Chapter 94: Reigning Supreme
The painting, along with the gift meant for Qiu Lingsu, was mistakenly sent to her that night. Fortunately, Shaman discovered it in time and went to find Qiu Lingsu the next morning.
Qiu Lingsu's eyes fluttered like a moth's, hovering somewhere in the distance. After Shaman finished speaking, she smiled and said that when she went to see Ye Erniang last night, she had accidentally left the painting in her room, and she would have someone return it to her, so Shaman and Xie Huailing didn't need to worry.
Before Shaman could ask any more questions, she turned to the next arrangements and dropped the matter.
Fortunately, she kept her word. At least before Xie Huailing went to sleep, the painting was returned. However, the person who returned the painting was inevitably a little flustered.
A night breeze swept through the house, brushing against skin, chilling everyone and casting shadowy figures. Xie Huailing saw a person outside the door who, in the eyes of ordinary people, should not be there. Their face was as white as a sheet of paper that could be torn with a breath, their figure as ethereal as a wisp of mist, their movements ghostly, hardly resembling a living person. This unexpected visitor held a scroll to be returned in their left hand, but held it only loosely with a few fingers, as if they wouldn't have held it if it weren't absolutely necessary.
But actually, it wasn't exactly unexpected.
Xie Huailing pushed the door open wider and said, "Why is it Madam Ye who has come in person? You must take good care of yourself. Please come in."
Ye Erniang shook her head. She stuffed the scroll into Xie Huailing's arms, as if sending away an unlucky object. Only then did her expression improve slightly. She forced a smile and refused, "No need. It's late, and it's inconvenient to bother Miss Xie any longer. I'm just here to return something."
"How could I trouble you to come? Are you feeling better?" Xie Huailing asked.
Hearing her words, Ye Erniang glanced at her and then coughed twice: "I can only walk a few steps. It's impossible for me to get better, but I won't be bedridden for the rest of my life. Thank you for your concern, Miss."
After speaking, Ye Erniang's faint smile faded even further, as if she herself could no longer maintain it: "By the way, I think the girl in this painting is quite beautiful and has a rather... congenial relationship with me. I wonder if Miss Xie could tell me which family she comes from?"
Xie Huailing remained silent at just the right moment, then brushed it off: "I'm not quite sure either. I bought it from a painting studio in the city. Who it depicts, I'm afraid only the painter who painted it would know."
"That's... a pity." Ye Erniang spoke with a forced ease and a hint of gritted teeth. After saying this, she took her leave and went home in the night.
Watching her retreating figure until she could no longer see her, Xie Huailing closed the door again. She glanced at the scroll in her hand, now fully utilized, and unfolded it. A fingernail scratch, though repaired, was still visible on the paper. She stared at the scratch, and without rolling up the scroll, casually stuffed it into the cabinet next to the door.
Then Xie Huailing yawned and turned around, and a figure stood silently behind her.
"Two ghost stories at night, and one of them is already happening." Xie Huailing said quietly, "Can't you even make a sound?"
After three days apart, the young man's complexion showed no signs of his previous serious injuries. He looked exactly the same as when he came to find her, refined and elegant, like a snow-covered branch on a high mountain in February. He placed the hairpin in his hand on the table, and this time he was surprisingly quiet, lost in thought. He spoke to her while saying, "I see you're busy."
Xie Huailing's gaze swept over his waist and abdomen. She still remembered that just three days ago, this entire area was the color of blood, and even from a distance of ten or twenty feet, it was piercing to the nose and mouth: "Are your injuries healed?"
"That's about it." Gong Jiu said this again, seemingly casually.
Xie Huailing didn't care what kind of miraculous medicine or extraordinary skills he possessed. She merely asked and then said, "It's about time to return to your Taiping Prince's Mansion."
Gong Jiu did not refute, but nodded in agreement, "Indeed."
A sliver of moonlight pierced the cracks in the window, deepening the night's chill. Even the birdsong seemed to fade into silence, as if everything outside had frozen in place, the wind itself gone. Yet, the stillness was the very essence of the howling wind. This was more than just an anomaly. Xie Huailing looked into Gong Jiu's eyes. He gazed at her, his gaze unchanging, like that of a venomous snake, but now it flickered with a phosphorescent blue light, revealing a depth of unseen meaning.
"I've been thinking about some things these past few days." With a gentle sigh, Gong Jiu said, "And now I've figured it out, so I need to go back."
"I don't want to hear what you've figured out," Xie Huailing suddenly said.
"You want to?" Gong Jiu was still the same Gong Jiu, making a firm decision and trying his best to prevent her from refusing.
The outcome of being entangled with him won't change. His saying he's leaving is just another way of saying something ominous. What compassionate thing can he do? Who can he truly sympathize with? There are just too many things that make one lose the capacity for pity, so where does empathy come from? In the cold night, he locked Xie Huailing in his sights, each glance at her more piercing than the last. As his gaze drew closer, it was as if she herself had drawn closer.
He didn't sense any tense, suffocating threat. He was surprisingly calm, as calm as a room that hadn't seen the light of day for years. With passersby deliberately ignoring him, no one knew what was hidden inside, or what the ever-growing shadows had nurtured, and no one would bother to look.
“You’re absolutely right. I can’t beg you, and I have no way to take you away.”
Xie Huailing turned to the side and walked towards the window. Seeing that she didn't pay much attention, Gong Jiu didn't stop her from slowly saying, "But what I thought was also right. Let me let go of you from my grasp. I don't recognize these words. But right and wrong, these thoughts are not important anymore."
