Wake Up from a Dream
After the cook, Jiang Ai spent a large sum of money to hire a highly skilled doctor, using half coercion and half persuasion to bring him into the Yuzhou City to treat the child brought to the king.
That day, she and Yan Ke waited outside the gate of the Nine Palaces Maze, discussing what excuse to make to deal with other palace lords if He Simu didn’t come out. They then saw He Simu walking out from the gate with the young man. Surprisingly, there were actually two flames burning on He Simu’s heart candle.
Jiang Ai was truly surprised, thinking to herself that this young man was indeed lucky.
However, how could one emerge unscathed from the Nine Palaces Maze? After this young man came out, he remained unconscious, murmuring in his sleep, sweating profusely. The doctor she hastily summoned from outside said that he had a persistent fever, but there were no wounds on his body, suggesting that the cause of the illness lay within his heart.
Who knows what this young man saw while lost in the Nine Palaces Maze?
This was troublesome; while physical illnesses could be treated, mental illnesses were difficult to handle. In a city full of evil spirits, who didn’t have some mental issues? She couldn’t even cure herself, let alone others. Even the highly skilled doctor was helpless. Jiang Ai thought that the money spent was truly wasted.
This child had fallen into trouble for her sake, so Jiang Ai frequently visited him. During this time, He Simu didn’t hold court sessions; instead, she moved the place of handling affairs from the main hall to the child’s room. Every time she went, Jiang Ai saw He Simu calmly looking through documents while the young man lay on the sickbed, his face pale, his brows tightly furrowed.
He seemed trapped in a nightmare, occasionally clutching the blanket as if trying to scream, but the sound was choked in his throat, never fully forming. Jiang Ai carefully discerned that he seemed to be asking for help.
What was the matter with this good-looking child that he couldn’t even cry out for help, making people feel distressed?
There were a few times when Jiang Ai heard the child finally uttering clear and recognizable words, all calling out “He Simu.” Whenever this happened, He Simu would put down the documents and walk to his side, holding his hand tightly. The child would then relax his furrowed brows and remain calm for a long time. Occasionally, He Simu would help him wipe away sweat or tidy up his messy clothes.
Once, He Simu looked at their clasped hands with a thoughtful expression, then said with a hint of understanding, “Is he moved by this?”
Jiang Ai immediately asked curiously, “Moved? By what?”
“Fingers linked to the heart.”
He Simu gave Jiang Ai an answer she couldn’t understand. Jiang Ai realized that this was not a good time to press for further questions, so she just advised, “I think this child looks quite handsome and sincerely cares about you. Before his heart candle extinguishes, he even told me that if he could come out alive, he would want me to tell him about your past. Why don’t you take him as your lover? I’ve seen many of those you encountered before, and many aren’t as good as him.”
He Simu fell silent for a moment, then sighed deeply.
After recuperating for ten days, Duan Xu finally woke up from the restless nightmares, at which time He Simu was unaware. She only heard him calling “Simu” and walked over to hold his hand again.
Unexpectedly, Duan Xu blinked his increasingly dark eyes and, after a moment of confusion, tightened his grip on her hand while smiling, “Am I treated so well just because I’m sick?”
He Simu only realized that Duan Xu had regained consciousness. She breathed a sigh of relief and instructed a ghost servant to fetch the doctor Jiang Ai had called. Because he was holding her hand too tightly, she hesitated for a moment but ultimately didn’t let go.
Previously, whenever she saw Duan Xu, he was always smiling, even a bit annoyingly so. But now, she felt relieved just to see him smile again.
The doctor said it was good that Duan Xu had regained consciousness and promptly prescribed some medicines for his recovery. This middle-aged doctor, who was past his prime, never stopped smiling; he seemed happier than anyone else. It was not so much the concern of a doctor for his patient, but rather the relief of not having to worry about not being able to save someone from being devoured by those evil spirits.
Duan Xu sat up in bed, leaning against the headboard, pale-faced as he held the bowl of medicine. After looking at the thick black liquid for a while, he turned to He Simu and said, “I really don’t have the strength. Can I trouble the king to come and feed me?”
He Simu, sitting in the room reading documents, raised her head and signalled for the ghost servant to do it, but Duan Xu didn’t hand the bowl to the servant. Instead, he looked at her and said, “If you ever change your taste buds, you’ll know I’m especially averse to bitterness. The smell of this medicine is extremely bitter.”
