MO XI SPOKE QUIETLY, but his voice was full of oppressive storm clouds.
"Lu Zhanxing..." Gu Mang mumbled, "Zhanxing..."
This overly intimate mode of address swiftly ignited the fire in Mo Xi's heart. Brows knit in fury, he clenched his jaw. "Sure enough, Gu Mang —in your heart, he's always going to be much more important than me."
Gu Mang fumbled through his pitiful memories. "He was my... brother."
This word seemed to jab Mo Xi. "Yes. He was your brother."
His voice was very low when he said this, as if he were enduring his disgust, striving to admit a truth that nauseated him. He took a deep breath and raised a hand to massage his temple. "You're absolutely right," he continued softly. "Lu Zhanxing, that useless idiot, that stupid overemotional swine—he was your brother."
These words bothered Gu Mang somewhere in the recesses of his consciousness. He frowned. "You can't insult him. He's not a stupid swine. He's not useless either."
Mo Xi was silent. The hand kneading at his aching head froze, but it remained by his brow, hiding the expression on his face. It took him a while to reply. "Even with your mind broken, you still remember enough to defend him?" Mo Xi didn't raise his voice or express any outward rage, but when Gu Mang heard his voice, he shuddered. "General Gu, you're truly so considerate. You hold such deep sentiment for your comrades."
Mo Xi lowered his hand and looked up. His gaze was dark and deep, glimmering distantly. In silence, he stared at Gu Mang for a long while, something shadowy and inscrutable in his face. "So tell me then. What have you remembered about that dear brother of yours?"
Mo Xi's gaze was too heavy. Gu Mang's bowed his head beneath his stare. Looking at his knees, he began to speak. "First, I saw a lot of people.
They were all blaming me."
Mo Xi waited for him to elaborate.
"Blaming me for not doing what I promised them, saying that I forgot their names." Dazed, Gu Mang continued, "And then, I saw Zhanxing."
Mo Xi's heart tightened, but his expression remained neutral. "And what did he do to you?"
"He...he smiled at me. He looked back to smile at me, and then... then he turned to leave. I wanted to chase after him, but I couldn't catch up. He disappeared among the rest of them," said Gu Mang. "That's how I remembered, I used to have a brother like him."
Mo Xi didn't make a sound.
Gu Mang raised his head to ask, hesitantly, "Was I like you, before? Did I have an army too?"
A pause. "Yes."
"Then, was Zhanxing also in the army..."
"Yes," Mo Xi replied expressionlessly. "He was your second-in- command."
Gu Mang's eyes sparked with longing. "Where is he? Is he also in Chonghua?"
Mo Xi looked out the window. Magpies were chirping outside, and sunlight streamed onto the floor through the window lattice. "You'll never see him again. No need to miss him."
Gu Mang was taken aback. "Why?"
Mo Xi's expression was cruel in its indifference as he uttered three succinct words: "He's already dead."
There were a few beats of silence before Gu Mang asked blankly, "What?"
"He's dead. He was decapitated in the eastern market. His body hung there for three days."
How much hatred did it take to turn this upright and honorable man into such a malicious creature? Poison seemed to burst from his heart and drip from his teeth. Mo Xi didn't look at Gu Mang's face; his eyes fixed on the variegated patterns of light cast by the window lattice. "My apologies— that person has long vanished from this world. It doesn't matter if you miss him. You're just wasting your time."
Gu Mang's eyes widened. He had learned enough words these days to understand everything Mo Xi said—but at this moment, he suddenly wished he was still the way he'd been at Luomei Pavilion, only able to comprehend the simplest sentences. He didn't want to understand what Mo Xi was saying at all.
Gu Mang's lips parted. He wanted to speak, but his heart felt like it was being cut apart. It wasn't a great shock, as if he'd already known subconsciously that Lu Zhanxing was dead, as if he had already experienced such anguish and separation many years ago. But he hadn't expected that Mo Xi would unearth this bloody wound and so ruthlessly tear it apart. Gu Mang lowered his head, and his vision blurred.
Mo Xi whipped around, grinding his teeth. "What are you crying for?"
"I...don't know..."
"After so long, you still mourn for him?" Blood surged in Mo Xi's chest. He still worked to restrain himself, but his eyes were becoming bloodshot. "Gu Mang, you must be fucking insane."
