Chapter 164 Chapter 164 One seeks survival, the other martyrs.
Gu Huaijin didn't say anything.
After bringing the bowl of porridge to her, he stood at the table, looking out the window, without saying a word.
There is a vast moonlight outside the window.
On Chang'an Avenue under the night sky, the eaves of the houses are connected to each other, and the tiles are cold and densely packed, like fish scales.
He was confused and hesitant.
After a near-death experience, they met again, wanting to hold hands at a banquet filled with wine. But when they were truly alone, after a passionate and absurd time together, they found that the relationship between them was a cold and desolate ruin.
After all the conspiracies and deceptions, in the final analysis, he shouldn't see her again.
As the enemy who stole the mountain, he should at least remain loyal to Tianshan.
Just because I heard that she was going to sleep with me.
His brows slowly furrowed, and he closed his eyes with a splitting headache.
I miss her and want to see her, but if I really bring her here, I don't know what to do or how to get along with her.
Nan Qiongshuang was equally bewildered. They were always like this, full of contradictions. Everyone knew it would be best if they forgot each other, but whenever they met, it was uncontrollable.
After the lovemaking, the room was desolate and both of them felt embarrassed tacitly.
She stirred the porridge with a heavy heart, and the only sound in the room was the sound of the porcelain spoon hitting the bowl.
She didn't know what to say, and after a long while, she finally spoke:
"...There's no impenetrable wall. Even if your people sent me to the Purple Palace, there's no guarantee that no one would leak the secret. Besides, even if there's no one inside the palace, there are guards outside. Even if the emperor isn't in the palace, there are still guards outside. You're taking a risk by doing something like this..."
Gu Huaijin looked out the window with a cold face and did not respond.
She looked at him and said, "You're taking the risk of doing something like this. Aren't you afraid that it will be exposed and you won't be safe?"
Moonlight streamed in through the window, slicing a pale blue tint across his glistening silk pajamas.
She continued:
"Originally, of the three parties, your future was the most uncertain. Not to mention the dangers of a two-tigress situation, even if you ultimately caused the destruction of both the Chang and Li factions, you would still be a subordinate, a courtier. Emperor Jiaqing's temper was not easy to deal with. Even as a puppet emperor, he still yearned for the pleasure of sitting on the throne. If such a person were to regain power in the future, would he allow you to become too powerful and threaten the emperor?"
Gu Huaijin seemed not to care at all.
She was a little annoyed by his meaningless attitude: "Are you listening? You are impulsive today. If something unexpected happens, you will end up with a situation where the emperor and his subjects are alienated. Then, even if you help Emperor Jiaqing win, it will not be a good thing. My identity is fake, so it is easy to get away. But you..."
Gu Huaijin looked at the sky, holding a candle in his hand, and said in a daze, "The situation is about to change. What do you think, will Chang and Li make a move first, or will we be exposed first?"
He half turned around and looked at her coldly.
His face was so cold, as if the person holding her hand in Ganhe Hall was not him.
"Even if the situation changes, no one cares about the little things happening in the palace. If something happens to Emperor Jiaqing, you will still die without a burial place."
Gu Huaijin turned around, took another match, and struck it lightly.
With a hissing sound.
The firelight illuminated his jade-like face, and he sneered nonchalantly.
Nan Qiong Shuang immediately understood his smile.
He doesn't care.
He is a man who wants to die.
Goosebumps and creepy hairs crept up her tailbone. Gu Huaijin gathered the flame and lit the candle, a ball of orange light filling the room. She looked at him, feeling a chill run down her spine.
"What do you mean..." She panicked, her eyelashes fluttering, "You still want..."
He lowered his head and tidied up the copybooks on the table, folding them one by one.
The right wrist was wrapped in shocking gauze.
She suddenly didn't know whether she should stay here. Although she missed him very much and wanted him to hold her and comfort her, her presence would remind him of the disaster at Tianshan.
She was the source of all his pain. Even if he loved her, could she comfort him? She wasn't even in a position to comfort him.
He was in so much pain because he loved her.
Her heart was broken, but she silently put down the bowl, lifted the quilt, and stepped on the ground barefoot.
Regardless, she planned to be tactful.
She stood carefully in front of him, her eyes downcast.
Gu Huaijin looked at her quietly. She was wearing his nightgown, the raven-black silk shimmering with every movement, but it was too big for her, drooping from her shoulders to the ground.