He blinked innocently, and He Simu stared at him for a moment, then rubbed her temples, dismissing the servant and walking over to take the bowl from him. She scooped up a spoonful of medicine expressionlessly and said, “Open your mouth.”
Duan Xu obediently opened his mouth, allowing her to feed him a spoonful, but then furrowed his brows tightly.
He really seemed to dislike bitterness. Was bitterness such a terrible taste?
He Simu thought she should have some sweet snacks prepared by Jiang Ai’s chef next time. Thinking this, she said, “You’re afraid of itching and bitterness, did you see yourself being chased and scratched while being fed medicine in the illusion?”
Duan Xu burst into laughter, his brows and eyes clear and serene. He shook his head, the smile lingering in his eyes as he slowly said, “Do you want to know what I saw in there? If you want to know, I’ll tell you.”
He Simu set down the bowl, looking into his eyes. She thought she should say that she wasn’t interested in his past, and if he didn’t want to talk about it, he didn’t have to. Therefore, he shouldn’t inquire about her past either.
But, she did want to know.
He had struggled in those nightmares for so long; what he had experienced must have been more than what he told her.
So He Simu remained silent, and Duan Xu took it as her consent. He leaned against the headboard for a moment, then whispered, “I’ve told you before, before the heavens knew, before I became a master, I had done some things for the High Priest and the court. Because of those things, I understood the situation of the court and got more blood on my hands.”
“Mm.”
“At that time, the High Priest received a prophecy, saying that in the six states near the capital, there was a person born on the seventh day of the eighth month, who was connected to the evil god and opposed to the azure god, causing the decline of the royal family and endangering the rule of the Danzhi dynasty. So, the heavens instructed us to search within the scope of the prophecy for people born on the seventh day of the eighth month with unusual signs, and to interrogate and execute them. We probably caught… hundreds of people.”
Duan Xu lowered his gaze, intertwining and then separating his pale fingers. This was his habit when contemplating, but he wasn’t thinking now; he was persuading himself to remember.
“There were men and women, adults and children. The High Priest believed that cruel and prolonged deaths would sever their connection to the evil god. So, some were hung upside down and slowly sawed in half from between their legs, while others had their intestines pulled out and coiled around wooden frames… These punishments were all carried out in front of everyone by the heavens, and many of the executed were ones I had brought in. When those people died, my peers would cheer to celebrate the defeat of the evil god.”
He paused for a moment, then chuckled softly, “Because I was one of the most outstanding disciples of our generation, sometimes they would let me carry out the executions myself.”
His words stopped there, followed by a long silence.
“Han Lingqiu also carried out executions personally. I gave him a memory-erasing potion, so he probably won’t remember it for the rest of his life. It’s good, forgetting is good, never remembering again.” Duan Xu said indifferently.
He Simu scooped up the medicine in the bowl and asked, “Then why haven’t you forgotten?”
“If even I forget, who else will remember them?” Duan Xu raised his eyes to look at He Simu and asked, “Those people died painfully. Will they become evil spirits?”
“Children who are abused and killed are prone to becoming evil spirits because their desires are strong and their understanding of the world is shallow. If adults are abused and killed, they won’t become evil spirits if they aren’t deeply attached to the world.”
Duan Xu breathed a sigh of relief and said, “That’s good. It’s good if there’s someone to avenge them.”
“Whether you’re there or not, the High Priest and the heavens have made such decisions, and they will die. You don’t have to bear all their deaths on your shoulders.”
Duan Xu fell silent for a moment, his eyelashes trembling slightly, and he smiled faintly.
“Simu, my birthday is on the seventh day of the eighth month.”
Most of the children taken in by the Tianzhixiao were orphans, and few knew their own birthdays. When they entered the Tianzhixiao, they wouldn’t specifically inquire about this matter. Therefore, within the Tianzhixiao, only he knew that he also met the criteria for hunting. When he brought back those born on the same day as him, he always anxiously wondered if the people the High Priest and the Tianzhixiao were looking for were him.
But he didn’t have the power to communicate with gods; he didn’t even believe in gods.
In this confusion, he gathered his strength and finally managed to escape from the Tianzhixiao, evading various searches and pursuits on his way back to Daliang. But after five years, when He Simu invited him to form a curse, he suddenly realized. The “evil god” mentioned by the High Priest referred to the Ghost King.
