Chapter 72 Love is my armor and my weakness.
The night wind blows past the window, and the slight rustling sound gives people a sense of tranquility.
In the room, Lin Bozhou and his disciples looked at each other in silence.
Jiang Zhaoyue was still looking at him seriously, waiting for his answer.
In the unbearable silence, he was the first to throw down his weapons and look away.
Lin Bozhou did not answer her directly, but took a deep breath and closed his eyes, as if to tell her, or to tell himself.
"Xiaobao, I should have raised you like an ordinary master, not like this now."
Jiang Zhaoyue didn't move, not even looking away, still staring at him. She whispered softly, "Is this what Master wanted?"
Lin Bozhou didn't dare to look at her, he was very confused and didn't know how to answer.
Jiang Zhaoyue stared at him for a long time, and finally she stood up and left his arms.
The woman's voice was gentle, without a trace of indifference, dissatisfaction, or resentment. She spoke almost word for word, "If this is what Master wishes, I will obey Master's command."
She rose from his arms and left the bed, not returning to the smaller bed next to it.
Jiang Zhaoyue stood beside the bed, her voice not much fluctuating. Lin Bozhou didn't dare to look into her eyes, so he didn't know what her expression was.
He only heard her speak clearly, even with some soothing tone: "Master, I don't care what others think or say. You are the most important person to me. But if you mind, I will do as you wish."
After she said these words, she walked to the door while Lin Bozhou looked a little dazed, opened the door and left the room.
Lin Bozhou subconsciously reached out his hand, wanting to keep her, but he didn't say a word.
After just a moment of hesitation, Jiang Zhaoyue left the room and disappeared from his sight.
She did not turn left or right to look for Fu Lanting or Jiang Qiying, but kept going forward.
She passed the courtyard, the octagonal pavilion, and the swing set and left Lin Bozhou's yard.
Just like when she was sixteen, she left him and went to the area where the core disciples of the sect lived. That was where she lived after she turned sixteen.
And that's how it should be.
It was just that when she was sixteen, it was to let her leave the greenhouse and see the outside world, but now he was pushing his own disciple away with his own hands.
Lin Bozhou felt a sharp pain in his heart.
He covered his chest, and a feeling of suffocation surged from his heart and spread to his whole body.
He felt ridiculous.
He clearly didn't want to, but he forced himself to be like an ordinary master. He was the one who pushed his own disciple away, but he acted so ridiculously here.
The more the pain deepened, the harder Lin Bozhou pressed his hands against his chest. He suddenly stood up and walked out of the room.
The door next to him opened.
Fu Lanting's face was hidden in the darkness and could not be seen clearly. One could only feel the dim light in his eyes, which was calm and indifferent.
He crossed his arms over his chest and looked at Lin Bozhou who walked out of the room. His voice was as flat as his eyes.
"Now that you've made your choice, why regret it?"
Lin Bozhou put down his hands that were covering his chest and looked at him with a frown.
Fu Lanting took a step forward, and his face, which had been completely hidden in the darkness before, was now half exposed in the dim light.
There seemed to be a faint curve at the corner of his lips, but the voice remained the same.
"Since you think it's for her good, since it's your own decision, since you know deep down what's right and what's wrong, then let it go. I once said that no one will stay with another person forever, not even parents, friends, Bozhou, not to mention that you are not her parents."
There was no expression on Lin Bozhou's face, and he did not refute him.
He was like a sculpture, and did not make a sound for a long time.
It was not until the night wind started blowing again, rustling through the leaves in the courtyard and the sound became louder that he looked at Fu Lanting.
"What do you want to say?"
There was a sneer on the corner of his lips.
"Do you think you can replace me if Xiaobao leaves me? Fu Lanting, you are very smart, but don't treat me like a fool."
After saying these words, he didn't even look at him again.
Turned around and walked back to the room.
Lying down on the bed, Lin Bozhou turned his head and looked quietly at the empty bed next to him. His expression had calmed down a lot, but his eyes were a little empty and confused.
He reached out and touched his heart again. The pain still lingered, but the empty room was so quiet that even the slightest breathing could be heard clearly.
The various decorations and objects that had been placed in the room for Jiang Zhaoyue in the past, her dressing mirror, dressing table, flowers on the windowsill, the red jade porcelain vase and four treasures of the study placed on the antique shelf... all the details that he was familiar with and arranged by himself, now seemed like shackles outside a cage.
Lin Bozhou was locked in the room, making it difficult for him to breathe.
It was clearly just one person missing, but he felt as if the whole world had suddenly become silent.
The floating veil was blown up by the night wind, becoming the only living thing in the room. Lin Bozhou looked at the floating veil, and his eyes gradually became complicated.
He thought about how he didn't dare to look at her just now, her words, and the entanglement in his heart these days.
He thought of her smile again, and how she would throw herself into his arms affectionately and call him Master.