In his eyes, she looked a little aggrieved.
She said softly, "I won't bother you here anymore. I'll go back first."
You see, he said that he would leave if she turned against him.
"Yeah." He took out the medicine bottle and untied the gauze, saying calmly, "I'm going back now."
She tasted a hint of what she wanted to hear, but she didn't dare look at his injuries: "Yeah."
Gu Huaijin didn't say anything, just responded: "Okay."
Neither of them spoke for a while, leaving only the chirping of cicadas in early autumn.
She said she was leaving, but she didn't move.
Gu Huaijin didn't urge or ask.
After a long time, she finally didn't wait for Gu Huaijin to keep her, so she turned around and said, "Get me some clothes. I'm going back to the palace."
Gu Huaijin took a long and deep breath and closed his eyes.
She figured out a little hope: "Do you really want me to stay?"
He didn't answer.
He walked past the gate of Huangquan and waited for her to coax him with kind words.
However, Nan Qiong Shuang did not believe in love, and did not understand what she meant to him. She thought that not disturbing him was the most understanding and considerate way.
At last he picked up the candle.
Burning palms, expressionless.
The firelight made his face look handsome and cold.
"What are you doing!" She was suddenly startled, took two steps forward and snatched the candle back, blew it out with a whoosh, and turned his palm over to look at it.
The blood-red, white palm quickly turned red and slightly swollen.
"you……!"
When she looked up, Gu Huaijin just looked at her indifferently, staying out of the matter and not caring at all.
Nan Qiong Shuang forced herself to close her eyes and endured for a long time.
He is...
Sooner or later she will be driven to death by this man.
She bit her lip, suppressing all her emotions for the moment, and looked around. In the corner of the room was a copper basin with some water. She grabbed his wrist and forced his hand into the cold water.
He doesn't care about his body.
He tortured himself, which was no different from torturing her.
Her eyes turned red as she looked at his hand resting quietly in the copper basin. Tears quickly soaked her eyelashes.
"What do you want from me..."
Gu Huaijin let her lead him, without struggling, but also without hugging her, just standing quietly behind her.
In the past, whenever he was behind her, he would hug her.
His long feather-like eyelashes drooped, and he murmured:
"...You care?"
"Of course I care!" She suddenly stopped, then looked up again. Her eyes were already filled with tears. She screamed with red eyes, "Do you know what you're doing? Once, twice... doing this kind of thing... cutting yourself, burning yourself. What do you want? If you have something to say, can't you just say it nicely?"
"I have nothing to say."
He half-closed his eyes and his voice was cold.
She immediately pushed his shoulders away and hit him several times in anger. He staggered half a step with a blank face and did not dodge. He turned his head and just looked out the window.
"Didn't the queen say that she would forget it? What else can I say?"
"That's..." She shook her shoulders, her voice breaking, "That's..."
He raised his eyes. "What is it?" he repeated, looking out the window. "'Forget it, forget it, so easy.' Your Majesty is so carefree."
"Don't say such things." She felt guilty and lowered her head, not knowing whether she should or could hug him again. After hesitating for a long time, she carefully pulled his sleeve and said, "I only said such things to the Regent because we agreed to break up."
"Then just forget it." He had no expression and didn't look at her.
"I forgot."
He turned suddenly and stared at her.
She finally realized that he hated hearing her say this kind of thing. She swallowed and added, "...but I found I couldn't forget it."
After hearing this, Gu Huaijin turned his head again.
He doesn't like to hear her say "forget it", it turns out he still can't let it go.
She tried cautiously: "Be good."
Gu Huaijin's eyelashes twitched for a moment.
The trembling of that moment brushed against her heart, making her feel itchy. She saw that there was a play, and kept calling out, "Good boy, good boy, good boy."
Gu Huaijin still had a stern face and pretended to be unmoved.
Now she knew she had come to coax him. She would never coax him unless he died once.
"Don't be angry, dear." She took his hand out of the water and held his wrist with her cold fingers. "Don't hurt yourself. I will listen to whatever you say."
He found it interesting and laughed, "Your Majesty has given me a lot of face."
She let him sneer without getting angry, and just said, "Is there any medicine for burns? I don't have anything with me."
Gu Huaijin looked at her without saying anything.
She held his hand, close to him, and looked into his eyes.
Her eyes are beautiful, and he is in them. Her lips are even more beautiful, with lips that are so nice to suck, and her breath carries the fragrance of peach blossoms.
