ATAVID CH80

Jiang Qunyu fell into a long-forgotten past dream, his memories a chaotic jumble, as if an old wound from years ago had been forcefully torn open.

In the dream, it seemed to still be the Xiping era, back when he was still Wei Xun’s inner demon. He had suddenly become obsessed with wood carving. Bursting with enthusiasm, he had run off to the marketplace and scavenged a huge pile of high-quality wood. The comical part was that he possessed absolutely no talent for it, yet his stubborn nature refused to accept defeat, leading him to square off against those blocks of wood day and night.

When Wei Xun urged him to go to sleep, he would offer a casual, perfunctory response, but the carving knife in his hand never stopped as he kept his head buried, sculpting those shapeless puppets. Perhaps because he had stayed up for too long, he unknowingly drifted into a deep sleep while still clutching the carving knife.

By the time he woke up the next day at the faint break of dawn, he saw a neat row of wooden puppets lined up on the low table.

Wei Xun asked him whether he thought the puppets were well-carved or not.

The more Jiang Qunyu looked at the puppets, the more he felt they resembled himself. At that time, he even wondered if too much time had passed and he had forgotten his own appearance, which was why everything he looked at ended up looking like him. Yet, he couldn’t help but wonder: did Wei Xun actually know what he looked like? Or was it just a sheer stroke of coincidental luck?

His heart trembled inexplicably, but Jiang Qunyu still stiffened his neck and stubbornly spat out, “Ugly little things.”

Later on, those puppets were tossed into his cosmos bag and hidden away.

…

……

The faint scent of agarwood lingered around the tip of his nose, intertwining with the aura from his dream and leaving his mind restless. Jiang Qunyu’s sleep was incredibly fitful.

When he woke up, a faint patch of dark shadow loomed beneath his eyelids. He stared at the bed curtains with wide eyes, still a bit dazed. For a moment, he couldn’t distinguish whether he was in the Lingxiao Sect from a century ago or the Nether Abyss palace of the present.

An arm was slung across his waist. Wei Xun held him extremely tight, his warm breath fanning against the side of Jiang Qunyu’s neck, bringing a subtle wave of itchiness.

Jiang Qunyu’s mind was already a tangled mess, and now, being squeezed so hard by this force that seemed intent on grinding him into Wei Xun’s very bones and blood made him feel suffocated. Fury flared in his chest, and he raised his foot to deliver a sharp kick.

Wei Xun winced from the pain, his arm loosening slightly. Taking advantage of the moment, Jiang Qunyu rolled outward, attempting to escape this suffocating embrace.

However, before he could move far, a rustling sound came from behind. Wei Xun had opened his eyes at some unknown point, the dark depths of his eyes still retaining the heavy gloom of someone who had just awoken. With a sweep of his long arm, he forcefully dragged the person right back. He then held Jiang Qunyu tightly in a posture akin to imprisonment, resting his chin against the crown of Jiang Qunyu’s head, his voice low and raspy: “Sleep a bit longer.”

Jiang Qunyu: “…”

Sleep his granddad’s ass! He was completely wide awake now!

Those words, “ugly little thing,” were spoken by his own mouth back then. So when Wei Xun had uttered those exact words to him inside the bridal sedan chair, what on earth did he mean? Had he truly recognized his identity? Or did he simply think this current face of his was born ugly?

But he remembered that back then, when he disdained the puppet as an ugly piece of trash, Wei Xun’s face had darkened, and he had refuted him word by word, saying the puppet looked beautiful.

What exactly did Wei Xun mean?

Jiang Qunyu was now entirely thrown into disarray. On one hand, he felt it was impossible; Wei Xun absolutely could not have recognized him. If he really had, his little life would probably be forfeit by now. On the other hand, if Wei Xun hadn’t recognized him, why would he say those specific words?

Just as he was about to twist himself into a knot of anxiety, Wei Xun finally let go of him and lazily sat up.

The first light of dawn filtered through the window lattices, scattering into the room. It was only now that Jiang Qunyu belatedly realized that the intricate wedding robes they both wore had vanished without a trace, leaving only their loose, stark white inner robes hanging loosely on their bodies.

He fell into a brief silence, his emotions complicated beyond description. This scene… no matter how one looked at it, carried a bizarrely subtle undertone.

Wei Xun’s long hair was unbound, cascading like ink over his shoulders with a few strands draping along the side of his face. His eyelashes drooped slightly, casting an ambiguous, dark shadow beneath his eyes, yet his gaze remained fixed on Jiang Qunyu’s face for a long time.

After a long while, he suddenly reached out his hand.

