m sorry… How much pain you must have been in…”
“Kill me, A-Yue! Take my saber and kill me!”
He seized my hand and pulled it toward the weapon at his side.
The bell chimed brightly.
I slowly withdrew my hand.