Your Majesty.
He wanted to kiss.
He swallowed and lowered his eyes.
"have."
He lazily let her apply medicine on him, with a look of indifference on his face.
Did she know that he wanted to kiss her so badly? It had been so long since they had kissed, and she had been on the verge of death without him, and she still wanted him to force her.
She had no idea, and didn't care. She sprinkled the medicine on his gradually swollen palm little by little, saying, "Let me see the wound on that hand."
His mind was full of kissing, and he said softly: "Hmm?"
"The other hand."
He absentmindedly let her hold his other hand. The gauze was already half undone. Just now, she said she wanted to leave again, and he had no choice but to deliberately let her see it, so he undid it halfway.
She carefully unwound the gauze circle by circle.
Once opened, two long scars like rifts appeared.
It had formed a scab and was deeply sunken in the middle, as if it had been cut by a sharp knife.
This is not cutting.
She finally burst into tears.
From Gu Huaijin's perspective, he could only see that her lower eyelashes were bent by the rolling tears, and the tears flowed across her lips.
She felt sorry for him, and he couldn't help wanting to kiss her.
But he pursed his lips.
Ask her to kiss you first.
Nan Qiong Shuang had no idea what he was thinking. Looking at his injuries, she felt a little dizzy. She also knew that it was she who forced him to take this step. It was she who betrayed him, and it was she who wanted to break up. She didn't even know if she had the right to cry, and she forced herself to hold back her tears to stay calm.
She said, "I'll help you apply the medicine..."
Gu Huaijin handed her the medicine bottle.
Don't hug her or talk to her.
She wept as she unscrewed the small cap of the medicine bottle, her body trembling and shaking. She looked down at the wound, which was hideous and horrific. Even someone used to seeing blood couldn't bear it. As soon as she closed her eyes, her vision was soaked with tears, and she couldn't apply any medicine.
She put the medicine bottle down in a panic, covered her face and cried.
He is even more ruthless than she was back then.
Can you come and hug her? Only when he comes to hug her, she dares to comfort him.
She was the one who was in the wrong in the first place. If he didn't come to hug her, she wouldn't have the face to hug him.
Gu Huaijin just leaned on the table and picked up the medicine bottle leisurely:
"Why are you crying? It's not a big deal..."
She was crying like this, and he was determined not to care?
She suddenly had an idea and covered her face with her hands, saying, "Regent..."
The voice of the person in front of him suddenly stopped.
"…What about the Regent?"
She covered her face and cried to herself.
"What about the Regent?"
He asked again, putting his hand on her lower back and pulling her towards him.
"The Regent told me..."
Having said that, I intend not to say more.
"What did the Regent say?"
He finally held her in his arms, pressed her against his chest, and looked down at her.
His expression was one of cold anger and forced calmness.
As expected, he was completely helpless when the word "Regent" was mentioned.
"The Regent said... that I'm not allowed to leave the palace, so I haven't been able to come to see you." She snuggled into his arms with tears in her eyes, and her tears made his chest feel dizzy and warm.
"I've always wanted to see you, but I couldn't. At first, the Regent took my pass out of the palace and wouldn't let me know what was happening outside. He just insisted I return to Handan Palace. He even forbade me to intervene when the Emperor had a headache. I had a feeling something was wrong, so I went to see the Emperor without telling the Regent, and that's when I learned something was wrong with you."
"Before I could come up with a plan, he suddenly ordered me to be locked up in Handan Palace and not allowed to leave. The entire Handan Palace was guarded by the golden guards. At this time, I received your letter..."
Gu Huaijin lowered his head and looked at the top of her head. Her breath and tears all fell on his chest, and she hugged him so tightly that he didn't want to move even if he could.
He unconsciously put his arm around her shoulders and rested his chin on her head.
"I received your letter at this time and cried so hard that I almost died. But I was surrounded by people..." She choked, "The two maids were also staring at me, and the guard Jin Ge was eavesdropping outside. Wu Dao heard that something happened to you and came back to find me. I was crying and acting at the same time..."
"Okay, baby," he finally coaxed into her ear.
"...I acted with all kinds of people. Later, I had no choice but to make a big noise in the palace. Guard Jin Ge went to inform the Regent, and he came to talk to me. But he..."
"Did he touch you?" He suddenly held her face in his hands.
