Even Old Xi said to Xie Tao, “Tao Tao, bring him over to meet me sometime.”
Xie Lan wanted to see Wei Yun because he couldn’t get the word “scram” out of his head.
And Old Xi wanted to see Wei Yun because he had some questions that he must ask.
Holding chopsticks in her hand, Xie Tao glanced at Xie Lan sitting next to her, then told Old Xi, “Then you must make sure Xie Lan doesn’t misuse his magic…”
“You’re protecting him?”
Upon hearing Xie Tao say such words, Xie Lan stopped eating, and with a snap, threw his chopsticks onto the table.
“Fine, I don’t need magic to take him down!”
In any case, Xie Lan was not planning to let go of this man who had bewitched Tao Tao Mei without even having met her face to face.
Moreover, he was still preoccupied with the word “scram” from last night.
“You can’t beat him…” Xie Tao muttered under her breath.
???
Xie Lan was so angry he gritted his teeth, grabbed a pair of chopsticks, and snatched the piece of braised pork Xie Tao was about to pick up, even giving Xie Tao a glare.
“…”
Xie Tao glared back at him.
After hurriedly finishing his meal, Xie Lan took a red and white booklet and went out to deliver takeout.
Thus, for a time, only Old Xi and Xie Tao were left in the tavern.
Old Xi especially enjoyed warm wine, with mist swirling around the wine pot, and the charcoal fire in the brazier below occasionally making a faint sound.
At this moment, it was so quiet and peaceful.
She suddenly remembered the task Meng Lichun had entrusted to her yesterday, so she looked up at Old Xi, who was happily drinking wine across from her.
“Uncle Xi…”
Holding a wine cup in his hand, Old Xi asked, “What’s wrong?”
Xie Tao tentatively asked, “You know Meng Lichun… right?”
Indeed, upon hearing that name, Old Xi’s expression noticeably froze, and his hand holding the wine cup stiffened.
Outside the tavern, it was hard to distinguish between day and night, like a piece of nothingness.
And inside the tavern, ever since Xie Tao mentioned the name “Meng Lichun,” it seemed to fall into a seemingly prolonged silence.
“What did she say?”
After a long time, Xie Tao finally heard Old Xi’s voice slowly rise.
He seemed to have guessed something.
“She said she wants to see you.” Xie Tao said.
Hearing this, Old Xi was holding the wine cup in his hand, and those gray eyes filled with the vicissitudes of age seemed to gain a bit more indescribable complex emotion.
Xie Tao wasn’t sure if it was her illusion, but under the bright light at this moment, she seemed to glimpse a trace of misty light in Old Xi’s eyes.
“How could she…”
The moment Old Xi’s knuckles tightened, the wine cup in his hand turned into fine sand-like powder and fell.
His Adam’s apple moved, his lips trembled slightly, as if speaking was difficult for him.
“How could she… still be like this.”
Hundreds of years ago, on a snowy night of grandeur, he, for the first time in his life, cast aside all his restraint and laid down all his heavy responsibilities.
In that moment, when that young girl, with her eyes red, held the thin blade across his neck, looking at him stubbornly, he gently moved forward, allowing her blade to graze his neck, leaving a trail of blood.
Drops of blood fell, staining his snow-white clothes.
It also made the girl’s eyes misty with tears about to fall.
In her moment of panic, he had already grasped her wrist, bowed his head, and kissed her lips.
“You should… forget about me.”
Later, he softly sighed in her ear.
If one were to speak of that lifetime spent as a mortal, the most regrettable thing for Wen Xi was, despite knowing that his sole purpose in this life was to ensure the deity king’s peaceful transcendence, he couldn’t help but fall in love with a girl.
Their first encounter in the apricot blossom forest led him to a complete loss in the mortal world’s love and dust, from then onwards.
In an era when the emperor’s power was faltering and warlords rose in rebellion, the young master Wen Xi was a pawn destined to die in the struggle for supremacy.
Used by his father and brothers, betrayed by friends.
His life was destined to be lonely, to be stepped on as a stepping stone by his family and thousands of others.
This was the fate he knew all too well from the beginning.
He had to do it.
