Still Secretly In Love With My Enemy Today - Chapter 48

Chapter 48: 

 

The next morning, Xie Huaishuang still didn’t get a chance to tell me about his master.

 

The City Lord arrived shortly after dawn, while we were barely halfway through breakfast. Xie Huaishuang was back to being a picky eater; thinking I wasn’t looking, he was trying to push the vegetables he disliked to the edge of his plate.

 

“You can’t just eat the things you like.”

 

I pushed them back toward him, receiving a very dissatisfied look in return.

 

“I don’t like them.”

 

Xie Huaishuang had deep green eyes and liked green clothes, yet he harbored a profound distaste for anything green on a plate.

 

“I’m not making you eat all of them, just a little,” I tried to bribe him with his favorite red bean cakes and oatmeal. “The rest of the table is all stuff you like.”

 

That was when the City Lord walked in. Xie Huaishuang, who had been reluctantly reaching for the greens, dropped his chopsticks instantly. He was unusually proactive in opening the door, only to freeze when he saw who it was.

 

“City Lord?”

 

I didn’t expect her this early either. I figured she’d spent all night thinking of ways to mock me more, but her expression was uncharacteristically grim. I sensed something was wrong. “What happened?”

 

“Don’t worry, finish eating first,” she said, sitting down. “Half an hour ago, a Temple messenger bird was intercepted outside Iron Cloud City. The scouts followed its path and found two people. They’ve been brought in.”

 

Xie Huaishuang frowned. “Two people?”

 

“Yes,” the City Lord nodded. “When they were found, one was unconscious, and the other was awake—it looked like there might have been some internal strife. I just got the news and was heading over to take a look. I thought I’d bring you both along.”

 

“This is the message they intercepted.”

 

Xie Huaishuang took the note. I leaned in to look with him; it contained two very fragmented, incoherent sentences.

 

“Temple code,” Xie Huaishuang explained, lowering his head. “It says… ‘The person returning to Iron Cloud City with you resembles me. Whether what Twelve said previously is true requires further investigation.’“

 

He added, “Twelve is the person you saw in the Temple dungeon.”

 

“They followed us?” I scanned the note. “They realized you’re with me?”

 

Xie Huaishuang’s brow furrowed deeper. “But… it shouldn’t be. Even if they didn’t know before, when I broke into the prison, they… it’s impossible for them not to recognize my sword style. Why bother with this redundant investigation?”

 

The City Lord looked puzzled. “Wait—wasn’t the fire at the prison started by you?”

 

“What?”

 

“The place was burned to the ground using Iron Cloud City mechanisms. It wasn’t you two?”

 

I vaguely remembered that wasn’t how it went. Xie Huaishuang put his chopsticks down. “No… at the time, we couldn’t even manage to look back, let alone set a fire.”

 

He looked at me. “I knew nothing about this.”

 

“I sent scouts to check. The place was indeed mostly destroyed. I assumed you did it to cover your tracks.” The City Lord thought for a moment. “If it wasn’t you, then who was it?”

 

A heavy silence fell over the room. After a long pause, I spoke up.

 

“Do you remember,” I looked at Xie Huaishuang, “that I found you at Linlang Pavilion because a man in black told me you were there?”

 

During this time, Xie Huaishuang had thought about it often but couldn’t identify the person—the information I had provided was too vague.

 

Xie Huaishuang frowned. “You think it’s the same person?”

 

“Looking at it now… someone who knows martial arts, can enter the Temple prison, knows you, and has been following you without being detected. From everything that’s happened, it seems… they are helping us.” I listed the facts one by one and asked him, “Is there anyone like that in the Temple?”

 

Xie Huaishuang stared at the floor, his frown tightening. Suddenly, he stood up.

 

“Where… where is the person who was carrying the message?”

 

…

 

The person who had been knocked out was still unconscious. The other was dressed in nondescript black clothing, sitting tied to a chair with his back perfectly straight—almost intentionally so. He was shrouded in shadows, his face obscured. It appeared to be a man.

 

Standing at the door, I was trying to determine if this was the same man who told me about Linlang Pavilion, when I felt the breath of the two people beside me catch simultaneously.

 

The City Lord remained outwardly calm, but Xie Huaishuang’s eyes widened. He took two steps forward then stopped abruptly, as if afraid to get any closer, staring blankly at the figure in the shadows.

 

The man hadn’t moved when he heard the door open, but as the shadows shifted, he suddenly turned his head.

 

I finally saw his face. He was a middle-aged man with a scholarly air, but a jagged scar cut across his face from his right temple to behind his ear.

 

—I had seen this man. I couldn’t remember which mission it was, but I had definitely seen him. This man…

 

“Master…”

 

Just as I was trying to dig through my messy memories, Xie Huaishuang’s voice fell softly, instantly scattering my thoughts.

 

Master?

 

I turned my head sharply. Xie Huaishuang looked utterly bewildered, his brow pinched and his eyelashes trembling.

 

But back in the dungeon, that man Twelve clearly said his master had long since been killed by Iron Cloud City…

 

“Master,” Xie Huaishuang whispered again. His grip on his sword tightened with a faint creak.

 

The City Lord had already cleared the room of others. A look of shock flashed across her face. “Your master… it was actually him?”