"No." Her tears flowed into his palms, making him tremble in his heart. "But he wouldn't let me go. Everyone knows his temper. Once he makes up his mind, he will do it to the end, regardless of anyone's opinion. I had a big fight with him..."
"You had a fight with him?" He smiled slightly. "Because of me?"
She nodded with sobs and buried her head in his arms again. "It was a big quarrel. I scolded him."
He felt very happy and laughed continuously.
"After the quarrel... he locked me up in Jingsixuan for a long time, making me live with that lunatic." She tugged at his collar. "It's not that I don't want to come see you, I just have no choice. I've been under house arrest, and my martial arts skills are not good. Yun Manyue is away for something, so I don't dare to say more to Wu Dao. I've always wanted to see you..."
"Have you always wanted to see me?" He looked into her eyes seriously and earnestly.
"I've always wanted to see you." With tears in her eyes, she took her arm out from under his armpit, stood on tiptoe and put her arm around his neck to hug him. "I heard about your accident, and I've always wanted to see you. It's not that I don't want to come," she said with more and more tears in her eyes. "Don't blame me."
"I don't blame you. How could I blame you?" He hugged her and buried his forehead in the crook of her neck. "When have I ever blamed you? How could I blame you?"
"But you didn't say much just now..." She hugged his neck, rubbed his head, and rubbed his ears.
I'm not talking because we've already agreed to break up, and I don't know what to do.
He lowered his head, and their foreheads touched, rubbing their eyebrows together:
"Miss me?"
"I thought about it."
No hesitation, crisp.
Who can tell what will happen to her when she is like this?
He rubbed her forehead: "Then give me a kiss."
"No." She said it on purpose, "You come and kiss me."
"What?" He couldn't help laughing and muttered, "You have to compete with me for this."
Nan Qiongshuang didn't answer, but closed her eyes and waited for him.
He didn't understand that people who were used to assassinating people based on love between men and women didn't believe in love, nor did they believe in being loved, and they had to test every step.
Gu Huaijin shook his head and finally bent down to kiss her.
Soft, warm lips.
A gentle, spring-like kiss.
She was like a long-wearing person wading into a hot spring bathed in flower petals, wrapped in it with care and intoxicated.
He lowered his head and kissed her deeper and deeper, sucking her lips and then sucking her soft tongue. After a long time, he sighed:
"Darling, I missed you so much."
"I missed you, too." She held his face in her hands. He kissed her distractedly, half-closed his eyes and looked at her blankly. She looked at his face carefully and felt a pang in her heart. "You've lost weight."
He murmured, "You've lost weight too."
She looked at him, feeling distressed and reluctant, and bit her lip.
After a long while, she held back her tears and lowered her head, "I'll help you apply the medicine."
"Forget it." He hid his hands behind his back, "Don't look at it. Haven't you eaten dinner yet? Go have some porridge first."
"You haven't eaten either." She was still wiping her tears on his clothes. Gu Huaijin noticed it, but let her be. She said, "Eat something first. Eat something so you can sleep better. Didn't you say in the letter..."
——"I'm exhausted, heartbroken, sleepless nights, and it's hard to go on."
She swallowed her tears.
She had no idea he had such severe insomnia. In the past, on Mount Tianshan, he had always slept soundly.
He applied the medicine, his expression normal, "I'm fine, baby."
You're fine, shit.
What you mean by "it's okay" is that the sooner you die, the better.
She didn't care, she took his small medicine bottle and forced him to the couch, made him sit down, and picked up the bowl.
He took the small medicine bottle and when he looked up again, a spoonful of porridge was already placed under his eyes. He was a little stunned.
He smiled and said, "This is made for you."
She was very stubborn: "You eat it."
He said, "I have no appetite."
She was most afraid that he would lose his appetite. If he didn't eat or sleep, would he still be alive?
She ordered, "Eat."
Gu Huaijin couldn't do anything about her. He dipped his lips in rice soup and deliberately skipped the big walnut kernel to see her reaction.
She was really anxious and held the spoon to his lips: "Eat it!"
He laughed.
He was a kidnapper who had tasted the sweetness of success and wanted to get more.
It was so difficult to pry open that cold and indifferent face of hers.
He was just about to bite the walnut when he heard her say, "If you keep doing this, I'll definitely come out and watch you eat every day!"
So he left the walnut kernel there pitifully.
"Watching me eat?" He now knew how to deal with her and smiled deliberately, "Forget it."
