Chapter 47

Parsed with an automated reader. The content accuracy is not guranteed.

In which there’s a conversation.

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<summary>Also, content warning:</summary>

Some dubiously consensual touching. Mentions of past drunken sex and dubiously consensual sexual relations that took place when both characters were teenagers (and hence underage, by modern standards).

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Wenren Heng asked, “Do you not want to say anything?”

His hand slid down, and his finger softly rubbed against his Junior Brother’s cheek. “If you don’t want to talk, I’ll talk for you. No matter what kind of method you used to kidnap Fuping, Fuping would’ve eventually realized that there were some problems with you. Since bringing him to Shaolin would be of no benefit to you, the only thing you could do was kill him on the road. Look me in the eyes and then try saying these words to me: jumping off the cliff wasn’t something you calculated.”

Ye You calmly reminded, “Senior Brother, at that time, the horses were injured and ran to the edge of the cliff. It has nothing to do with me.”

Wenren Heng said, “Those aren’t the words I’m allowing you to say.”

“All right, jumping off the cliff wasn’t something…” As Ye You spoke, he saw his Senior Brother moving the hand that was on his face onto the pillow beside his head, and the other’s gaze seemed to deepen. He keenly felt the anger in the air and, understanding the situation, stopped speaking.

“No matter if the horses were frightened or not, that place’s terrain wouldn’t have changed. You also aren’t stupid. There are many ways to get to the edge of the cliff,” Wenren Heng said, “Or else you explain how your people could be faster than anyone in getting to the bottom of the cliff, and was even able to bury Fuping first?”

Ye You was silent.

Wenren Heng said, “You fainted because you ate some drugs?”

Ye You spoke the truth, “Yes, the moment I saw people coming I ate it.”

Wenren Heng felt a bit more satisfied and continued with, “Since you lost your martial arts, you changed from someone who looked like they were watching a play into an active participant, and you also stopped wanting to contact the people from the Demonic Sect. I’m asking if hitting your death acupoint was something you had arranged beforehand. This isn’t like you.”

Ye You wanted to save this situation by saying that ‘he had actually asked his subordinates about the matter with the death acupoint at the hidden manor and had simply never mentioned it until now’, but looking at Senior Brother’s expression, he felt as if this final struggle would be useless. When his Senior Brother was pushing someone, the other wouldn’t simply push them off a cliff in one go but would leisurely let the other party walk themselves right into a dead end.

He once again remained silent.

Wenren Heng asked, “Have your memories long since returned?”

Ye You daringly said, “They haven’t.”

Wenren Heng inwardly thought you sure have guts but, with an unchanging expression, helped him straighten the hair next to his ear. “Then you learned about the entire course of events from that note and arranged all of this on the fly?”

“If I didn’t come up with this scheme on the fly, I wouldn’t have made so many slip-ups in front of you right now.” Ye You looked at the other. “Senior Brother, are you really very angry?”

“Yes, but I’m not angry because you took unnecessary risks, and I’m not even angry about whether you’ve really regained your memories and are simply unwilling to tell me,” Wenren Heng said, “I’m angry that you’d rather find other people to help you but not me, your Senior Brother, and you merely want me only as a participant in this game.”

Ye You was speechless.

He had already long expected this. When everything was revealed, Senior Brother would definitely be angry.

Wenren Heng leaned closer to him and softly asked, “Because I wasn’t clear on your plans, did you know what I felt when I first heard that you had fallen off that cliff?”

Ye You’s breathing constricted. This time, he truly was feeling how furious his Senior Brother was. Even during that time his Senior Brother had wanted to kidnap him, the other’s anger wasn’t this big. When he saw this person truly was moving to stand up, he unconsciously called out a, “Senior Brother.”

Wenren Heng made a sound in response and asked, “You really don’t have anything you want to say to me? Anything will do.”

Ye You hesitantly asked, “For instance, honestly admitting my wrongs?”

Wenren Heng looked at him for a while before nodding and taking off his outer robes to lie down next to him. Ye You’s entire body was tense, and he stared at his Senior Brother without a word or a sound. Wenren Heng reached out a hand to pat him. “Let’s sleep then. Regardless of whether you decided to jump down the cliff or not, didn’t you just say your body was sore?”

Although Ye You knew that his Senior Brother was probably giving him a way out, he still said some truthful words, “It doesn’t count as too sore. The truth is that I still have my martial arts.”

Wenren Heng let out only a simple sound of acknowledgement and didn’t even ask any further.