 

What did she mean by “actually”? Did the City Lord know this man too?

 

I suppressed my curiosity for the moment. Xie Huaishuang stood there motionless. The confusion on his face gradually faded, replaced by a deep, hollow stillness that could be called calm.

 

—I knew him better than anyone. When he looks like this, it means his heart is in absolute turmoil, and he is struggling to breathe.

 

The man just looked at him, silent. Only when he saw me reach out to take Xie Huaishuang’s hand did his expression shift.

 

“Huaishuang.”

 

He sat in the gloom, his voice low and raspy.

 

“Why?” Xie Huaishuang asked, his fingertips instinctively curling inward.

 

The man looked at him for a moment and tugged his lips into a smirk. “You are different than before. In the past, you wouldn’t have asked for a reason. That is a good thing.”

 

The City Lord frowned, interrupting him. “Cut the nonsense.”

 

“Very well, City Lord Xu.” He chuckled, his tone growing heavy. “I know you have many questions, but right now, I can only say three sentences.”

 

“Three sentences?” The City Lord’s gaze sharpened. “What poison are you under?”

 

“I’m not.”

 

“Have you been cursed?”

 

“I have not.”

 

“Then what are you—”

 

“It’s nothing. I’m just about to faint from hunger.”

 

Exactly on the third sentence, he tilted sideways in a most elegant manner.

 

…If you were hungry, why didn’t you just say so instead of acting like a mysterious sage?!

 

The City Lord and Xie Huaishuang both instinctively rushed forward to catch him. He swayed, opened his mouth, and struggled to force out one last line.

 

“No… green vegetables.”

 

…

 

Xie Huaishuang sat with me on the second step outside the house, in a patch of sunlight. He was rolling two leaves between his fingers as he spoke seriously about the Temple for the first time.

 

“I don’t remember much before the Temple. I might have been sent there, or sold.”

 

He fiddled with the leaves. “Every day was training and fighting. A group of us would survive, then more training and more fighting.” He thought for a second. “I was seven… maybe eight? I forget. The Temple chose twelve of us to learn the sword from Master. I had never seen him before; they said he was a friend of the Great Shaman.”

 

Faint sounds of dishes and voices came from inside. He glanced at the door and continued.

 

“At fifteen, I replaced the previous person to become the High Priest.” His eyes lowered. “Then Master vanished. Everyone said he was killed by Iron Cloud City. I searched, but I found nothing.”

 

“Did you hate Iron Cloud City then?”

 

Xie Huaishuang lifted his eyes, looking at the treetops for a moment before shaking his head. “It’s hard to say… probably not.”

 

“No one in the Temple really spoke to me. Only Master would tell me about the world outside sometimes… though I didn’t see him much, maybe two or three times a month.”

 

He paused. “He always said your Iron Cloud City… wasn’t the villain. He even came to find me specifically one night.”

 

“He found you?”

 

“He said something very cryptic. He told me that no matter what happened, I shouldn’t go looking for him, and more importantly, I shouldn’t hold a grudge against Iron Cloud City. He said it had nothing to do with them.”

 

“The next day, he was gone. Everyone said Iron Cloud was responsible.”

 

Xie Huaishuang turned to me. “Over the years, whenever I had a chance, I tried to find news of him. I didn’t believe the Temple, but I didn’t know how to tell you… It was an old matter—an old matter that had nothing to do with you—so I just kept it to myself.”

 

No wonder he always refused to talk about his master. As he spoke of the past, his voice trailed off, his eyes downcast. He looked just like the wilted leaf at his feet.

 

I poked his palm. “How could it have nothing to do with me?”

 

His emerald eyes lifted inquiringly. I explained with total seriousness.

 

“If he hadn’t taught you, how would I have been chased and beaten by you all these years? You call that nothing to do with me?”

 

I emphasized the words “chased and beaten” quite heavily. He looked at me with an incredulous frown.

 

“Chased and beaten… what do you mean I chased and beat you?” Xie Huaishuang spoke with certainty. “Clearly, you were the one who started the fight most of the time, weren’t you?”

 

“Doesn’t matter,” I told him. “The point is, you hit me. You left scars.”

 

Xie Huaishuang, who was looking at me as if I were a shameless liar, immediately became tense at the mention of scars. “Where? Where is the scar?”

 

“Right here.” I pointed to my heart. “It hurts every day. It won’t get better unless you kiss it a hundred times a day.”

 

“…” He gave me a silent, wordless look and turned his head away, speechless.

 

“I’m serious.” I nudged closer. “Anything involving you, even the tiniest bit, can involve me too.”

 

Xie Huaishuang didn’t speak, his fingers rolling the edge of the leaf. After a long while, he finally said, “But for Master to actually be…” He lowered his head again. “I never expected this.”

 

“I never expected it either.”

 

The City Lord’s voice suddenly rang out from behind us.

 

Xie Huaishuang stood up in surprise, forgetting to drop the leaf. “You know him?”

 

The City Lord stood at the door with her hand on her hip. “Do you even know who he really is?”

 

Xie Huaishuang froze and shook his head. The City Lord stared at him for a moment, her voice filled with utter bewilderment.

 

“He’s actually your master?”