"Hurry up!" She pushed the spoon closer to his lips and said, "If you don't eat, I'll break your jaw and force the food down your throat!"
Every profession has its own specialization, and Gu Huaijin was stunned.
Only then did he remember that his slender sweetheart was a well-trained assassin in the Wangsheng Sect.
Moments of affection are so rare, and he is most afraid of thinking about these things at this time.
But I still remembered it.
He suppressed his smile.
Nan Qiong Shuang saw his expression suddenly turn cold, and she understood why. They were always like this—attracted to each other, unable to resist, yet also incompatible, like water and fire, tormenting each other.
She took the spoon back and stirred the porridge dryly, feeling a little embarrassed.
He shouldn't be reminded of these things.
However, he had been trapped in the Tianshan disaster for many years, and there was no solution.
She suddenly said, "Huai Jin, have you ever thought about looking forward?"
Gu Huaijin didn't say anything.
After a long moment, he laughed, "My Lady, are you going to forget me again?"
"It's not that I've forgotten you." As soon as he said that, she knew he was heartbroken again. She put down her porridge and held his hand. "Everything in the past is fine. Let's forget a little bit."
The two men clasped hands, and he looked down at them:
"What's the meaning."
"Either forget a little love, or forget a little hatred."
His eyebrows twitched, he was a little surprised and smiled bitterly.
"I know you have the most important responsibility. So I also know that you can't let go of the Tianshan matter easily. So, I wanted to force you to let me go."
"If you let me go, at least you wouldn't have to struggle so painfully and hate me so wholeheartedly."
He finally understood: "So the reason you have been refusing to see me is..."
She didn't respond.
Ignoring his pain, forcing him to break up, and then saying it was for his own good was too hypocritical. ——Besides, half of the reason was that she didn't want to betray him.
She said slowly, "You know, pure love, or pure hate, is enough to keep a person alive. Only when love and hate are mixed, when love cannot be obtained and hate has no way out, will a person destroy himself. I don't want you to die - even if you don't love me. So I harden my heart and accept everything you heard from Wu Dao."
"But I didn't expect that you would actually seek death like this."
Why did he make up his mind after the breakup? Was it because he saw her true face and felt that he had loved the wrong person and died of heartache, or was it because he couldn't get the love he wanted and felt that he shouldn't have loved that he wanted to commit suicide?
Gu Huaijin closed his eyes tiredly and said nothing.
"Why seek death? Huai Jin, love and hatred, if either side lets go, people can live. Why did I say to the Regent back then, 'Forget it, it's easy to forget'? Because the past is meaningless. Even if it's bigger than the sky, the past is the past, meaningless. What happened yesterday, even if you torture yourself to death, will not change anything. Since it can't be changed, why bother thinking about it."
"I've always been the most open-minded. I thought everyone could be open-minded, so I used this method to force you. I didn't expect that the more I pushed you, the more you became. But Huaijin, why do you have to do this? Why bother holding on to something that can't be changed?"
"Even if everything in the past was your fault and your responsibility, can you let it go so easily?"
He asked softly and coldly.
"Yes." She held back her tears, her resoluteness as cold as ice and snow resurfacing. "Tomorrow is more important than the past."
"Even if someone died because of you, even if they were all innocent people who died because of you, even if innocent people warned you that you were totally wrong, you still insisted on doing it, and in the end, innocent people died. Did you save your own life?"
"Yes." Her eyes were red. "The past is the past, and tomorrow is tomorrow."
Gu Huaijin looked at her with a hint of coldness and sneered, "Shuang'er, that's not called 'tomorrow', that's called 'survival'."
He shook his head gently and compassionately:
"I didn't choose 'the past.'"
"I am a 'martyr.'"
Nan Qiong Shuang finally realized that she couldn't persuade him.
One of them values the public interest, the other values private interests. One seeks survival, the other seeks justice.
The assassin whose life was as fleeting as a mayfly and the leader who controlled the entire mountain. Their cores were completely different, and they were two completely different types of people.
"So," he stroked her hair lovingly and cherishingly, "you let go of everything quickly."
She covered her face and burst into tears.
"That's great." He murmured, "I really envy you. I've always... wanted to be more free and easy."
He slowly hugged the crying woman into his arms for a long time without saying anything, his chin resting on the top of her head.
Her chest was wet from her crying.
Nan Qiong Shuang snuggled in his arms. Although he was holding her, an ominous premonition was lingering in her heart.
——She still couldn't keep him.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
