Chapter 116

Zelan was still sleeping peacefully in the brocade quilt, her breathing long and even.

Xiao Qiyun was sitting on a low couch by the window, reading military books. When he heard deliberately light footsteps outside the door, he looked up and saw Sheng Xuan carrying a food box, tiptoeing open the door.

Their eyes met, and Xiao Qiyun raised an eyebrow with a look of disgust that said, "It's you again." Sheng Xuan pouted and mouthed back, "You think I want to see you?", but her eyes involuntarily drifted toward the bed.

He carefully placed the food box down. Then he squatted by the bed and stared at Su Zhelan's sleeping face for a long time.

He couldn't resist reaching out, but stopped just before touching Su Zhelan's cheek, ultimately only lightly brushing away a strand of hair that had fallen onto the tip of Su Zhelan's nose. Then, with practiced ease, he dragged a round-backed chair to the bedside, the chair legs making a very soft scraping sound as they brushed against the blue bricks.

Xiao Qiyun glared at him warningly, and Sheng Xuan immediately put her index finger to her lips, making a shushing gesture.

He slowly sat down, folded his hands on his knees, and stared intently at Su Zhelan's sleeping face.

In the morning light, Su Zhelan's eyelashes trembled slightly like resting butterfly wings.

Sheng Xuan unconsciously reached out, his fingertips hovering above the stray strand of hair for a moment before he gently twirled the end of the hair between his fingers. The black hair slid like silk across his knuckles and then slipped away silently.

"Try touching it again?" Xiao Qiyun suddenly lowered his voice, the pages of the book in his hand making a dangerous turning sound.

Sheng Xuan defiantly tossed a strand of hair aside, this time deliberately letting it slowly slip through her fingers.

A triumphant smile played on his lips, but his eyes never left Su Zhelan's shoulders, which rose and fell with her breath.

When Sheng Xuan noticed that Su Zhelan had unconsciously rubbed against the source of warmth—himself—his ears immediately turned red, and he quickly pretended to tidy up the corner of the blanket to hide his panic.

Xiao Qiyun snorted coldly, but did not stop her. The only sounds in the room were the turning of pages, even breathing, and the rustling of clothes against the quilt as Sheng Xuan occasionally couldn't help but touch Su Zhelan's hair.

At one moment, Sheng Xuan's fingers accidentally brushed against Su Zhelan's earlobe, and the sleeping person immediately let out a groan, startling Sheng Xuan so much that he froze on the spot, too afraid to move.

"Coward." Xiao Qiyun scoffed, casually tossing a soft pillow onto Sheng Xuan's shoulder.

Just as Sheng Xuan was about to retaliate, he saw Su Zhelan's eyelashes suddenly tremble violently—was she about to wake up? The two of them held their breath at the same time. Sheng Xuan was still in a half-leaning position, his fingers awkwardly hovering beside Su Zhelan's face.

In his hazy state, Su Zhelan felt a warm breath brush against his cheek. He slowly opened his eyes, and Sheng Xuan's magnified face suddenly came into view—amber eyes were staring intently at him, so close that he could count the other's eyelashes.

"......!" Su Zhelan was so frightened that she shrank back, almost hitting the bedpost with the back of her head.

Sheng Xuan quickly reached out to cushion it, his palm making a muffled thud against the sandalwood.

In the morning light, the two remained frozen in this strange position. Su Zhelan blinked her sleepy eyes, finally slowly coming back to her senses, and slapped Sheng Xuan's hand away, muttering, "So early in the morning...it's terrifying..." Her voice was still soft and sweet from just waking up.

He rubbed his eyes and sat up. The brocade quilt slipped off his shoulders, revealing his collarbone, which was faintly visible beneath his snow-white undergarment.

Sheng Xuan's Adam's apple bobbed, and he was about to speak when Su Zhelan yawned and climbed off the bed beside his legs, letting out a small "hiss" as her bare feet stepped onto the cold floor tiles.

Xiao Qiyun handed over a warm cloth sock at the right moment. When Su Zhelan took it, their fingertips touched, and the two exchanged a knowing look.

Shengxuan watched their tacit interaction and pouted.

Su Zhelan slowly washed and dressed, completely unaware that the warm water in the copper basin had splashed onto her front.

As he was tying his hair in front of the mirror, Sheng Xuan suddenly reached out from behind: "This side isn't tied up properly..." Before he could finish speaking, Su Zhelan dodged to the side: "Don't mess around." Her tone was as natural as if she were saying how nice the weather was today.

The morning bell rang outside the window. Su Zhelan fastened the last sash, and Sheng Xuan, flatteringly, put his arm around Su Zhelan's shoulder. "I specially went to the south of the city to buy osmanthus sugar cakes!" he said, shaking the oil paper package in his hand like a treasure. "They're still warm, eat them while they're soft."

Su Zhelan yawned lazily, letting Sheng Xuan half-embrace and half-carry him to the table.

Looking up, I saw that Xiao Qiyun had already set out the dishes.

