CXD - 70

Night fell. Yuan Ce returned from the military camp, took a shower to wash away the grime from the training ground, and changed into clean casual attire before entering the inner courtyard.

From afar, he saw that Jiang Zhiyi’s room door was wide open. She sat alone in front of the casement window, doing nothing, seemingly waiting for him for quite some time.

The man who could laugh in the face of thousands of troops let out a soft hiss through clenched teeth. Yuan Ce lowered his head, scratched his brow, and walked forward, lightly knocking on the door twice.

Jiang Zhiyi remained seated without turning her head, her back facing him: “Come in.”

Her voice didn’t sound particularly angry, but it certainly wasn’t cheerful either.

Yuan Ce stepped over the threshold, closed the door behind him, and tilted his head to gauge her expression: “Why are you alone?”

Jiang Zhiyi pursed her lips: “What I have to say tonight, can anyone else hear it?”

“Should I sit, stand, or—” Yuan Ce cleared his throat and glanced at his knees.

“Sit.”

Though permission was granted, her tone was stiff.

Yuan Ce sat down on the beauty couch behind Jiang Zhiyi, looking at the bronze mirror in front of her. In the reflection, he saw her lowered eyelashes, her lips pressed tightly together into a straight line.

After a moment of silence, Yuan Ce loosely clenched his hand resting on his knee: “Regarding what you asked San Qi today—Gao Shi is no longer alive.”

Hearing the expected answer, Jiang Zhiyi raised her head and looked at him through the mirror: “So, my physician couldn’t cure him, right?”

“Yes.”

“And that prescription, did you and Mr. Huang conspire to deceive me?”

“Yes.”

Jiang Zhiyi furrowed her brows: “Why did you deceive me? You should know I meant well. If he couldn’t be cured, I would’ve only offered some comforting words, not done anything to you…”

“Also, at that time, you didn’t know I’d bring a physician or that I’d bring Mr. Huang. I was right there during the examination. How did you two manage to conspire right in front of me, treating me like a fool?”

Yuan Ce silently stared into the void.

“Say something.” Jiang Zhiyi urged.

“Because by the time you arrived—” Yuan Ce looked at her reflection in the mirror, “he had already stopped breathing.”

A chill ran down Jiang Zhiyi’s spine as she slowly widened her eyes.

Stopped breathing...

So when Mr. Huang entered and took the pulse, he had taken the pulse of a dead man?

Due to panic, he was already hesitating on how to respond. Under such circumstances, without Yuan Ce saying anything, any physician accustomed to dealing with noble secrets naturally knew how to act...

“So, the person was?” Jiang Zhiyi turned around stiffly.

“I killed him.”

“Why?” Jiang Zhiyi’s eyelashes trembled. “You killed Gao Shi, then what about all the male members of the Zhong family...?”

Staring at Jiang Zhiyi’s trembling eyelashes, Yuan Ce felt a lump in his throat.

Killing people was as ordinary to him as eating a meal. Yet under her tense gaze, which seemed unwilling to accept the truth, even uttering one more word felt like it might scare her away.

After a long pause, Yuan Ce finally spoke: “I killed them too.”

Jiang Zhiyi’s hands, hidden beneath the sleeves of her spring robe, gently clenched.

She remembered clearly that he had said Gao Shi was his savior—or rather, accurately speaking, his brother’s savior. But since he had killed Gao Shi, the story of this supposed savior must also be false.

“After you killed Gao Shi, you went to the academy to confront the Zhong family. Was it because…?”

“One was a traitor, the other a murderer.”

Yuan Ce’s tone remained calm, as if describing something trivial. However, the calmer his demeanor, the more it seemed to reveal the immense storm hidden beneath the surface.

Jiang Zhiyi’s lips began to tremble: “So… Shen Yuan Ce didn’t simply die on the battlefield but was secretly assassinated?”

Yuan Ce nodded.

It felt like a basin of cold water had been poured over her head. In the April weather, Jiang Zhiyi suddenly felt chilled to the bone, her teeth chattering and her hands and feet icy cold.

She had thought about it all day, wondering what kind of irreconcilable enmity existed between him and the Zhong family. She had imagined all sorts of possibilities, but this was the answer she feared hearing the most.

It was precisely because she had thought of this possibility that today she hadn’t come to him in anger, hadn’t vented her frustration. Instead, she sat here quietly waiting for him, calmly asking questions.

But at this moment, she would rather he had given her a reason she couldn’t forgive, a reason that would make her want to lash out in anger.

Once again, the image of that lonely grave on the barren hill appeared before her eyes. The secret buried beneath that grave was even more cruel than she had imagined...

A chill ran through Jiang Zhiyi’s heart. Slowly raising her eyes, she fixed her gaze firmly on the person in front of her: “So you took your brother’s place to avenge him.”

The Northern Jie people were the main culprits—he slaughtered them all, killing his way to the Northern Jie royal court and burning their ancestral tombs.

Gao Shi was a traitor—he used the traitor to uncover the mastermind behind the scenes, then killed the traitor.

Lord Kang Le was the mastermind—he exterminated every male member of the Zhong family, leaving no one alive.

Yuan Ce met her gaze: “Yes.”

Jiang Zhiyi held his gaze silently for a moment, then suddenly looked away, turning her body and lowering her head to cover her face with her hands.

Yuan Ce was slightly taken aback, looking at her lowered neck: “Jiang Zhiyi?”

No response came. After a while, faint, restrained sobs began to sound.