His thick, dark complexion swallowed the luster in his eyes, his pupils so black they were unsettling. Yet, at this very moment, he perfectly captured Xie Huailing's shadow standing by the window, as if she were being imprinted entirely in ink: "I've slowly come to understand, but it's a pity I only understand now. As I've said before, every time we meet, I like you more than the last time, and I've gradually realized that it's better for you to have me than for me to have you at all; it's better for you to accept me looking at you without blinking than for me to have you look at me at all."
After saying that, he exhaled a deep breath, as if reciting a poem.
People who live solely for themselves are inseparable from desire when it comes to love. At the very beginning of the story, he is indeed a vessel of desire, his pursuit of beauty intertwined with his desire for love, and so he begins to pursue Xie Huailing. However, the process is like a quagmire, and as he sinks deeper into it, his illness worsens, developing into a stubborn addiction that becomes uncontrollable.
She wasn't someone he could control; often, she was the one controlling him, and he derives a secret pleasure from her. Dazzled and mesmerized, the world spinning around him, he is no longer separated from his past. After the reversal of roles, it's alright to worship her; she has persuaded him from another perspective.
Indifference or humiliation, he could savor them all… Now, he seemed somewhat obsessed. The response he once longed for from Xie Huailing no longer mattered as much. He interpreted her almost infinite meaning through lust; he was completely infatuated with everything she gave him. Sometimes he wanted to devour her whole, sometimes he wished he could die in her hands. He possessed this pain and passion while also enjoying and indulging in it.
Ultimately, this complex feeling is his own. Gong Jiu has changed, yet Gong Jiu has never changed from beginning to end.
Driven by the insatiable desires within his soul, he could continue on. Ultimately, now, all he needed to know was that he loved Xie Huailing. All he ever wanted was to satisfy himself; everything he did was for his own gratification. The only change was the direction of his longing. He wanted to stay by her side, continuing his gaze as long as he lived.
“Actually, there’s no need to talk about possession, let alone forcing it. Fortunately, it’s not too late now,” Gong Jiu said. “So I need to go back for a while to prepare some things. It won’t take too long, and I’ll see you again soon.”
"By then, no one will be more useful than me, no one will be more suitable to cooperate with me, and you will no longer refuse me."
As for whether it was true or not, whether it was all fake, whether he would get nothing in return, how much it would cost to maintain it, and how bad the ending would be, he didn't care about any of it. He would let her have all the love and hate she wanted.
The window was half-closed, and Xie Huailing's fine hair fluttered in the night breeze. In a daze, she resembled a statue on a high platform, shaped like a white moon. No matter how much she heard, her role remained unmoved, only occasionally glancing at people when she lowered her eyes.
The moon shone brightly, its light stretching for miles—a beautiful sight that one could recognize without even seeing it with their own eyes. But separated by a window, even Gong Jiu's words vanished, and the light couldn't penetrate her dark eyes. Her cold gaze shifted, finally sweeping over his face, and she said, "Then you can wait for your end."
Gong Jiu nodded again, as if she had made a promise. She stared at her for a long time, and the room remained silent.
Footsteps echoed outside, and a maid hurried in, knocking two or three times before pushing a letter through the crack in the door. Gong Jiu was closer, so she didn't need to turn around; he stepped forward, bent down, picked it up, and walked to her side. Xie Huailing took the letter from his hand and first looked at the signature on the envelope.
The belated handwriting read "To Huailing," its authorship obvious, but Gong Jiu didn't actually read a single word. What he saw was Xie Huailing opening the envelope, then pinching out several thick sheets of paper with two fingers, and burying his head in reading.
The letter must have contained some important information. Xie Huailing read through it line by line, then bluntly told him to leave: "You've finished talking, aren't you going to leave?"
Gong Jiu only said, "There's one more thing."
His eyes were heavy as he brought up the initial agreement made in this room: "Since you won, I can grant you one request."
Xie Huailing flipped through the letter hastily, turning the pages haphazardly like flipping through a book. Hearing his words, she slowly raised her pupils, glanced at him, then looked away briefly before finally fixing her gaze on his face.
A brief exchange of glances was enough for her to process everything. She pulled herself together, several questions from her memory forming a thread, and asked without hesitation, "Then answer me first. You've planted so many people in Bianjing, extending your reach right under the nose of the Southern Prince's mansion, and you've secretly learned martial arts. Gong Jiu, what are you trying to do?"
Gong Jiu did not remain silent, but met her moon-like gaze with a touch of arrogance. He replied, "If there are no capable guests sitting in the heavens, why can't I sit here?"
"You want to try your luck in this world?"
"Why not? I'm already in this position, and it's only natural to go further. Being above thousands and having my name recorded in history, there's nothing wrong with that."
Xie Huailing nodded. "A single glance at the empire makes all the heroes of the ages pass by; even if one defeats kings and nobles, generals and ministers will turn to ashes with a laugh. What magnificent achievements are these? Who in this world can say they have never dreamed of such a thing? How many people have never harbored ambitions, wanting to hold the empire in their hands? It's not surprising that Gong Jiu has such thoughts."
But she said, "I want you to quit."
So he simply said, "Okay."
Human life spans generations, yet I do not wish to hasten the passing of time. It is the enduring hope of heroes who will remain, their names known for centuries. I strive to reach the heights of heaven and the eternity of earth, as the green hills rise and fall, as light as a fingertip.
The world's waters are vast and deep, and tears flow like wine. Even the most talented have regrets. A thousand miles of wind and moon evoke desolation. He stopped at Yumen Pass, disregarding the world. He entrusted his life to the land, only to wither and die in the mortal world.
So he simply said, "Okay."
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