He sat down as if it were the most natural thing in the world, took the chopsticks Sheng Xuan handed him, and started eating. After all, he had been through a lot with Xiao Qiyun last night, and his mouth was still sore. What was a little breakfast to him?

Sheng Xuan eagerly placed a soup dumpling on Su Zhelan's plate. Su Zhelan took a bite without looking up, and the soup dripped down her chin.

Xiao Qiyun silently handed over a handkerchief, which Su Zhelan took and casually wiped her face before continuing to drink her porridge.

Su Zhelan slowly swallowed the last mouthful of porridge, then suddenly frowned and pressed her temples: "My head hurts a little..." Her voice softened slightly, and her fingertips tapped unconsciously twice on the table.

Sheng Xuan immediately rushed over anxiously: "Did you catch a cold last night? I'll go make some ginger tea—", then looked at Xiao Qiyun reproachfully, "Is this the result of you staying to take care of him?"

"No need." Xiao Qiyun had already gotten up to get the medicine box. "Do you still have the calming incense that Mr. Su Yan prescribed?"

Su Zhelan shook her head weakly, "It's nothing. I'm fine, I just need to rest for a while..." Suddenly, she looked up and deliberately gave Sheng Xuan a slight smile, saying, "I want to eat the hawthorn cake from that candied fruit shop in the south of the city..."

Sheng Xuan's eyes lit up immediately: "I'll go right now!" She didn't even notice her clothes bunching up around the teacup as she stood up. "I want the kind with lots of frosting, right?"

"Mm." Su Zhelan nodded obediently, and after Sheng Xuan's footsteps disappeared outside the courtyard gate, she immediately turned to Xiao Qiyun, who was clearing away the dishes: "That... calming incense..."

Xiao Qiyun paused, wiping the silver chopsticks. "Finished?"

"I finished the last bit a few days ago." Su Zhelan lowered her eyelashes and deliberately rubbed her temples. "My head is still spinning..."

Xiao Qiyun put down the handkerchief, placed his fingertips on the man's wrist for a moment, and suddenly sighed: "What are you up to now?" His deep eyes seemed to see through people's hearts. "Is that all you've used up? Mr. Su Yan clearly gave you a lot last time."

Su Zhelan's eyelashes trembled, but she still pretended to be confused: "I don't remember..."

"Alright." Xiao Qiyun suddenly released his wrist, turning around with a lingering scent of pine on his sleeve. "I'll go to the pharmacy to get you a new one." He stopped at the door, his voice tinged with helpless indulgence: "At most half an hour."

Su Zhelan watched Xiao Qiyun's figure disappear around the corner of the corridor. He immediately ran to the door and bolted it. He then pulled out the collected files from the bookshelf and unfolded them to examine them closely. Suddenly, he noticed a cup of steaming ginseng tea on the table—which Xiao Qiyun had silently placed there before leaving.

Her fingertips slid rapidly across the yellowed file, the subtle clues between the ink lines making Su Zhelan increasingly alarmed. The cult's activities, seemingly chaotic, carried an eerie undercurrent.

"No...this isn't right..." He unconsciously bit his lower lip, and with a clatter, Su Zhelan suddenly spread the entire stack of files on the table. Maps, action records, and prisoner confessions covered the table, the ink stains and red annotations intertwining into an eerie net in the morning light.

The leaves rustled outside the window, but Su Zhelan was completely oblivious. He was so focused on using a vermilion pen to connect clues on the map that he didn't even hear three soft knocks on the door.

Just as a corner of the bamboo curtain was lifted from the window, Xiao Qiyun's voice, tinged with laughter, drifted in: "Do you still want the calming incense?"

Su Zhelan shuddered, the brush leaving a long red mark on the rice paper. He slowly turned his head and saw Xiao Qiyun leaning against the window, smiling at him, the ink on the medicine packet in his hand still wet with the words "calm the mind".

"I..." Su Zhelan opened his mouth, then looked down and saw that the tea on the table had gone cold. The confidential files spread out on the table clearly showed his lies. He cursed himself for being careless and forgetting about the hinged window facing the corridor.

Xiao Qiyun tapped lightly on the window frame, startling Su Zhelan from her annoyance. She climbed in, using one hand to support herself against the window frame, her clothes brushing a few ginkgo leaves away.

Su Zhelan frantically tried to collect the files, but the papers seemed to be deliberately sticking to the table. In his haste to cover the top map, he knocked over the vermilion inkstone, spilling bright red ink onto the markings.

"Don't rush." ​​Xiao Qiyun slowly bent down and picked up the files he had knocked over from the ground. "Ah~?" His slender fingers smoothed out the wrinkles in the papers. "So that's what you've been busy with."

Su Zhelan stood frozen, watching Xiao Qiyun's slender fingers flip through the secret files that should have been kept by Sheng Chi. His initial knowing smile slowly froze as each page revealed its contents—the battle points marked in vermilion on the map, the detailed casualty reports, the prisoners' confessions providing precise descriptions of the cult leader's movements.

