/
The sword pierced his chest. The sensation of the blade’s edge plunging into his heart was cold as ice, even as the setting sun seared the sky above.
Looking at the familiar face in front of him, Jiang Xunyi felt he should be extremely delighted at what had just happened. Yet his heart did not not feel a fraction of relief.
He had unluckily transmigrated into this book many years ago, becoming a gloriously stupid mini-boss. No matter how his heart felt, on the surface he had carefully and tirelessly maintained the requisite accomplishments for a villain. In line with how time was the ultimate reminder of one’s finite life, he had clutched every minute and second to happily unleash his “talent” of seeking death. He had personally laid the bricks for the male protagonist’s road to dominance, and finally completed his life’s last task——allowing the protagonist to kill him.
According to the System’s promises, he could finally “retire after this meritorious service” and happily go home!
But why, in this moment, did he feel a hint of sorrow and grief at the mistrust of a fictitious character?
Oh well, it’s all about to be over anyway.
Jiang Xunyi closed his eyes, speaking his last lines with his final breath: “Yun Xie, I…… you……”
[Beep beep beep beep beep——OOC warning! Error in the actor’s lines, the character role has collapsed, the assigned task has not yet been completed, opening the Rebirth System!]
These words suddenly sounded in his mind.
What?! This was how it was written in the script, okay?! Jiang Xunyi took a deep breath to try and argue, but after taking in this breath, he was never able to exhale it back out.
He died.　
“He died.”
Yun Xie stared blankly as the man in front of him fell over. He seemed to have not yet realized what just happened. Only when his sword was pulled out of his hand by Jiang Xunyi’s falling body, did he seem to hear an icy cold voice saying this to him.
No, impossible!
As if woken from a dream, he knelt down stiffly. He wanted to press on Jiang Xunyi’s still-bleeding wound, but his hands shook incessantly. Tears trickled down his cheeks, splashing onto that eternally beautiful and flawless face and slowly turning ice-cold.
Yun Xie couldn’t stop his flowing tears. He wanted to shut his eyes, but there was no way he could look away from the exquisite features right in front of him. It felt as if in the next moment Jiang Xunyi would sit up, arch those sharp brows, and mock him like always: “So embarrassing, what’s a manly man like you crying for?”
But he didn’t, he didn’t. He will never do such a thing again.
Yun Xie trembled uncontrollably. He only felt as if freezing shards of ice had been poured onto his body, chilling him to the very bone.
Blood and air roiled within his chest, filled with grief and despair yet with nowhere to vent. He looked at his own hand in disbelief, seeming to doubt whether this was an enemy’s illusion.
I obviously didn’t want to kill you, I obviously like you in that way, how did you and I fall to this point?
“Ah-Xun1, I’m begging you, please get up, I was wrong, I don’t blame you…… Whoever you hate, we can go together to kill them all… If you want to go to the demons, we can seek asylum from the Demon Sovereign together… Please, get up… I’m begging you…”
His entire body was powerless. No matter what, he couldn’t pull Jiang Xunyi up from the ground, so he simply lay down by his side.
The setting sun had fallen, the night breeze rose. A small ray of moonlight struggled to emerge from behind the expanses of dark clouds. Like the rising tide, the dim light gradually flooded this mountainous wilderness. The distant noise of battle slowly faded away. They seemed to be laying on the deepest of ocean floors, while his heart seemed to be as crystal clear as the water of the sea.
“Ah-Xun.” Yun Xie called him in a gentle voice, his heart suddenly calming down: “Do you remember when I said I liked Qiu-shijie2, and told you not to fight with me for her?”
“I was lying to you.”
“I only… didn’t like that you were always with her…”
“I never told you, the person I like is you.”
“……Ah-Xun……Xunyi……Take me with you……”
Footnotes (what a huge contrast to my other translation project lol):
1. Nickname for Jiang Xunyi, taking the first character of his name and adding “Ah-” in front.
2. 师姐 (shī jiě) lit. “disciple elder sister” = senior fellow female apprentice. To spare your eyes from excess wordiness, I decided to keep all these “fellow disciple” titles in the original Chinese pinyin.