Before slipping into bed, Yin Wuzhi had made sure to warm his hands with internal energy.
The temperature of the fingers resting on Jiang Wu’s shoulder was just right—neither too cold nor too hot.
It wasn’t abrupt enough to wake him up.
So the “big black dog” gnawed quite indulgently.
There was a slight pain. If it had been when he had just crossed over, such pain would have been unbearable.
He still had to thank empress dowager Yao for pinching him that day; now he could face this small pain with composure.
Perhaps once someone begins to be human, they gradually learn to endure.
A damp feeling crept along his neck. Jiang Wu turned his eyes, thinking about what the other person was doing. Was he like a venomous snake, injecting poison with his teeth? Did Yin Wuzhi have that ability?
The young man sniffed.
He hadn’t bullied him recently, so why was he sulking now?
“Why did you touch Chen Ziyan’s hand?” The voice was somewhat hoarse and pressed low, sounding vicious: “You even wanted him to kiss you. Do you have any shame?”
So that’s what it was.
Jiang Wu replied, “I like it.”
The person lying beside him stiffened suddenly.
Yin Wuzhi flipped out of bed, causing the bed curtains to billow. Jiang Wu spoke: “Stop.”
Yin Wuzhi froze, the billowing bed curtains settling on his shoulder.
“Come back.”
“Lie beside me.”
Yin Wuzhi stiffened, following the command step by step. He got back into bed but didn’t lie down; instead, he sat at the edge of the bed with his back to Jiang Wu.
“If you don’t want to lie down, then lie on your stomach.”
Yin Wuzhi gritted his teeth. “What do you take me for?”
“That day, you were lying quite steadily on top of me,” Jiang Wu referred to the day Yin Wuzhi had acted like a spider-man. “Just like that day, I want to see your face.”
As he said this, Jiang Wu stared straight ahead at the ceiling without giving him a glance.
He heard Yin Wuzhi’s restrained breathing and could smell that beautiful scent of murder. Then, suddenly, his vision went dark.
Yin Wuzhi placed one hand by his ear and flipped his body heavily.
For a moment, Jiang Wu thought he was going to crush him to death.
The other ear was also propped up by a hand. Yin Wuzhi hovered above him, his tone as cold as ice: “Speak.”
Jiang Wu said, “Why are you crying again?”
Yin Wuzhi’s eyelashes quivered, the moisture in his eyes deepening, as he said bitterly, “You foolish emperor, who told you to touch my brother Chen?”
Chen Ziyan really was his sore spot.
Jiang Wu curled his lips.
Yin Wuzhi hadn’t seen him smile many times. Most of the time, his expression was indifferent, but now, he realized that even when Jiang Wu smiled, it was very faint, almost imperceptible, and vanished quickly.
What was he happy about?!
“When you leave later, tell Chen Ziyan to come and keep me company tomorrow night.”
Yin Wuzhi glared at him, his eyes gradually filling with bloodshot veins: “Jiang Wu, don’t go too far.”
“And what if I do?” Jiang Wu said. “You, mere ants, dare to defy me?”
Yin Wuzhi held his breath, his hand gripping the bedding so tightly it wrinkled. He bit down on his teeth, and the tears, unable to bear the weight, suddenly fell.
Jiang Wu instinctively blinked. His right eye was wet, stinging with pain.
A flood of curses surged through his mind.
“How can someone like him be the emperor of the Great Xia Dynasty?!”
“Get out! Go back where you belong!”
“Kill him—”
Jiang Wu calmly opened his eyes. Yin Wuzhi had already rolled off him, wiping his eyes forcefully, his nose tinged red.
“My eyes have something of yours in them,” Jiang Wu said. “Wipe it off.”
“Don’t you have hands?”
“Wipe it.”