The deity king was destined to become the emperor who would reunite the six states. Only by doing so, could he leverage the emperor’s fate to successfully transcend his mortal body and fully return to his divine status, awakening once more.
However, what he didn’t expect was,
The girl he fell in love with, for his sake, would go into hiding for three years, kill his brother who was supposed to become the emperor, and massacre the entire Liang royal palace.
She disrupted the most crucial link in the historical chain, becoming the biggest variable.
The deity king’s transcendence failed, losing the iron-blooded emperor who was to reunite the six states. Thus, a once unified timeline began to split into two, evolving in completely different directions from that moment on.
In Wen Xi’s eyes, his life as a mortal seemed nothing more than a dream.
Everyone’s abandonment, disdain, bullying, and exploitation of him were never taken to heart, for he knew from the start that he was destined to endure these so-called torments.
Thus, he naturally couldn’t reveal such heavenly secrets to her.
But what Wen Xi didn’t expect was that the world’s scorn, his father’s contempt, even his brother’s indifference as the reincarnation of the deity king, or the pain inflicted by many, didn’t matter to him, yet there was someone who cared on his behalf.
She saw everything.
The life he disregarded was taken seriously by her from beginning to end.
She couldn’t bear his life being used and insulted, stepped on as if a mere stone, and ultimately being used by his brother as a scapegoat, personally executed at the gates of the Liang palace.
He died before her eyes.
To this day, Wen Xi still remembers that twilight, the last glimpse of her bright and beautiful face.
Her tears shone with a crystal sheen under the sunlight.
And there, before her eyes, in front of the people of the Liang state, he was executed, beheaded.
She was the only variable in that era.
Wen Xi thought he could forget her.
But the truth is, even after hundreds of years, he still couldn’t forget anything about her.
He thought that such a lengthy passage of time should enable her to let go of him.
But it seems she couldn’t do it either.
Over the long years, the Wen Xi of the past gradually became the old Wen Xi of today.
When he heard her name again from Xie Tao’s lips, he suddenly realized that neither she nor he could truly break free from the past.
“Tao Tao,”
After an indeterminate amount of time, Xie Tao finally heard Old Xi suddenly call out to her.
She heard him say, “Tell her, we… have no need to see each other again.”
The current Old Xi is merely a criminal.
All he can do is guard this small tavern until the deity-like owner wakes up.
Xie Tao doesn’t know what exactly happened between Old Xi and Meng Lichun, but on the way back, she couldn’t help but recall the expression Old Xi had when he mentioned Meng Lichun.
She inexplicably felt that Old Xi probably… really wanted to see Meng Lichun, didn’t he?
But then why wouldn’t he see her?
Was there some unavoidable hardship? Xie Tao couldn’t understand.
With this matter on her mind, Xie Tao took the bus to the stop near the villa area.
Then she walked for almost half an hour before arriving at the gate of the villa.
Xie Tao felt that although she had become rich overnight, this kind of sudden wealth made her feel quite tired.
When she saw the lights on in the villa, a burst of joy suddenly shone in her almond eyes. She didn’t care whether she was tired or not, entered the password to open the door, changed her shoes at the entrance, and ran into the living room.
In the spacious living room, the crystal lamp overhead shone brightly, but Xie Tao looked around and didn’t see anyone.
She threw her backpack onto the sofa and then ran upstairs.
She knocked on Wei Yun’s door, “Wei Yun, Wei Yun! You’re here, aren’t you?”
There was no response for a long time, so Xie Tao simply pushed the door and entered.
The door to the bathroom in his room was wide open, and Xie Tao heard the sound of water coming from inside.
“Wei Yun?” Xie Tao called out tentatively.
As she approached, standing at the door,
She saw under the increasingly loud shower, among the rising steam, Wei Yun wearing a white shirt, dark trousers making his legs look straight and long, and his usually cold and pale face now seemed a bit agitated, with furrowed brows.
And his shirt, with the collar open, was already wet for the most part, vaguely revealing the muscles of his abdomen, smooth lines, even his dense long hair was dripping with water.
Drops of water fell from his black hair onto the porcelain white floor tiles, making a very light sound.