Gu Mang could only hold his head and mumble. "You don't understand. You don't understand..."
"What do I not understand?!" Hearing Gu Mang instinctively take Lu Zhanxing's side, Mo Xi's chest constricted. His temper flared. With a crash, he swept the bowls on the bedside table to the floor, the shattered porcelain clinking across the ground.
Mo Xi shot to his feet, grabbing Gu Mang's hair-knot and wrenching his face upward so he could only look at Mo Xi. "Do you know what kind of lowlife Lu Zhanxing was?" he snarled, gnashing his teeth. "Do you know what kind of worthless person he was?!"
Gu Mang couldn't reply.
"Yes, he was your brother." In Mo Xi's probing gaze was a desire to pull out all of Gu Mang's organs, to crush them between his palms so he could never mourn for another again. He felt so much hatred, so much longing—he was so completely at a loss. His hands almost trembling, Mo Xi snapped, "It was your dear brother who impulsively beheaded that envoy on the battlefield. He was the one who instigated the calamity that set aflame the hatred of the other neutral countries! He was the one who brought doom upon Chonghua and caused so many innocents to lose their lives!
"You can't remember any of this, can you? Good! I'll remind you! I'll tell you! Yours! Mine! Our fellow soldiers were lured into a trap because of him! Millions of Chonghua's citizens' lives were ruined or cut short because of him! Your brother! You're the one who indulged him! Go on, keep defending him!"
The fury Mo Xi had suppressed for so many years ignited, flames of rage reaching out to burn through Gu Mang. "Brother? For the sake of a moment's satisfaction, he disregarded your command and beheaded an envoy who'd come to parley. That's your brother? He pushed you into the fire and set you up to fail—that's your brother? Your lifelong wish was to see slaves succeed and achieve things too—you worked so tirelessly, for so long, risking your life time and time again. With one impulse, he destroyed everything you strove for. So what kind of fucking brother is this?"
The tendons protruded from Mo Xi's hands as he spoke. His cheeks were flushed with emotion, the veins in his neck pulsing. He stared hard into Gu Mang's eyes, his gaze unblinking as he poured all his surging hatred and upset down upon him. "Gu Mang, you'd better get this straight!" he thundered furiously. "If it weren't for that evil bastard, none of this would have fucking happened! The nobles wouldn't have been given cause to wag their tongues, and the emperor wouldn't have been given the chance to strip you of your power! All those innocent cultivators...commoners... none of them would have fucking died! Nor would you have...would you have..."
Mo Xi panted, suddenly unable to continue. He slowly released Gu Mang, his eyes filled with fiery hatred and endless tears. He turned away and swiped at the rims of his eyes. The bitterness in his throat had suppressed the rest of that sentence. The past few years had hurt too much to endure...it really was too much.
If it weren't for Lu Zhanxing, you wouldn't have been pushed to the point of no return. You wouldn't have defected to the Liao Kingdom and given yourself up to demonic magic. We would not have ended up like this.
"It's come to this...and yet you still can't forget him. You still treat him as your brother." Mo Xi's face wore a veneer of ridicule that shoved down all his sorrow. "And still you don't let me curse his name," he murmured. Mo Xi lowered his lashes and softly scoffed. "Fine. I understand. Whether in the past, present, or future, no matter when, no matter if he did right or wrong, no matter if he's alive or dead, I still... I still..."
I still lose to him.
His trembling lips pressed themselves together. Mo Xi fell silent. He was such a proud person—he had torn his chest open, given Gu Mang everything he had, but still he had been cast aside. He had so pathetically become a sacrificial pawn in Gu Mang's life. How could he once more summon up the courage to tell Gu Mang how he felt?
Mo Xi tamped down his unsteady emotions, afraid that he would lose more and more control if he continued. His throat bobbed as he swallowed. Only after a long while did he utter one sentence, his voice low and hoarse, almost a sigh: "Gu Mang. If he's your brother, then what am I..."
What am I? Who am I to you? Once, you abandoned me for your brothers. Discarded me for your ideals. Pushed me into the depths of hell for your comrades. Its been seven years. I've lingered in this hell, living a life worse than death, for seven years.
When you staked everything for them, did you ever think of me? Did you want me to face the person I loved the most with swords drawn, or did you want me to run off with you into the distance, tossing aside the Chonghua that the Mo Clan has protected for generations? When you left in fury on their behalf, did you ever think about where that left me?
