The Beautiful Pariah Thought He Could Be Loved - Chapter 20

Chapter 20: He Suddenly Jerked His Head to the Side, His Expression Darkening…

Huaqing leaned over to support Xin Qishu, only to discover with horror that Xin Qishu’s eyes had lost their focus.

His hands trembled as he gripped Xin Qishu’s hand tightly. A wisp of spiritual energy traveled up the meridians, but just as it was about to reach the sea of consciousness, it encountered a barrier.

Huaqing’s gaze darkened, and he increased the pressure, intending to break through by force.

A male voice rang out eerily. In the deep night of the forest, the cicadas chirped incessantly, yet this voice was exceptionally clear, emanating from Xin Qishu’s body: “Take one more step, and I will kill him.”

“Who are you?!” Huaqing was both shocked and terrified. Who would strike at Xin Qishu at a moment like this? Previously, his attention had been entirely focused on his own explanation, and he had failed to sense the danger.

The voice laughed, sounding somewhat raspy: “Haven’t you two been looking for me all along?”

Li Mu?

When He Huaqing had taken Li Mu’s ghostly energy earlier, he hadn’t communicated with him at all. How did Li Mu know about them? He had been watching the Li residence the whole time!

He Huaqing: “You…”

Li Mu grew impatient. “Enough. Didn’t you say everything would be discussed by him?” With that, he vanished. No matter how He Huaqing called out, he did not reappear.

The world returned to silence.

Huaqing cradled Xin Qishu’s unresponsive body, his eyes dry, his mind feeling as though it were being torn apart.

He carefully leaned down and pressed his ear to Xin Qishu’s chest. Thump—thump—

The heart was still beating.

Huaqing let out a breath and slumped over him.

…

After a splitting headache, Xin Qishu opened his eyes to see a vast expanse of azure sea. This was his sea of consciousness.

Rows of waves crashed against hard, black reefs, breaking into fine, snowy spray. The scent of salt lingered at the tip of his nose, and thick, white clouds drifted through a low-saturation blue sky.

Xin Qishu stood on a small patch of sand in the middle of the ocean. The cool seawater lapped at his feet before slowly receding.

“It’s certainly depressing in here,” a strange voice spoke behind him.

Xin Qishu turned around warily. A young man was swimming toward him in the sea, his head appearing and disappearing amidst the rising and falling waves. He had the face Xin Qishu had recently seen: it was Li Mu.

Xin Qishu had not forgotten his mission for tonight, but He Huaqing’s earlier actions had shaken his resolve.

A wave crashed over Li Mu, and he disappeared from the swaying surface of the water.

The problem exposed by He Huaqing’s deception was the collapse of trust; but thinking deeper, it was the shaking of the very foundation of their love. Xin Qishu believed in the “suspension bridge effect”—he had fallen for He Huaqing under such conditions, so he hadn’t deeply questioned He Huaqing’s sudden explosion of love. But now… was this the nature of He Huaqing’s love?

Xin Qishu was surrounded by doubt. It felt as if a thick fog always surrounded him; standing at the center, he couldn’t see the mist, yet every breath felt constricted.

Xin Qishu sank into deep thought, a sliver of despair in his heart. He had finally seen a glimmer of happiness, and now…

“Puh… Little brother, I can’t hurt you here. Don’t wish me dead.” Li Mu struggled to poke half his head out of the water. This was Xin Qishu’s sea of consciousness; everything was influenced by Xin Qishu’s subjective thoughts.

Xin Qishu pulled himself out of his reverie and looked at the splashing Li Mu. “Why did you enter my sea of consciousness? What do you want?”

“I want you to cremate my body. In exchange, I can help you obtain the spiritual energy of the Underworld Tree.”

Like Moses parting the sea, a path appeared amidst the water. Li Mu wiped his face and walked along the path onto the sand.

Li Mu gave a cold laugh. “Actually, I have you to thank. Otherwise, I’m afraid I would never have found my corpse. That dead Taoist actually had some skill…”

Presumably, the room where the body was kept had been enchanted with an array by the Taoist. While some spells vanish upon the caster’s death, certain arrays do not. Xin Qishu lowered his eyes. “I can help you cremate the body, but I want the spiritual energy first.”

“No. Only after you cremate my remains will I go to reincarnation.”

Xin Qishu maintained a distance of three paces. “You haven’t gone to reincarnation… isn’t it because you want to kill those three people?”

“Ha! Who cares about them?” Li Mu sneered. “What happens to them has nothing to do with me!”