Yuan Ce’s eyes flashed. He quickly rose and stepped forward, bending down to look at her: “What’s wrong? Why are you crying?”

Jiang Zhiyi kept her head down, burying her face. Tears trickled down through the gaps between her fingers, accompanied by choking sounds, but she didn’t speak.

Yuan Ce had forgotten how long it had been since he last saw her cry. Since regaining her memory, she seemed to have retreated back into her thick cocoon, becoming the aloof duchess who didn’t open her heart to others. She hadn’t shed a tear in front of him, not even when she was at her angriest or most frightened and helpless.

Yuan Ce hesitated, standing behind her and guessing: “I didn’t hide this from just you—I didn’t tell Pei Xueqing either.”

“The fewer people who know about these matters, the safer it is. Knowing wouldn’t do anyone any good.”

“If you hadn’t guessed—”

As Yuan Ce spoke, he reached for her hand, but Jiang Zhiyi turned her body away, not letting him touch her.

Yuan Ce frowned, lifted her up vertically, and carried her to the beauty couch. He sat her on his lap and pulled her hands away from her face: “It’s not like you haven’t seen—”

He stopped short, confronted by the startling sight of tear stains covering her face.

Jiang Zhiyi raised her tear-filled eyes, gazing at him through tears, yet it didn’t seem like she was blaming him.

In the past, her reasons for crying were simple. Even if she didn’t understand at first glance, she would accuse people while crying, and eventually, she would say what was on her mind.

“What’s wrong?” Yuan Ce furrowed his brows, using his fingertips to wipe away the tears from her cheeks and eyes.

Tears continued to fall down her face: “I don’t know...”

She didn’t know why. It was just that when she realized what he had been doing during these six months they’d known each other, her heart suddenly felt heavy.

She had thought that after enduring so much hardship to take his brother’s place, he could finally live in the light.

Instead, he lived in an even deeper darkness.

“You don’t know?” Yuan Ce stared into her eyes. “You’re not blaming me for deceiving you?”

Jiang Zhiyi reproached him with a sob: “How many times have you deceived me? How can I keep blaming you!”

“If you can’t blame me all at once, then blame me little by little. Why cry?”

Jiang Zhiyi looked at him through her teary eyes.

Why cry? Perhaps because when she found out he had deceived her about even more things, she didn’t want to scold him but wanted to cry instead. Maybe she no longer blamed him.

Many things and people in this world are not simply black or white. Right and wrong often depend on individual perspectives. What is right for one person might be wrong for another.

He came to Chang’an bearing the blood feud of his closest kin. For him, prioritizing life-and-death matters was essential, and everything he had done to her over the past six months naturally seemed right to him.

But for her, knowing that he accepted her confused affection despite her memory loss, repeatedly delaying opportunities for her to regain her memory, and deceiving her into coming to this unfamiliar borderland—even if he had great reasons, it was still wrong.

If they tried to judge this matter based on right and wrong, there would never be an end.

So, as Jingzhe had told her, don’t stay because of pity, and don’t leave because of stubbornness. What mattered wasn’t the shifting right and wrong based on each person’s perspective, but the unchanging feelings—like or dislike. Stay if you like; leave if you don’t.

Forgiveness stems from liking.

Seeing Jiang Zhiyi’s tears dry only to return, Yuan Ce still couldn’t grasp what she was thinking. He clicked his tongue softly: “Jiang Zhiyi, what am I supposed to do with you like this?”

Jiang Zhiyi wiped her tears and suddenly blurted out impulsively: “Take off your clothes and let me see.”

Yuan Ce was startled: “See what?”

“Just take them off...”

Yuan Ce blinked, single-handedly loosened his belt and buttons, removed his outer robe, and placed it aside.

Jiang Zhiyi sat on his lap, pulling open the front of his inner garment.

Yuan Ce’s brow twitched, and he raised his eyes.

Jiang Zhiyi continued to cry, struggling to push his garment open on both sides, her fingertips clumsily grazing him.

Yuan Ce’s lower abdomen tightened. He grabbed her awkwardly maneuvering hands and removed his inner garment himself.

His bare, pale body was exposed close up, but Jiang Zhiyi had no trace of shyness. Lowering her eyes, she carefully examined the scars of varying shapes scattered across his chest and back. Choking back a sob, she muttered through tears: “So many scars... Carved out entirely for revenge...”

Yuan Ce’s gaze flickered. This time, he seemed to finally understand why she was crying. After a pause, he said: “... Li Dafeng’s skills aren’t bad. It was done in one go.”

“Carving out so many at once—how could you endure that...” Jiang Zhiyi cried even harder, as if she herself had been wronged.

Yuan Ce chuckled and raised his hand to caress her red, tear-streaked nose: “How couldn’t I endure it? You’re crying for me—I can handle it.”

“Nonsense. Are my tears more powerful than a knife?”

“How are they not?”

Jiang Zhiyi glared at him, then lowered her eyes again. Seeing a particularly ferocious ridge on his shoulder, she raised her index finger and gently touched it.

Yuan Ce’s breath hitched. His muscles tensed, his body becoming a scorching hot iron.

Jiang Zhiyi’s fingertip froze. She tilted her head to look at him: “... Does it still hurt?”

“What do you think?” Yuan Ce’s half-naked body remained motionless like a monk in meditation. “It’s been almost a year, and it still—”

Suddenly, Jiang Zhiyi hugged him, lowering her head to gently plant a kiss on that terrible bump: “Then I’ll kiss it, and it won’t hurt anymore.”