I cared for you and cherished you, so you didn't hesitate to hurt me, over and over; to regard me as the least of your worries, again and again.
Right?
Mo Xi's expression was shattered, despite his valiant attempts to control it. As Gu Mang stared, he couldn't describe how he felt—he only knew that it hurt very much.
It hurt to hear that Lu Zhanxing was dead. It hurt to hear the soldiers in his dream call him General Gu. But seeing Mo Xi like this caused him an entirely different kind of anguish. It made him reach out, almost unwittingly. After some hesitation, he cupped Mo Xi's face with one trembling hand. "No. You're my..."
My what? The answer seemed to be on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn't give voice to it. Those intimate memories of their past seemed to be right there in his heart, but he couldn't unearth them no matter how he tried.
Mo Xi tilted his head, waiting for Gu Mang to finish his sentence. But after they gazed at each other for a long while, Gu Mang still had a lump in his throat, and said nothing.
As he waited, Mo Xi's eyes slowly reddened and filled with tears. He pushed Gu Mang's hand away. "You don't need to think so hard. I'll say it for you: To you, I am nothing. Between us, we had nothing. You were just playing along, and I was young and foolish." He spat out each word, one by one, his red eyes fixed on Gu Mang's face. His tone and expression were ruthless and fierce, but each word stabbed into his very own heart.
"Your brother was Lu Zhanxing, not me. Your dream was accomplishing your goals, not me. Your passion, your obsession, the past you can't relinquish, was your thousands of comrades. Not me."
Gu Mang shook his head slightly. As he watched this terribly powerful yet terribly lonely man, the pain in his heart grew deeper and clearer. "That's not right... It's not like this..."
Mo Xi's hand clamped around his wrist, the light in his eyes wavering as he stared at Gu Mang's face. "What else could it be?" He yanked on Gu Mang's hand with terrifying force, pulling it to his chest where his heart throbbed. "Did you know? I have a scar here. You gave it to me."
Gu Mang's eyes widened slightly.
Mo Xi laughed softly, almost masochistically. "Gu Mang, I've always wanted to ask you this question. If the person who tried to stop you back then was Lu Zhanxing instead of me, would you have been able to bring the blade down?"
"I...I hurt you before?"
Mo Xi leaned in close and whispered right into his ear: "You nearly killed me."
Just because, back then, I loved you more than I feared death.
As though burned, Gu Mang wanted to jerk his hand away, but Mo Xi pressed down on it so hard he couldn't move. He could only feel the pulsing throb of the heartbeat under his hand. How could he have wanted to kill him? In his memories, he saw that they had been inseparably close—so how could he have just been "playing along"? There were many things he couldn't fully remember, but he could clearly recall the happiness and warmth he felt on that night Mo Xi came of age. How could it be false?
"Very confusing, isn't it?" Mo Xi spoke into his ear, his breath very close, damp and heated. "As a matter of fact, I can't understand it either. Seven years ago, you pushed me into hell. I've thought it over for a full seven years, but even today, I still don't understand how you could be so ruthless."
His voice was so low, but it coursed with an incandescent hatred. "I don't understand you, Gu Mang. Did you think I'd always forgive you without reservation? Is that why you trampled over me? Or was it because —" He paused, the jut of his throat bobbing. "I was never in your heart to begin with."
That's why you could take my heart and tread on it like dirt. That's why you didn't care that I was besieged from all sides, forced to make impossible choices, unable to answer to both gratitude and loyalty.
Gu Mang was forced to a dead end by these blood-tainted questions; he felt that his pitiful brain was at its limit. He had only a ladleful of memories, but Mo Xi wanted to scoop a sea of emotions out of him. "I don't know..." he mumbled. "I really...really don't know..."
"You do know. It's buried in your heart," Mo Xi said quietly. "I'm keeping you just to wait for the day you do remember. Then, I will make you kneel before me and give me an answer, and an apology."
Only then did those slender and cold fingers release their grip on Gu Mang's hair-knot and move to pat Gu Mang threateningly on the back. "My patience isn't actually much better than Murong Lian's." Mo Xi slowly pulled away from Gu Mang, those sleepless eyes fixed on his face. "So," he whispered, tapping Gu Mang's temple. "Shige, don't make me wait too long."