Zhao Yunlan had been constantly busy before and after the New Year and hadn’t had time for a haircut. His hair had gotten a little long, almost covering his ears. The mountain breeze blew the messy hair on his forehead over his nose bridge. Shen Wei bent down and brushed his hair back. Quietly, he asked, “What do you get?”
“You were so young then. Since I was watching over the Great Seal, there’s no way I would’ve let you run off. Why did I give you Kunlun’s divine tendon?” Zhao Yunlan grabbed Shen Wei’s wrist and looked up. “It was because Shennong wanted to kill you, right? I wanted to save you, and that was all I could do. I was hoping that if one day I was gone, I could pass the power of ten thousand mountains on to you.”
“This time you guessed wrong. He didn’t want to kill me. He wanted to obliterate all the gui. Shennong couldn’t believe that soulless beings could possibly exist in the world. Without a soul, how could one be considered alive? But since he was the one responsible for the gui’s existence, he couldn’t escape the blame. He wanted to ‘fix’ his mistake.” Shen Wei began to tremble. “If you hadn’t given me your tendon… If you hadn’t… You wouldn’t have left me so soon.”
Zhao Yunlan chuckled. “It would’ve happened sooner or later.”
“If I had a little more time, maybe—”
“The little beauty has grown up into a great beauty. What can you possibly do, even now?”
Shen Wei was speechless for a moment.
“Then what happened?” Zhao Yunlan asked.
“Then I confined your primordial spirit and went down to the Reincarnation Cycle to plead with my enemy, Shennong,” Shen Wei said. “He was the only one I ever begged for anything… At that point, the Reincarnation Cycle already had its own order, and the Netherworld had just been established with its own set of rules. I begged him to let you into the Reincarnation Cycle like a mortal. That way, even though you would never remember me, you would still exist. But he wouldn’t do it. He said primordial gods could not enter the cycle because it was his own primordial spirit that was supporting it. It could accept all sorts of souls—humans, yao, gods, demons—but it would not be able to hold the true Mountain God…unless he sealed all your divine powers himself and washed your souls completely clean, turning you into a mortal. If he did that, Shennong’s own primordial spirit would fade away too…like exchanging one life for another. His life for yours.”
“What did you agree to that made him do that?”
“I swore to protect the Great Houtu Seal forever. As long as I existed, the Seal would exist too. If the Seal broke, then I would meet my death along with the rest of the gui.” Shen Wei’s fingers were ice cold. “And…for all of eternity, I could never see you again. If I couldn’t help myself, then I would drain your life force and you would die, your souls shattering into a million pieces.”
Shen Wei suddenly shook off Zhao Yunlan’s hand, reaching up to caress his face. Then he grabbed Zhao Yunlan’s chin, forcing him to look up. Pausing after each word, he said, “I kept this promise for thousands of years. Now that the Great Seal is almost broken, I’m at the end of my road. I originally wanted to come and go quietly, but because of a simple coincidence—because of you—it was all for naught. From that night when you truly belonged to me… No, from that day when you told me, for the second time, that you wanted to give your heart to me, I… I could never let you go again.
“The greed in my heart is bottomless. My inner demons drove my actions. I deliberately placed fake memories in the Great Divine Tree to mislead you; I let you see me extracting my own heart’s blood for you; I left you so that you would come down to the Huangquan River to find me, then led you to see the edited version of memories in the Great Houtu Seal…and all of it to make you feel too much guilt to ever leave me, to make you joyfully and wholeheartedly choose to die with me.”
Shen Wei’s hands grew colder and colder. The higher his emotions spiked, the tighter his fingers became. His grip on Zhao Yunlan’s chin was painful.
“Even now, even after you have seen through every lie, I’m still forcing you.” Shen Wei’s voice was very, very low. “Will you choose to die with me and return to Chaos for all eternity? Or would you rather I strip away your memories of this life, so that you would never know or remember me, leaving not a single thread of connection between us?”
Since Zhao Yunlan was unwilling to be deceived, these two paths were finally laid out clearly before him.
“You’re not allowed to think it over,” Shen Wei said. “You must answer me now.”
Gazing into Shen Wei’s eyes, Zhao Yunlan took hold of Shen Wei’s wrist. Abruptly, he asked, “How long will the Great Seal hold out? Will there be enough time for me to live out my tiny mortal life? Will I be able to care for my parents in their old age and send them off?”
Shen Wei didn’t seem to comprehend. His face and lips were as pale as snow. The only hint of blood anywhere in his features seemed to be in the veins of his eyes. After a long time, his entire body swayed. As though waking from a dream, he grabbed Zhao Yunlan’s shoulder. “What… What did you say? Explain yourself. What do you mean…?”
Zhao Yunlan reached out and gently stroked Shen Wei’s hair. “Such a heavy heart, full of such heavy calculations…” He sighed. “You sure are hard to take care of. Come on, we’re going home.”
Wide-eyed, Shen Wei could only stare at him. Then he flung himself at Zhao Yunlan, pulling him close.
The world spun around him, and Zhao Yunlan had the feeling of familiar ground beneath his feet. There was a sharp sound, as though someone had landed wrong and accidentally knocked over one of the little teacups on the coffee table by the bed, splashing its remaining bit of water on the floor.
But no one cared.
Shen Wei roughly pressed Zhao Yunlan down on the bed, tearing at his clothes almost violently.
“Hey, wait!” Zhao Yunlan grabbed Shen Wei’s hand. “I’m not drinking your blood.”
“It’s no worse than a mosquito bite to me.”
“That’s all well and good for you, but it’s nowhere near the same to me.” Zhao Yunlan pushed him off and tried to feel for the bedside light, but his arms were almost immediately pinned. Shen Wei’s tongue flicked over his Adam’s apple, and Zhao Yunlan panted quietly, unable to hold it in. “Stop messing around.”
“Even if I dug out my entire heart, I won’t die at once. I’d still survive longer than the Great Seal.” Shen Wei’s voice was terribly low. The scorching heat of his breath caressed Zhao Yunlan’s collarbones with each word. “I did consider it at the time—would it be more effective to cut out my heart for you? But I was afraid you’d be too badly frightened, so I only let you see my blood being drawn.”
After a silence, Zhao Yunlan said dryly, “Thanks so much for remembering that I’m a scaredy-cat.”
Shen Wei leaned in closer, kissing the corner of Zhao Yunlan’s lips. His tall, straight nose rubbed against Zhao Yunlan’s face, and their fingers tangled together as he pressed their half-naked bodies closer. “None of that matters. Yunlan, with only a few decades left, let’s spend our lives together like mortals, all right?”
In the final darkness before dawn, their eyes met. As if bewitched by Zhao Yunlan’s gaze, Shen Wei dropped a tender kiss on his lips, gentle and lingering.
After coming back to himself, Zhao Yunlan reciprocated with even more enthusiasm. He reached under Shen Wei’s clothes and slid his hands around Shen Wei’s waist. “Spending our lives together is a nice thought, but I need to lay down some rules for my husband.”
He tightened his grip on Shen Wei’s waist, moving to push him to the side and flip them over…and nothing happened.
It was as if Shen Wei weighed thousands of kilograms, but Zhao Yunlan distinctly remembered picking him up before. Shen Wei definitely weighed the same as a normal human! Zhao Yunlan was perfectly capable of lifting him with his own two hands!
Didn’t you just say you wanted to live like mortals? Do you really need to bully a mortal like this?!