The other being so easy to convince actually made Ye You uneasy, and he continued to stare. He didn’t think that his Senior Brother would so easily let him go after realizing that there was a problem with him.

Wenren Heng pulled down the bed curtains and closed his eyes, looking for all the world as if he was going to sleep as well. Ye You observed for a long while and was about to say something when he felt his hand being held. And then his entire person was being pulled over by the other into an embrace.

He stopped, and didn’t move for now.

Warm breaths brushed past his ear, making him suddenly think of the matters from ten years ago.

Ten years ago, when his Master passed away, he purposely pretended to be mad. Senior Brother was afraid that he’d run where he shouldn’t go at night and so had held him this same way every night, softly patting his back, coaxing him to sleep in a warm voice. At that time, he had been carrying a deep sea of hatred, with nowhere to vent it, and the road in front of him was rough and perilous. The only one left at his side was this one person[1].

His family, his teacher, and the friends who had helped him over these ten years, one after another, he had already seen too many of them die, and he had experienced too much separation and suffering. This whole road, he had felt as if he was walking on thin ice, as if he was teetering on the edge of an abyss. The only consolation he had was that this person was still alive.

The only one I have is you, he thought.

Ten years ago, it had been so, and while ten years later, he had gotten a group of subordinates and friends, there was still only one person that remained in the deepest part of his heart. If this person actually fell in front of his eyes, he felt as if he’d definitely go completely mad then.

Ye You couldn’t help but lean towards his Senior Brother.

He didn’t wish for much. The only thing he wanted was for this person to live. Even if Senior Brother hated him, he wouldn’t mind.

Wenren Heng tightened his arms around the other and laid there quietly for a while before saying, “In the past, no matter what method I used, you were never willing to talk. This time, you handed the amnesiac you over to me, so I was very happy, since I originally thought you were finally willing to talk to me.”

Ye You faintly felt that his Senior Brother was planning on using the gentle and tender method, inwardly thinking that as expected, Senior Brother wasn’t planning on just letting this go tonight.

Wenren Heng said, “Since you’re still unwilling to talk, then I won’t force you. I’ll just watch.”

Ye You was immediately suspicious.

“I’m speaking the truth.” Wenren Heng looked at him, unblinking, and said, extremely earnestly, “I’ll just watch over you. If you succeed, I’ll be happy for you. If you fail, I’ll follow you in life or death.”

Ye You was suddenly unable to move. “You…”

Wenren Heng didn’t miss his small changes in expression and pinched his chin, moving closer step by step. “Give me another true statement. You keeping these things from me, is it because you still blame me for what happened that year?”

Ye You didn’t even need to think to say, “No, I…”

“You really don’t blame me?” Wenren Heng tyrannically pushed him down and used a hand to untie his waistband.

Ye You’s entire chest was hurting because of that one sentence, “I’ll follow you in life or death”, and by the time he returned to his senses, his clothes had already been entirely opened. Wenren Heng’s lowered eyes looked at him while the other’s hand was moving forward in exploration. Ye You used a hand to stop the other’s and warned in a low voice, “Wenren Heng.”

“Want to push me aside? Then you need to use more strength.” Wenren Heng tightly observed his expression and then said in a low voice, “Or are you saying you want to repeat what happened ten years ago? That’s also all right. You wait for me to finish, then you can say another ‘disgusting’ for me to hear. That year, you left because of this reason. Right now, you can still keep using it.”

This time, even Ye You’s complexion changed.

Up until now, in his life, there had been three things that pained him beyond imagining.

The first was the massacre of his clan. The second was the murder of his teacher. The third was that, during the time he was feigning madness, he had realized that his Senior Brother liked him and so had found an opportunity to get his Senior Brother drunk before then seducing the other. After the deed was done, he had then pretended to have turned “sober” after suffering from the shock and left his Senior Brother with only the word disgusting. To this day, he still remembered his Senior Brother’s expression that day.

Wenren Heng looked at the pain that had quickly flashed through those eyes and didn’t move any closer. Letting out a sigh, he softened his voice, “That year, right as you left, Martial Uncle came. I remember telling you before that Martial Uncle was coming. You had counted the days, right? At that time, was it because you didn’t want me to take any risks that you weren’t willing to tell me anything?”

Ye You grit his teeth and didn’t say a word.

Wenren Heng said, “Right now, do you want to go at me again, and then leave me so you can return to Shaolin alone? In any case, all those righteous faction members now know the name of Sir Xiao, and Academy Master Ge even seeks your insight. If you seek shelter with him, then you can still move the chessboard forward. If this game ends up with the worst ending, then will you also think of a way out for me? Don’t arrange that for me. I don’t care.”

