Chapter 35 (2/2)

“Your highness, please conduct yourself with dignity,” The words were squeezed out from the gaps in my teeth. I didn’t know how long I could bear it…

“Conduct myself with dignity?” he smiled brightly, his mouth filled with ridicule. “I’m going to be the only ruler of a country very soon. There’s nothing I want that I can’t have.”

This person, where did he get such self-confidence?

I fixed him with a look. Exactly how much of him was drunk, and how much was sober?

“Ah, you…” his gaze s.h.i.+fted, and his hand rested on my throat. “You even fixed your voice…did you really want to avoid me? Yet you clearly got closer to Fang Hua, that really saddens me.”

“You and my yifu, just what exactly…” The last few words were stuck in my throat and refused to come out. It was very difficult to speak them.

He raised his eyebrows and said nothing, but gave me a significant look. Using his hands, he clutched me in a full embrace.

“I can’t say it, and also…I definitely can’t tell you.”

My body stiffened, vision filled with his frenetic, concealed gaze. He paused before adding something without rhyme or reason. “We’ve been together for so long, yet you didn’t realize I liked you?”

Like me?

Like me to the point that you’d hug me…even as he said those words, he felt the hair on my temples with his fingers, pinching part of the skin…

My lips slowly curved up and I only thought it was very funny…as well as sad.

Yifu, is this the sort of person you like?

There was a slight noise. The unlocked door behind us opened with a creak. I gave an astonished look behind Han Zichuan. Something brushed before my eyes, and my face suddenly grew cool. A face mask was lifted onto his fingers as Han Zichuan raised his eyebrows to give me a pleased look.

And yet I was completely fixated on the person behind him.

Beneath the vast and boundless moon, Fang Hua leaned by the door, his face at a complete loss. He was only wearing a simple, single layer of white robes as his gaze slowly drifted to Han Zichuan and me.

“Yifu,” I called out hoa.r.s.ely.

The two arms around my waist had never let go.

He strove to put on an expressionless face of surprise, but the hand pinching the front of his jacket was shaking. The mole by the corner of one eye looked as if it was about to slide down his face, glistening a scarlet red.

He was probably very sad.

Because at this moment, I could feel my heart twisting in pain like it would split open. So this was what they called a chill that pierced the liver and spleen.

He looked at me with a trace of a gentle, peaceful smile. A pair of twinkling pupils, pure and limpid as spring water, made a captivating sight. Yet to me, they only seemed like a source of endless sorrow. His outwardly mournfulness increased.

I suddenly felt listless and empty.

Han Zichuan lowered his head while hugging me. Between the confusion and shock, the shattered mess of the past flashed before me like a dreamscape.

“Shao Hua, I know you.”

“Shao Hua, I’ll be living here now with you and Fang Hua.”

That day the willow catkins were swirling in the air and Han Zichuan charged into our lives without warning. Was now a time to settle everything…? Perhaps this had been the truth from the beginning, but I had refused to believe it.

“Someone I used to know very well once fell in love with a person unable to return his feelings. The person he loved already had a wife, but he was still attracted to that person like a moth to a flame. The second half of his life was spent in grief so heavy that he wished he was dead…”

Han Zichuan had his head lowered to play the qin. Behind him stood Fang Hua, instructing him with his fingers.

The sunlight seeped past the bamboo woods to s.h.i.+ne upon them both, dazzling slightly. A fresh gale blew past, lifting their sashes in the air while flowers fell like rain.

All these scenes flashed through my mind’s eye…

How could I have forgotten?

An aching sadness settled itself in my heart.

I’d never forgotten…I just didn’t want to accept it.

I think…I was really tired. I softly covered Han Zichuan’s hands and stiffly pushed him away to take a deep breath. My hands and feet had no support, and there was no hope for me to cling to. The secret anguish of my heart had become a vivid reality.

Yifu, you raised me.

Shao’er once promised that I’d risk my life to protect you…

As for now, if you can be happy, then I’ll leave…

As long as you are happy.

My heart grew weary as my hands slackened, and I made a choice to turn and walk off without any hint of reluctance. From the beginning to end, I dared not look back towards that hazy, foggy white image of a figure. I relaxed my body and closed my eyes, afraid that if I saw…I wouldn’t be able to bear leaving him.

There was only his voice by my ear. “Shao’er, if you think it’s worthwhile, then don’t come back.”

A very, very long time afterwards, my heart would twitch whenever I recall these words, which kept me restless for a long time. Everything originated from a misunderstanding. Suppose I had turned around then, maybe things would have been different.

Sadly, there wasn’t enough room for maybe in this world.

-o- All reproductions of this work not on volaretranslations are stolen copies.

[1] little ancestor (小祖宗) －xiao zuzong, a respectful t.i.tle to call one’s senior in a family (or perhaps a family unit like this one).