Yin Wuzhi turned his face to glare at him. After a long pause, he finally extended his hand to wipe Jiang Wu’s right eye. The embroidery on his sleeve scratched the corner of Jiang Wu’s eye red, causing Yin Wuzhi to hesitate and then switch to using the inside of his sleeve to dab the moisture away.
Jiang Wu closed his eyes again, thinking it must have been a memory from the original body. If there was some predetermined fate, perhaps his crossing through time into the body of this emperor, from confusion to the desire to restore the glory of the Later Xia Dynasty, might be inextricably linked to Yin Wuzhi.
This inexplicable cause, who knew what kind of inexplicable effect it would bring?
He hated the idea of cause and effect. Compared to that, he preferred things without logic, without reason.
Suddenly, he didn’t want to continue. What did the glory of the Later Xia Dynasty have to do with him? What did it matter if history repeated itself or not?
The tides rise and fall in the ocean, so why should the sky interfere?
He moved his eyes and glanced at Yin Wuzhi.
Yin Wuzhi scowled at him. “What are you looking at?”
“Yin Wuzhi, do you want to die?”
“If you’re going to kill me, do it. Why talk so much?”
Jiang Wu said, “Get out.”
Yin Wuzhi jumped off the bed without hesitation, but as he remembered that Jiang Wu had asked Chen Ziyan to accompany him the next day, his face darkened, and he turned back. “The more wrong you do, the closer you are to your own destruction. You’d better think it through.”
It was a warning.
Jiang Wu closed his eyes again and said lightly, “Get lost.”
He was so capricious that Yin Wuzhi had to hold back his anger. But after standing for a few moments, he turned and left without looking back.
Jiang Wu laid there for a while, then rolled over, burying his face into the pillow.
His breathing grew more and more stifled.
The feeling of suffocation wasn’t pleasant, but it was tolerable. As long as he could endure, he would be free.
Seconds dragged on like years.
Die quickly, die quickly, die quickly.
Why am I still conscious?
Suddenly, a hand grabbed the back of his neck.
Fresh air rushed into his nose all at once. Jiang Wu reflexively held his breath.
No, I absolutely won’t breathe—I’m almost there.
His chin was suddenly pinched, and someone took a deep breath and exhaled it into his mouth.
One breath wasn’t enough; the person exhaled again.
Jiang Wu: “…”
His flushed face gradually returned to normal. He opened his eyes and met a pair of pitch-black eyes.
Yin Wuzhi stared at him, and upon confirming that he was awake, burst into rage: “Are you an idiot? Why would you sleep like that? Do you know you could suffocate and die that way? You couldn’t even breathe and you didn’t turn over?”
Yin Wuzhi picked up his limp wrist and said, “What do you need your hands for? Decoration? Why would you lie face down to sleep like that? If you can’t flip back over, why not call for someone? Do you need people to stand watch over you at all times? Do you realize how troublesome and annoying this is? You’re being unreasonable and only causing more burden for others!”
Jiang Wu: “.”
Saying that much in one breath must be exhausting.
It evokes sympathy.
Yin Wuzhi threw him back onto the dragon bed.
Jiang Wu took a moment before asking, “Why did you come back?”
“If I didn’t come back, the palace would be ringing funeral bells tomorrow.”
In fact, he had felt that his last words might have been too harsh. Jiang Wu had actually told him to “get lost,” so Yin Wuzhi was worried and decided to return to check on him.
He hadn’t expected to see that scene.
Yin Wuzhi poured a cup of water, picked him up, and brought it to his lips.
Jiang Wu didn’t drink; he was still processing the words Yin Wuzhi had just said.
“Drink a little. After what happened, your mouth must be dry,” Yin Wuzhi said.
Jiang Wu finally processed it all. “I’m a burden.”
Yin Wuzhi was momentarily stunned and reflexively said, “That’s not what I meant. I was just…”
“But I’m the Emperor,” Jiang Wu said. “If I want to be a burden, you all have to deal with it.”