It seemed as if pain and pleasure were alternating.
No sleep all night.
Black fades into daylight in the eyes.
When the first ray of sunlight in the early morning fell on the earth, Jiang Zhaoyue opened his eyes and woke up in his residence.
The first thing that caught my eye was not the veil covering the bed, but a handsome, yet slightly haggard face.
It stands to reason that if a master-level expert doesn't sleep for a year, it won't have any impact on his body, but Lin Bozhou looks visibly more haggard.
This haggardness does not come from the body, but probably from the emotional exhaustion.
He sat beside her bed, looking down at her, not knowing when he came, but he didn't disturb her until she woke up naturally.
Jiang Zhaoyue's eyes froze for only a moment, then she slowly sat up from the bed. She was not panicked, nor was she surprised. She just smiled and looked at him as she did before.
She asked, "Why is Master here?"
Her voice did not become distant, nor did her attitude become cold, even though Lin Bozhou had pushed her away personally, and even though this had just happened last night.
She still treated him as usual.
Lin Bozhou's eyes were red first.
A sour and indescribable sadness surged from his heart, mixed with his confused emotions from not sleeping all night.
In the end, I can't control it, I can't tolerate it.
Lin Bozhou opened his arms and held her in his arms with some rare tentativeness.
Jiang Zhaoyue didn't push him away, nor did she resist. After her master embraced her, she just rubbed her face against his neck as she used to do before grabbing his clothes and saying, "Master?"
Lin Bozhou buried his slightly red eyes in a direction where she couldn't see. His voice was low and didn't sound pleasant.
"Xiaobao, do you think Master is willful?"
Without waiting for her to answer, he continued, "It was clearly me who hadn't thought it through, and it was clearly me who was hesitating, yet I made you bear the burden of my hesitation and then came to bother you. Master is truly a failed master."
"I thought about it all night yesterday and thought I could accept it. But whenever I think about the relationship between Xiaobao and Master becoming as distant as the Sixth Elder and his disciples, I feel a pain in my heart. I dare not think about it and cannot accept it."
Lin Bozhou closed his eyes and bit his lower lip slightly. From his words, one could still hear his complicated and entangled emotions, but he did not let go of Jiang Zhaoyue.
He held her tightly, afraid that he would lose his treasure if he let go.
Jiang Zhaoyue released the hand that was holding his clothes and patted him on the back instead.
She didn't blame or resent him at all. She just said to him gently with a smile, "I've said before, Master, as long as it's what you want, I will do it. If you really care about what others think or see, I'm willing to fulfill your wish. It all depends on you."
This entanglement and struggle that lasted an entire night was just Lin Bozhou's own repetition, and she had never wavered at all.
Just like now, as if the estrangement of last night had never happened, she was still so considerate and understanding, without a trace of blame.
Sometimes Lin Bozhou even had the illusion that he raised the young Jiang Zhaoyue, and Jiang Zhaoyue was also raising him, a cold and poor boy.
Although he is an elder and stands at the top of a mountain, he has the ability to look down on other mountains. However, many times, he is not as broad-minded as his Xiaobao.
Perhaps because he cared about her, she felt more bound by it. He was always worried about this or that bad thing, worried about what others would say, and worried that those bad things would affect her.
He was like a coward, holding the treasure in his arms tremblingly, always worried that he would accidentally break it, so he didn't dare to get too close to it.
But he had never really thought about what the treasure needed.
This shouldn't have happened.
Jiang Zhaoyue never cared about those things, not in the past, present or future. All she wanted was to be with him, just to snuggle up to each other like before. They were the two closest people in the world and the most important people to each other.
She only cared about his love.
Lin Bozhou spent an entire night finally understanding where his timidity came from, and finally realized how stupid it was for him to push his disciple away.
Perhaps his disciples understood better than he did, so she just looked at him quietly with a tolerant and kind attitude, waiting for him to sort out his heart.
He is more like the unreasonable one, relying on the other person's love to waver and struggle repeatedly in his own whirlpool.
Until she left, until he realized that true alienation was ten thousand times more painful than he had imagined.
Just this alone was enough to cause him immense pain, not to mention the possibility of him completely standing aside and watching from the sidelines in the future, becoming a qualified "good master" who would not interfere in the lives of his disciples.
Lin Bozhou couldn't imagine it, he couldn't accept it.
When his panic reached its peak, he didn't dare to wait even a moment longer.
At dawn, he came to her side and looked at her peaceful sleeping face. His heart suddenly calmed down, as if his heart was suspended in the air and soaked in warm water. The panic and pain that surged in his heart faded away in the blink of an eye.
His disciples are his armor and his weakness against all odds.
Lin Bozhou had never realized this so clearly as he did at this moment.
Until that familiar body was held in his arms.
He finally felt completely at ease, and his low sigh contained the peace and satisfaction that he could not live without.
"My little treasure."
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