“I haven’t gone to reincarnation simply because I’m afraid my body will eventually be buried with them! They disgust me!”

Xin Qishu: “So, you didn’t kill them?”

Li Mu smiled twistedly. “Yes, of course I did. They performed a ritual to invite me to take their lives—how could I refuse?” He grew agitated. “I should have killed them back when I was still alive…!”

“However, do you really still want the tree’s spiritual energy?” Li Mu looked up and stared at Xin Qishu, a cold glint flashing in his eyes. “You can’t hide from He Huaqing. The moment you take that energy, he will definitely find out. And then… have you really decided to deepen the marriage contract?”

“Once the contract is deepened, you will be bound together forever. A mortal like me only entangles for one lifetime; in the next life, we have no connection. But what about you cultivators?”

“Once the marriage contract is deepened, you will cultivate partners life after life. Your fate will be impossible to sever.”

“Are you truly mentally prepared?” A sinister light flashed in Li Mu’s eyes.

In the pale blue distance, a red thread hung high, flashing with a startling red glow.

Based on Li Mu’s observations over the last few days, Xin Qishu was a person easily influenced and soft-hearted. But Li Mu waited a long time, and Xin Qishu showed no intense reaction.

He only gave Li Mu a faint glance, then turned his head. His profile looked melancholic. He said in a low voice, “I will help you cremate the body. You give me the tree’s spiritual energy. Whether we deepen the marriage contract afterward is none of your business.”

Li Mu gave a long sigh. “Don’t be a fool!”

His figure began to turn transparent. “I can’t stay here long; I’m about to leave. After you cremate the body, I will find a way to give you spiritual energy.”

“Forget the rest, but there is one thing I must remind you of: never forgive a man who cheats. Regardless of whether his heart has actually changed.”

As the final word fell, Li Mu’s figure vanished completely.

In the sea of consciousness, only the sound of waves remained. Xin Qishu calmed down and suddenly realized something: he hadn’t done anything suspicious, so why did He Huaqing suddenly want to test if he had killed anyone? And the Mirror of the Sea of Sins—how did it end up in He Huaqing’s hands?

Xin Qishu played with the water for a while, then closed his eyes and returned to reality.

…

In the thick of the night, he was sitting with his back against a rough tree trunk, with He Huaqing’s figure shielding him. Ye Yi’s grief-stricken voice rang out ahead: “What do you mean, treat it as if you stole it? Why would you take the blame just to protect him?”

“Have you really fallen for him?”

Huaqing’s voice was deep: “Since you don’t believe the truth and insist on your own subjective assumptions, what difference does it make whose head the blame falls on?”

Xin Qishu leaned against the tree. The lush canopy above cast shadows of branches that interlaced, with occasional gaps allowing the moonlight to shine through.

The youth sat obediently beneath the tree with his legs tucked. His smooth, waist-length black hair half-covered his cheek. In the night, his skin looked snow-white; a small fragment of moonlight, like a piece of porcelain, shone on his face. His crystalline red eyes stared into the void.

He blinked slowly, his curled lashes fluttering. He suddenly spoke: “Did you give the Mirror of the Sea of Sins to He Huaqing?”

His voice was slightly raspy. Huaqing froze.

After a few seconds of silence, Ye Yi’s voice came: “Yes.”

Immediately after, Ye Yi asked: “Did you steal the Glazed Lamp?”

Xin Qishu stood up and patted the dust off his robes. “Yes.”

He Huaqing turned around with a complex expression, his eyelashes fluttering incessantly. His voice was very soft, as if he wasn’t prepared to face Xin Qishu: “Little Qi, what nonsense are you talking about…”

“I’m not talking nonsense. The Glazed Lamp actually didn’t break; I hid it in the Li Mansion.” Xin Qishu gave a slightly chilling smile, his heart still throbbing with pain. He didn’t want to look closely at He Huaqing’s expression right now.

“What? Wasn’t the genuine one smashed that day?”

Xin Qishu stepped out from behind He Huaqing and stood between him and Ye Yi. He scanned the expressions of both men with an unreadable face, then burst into laughter: “How ridiculous. Chen Fei couldn’t even recognize his own family’s treasure.”

“He cared so little for it, yet made such a big fuss to catch the thief after it was ‘lost.’ Hahaha.”

Ye Yi frowned.

The moonlight fell on Xin Qishu’s face, making him look somewhat desolate and manic. Standing there like a spirit that fed on moonbeams, he spoke words that shocked them both:

“If I tell you where the Glazed Lamp is, will you let us go?”

Ye Yi’s brow twitched. He said in a deep voice, “Where is it?”