From the moment Wei Xun sat up and looked down with lowered eyes, Jiang Qunyu had developed an extremely ominous premonition. Seeing Wei Xun’s fingerpads about to touch the corner of his eye, he instinctively tried to dodge, but he was ultimately a step too slow. The slightly cool fingerpad brushed gently across his eyelid, inducing a subtle shiver.

Wei Xun frowned. “Didn’t sleep well last night?”

Jiang Qunyu: “…”

He couldn’t exactly tell him about the dream he just had, could he? No, it shouldn’t be counted as a dream, but rather a memory from many years ago.

In his desperation, he could only blame everything on that lingering fragrance: “That incense you burned last night didn’t calm the mind or nurture the spirit at all!”

Hearing this, Wei Xun’s movements came to an imperceptible halt. The fingertip resting on Jiang Qunyu’s face froze as well, and the air seemed to solidify at that very instant.

Jiang Qunyu raised his hand, wanting to slap his hand away, when a voice still laced with a hint of sleepiness echoed in his ear: “How do you know that incense is for calming the mind and nurturing the spirit?”

Jiang Qunyu also fell silent.

After a long pause, he finally said, “…Is it not?”

Even he himself couldn’t explain why those words had slipped out of his mouth. There were only some broken, blurry images in his mind, as if obscured by a thin layer of gauze, vaguely remembering that Wei Xun seemed to have mentioned it. But when had that been? When had Wei Xun told him that?

“It is,” Wei Xun suddenly let out a low laugh, his chest vibrating slightly, those deep eyes of his seemingly filled with fragmented stars. “It is an incense to calm the mind and nurture the spirit.”

“Oh,” Jiang Qunyu thought Wei Xun was acting bafflingly. If it was, then it was; why laugh so happily?

Wei Xun lifted the quilt and got out of bed, his bare feet stepping onto the soft carpet. Not wanting to lounge in bed either, Jiang Qunyu followed him out, trailing closely behind Wei Xun’s heels.

His mind was entirely occupied with plotting how to test the waters, wanting to figure out whether Wei Xun knew his true background without exposing his identity, while also securing a chance for a “lenient confession.”

Wei Xun walked to the inner chamber to freshen up, casting a flat glance at the person behind him as a barely perceptible smile tugged at the corner of his lips.

While Jiang Qunyu was pondering his phrasing, his gaze fell upon the basin of steaming warm water. A soft, wet cloth was wrung dry by long fingers, droplets of water cascading through the gaps between them.

Jiang Qunyu was still spacing out, wondering what his next line should be, when a warm hand suddenly covered the back of his neck. The distinct knuckles gave a gentle tilt, making him involuntarily lift his head.

In the next instant, the warm, damp cloth was gently draped over his face. The pressure was light and the movements incredibly tender, meticulously wiping across his cheeks and brows. Jiang Qunyu stiffened for a moment, yet surprisingly, he didn’t find it unpleasant.

Wei Xun lowered his eyes, meeting those eyes that had been turned misty by the steam, and the sense of unreality weighed down in his chest was immensely satisfied. The sharp anxiety and ruthlessness born from losing Jiang Qunyu for so long quieted down significantly.

“Hiss—”

Jiang Qunyu suddenly drew in a sharp breath of cold air.

Wei Xun’s movements paused, his fingertips leaving the side of his face as his brows knit slightly. “What’s wrong?”

Jiang Qunyu raised his hand to touch his lips, his expression a bit peculiar. “My mouth hurts.”

How strange. Last night, he was too busy dealing with Wei Xun to eat anything. Surely he hadn’t talked in his sleep and bitten himself, right?

Without a word, Wei Xun threw the cloth back into the bronze basin and unhurriedly wiped his hands dry. Afterward, he naturally took Jiang Qunyu’s hand and led him outside.

“Where are we going?” Jiang Qunyu looked up blankly.

Wei Xun hooked his lips, his eyes harboring a meaningful smile. “Don’t you want to see the wound on your lip?”

As he spoke, he pulled Jiang Qunyu to sit down in front of the dressing table.

Jiang Qunyu blanked out for a moment, realizing only now that this room did have some differences compared to Wei Xun’s cave dwelling back in the Lingxiao Sect after all. He had actually placed a bronze mirror in the room. Truly bizarre.

“Take a look,” Wei Xun’s voice was flat, devoid of any discernible emotion.

The bronze mirror was large, enough to accommodate the upper bodies of both men completely.

In the mirror, Jiang Qunyu sat properly while Wei Xun stood behind him, leaning down slightly. One of the man’s hands rested casually on his shoulder, while the other braced against the dressing table, his entire person practically pressed against Jiang Qunyu’s back, his face almost touching his cheek. Looking through the mirror, the two were so intimate they seemed to merge into one.

