Xie Lian still didn't turn around and asked, "Blood Rain Scholar?"
Hua Cheng said, "Your Highness the Crown Prince."
Xie Lian turned around and smiled, "This is the first time I've heard you call me that."
The young man in red sat on the mat, propped up one leg, and asked, "How do you feel?"
Xie Lian thought about it, but ultimately didn’t ask him, “Why didn’t you call me brother anymore?” He simply said, “It’s okay, it’s okay.”
He said, "It was you who took me away that day at Yujun Mountain, the groom."
The smile on Huacheng's lips deepened. Xie Lian then realized that his words seemed ambiguous. He quickly corrected himself and said seriously, "I mean, you were the one who disguised yourself as a groom and took me away from Junshan, right?"
Hua Cheng said, "I didn't pretend to be a groom."
If that were the case, then it was indeed true. The young man hadn't claimed to be the groom. He simply stopped in front of the sedan chair and held out his hand. Xie Lian had gone with him on his own. Xie Lian asked, "Okay. Then, why did you show up?"
Hua Chengdao said, "There are only two possible answers to this question: First, I went there specifically for you, Your Highness, the Crown Prince; second, I was just passing through and had some free time. Which one do you think is more believable?"
Counting the number of days he had spent with him, Xie Lian said sincerely, "I can't say which one is more trustworthy, but you seem to have a lot of free time."
He supported his right elbow with his left hand and his chin with his right hand. His eyes wandered around Hua Cheng, and he nodded. "You are not quite the same as the legend says."
Hua Cheng changed his posture, still holding his chin with his hand, staring at him, and said: "Oh? Then how did you know that I am mine?"
Xie Lian's mind was filled with the umbrella beneath the bloody rain, the jingling silver chain, and the cold silver wristband. He thought, "You're not really hiding anything, but when you say it, your tone changes for some reason." He said seriously, "You're dressed in red, and you seem to know everything, be all-powerful, and fearless. No matter how you try, you're flawless. You must be at the Absolute Realm or above. So, apart from the 'Blood Rain Scholar,' the immortals and gods tremble in fear, I can't think of anyone else to be your candidate."
Hua Cheng smiled and said, "If you say that, can I take it as a compliment?"
Xie Lian thought to himself, “Didn’t you hear that it was originally like that?”
Hua Cheng continued, "Having said so much, why doesn't His Royal Highness ask me what my purpose is in approaching you?"
Xie Lian asked, “If you don’t want to tell me, will you tell me if I ask you?”
Hua Cheng said, "Then you can drive me away."
Xie Lian smiled and said, "You are so powerful. Even if I chase you away now, if you really want to do something, won't you just come back in a new skin?"
The two were looking at each other and smiling, when at this moment, a burst of rolling sounds suddenly broke the brief silence in Puqi Temple.
The two looked in the direction of the sound, but there was no one there, only a small black pottery jar rolling on the ground.
It was the small clay pot that held Ban Yue. Xie Lian had casually placed it beside the mat, but it had somehow fallen over and rolled to the doorway, where it was stopped by the wooden door built by Hua Cheng. It banged against the door repeatedly. Xie Lian was worried it might break, so he went to open the door. The small clay pot rolled all the way to the grass outside the door.
Xie Lian followed it. The small pottery jar rolled onto a patch of grass and stood upright. It was clearly just a pot, but it gave the illusion of gazing up at the stars. Hua Cheng also emerged from the Puqi Monastery. Xie Lian said to the pottery jar, "Ban Yue, are you awake?"
Fortunately, it was already late at night when they returned from the Gobi Desert. Otherwise, if someone saw Xie Lian standing outside in the middle of the night asking a jar what was wrong, they would probably make a fuss again.
After a while, a muffled girl's voice came from the small jar, saying, "General Hua."
Xie Lian sat down next to it and said, "Ban Yue, are you coming out to look at the stars? Do you want to come out and see them?"
Hua Cheng stood aside, leaning against a tree, and said, "She just left Half Moon City, so it would be best if she stayed there for a while."
Xie Lian felt his advice made perfect sense. After all, Ban Yue had spent two hundred years in Ban Yue Country. He would probably have trouble adjusting to a sudden change of location. He said, “Then you should stay in there for a while and recuperate. This is where I train, so you don’t have to worry about anything else. Those generals and soldiers, forget about it.”