"Why?" Xiao Qiyun's voice was low and steady, yet it pressed down more heavily than any roar, each word like a chisel striking ice. "Why did you dig out these piles of papers?"

He casually flipped through the files, his movements seemingly nonchalant, but the edges of the papers were slightly creased under his fingers. His gaze, however, was fixed on Su Zhelan's face, filled with an undeniable scrutiny. "Isn't it... peaceful enough now?"

He stopped looking at the case file and instead took a step forward. It wasn't a brutal restraint, but it carried an invisible sense of oppression, his tall figure looming over Su Zhelan.

"How long has it been since the last incident?" Xiao Qiyun's voice became slightly hoarse, a result of lingering fear.

He reached out, not to restrain Su Zhelan's chin, but instead, he gently brushed his knuckles across Su Zhelan's eyelids with extreme restraint. "Lying here for so long, hanging by a thread... have you forgotten?"

Xiao Qiyun lowered his voice even further, almost a whisper, yet it felt like ice brushing against his earlobe, "Or do you say you want to taste that flavor again?"

He looked up, his deep gaze piercing through Su Zhelan's eyes, his voice carrying a barely perceptible tremor and a morbid obsession. "I can help you."

Xiao Qiyun's fingertips still retained the warm touch of his caress on Su Zhelan's eyes, and the whispered words "I can help you" still lingered in the air, carrying his unique allure, a seductive charm that wrapped bloodshed in tenderness.

He expected to see struggle or forced fear in Su Zhelan's eyes.

But what he saw was a raging fire that suddenly rose in Su Zhelan's eyes, a fire that could almost burn everything.

Su Zhelan abruptly raised her hand, not to push him away, but to grab Xiao Qiyun's wrist, which was still resting against her cheek! The force was so great that her knuckles instantly turned white, almost digging into Xiao Qiyun's flesh and bone. Her docile facade was completely shattered, leaving only a deep-seated hatred and an almost insane obsession.

"Not enough!" Su Zhelan's voice became sharp and distorted, like an icicle scraping against glass, piercing the heavy atmosphere in the room. Her eyes, which always carried a hint of laziness or helplessness, were now terrifyingly bright, staring straight into the depths of Xiao Qiyun's pupils.

"Killing them like that is too easy on them!!" Every word was like a poisoned dagger, hurled with the stench of blood. Su Zhelan's body trembled slightly from the intense emotions, and the knuckles of her fingers, gripping Xiao Qiyun's wrist tightly, turned bluish-white from excessive force.

"I want them all dead! Deadly! Terrible! Painful!!" His voice rose, his chest heaving violently, as if burning away the last vestiges of his sanity. "Skin them alive! Tear them apart! Tear them to pieces..."

The furious curses abruptly stopped. Su Zhelan took a deep breath, not because she was calming down, but because a deeper, more venomous resentment, enough to devour everything, was rising within her.

He looked at Xiao Qiyun's furrowed brows, but a chilling, emotionless smile spread across his lips: "...It's nothing compared to one ten-thousandth of the torment I've suffered."

This last sentence, falling lightly, struck Xiao Qiyun's heart more heavily than the previous roar.

The air seemed to freeze.

What burned in Su Zhelan's eyes was no longer flames, but a bottomless abyss of despair and unforgettable pain. Those tragic past events instantly materialized, weighing heavily on the two of them.

Xiao Qiyun's expression froze for a moment. He had expected to see fear, struggle, or forcibly suppressed vulnerability—emotions he had seen before and had easily calmed and brought under control.

His offer of "helping you" is a hook hidden beneath the velvet, a gentle manifestation of his desire for control.

However, the abyss of venomous hatred churning in Su Zhelan's eyes, the bloody curse squeezed from between her teeth, and especially that seemingly insignificant yet endlessly agonizing phrase, "one in ten thousand of torment"...

All the expressions on Xiao Qiyun's face—that feigned indulgence, that hidden slight annoyance—vanished, replaced by a blankness, a pure and intense...storm of ecstatic joy!

"Hah..." A very faint sound, as if it were just adjusting his breathing, slipped through Xiao Qiyun's throat, so fast that it was almost impossible to catch.

"That's it!" Like a cold electric current instantly coursing through his limbs, an unprecedented, immense, and intense sense of satisfaction exploded in Xiao Qiyun's heart!

Su Zhelan, right before his eyes... personally tore off this mask! Revealing the heart beneath, scorched by the flames of hatred, tormented and shattered, yet still pounding fiercely!

In the end, you still entrusted me with your most genuine and heaviest part... This realization, like a cup of the most potent poison, instantly filled Xiao Qiyun's heart, bringing a satisfaction and ecstasy that made his blood boil and his mind tremble more than any other form of power!

This feeling of being delivered to, of being trusted, this confirmation of a shared, twisted core of mutual understanding... is a thousand times more intense than any ethereal romantic love!