Shi Wuduan’s clothes were only held together by leaves. Even when it was handled carefully, it barely covered his body. Now, Bai Li had ripped off the whole bottom half.
Because he’d either been on the road or recuperating from injury in recent days, underneath his loosened bandages, he was so thin that his ribs were almost showing. Upon touching him, Bai Li had the sense that if he pressed down just slightly, he would shatter. His waist was narrow and had deep dimples. His skin seemed to have paled from the Inferno Realm’s lack of sunlight. There was an indescribable air of fragility to him.
Bai Li bent down like a mindless beast and clamped the sloppily tied bandage between his teeth. He looked coldly at Shi Wuduan, then spat it out to the side. He whispered gently into his ear, “Are you trying to leave me?”
He rested his chin at the base of Shi Wuduan’s neck, their breaths intermingled with each other’s. Shi Wuduan’s face instantly flushed with color, “What’s gotten into you this time?”
He bent his knee and jammed it into Bai Li’s stomach, but Bai Li caught his leg and forced it to the side.
“What’s so bad about me.” Bai Li’s eyes reddened with hurt and fury, “Shi Wuduan, what’s so bad about me?”
Shi Wuduan faltered, so incredulous was he at the question that he was at a loss for words. Bai Li took the opportunity to twist his arm and try to pin both his hands above his head. A thread of starsilk suddenly emerged from Shi Wuduan’s fingertip and slashed cracks into Bai Li’s pitch-black fingernails. He immediately shoved his hands away.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Djl Ol’r tjcv oilcmtfv yjmx lc qjlc. Ktf atlc atgfjvr lc Vtl Qevejc’r tjcv ijrtfv tlr kglra ilxf j ujggbaf.
“Tbe’gf jrxlcu wf?” Vevvfcis, Vtl Qevejc ijeutfv mbivis. Llr ojmf, cbgwjiis rb qijmlv la mbeiv yf wlrajxfc obg j wjccfdelc’r, aklrafv klat lcafcrf ibjatlcu atja ygbeuta j gbrs tjhf ja atf fcvr bo tlr fsfr. Pa wjvf tlw rffw lcvfrmglyjyis rqlglafv jcv nlnjmlber. Djl Ol kjr raeccfv ys atf rluta ktlif Vtl Qevejc mbcalcefv tlr algjvf, “Tbe’gf jrxlcu wf ktja’r rb yjv jybea sbe; kfii, P kjca ab jrx, Gfwbc Obgv, ktja’r ubbv jybea sbe? Tbe rijeutafg lccbmfcar, sbeg afwqfg lr nbijalif jcv lcmbcrajca, jcv sbe jlv jcv jyfa atf klmxfv!”
Bai Li mercilessly raised his hand and, ignoring Shi Wuduan’s injuries, pulled the seemingly soft starsilk till it broke. Shi Wuduan’s hand was suddenly encased in ice and frozen solidly to the ground. “You say that I… am abetting the wicked?”
The reason why Hall of Demons had been opened after so many millennia was because Great Qian’s fate was coming to an end, marked by refugee crises, natural disasters, and man-made calamities, and Yan Huaipu, stubbornly defying Heaven’s Will, lit the lanterns to borrow fortune for the country. Thus were their fates tied.
If the old dynasty died, and a new one born, decay replaced by prosperity, Bai Li, ensnared by karma, would naturally weaken. Others could be weak, but not him. All those demons that had perished in his hands were in his shadow, waiting for a chance to destroy him. He couldn’t afford to have any weakness; he wouldn’t place his life in someone else’s hands.
Bai Li looked at Shi Wuduan, whose cheeks were flushed with anger, and thought desolately, twenty years ago, you said I’d be your wife. You’d be good to me for a lifetime, you’d protect me for a lifetime. But hardly many years have passed, the seas have not yet turned to mulberry fields, and you’ve already forgotten?
You condemn me with every word you speak — those years of torture I suffered, struggling in that hellish place; those ten years I spent fleeing in fear, every time I thought I couldn’t go on any further, I’d dream about you in the dead of night, longing so desperately for you – where were you then?
So they say that “when a country’s end is nigh, evil things will surface,” but what does their lives and deaths have anything to do with me? Why is it that I of all people must be that evil thing, why is it that I am only…
His vision blurred; for many years, Bai Li believed his blood was thoroughly frozen already, yet he suddenly felt some warm substance stream from the corners of his eyes. It wasn’t tears, for it was black as his blood. Droplets fell on Shi Wuduan’s neck and dripped down, so hot was it that its temperature could almost scorch the skin.
He pushed Shi Wuduan’s legs aside and wrenched his robes open. Having just washed, there was a refreshing tinge, slightly cold, not quite fragrant scent that could lodge itself into one’s soul.
The tendons in Shi Wuduan’s legs ached in protest at the motion. Incensed and startled, he yelled, “Bai Li, what are you doing!”
“You’re the one who’s wronged me!”
“Bai Li!” Shi Wuduan’s pitch got higher. It’d been so many years since he last spoke so quickly, his mouth was having trouble keeping up, “You’re the one who’s acting like a beast! You’ve no regard for virtue or morals, no regard…”
His words ended in a pained moan, his face bloodless, his body taut as a string that might snap any moment. Even his shaky, stuttered breaths became interspersed with low, hoarse screams.
“For virtue or morals, ah…….”
There was a crisp crack as Shi Wuduan managed to free one of his fingers from the ice. The tendons on the back of his hand were popping out with strain.
“Bai….Li….” He snarled through gritted teeth, ‘I’ll kill you… I….“
Only, Bai Li laughed softly. His movements suddenly stopped. He closed his eyes and felt, at the place that’d been wet by blood, that the two of them were finally closer than they had ever been. In that moment, he almost thought he could feel Shi Wuduan’s feeble yet steady heartbeat, he almost… had the fantastic notion that he could hear the other’s thoughts.
Then he opened his eyes and lightly nudged his face against the side of Shi Wuduan’s. The tip of his nose was by his temple, damped by cold sweat, and murmured, “Even if you kill me, you’re still mine.”
He laughed maniacally then suddenly bit down on Shi Wuduan’s throat. There was a strange tingling sensation in his heart — it was adoration and it was despair. Hatred and tenderness roiled together like a dish of tofu mixed with spring onion, inseparable. It was too complex a feeling. It was like he’d downed a cup of poisoned wine, numbingly sweet, just shy of fatally sweet.
The last rays of the four-hour-long light swiftly vanished. Day was but a mere instant. The interminable night enveloped them once more, like a nightmare from which one could never wake.
Damn
Damn
Damn
Damn
Damn
Damn
Damn
Damn
My dear, Bai Li, i can’t defend you now 🙁
Damn
Damn.
Damn
Damn