The jar shook twice, its meaning unclear. After a pause, Xie Lian felt the need to explain the situation. After a moment's deliberation, he said, "Banyue, it's not your snake that's disobedient. It's General Pei who secretly learned your snake-controlling technique. Those people weren't bitten by your snake."
Ban Yue muttered, "General Hua, I couldn't move at the time, but I heard everything."
Hearing this, Xie Lian was stunned. He realized that Pei Su had only sealed her ability to move for half a month, not her senses. He said, "Alright."
After thinking for a moment, he added, "General Xiao Pei probably did this because he couldn't bear to see the Banyue soldiers suffer and wanted to free them, but he used the wrong method."
"..." The jar shook and said, "General Hua, what will happen to Brother Pei Su?"
Xie Lian folded his hands over his sleeves and said, “I don’t know. But if you do something wrong, you must accept some punishment.”
After a moment of silence, the jar shook twice more. This time, Xie Lian finally realized that shaking like this actually meant nodding.
Banyue said, "Although Ke Mo always scolds him, Brother Pei Su is actually not that bad."
Xie Lian said, “Really?”
Ban Yue said, “Yeah.”
Banyue had been a withdrawn individual since childhood, ostracized by her peers and only able to play well with a few young men from the Central Plains. Judging by the fact that Pei Su was sent to attack the capital with only two thousand soldiers, he must have had a difficult time in the army. Both of them seemed difficult to talk to, either cold or sullen, perhaps sharing some similarities. Xie Lian didn't know what to say. After a moment, he said, "By the way, Banyue, Hua Xie is a pseudonym. I've long since stopped being a general, so you don't have to call me General Hua anymore."
Ban Yue said, "Then how should I call you?"
That was a problem. If Ban Yue had addressed him solemnly as "Your Highness the Crown Prince," it would have seemed a little strange. Xie Lian hadn't cared about the title, but when he thought of something else, he said, "It's up to you. You can continue to call me General Hua." It was just that there was a real person named Hua here, so calling him that might be a little confusing. But then he thought again: "Hua Xie" was certainly a pseudonym, taken from the first character of "Hua Guan Wu Shen" (Flower Crown Martial God). So wasn't "Hua Cheng" also a pseudonym? It was quite interesting that they had chosen the same surname for their pseudonyms.
At this time, Banyue said again: "I'm sorry, General Hua."
Xie Lian turned around and said a little depressedly, "Ban Yue, why do you always apologize to me?" He didn't look so apologetic at first glance, did he?
Ban Yue huddled in the jar and said, "I want to save the people."
Xie Lian: “………………”
Ban Yue said, "General Hua, that's what you said at the beginning."
Xie Lian: “???”
He quickly said, "Wait. Wait!"
Hearing him shout, Ban Yue seemed to be stunned in the jar and said, "What?"
Xie Lian glanced at Hua Cheng, who was standing under a nearby tree with his arms folded, and whispered, "Did I really say that back then?"
This was clearly a phrase he'd often said when he was a teenager, but he shouldn't have mentioned it at all in the hundreds of years since. Xie Lian was a little incredulous. Ban Yue said, "General, you did say that."
Xie Lian still wanted to struggle, saying, "No..."
Ban Yue said seriously, "Yes. One time, you asked everyone what they wanted to be when they grew up. Everyone said something, and finally you said, 'My dream was to save the world.'"
“…”
So that's how it is. Xie Lian covered his forehead and said, "Ban Yue, why do you remember such casual words so clearly?"
Ban Yue said bewilderedly, "Did you just say that casually? But, General Hua, I think you are speaking very seriously."
Xie Lian was helpless. He looked up at the sky and said, "Haha... Really? Maybe. I don't even remember what else I said."
Ban Yue said, "You also said, 'Do what you think is right!'"
Xie Lian listened and thought to himself, “…this is such nonsense…why do I always say things like this…I’m not that kind of person…am I that kind of person?”
Ban Yue said, "But I don't know what is right anymore."
Hearing this, Xie Lian was stunned.
Ban Yue's muffled voice hummed in the jar. "I seemed to be doing the right thing, but the result was that I opened the gates and let the enemy in, and they massacred my people. My country is gone. But if I don't open the gates immediately, the Ban Yue people will migrate to the Central Plains and harm even more people. General Hua was very good to me. When I was in the Central Plains, people often threw food to me on the street. But Ke Mo was also very good to me, and the soldiers listened to me very much. I came back with the sincere intention of being a good imperial teacher. However, not only did I open the city gates and kill them, I also forbade them from cannibalism. If they don't eat people, they will be very painful, and I cannot relieve their pain."