“Tell me if you can do it first.” The night wind billowed Xin Qishu’s sleeves, and his dark hair fluttered with the breeze.

His face was pale, and he locked eyes deeply with Ye Yi. His crystalline red eyes were like a whirlpool containing a thousand emotions for one to decipher. The shadow of his nose fell across his cheek, further drawing the observer into his gaze.

The lines of Xin Qishu’s face were soft, as if a master painter had achieved the perfect curve in a single stroke. His lips, however, were very thin; he pursed them slightly, like a blade.

The owner of the lips lightly licked his lip, a soft red tongue flashing momentarily. Once his mouth returned to its natural state, a trace of alluring moisture remained on the reddish-pink lips.

A part of Ye Yi’s heart felt as if it had been brushed by a feather, sparking a lingering itch. He whispered, “Fine. I agree. Where is the Glazed Lamp?”

“After you burn Li Mu’s body, follow the clues, and the Glazed Lamp will naturally reveal itself.” Xin Qishu gave a small, toothy grin. “You can find Li Mu’s body, right?”

“Of course.” He had always known where the body was in the Li Mansion. He simply hadn’t intervened because he wasn’t there for the Li family’s grievances, and since He Huaqing and Xin Qishu were already investigating, he hadn’t wanted to interfere and ruin He Huaqing’s business.

Tonight, because He Huaqing’s handling of the matter had hit a snag, Ye Yi had appeared at He Huaqing’s request.

With a sure sound, Ye Yi snapped open his fan, his gaze moving between the two: “But you have to come with me.” He pointed at Xin Qishu.

“Fine,” Xin Qishu said.

“No, I’ll go with you,” He Huaqing interjected.

Ye Yi waved to his fan and laughed, “There’s little point in you coming with me, tsk tsk tsk. The moment we leave, you’d surely let Xin Qishu escape first, and then you’d just injure me to make your own getaway.”

“Taking Xin Qishu is different. You’d be afraid for his life, so you certainly wouldn’t stray a single step from here. And Xin Qishu can’t beat me either—I won’t get hurt, and I won’t lose track of you.”

Ye Yi gave a roguish smile and snapped his fingers. A sudden gust of wind blew past Xin Qishu’s back. He looked up to find Ye Yi’s spot empty. A snow-white, piercing blade pierced through the air but struck nothing. Huaqing frowned slightly, retracted his sword, and turned around, his pale green eyes filled with worry.

A warm breath hit Xin Qishu’s neck as a voice teased: “Senior Brother, why are you still resorting to violence?”

“Just stay here and wait patiently!” Ye Yi grabbed Xin Qishu’s hand and flew away.

…

In the night wind, Ye Yi’s handsome face was extremely close, his deep eyes looking up at him. Xin Qishu calmly gave him a shove. “Slow down. My heart doesn’t feel well.”

Ye Yi slowed down and suddenly banked to the side. A sword-light grazed his clothes. He laughed several times, his eyes shining dark: “Are you two really together?”

Xin Qishu ignored the question and asked instead: “What did He Huaqing say when he accepted the Mirror of the Sea of Sins?”

Ye Yi’s smile didn’t change. “What answer would make you feel better?”

The faint sound of funeral music from the Li Mansion could be heard as they gradually landed. A few unburnt pieces of joss paper drifted onto their heads. Xin Qishu watched him silently.

Ye Yi puffed out his cheeks and blew the paper off Xin Qishu’s head, blinking nonchalantly. “Do you even remember how many people you’ve killed, little demon?”

“Did the Mirror of the Sea of Sins help you remember?” He tilted his voice at the end, staring at Xin Qishu with intense interest.

He suddenly jerked his head to the side, then turned it back with a darkened expression. A bright red palm print stood out on his cheek. Ye Yi grabbed Xin Qishu’s hand before he could pull it back. He raised an eyebrow, saying unpleasantly, “Is this how you treat He Huaqing too?”

Xin Qishu stared at him and said, “I have never killed anyone.”

“I believe you…” Ye Yi curled the corner of his mouth slightly, a mocking light in his eyes, “…not.”

Slap! With a loud crack, Xin Qishu used his free hand to strike again. Ye Yi’s head jerked to the side once more. His hand was gripped tightly by Ye Yi, who ground his teeth: “Is this how you treat me? Are you really not afraid I’ll take you back to the Fayu Temple dungeon?”

He gave a cold laugh, his voice turning completely icy with a thin layer of amusement: “Let me ask you, will the Glazed Lamp really appear after Li Mu’s body is burned?”