Ye You closed his eyes.

“I said that I’ll stay on the sidelines and watch this game. No matter what, I’ll stay by your side. Sleep now.” Wenren Heng finally let him go and silently helped him tidy his clothes, tucking him in and then turning around to get off the bed.

Ye You reached out and grabbed the other’s hand.

Wenren Heng turned back to look at him, practically about to stop breathing.

Ye You was silent for a while before saying, in a low voice, “Senior Brother, I’m not called Ah-Xiao, and I’m not even called Ye You. Twenty years ago, of those three clans that had been slaughtered because of a Pursued Until Scattered, one of them was my family.”

Wenren Heng’s pupils contracted.

Ye You sat up and leaned against the bed. In reminiscence, he said, “That night, my mom pushed me out of a dog hole in the backyard. She told me to go to Heji Mountain to find Master. I wasn’t picked up by Master on accident; I had wanted to find him from the beginning, to beg him to take me in…”

Wenren Heng had always been clever, and he had to think only a bit about the locations of those three clans to understand that, no matter which one it was, they were all still quite far from Heji Mountain. What’s more, at that time, it was winter, so by himself, Junior Brother… He tightened his grip on his Junior Brother’s hand and suddenly felt his heart ache. “If you don’t want to talk about your past, you don’t have to say it.”

“No need. It’s already been so long since it happened.” Ye You said, “What I’m practicing now is Pursued Until Scattered. That year, before my dad burned it to ash, he forced me to memorize the whole thing.”

Wenren Heng sat back on the bed. “Isn’t this something only a pure-hearted person could…” He halted mid-sentence and, after going through his thoughts, said, “Practicing it up to a certain level will cause memory loss?”

Ye You mouth twisted. “Yes, and what’s more, before and after losing those memories, you can’t get angry or excited, or else after spitting out blood three times, you’ll die. After the memory loss, you have to hit your death acupoint in order to successfully learn those skills. Do you think a clever person, even if they left a note from before losing their memories that explained everything to themselves, would actually hit their own death acupoint once they wake up? In any case, I wouldn’t so easily believe it.”

Wenren Heng was speechless for a moment. He felt somewhat sympathetic to those Demonic Sect Elders who had to act, guessing that they had probably been frightened out of their minds at the time. He said, “Continue.”

“I…” Ye You suddenly stopped and looked towards the door.

Wenren Heng waited and also heard footsteps. Then, a set of knocks sounded.

From the outside, the scarred man said, “Sect Master, something has happened.”

Wenren Heng went over to open the door. “What?”

The scarred man didn’t dare to look inside the room and said, in a low voice, “Young Master Zhong has been kidnapped by someone.”

Young Master Zhong was the Junior Alliance Leader. Wenren Heng lifted a brow and turned back to look at his Junior Brother.

Ye You looked back at him with a face full of innocence.

Wenren Heng couldn’t help but narrow his eyes.

“…” Ye You was speechless.

This time, he truly was innocent. This matter had absolutely nothing to do with him.

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[1] Ye You actually refers to Wenren Heng as his 至親之人, which is a term to refer to your closest, most intimate family member. I wasn’t sure how to word this in English, especially since I didn’t want to give the mistaken impression that Ye You actually thought of Wenren Heng as his brother or something.

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Both Ye You and Wenren Heng have obliquely alluded to this ten-years-ago incident before in previous chapters, but since I didn’t read ahead, I had no idea what it was. I’ll probably go back and reword some things to make sure they’re proper foreshadowing instead of… what they are right now.

Anyway, when I first read this chapter, I was just super stoked that Wenren Heng and Ye You were finally getting everything out in the open, but now that I’ve had a few days to stew on it… Not gonna lie, I’m really appalled at Ye You right now. What he did was basically a textbook sexual assault: he got Wenren Heng drunk for the express purpose of having sex with him. It’s kind of mitigated since the author makes it clear that Wenren Heng was an active participant, but it still lowkey pisses me off. I honestly can’t believe Wenren Heng forgave him after realizing the truth. But, oh well, I guess I should just focus on how they’re probably going to be open and honest from this point forward? Yay?

But, yeah, this is the chapter I wanted to reach, so now we’re back to my previous dubious schedule of “whenever I feel like translating”. Um, sorry, Junior Alliance Leader, but you might have to stay kidnapped for a while longer! <del>I want to play video games QQ.</del>\n

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