Jiang Qunyu felt that Wei Xun was a bit clingy… Could it be that he treated every person he completed the wedding ritual with in this exact manner?

Jiang Qunyu let out a ghostly sigh in his mind. He thought to himself that this guy really put on quite a respectable facade; just to make his spouse happy, he had even prepared a bronze mirror—this psychopath used to vomit until he was half-dead just by looking at his own face before.

“Oh,” he responded, and began to carefully examine his own face.

However, the more he looked, the stranger it felt. The person in the mirror still carried a hint of lingering sleepiness in his brows, but the corner of his mouth was slightly red and swollen, even broken a bit. He instinctively shifted the corner of his mouth, the movement bringing a subtle sting of pain.

Why did he have a wound on the corner of his mouth?

Taking in all the confusion within his eyes, the corners of Wei Xun’s lips suddenly split into a wide grin. Illuminated by the bright bronze mirror, that handsome face of his actually appeared extraordinarily eerie.

Jiang Qunyu’s heart skipped a beat, his scalp tingling, and he instinctively wanted to reach out and cover Wei Xun’s mouth. But his hand had only made it halfway up the air before it was firmly caught by Wei Xun. Long fingers forcefully squeezed into the gaps between his, interlocking their fingers tightly. Wei Xun held his hand, pressing their joined hands together right against Jiang Qunyu’s chest.

Viewed from the bronze mirror, this image looked exactly as if Wei Xun was entirely embracing him from behind.

In the next instant, a low, laughter-filled voice echoed ghostlily right beside his ear. Wei Xun’s tone carried a hint of enticement: “Do you want to know how it got hurt?”

Jiang Qunyu refused with a cold face: “I don’t.”

He could practically guess that whatever came out of Wei Xun’s mouth would definitely not be anything good.

Wei Xun, however, completely ignored his resistance. The hand pinning his down let go and moved upward, landing on Jiang Qunyu’s cheek. Applying a bit of force with his fingertips to hold Jiang Qunyu’s face in place, he tilted his head, leaning down to kiss him.

In truth, the moment Wei Xun leaned down, Jiang Qunyu had already vaguely guessed that he was going to kiss him. Yet his body felt as if it had been pinned down; he actually forgot to dodge for a moment, leaving him to freeze in place and allow that kiss laced with a slightly cool aura to descend.

Inexplicably, he didn’t seem to feel the rejection and resistance he had imagined.

The disgust and bad luck he had originally anticipated vanished entirely at this moment. In its place was a sudden explosion of his heartbeat the moment their lips touched, along with a scorching crimson blush that burned uncontrollably from the base of his ears all the way down to the back of his neck. The sounds around his ears seemed to be stripped away, his blood churning wildly.

Only a single thought remained in Jiang Qunyu’s mind: Wei Xun is kissing him.

Seeming dissatisfied with his spacing out, Wei Xun’s teeth bit down neither too hard nor too softly on Jiang Qunyu’s lip. Feeling a bit of pain, Jiang Qunyu instinctively parted his thin lips slightly.

Almost at the exact same instant, the other party’s tongue forced its way in, carrying a strength akin to plunder as it swallowed his breath bit by bit.

He didn’t know how long they kissed; he only knew that a second before he was about to suffocate, he bit back fiercely.

As if finally finding his conscience, Wei Xun gave a final, gentle lick to the wound on the corner of his mouth before slowly pulling away, lifting his eyes to look at the disheveled pair in the mirror. He wasn’t doing any better than Jiang Qunyu; the corner of his mouth also bore a wound, which was currently seeping a bit of blood, tinting his lips with a shade of rouge-like red, malicious and unbridled: “—That is how it got hurt.”

Jiang Qunyu: “…”

He knew Wei Xun would absolutely never be that well-behaved! What made him even more confused was why hadn’t he pushed him away just now?

“Damn it,” Jiang Qunyu felt a bit like throwing caution to the wind. He thought his mind must have been rendered completely abnormal by this baffling marriage. He couldn’t help but raise his voice, attempting to pull the current bizarre situation back onto the right track: “Wei Xun, do you even know who I am?!”

Why the hell was he kissing him?!

Wei Xun was currently lowering his eyes to bind Jiang Qunyu’s hair, his fingertips passing through the soft strands. Hearing the words, he lifted his eyelids, meeting Jiang Qunyu’s gaze in the mirror.

The air suddenly grew quiet.

After a long while, Wei Xun tugged his lips into a smile. “Then you tell me, who are you?”

Jiang Qunyu paused, remaining silent. Because he realized that within the depths of Wei Xun’s eyes, aside from that faint trace of hatred, what was churning was an emotion so intense that he didn’t want to delve into it deeply.