After years of doubt, the person mentioned in that prophecy was indeed him.
All those who died tragically before him, all of them, died for him.
Since that was the case, regardless of whether there were gods in this world or what the will of the gods was, he was determined to make that prophecy come true.
He Simu knew what Duan Xu wanted to say. Watching him sink into memories, she thought this scene seemed somewhat familiar. So she reached out and patted his face, saying, “Wake up, the nightmare is over.”
Just like he had done to her a long time ago.
Duan Xu’s eyes flickered, and he asked, “Is it over?”
“It’s over. Now you are my curse bearer. There’s no one in this world who can make you experience such nightmares again, and I won’t allow it.”
He Simu chuckled softly, lifting the spoon and saying gently, “Open your mouth, take your medicine.”
“…”
Duan Xu furrowed his brow, a smile appearing on his face again. He tactfully expressed, “This is also part of the nightmare.”
“I said no one can make you experience nightmares. I’m a ghost, so I’m not within that scope.” He Simu smiled warmly.
Duan Xu then grimaced and pinched his nose, gradually drinking down the medicine from the bowl.
The next day, when Jiang Ai asked He Simu if she could tell Duan Xu about her past, He Simu finally agreed. Jiang Ai, who always loved gossip, was overjoyed and immediately went over to chat with Duan Xu. From the time she attended He Simu’s full moon ceremony to the death of the former Ghost King and their joint efforts in quelling the rebellion, they talked about the past four hundred years from sunrise to sunset.
He Simu wasn’t present, but she could roughly tell from the time that Jiang Ai had thoroughly covered everything. She couldn’t help but feel that familiar “pain” in her mind when she was human.
A few days later, when Duan Xu was able to get out of bed and move freely, He Simu went to find him.
It was a gloomy day, at the end of spring and the beginning of summer, as if a heavy rain was imminent. He Simu led him out from the back door of the palace to the back slope of Xusheng Mountain. Facing away from Yuzhou City and towards the mortal world, they could finally see some black tiles, bustling mortals, and rising smoke.
On the back slope of Xusheng Mountain, amidst the lush grass, stood twenty-two tomb mounds lined up in a row. There were no tombstones, only mounds, and each mound was accompanied by a tree, with twenty-two different types of trees in total.
Standing among these tomb mounds, He Simu said to Duan Xu, “In the past four hundred years, I have had twenty-two lovers. These are their graves. Some have skeletons, and some are just empty mounds. Most of them didn’t know my true identity, and the longest time I spent with them was sporadic, no more than twenty years.”
She buried their past in this ghost city facing the mortal world.
He Simu pointed to the first grass-covered grave and said, “This is the first mortal I liked before my father had even passed away. Wherever we travelled, he followed me without hesitation, even after he knew my true identity. His name was…”
He Simu’s voice paused here. The wind tousled her long hair and sleeves as she maintained this posture, furrowing her brows in deep thought for a long time before reluctantly saying, “I don’t remember. I used to like him a lot, but now, I can’t even remember his name.”
Duan Xu’s eyes flickered as he stared at He Simu intently. This long-lived girl, the only one who ever stirred his heart, wore a rust-red dress that even she couldn’t discern the colour of. Her demeanour was calm yet resolute, and he seemed to have already known what she was going to say.
“Insensitive or heartless, it doesn’t matter. Duan Xu, I am such a ghost. My life is measured in centuries, and time will erode everything. One day, I won’t even remember your name, let alone the grand past behind you and the memories between us. My parents and relatives spent nearly a hundred years with me, and lately, even imagining their faces has become blurry. How long can you accompany me? If you unfortunately become a ghost, I might not even like you at all. In the end, you will just be a tiny ripple in my thousand-year life.”
Duan Xu wanted to say something to refute her, but before he could speak, He Simu said, “Are you willing?”
She was very clever, knowing he couldn’t say “willing.”
Duan Xu just looked deeply into her eyes, and He Simu smiled, as if there was a strong and ominous omen in the impending storm.
“It seems like you’re very serious about liking me, so I also have to seriously reject you. Little fox, you have your dreams. You’ve lived too bitterly in these less than twenty years. You should live happily in the future. You will meet girls you like more, marry, have children, have a happy family, and have relatives you can rely on. The nightmare in the Tianzhixiao was before you turned twenty. Don’t let me become the nightmare after you turn twenty.”
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