She spoke incoherently, rambling on and on. Finally, she said bewilderedly, "It seems that no matter what I do, the results are always bad. General Hua, I know I didn't do it well, but can you tell me exactly where I went wrong? Which step went wrong?"
Hearing her ask this, Xie Lian rubbed the back of his neck in silence for a long while. Finally, he said, "I'm sorry, Banyue. I didn't know the answer to your question before, and now... I don't seem to know it either."
Ban Yue said gloomily, "General Hua, I don't know what I have been doing for the past two hundred years."
Hearing her say this, Xie Lian became even more depressed: "Then wouldn't it be true that I've lived for eight hundred years in vain?"
Leaving Banyue alone in the jar, staring at the stars and calming down, Xie Lian and Huacheng returned to Puqi Monastery. After closing the door, Huacheng asked, "Pei Su hates Banyue people so much. How could he have done such a thing just because he couldn't bear the suffering of Banyue soldiers?"
Xie Lian sighed and said, "It's all speculation anyway. For a half-moon, I'd better try to pick something that sounds more reasonable."
He thought about it, then shook his head and said, "If Pei Su really wanted Banyue to be freed from Banyue Kingdom as soon as possible, he could have chosen to clear out Banyue Pass. Instead, he chose to lure living people into the pass to feed the ghosts. He's really too bold."
Hua Cheng said, "He can't. To lead the cleanup, he has to go through the Heavenly Palace."
Xie Lian asked, “So what if we leave through Heaven?”
Hua Cheng said leisurely, "It's very bad. Every group of priests who left the Heavenly Court, where they went and what they were supposed to do, are remembered in detail. If the Heavenly Court sends people down, they will definitely wipe out the entire Banyue Pass, and you, the little Banyue girl, are no exception. Of course, he chose to keep it to himself. All he has to do is lure some living people to feed the ghosts when he has free time."
At this point, he smiled and said, "Ascended priests, the lives of mortals are naturally less valuable than ants in their eyes."
Xie Lian didn't comment on this, only saying, "Then he could have secretly created a clone and come down to the mortal world to clean up those Ban Yue soldiers."
Hua Cheng said, "The power of the clone will be weakened. You saw Pei Suhua's clone, Ah Zhao. He couldn't deal with so many Ban Yue soldiers and could only die. At best, he could only slightly dissipate a wave of resentment."
Xie Lian glanced at him, remembering how Sanlang had leaped into the Convict Pit and instantly slaughtered all the Half Moon soldiers at the bottom. He turned and said, “Your clone is quite formidable.”
Hua Cheng raised an eyebrow at him and said, "Of course. But this is my real self."
Hearing this, Xie Lian stopped thinking about anything else. He turned around, slightly surprised, and said, "Huh? Are you the real one?"
Hua Chengdao: "It's genuine."
If you want to blame someone, blame the expression on his face after he said this, as if asking you to experience it yourself. So, before Xie Lian realized what he had done, he had already raised a finger and poked Hua Cheng on the cheek.
After the poke, Xie Lian suddenly woke up, secretly saying "oh no" repeatedly. He was just curious about what the Desperate Ghost King's hide felt like, but he hadn't expected his body to outsmart him and poke him. This was truly outrageous.
Hua Cheng seemed slightly startled by the sudden poke in the face, but his usual composure quickly calmed him down. He didn't say anything, but one eyebrow rose even higher, as if waiting for an explanation, his eyes clearly smiling. Xie Lian, of course, couldn't offer any explanation. He glanced at the finger, then concealed it discreetly, saying, "Not bad, not bad."
Hua Cheng finally burst out laughing, crossed his arms, tilted his head, and asked him, "Do you think my skin is nice?"
Xie Lian said sincerely, “Very good. But…”
Hua Chengdao: "But what?"
Xie Lian stared at his face, examining it carefully for a while. Finally, he said, "But can I see your true appearance?"
Since he just mentioned "this skin", it means that although this body is the original body, the skin is not the real body. This young man's appearance is not his true appearance.
This time, Hua Cheng didn't answer immediately. He lowered his arm. Xie Lian didn't know if it was his imagination, but his gaze seemed to darken a little, and his heart couldn't help but lift.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