…What a waste to worry about you. Yin Wuzhi pressed the cup to his lips and grumbled, “Drink.”
Jiang Wu refused.
If he was thirsty, let him die of thirst then.
He was tired of the sudden memories and this heavy body he couldn’t adjust to.
Let the humans deal with human problems.
“If you don’t drink, I’ll force it down,” Yin Wuzhi said.
Jiang Wu looked at him. Yin Wuzhi thought he might get angry and quickly added, “If you drink it, I won’t…”
“Fine,” Jiang Wu said. “Force it.”
Maybe he’d choke to death.
Yin Wuzhi glared at him in frustration. Why is this person like this? Is there nothing in the world that scares him?
Yin Wuzhi looked at the water in the cup, then at his lips.
Then he took a sip, leaned down, and pressed his lips against Jiang Wu’s.
Jiang Wu: “?”
Yin Wuzhi’s hand forced open his jaw. Jiang Wu had no choice but to swallow. One mouthful down, and then another.
For the last mouthful, Yin Wuzhi held Jiang Wu’s body with one hand and the cup with the other, pressing his lips to Jiang Wu’s once more, but this time he lingered a bit longer.
That lingering moment spiraled out of control.
The cup fell to the floor and shattered into pieces. Jiang Wu, limp like a rag doll, was placed back onto the bed as someone climbed on top of him.
Ah, the suffocating feeling was back again.
Lack of oxygen, dizziness, his vision darkening, consciousness fading.
Yin Wuzhi… is really something.
Finally, he was going to die.
On the dragon bed in Taiji Palace, Yin Wuzhi was so caught up in kissing Jiang Wu that he didn’t even notice Jiang Wu’s soul slipping silently out of the palace, rising higher and higher.
He looked down, taking in the entire palace from above.
He moved easily in the air, rolling, flipping, stretching his limbs as if doing calisthenics, everything feeling weightless and free.
He could push his hand through his own stomach, poke his fingers into his eyes, and feel no pain at all.
He shouted, but no one could hear him—not even himself.
But he knew he had shouted.
Overjoyed, he leapt into the air and shot out of the palace.
Now that he was a spirit, he found his mind much clearer. Jiang Wu quickly determined his next step: he was going to find out what had pulled him into this era. First, he would visit a place called Wudao Mountain.
Jiang Wu remembered that place.
Wudao Mountain was tall, towering over the nearby peaks. At the top was a kneeling stone figure, and beneath it was Wudao Temple. Later, the area was developed into a tourist attraction, with people climbing the man-made steps to take pictures with the stone figure.
Though, because the stone figure knelt facing the cliff, people could only take pictures with its back.
It was there that a mysterious force had pulled Jiang Wu into this historical period.
He wanted to go back.
Maybe if he returned, the original Jiang Wu would come back, and everything here would return to its normal course.
As for this experience, it would probably just be an accidental detour in history, one that some deity in charge of such things would eventually trim away.
The scent of osmanthus blossoms filled the canopy of the dragon bed.
Yin Wuzhi had somewhat lost control.
Pressing against Jiang Wu’s body, he was overwhelmed by desire.
Before meeting Jiang Wu, he had never been intimate with anyone, nor had he known that kissing could be so addictive.
It wasn’t until Jiang Wu’s body began convulsing from lack of oxygen that Yin Wuzhi suddenly remembered—Jiang Wu was the type of person who, when faced with difficulty, would simply give up altogether.
In other words, if he started struggling to breathe, he’d just stop trying to breathe.
Their lips parted with a faint, hurried sound.
Panicked, Yin Wuzhi hurriedly sat him up and began frantically trying to resuscitate him. “Your Majesty, Your Majesty?”
More frantic resuscitation. He shook Jiang Wu’s body. “Your Majesty, wake up!”
No response.
Pale-faced, Yin Wuzhi reached out to feel for a heartbeat, then checked his breath—
“…”
He’s… sleeping.
