The Beloved Guide Was Forced in a Love-Rival Shura Field - Chapter 48
After leaving that audience hall so cold it could freeze a person’s bone marrow, Ning Ning finally felt alive again.
His taut nerves loosened; his calves went a little weak and he nearly made a fool of himself, saved only by willpower.
In the palace corridor — high, wide, and icy — only the three of them walked. The emptiness and silence made every step feel like it pressed against the empire’s pulse of power, suffocating.
The emperor’s earlier gaze — objectifying, appraising — had been like a needle tempered with ice; its sting still lingered on his skin, sending occasional pricks of pain.
[Finally escaped.]
Ning Ning’s heart still fluttered with fear; his mood sagged and he lowered his head. His long lashes cast a fragile shadow beneath his eyes.
He walked between the two men: to his left, Gu Qingfeng with his faint elegant fragrance; to his right, Xiao Lin with his domineering, sunlike alpha presence.
Almost instinctively he released the wrist Gu Qingfeng had been holding and leaned toward the warmer, more reassuring flame beside him.
He reached out with his chilled fingertips, cautious and seeking shelter by nature, and hooked the corner of Xiao Lin’s military-sleeved uniform.
The fabric was stiff and still carried the steady, sun-warm scent of the man — the only piece of driftwood he could cling to in that glittering, freezing cage.
Xiao Lin immediately stopped.
He lowered his gaze; in his dark-gold eyes the boy’s pale face and those startled, limpid purple eyes were reflected.
He didn’t speak. He simply turned his hand and, with knuckled fingers callused and defined, completely enveloped that thin fragile hand in his palm.
His palm was scalding warm, holding an irresistible firmness that transmitted a steady calming force.
The heat made Ning Ning withdraw his fingertips a fraction and yet he didn’t let go; instead he gripped tighter.
Following Xiao Lin’s strength, his whole body leaned in, half of him pressed against the man’s arm.
Seeing this, Xiao Lin tightened his arm slightly and, as if by habit, pulled him closer. The broad military coat nearly wrapped Ning Ning up entirely, forming an air-tight, alpha-scented protective bubble.
“Scared?” the man murmured, lowering his head. His high, straight nose almost brushed Ning Ning’s silvery hair; his deep, husky voice was for the boy alone, carrying a clumsy tenderness even he might not have noticed.
Ning Ning buried his face in the crook of his arm and nodded, making a small catlike sound.
[Could I not be scared? The ultimate big BOSS made me sign myself away right in front of him; I nearly died just now, okay! By my character I’m supposed to leap up and slap him, then say ‘you wait and see who my father is’ — forget it, I just want to clock out and lie flat and be used as person C.]
Xiao Lin didn’t speak again.
He merely lifted his other hand and, with the pad of his thumb, very gently — almost reverently restrained — wiped at the rim of Ning Ning’s reddened eye.
A simple motion, but overflowing with an unnameable possessiveness and soothing: as if marking his own possession, or wiping dust from a treasured gem.
Gu Qingfeng stood quietly to the side, watching the scene.
His face kept its soft smile, but the fingers hanging at his side curled just imperceptibly; the deep black hair and eyes hid an unclear shadow of feeling. He didn’t step forward to interrupt. When Xiao Lin started to walk again, Gu Qingfeng naturally slowed his pace and matched steps with Ning Ning.
“Don’t be afraid.”
His gentle, pleasant voice flowed like a spring over stone and skillfully shattered that faintly ambiguous silence.
“Father is simply ill from living too long and yearning too strongly for power; it wasn’t directed at you,” he said in a low tone, as if afraid to disturb something.
“I’ll take you to see the night-luminous flowers later. Their petals give off a moonlike glow that soothes the spirit — the palace’s loveliest sight.”
His words successfully diverted Ning Ning’s attention.
Ning Ning poked his head out from Xiao Lin’s arm; those pretty purple eyes carried a hint of curiosity, like a frightened young kitten drawn to some new thing.
“We’re walking down a corridor whose reliefs tell the love epic of the empire’s third emperor,” Gu Qingfeng continued in a calming tone.
“Legend says that for his guide he once used spiritual power to birth, overnight, a rose nebula that spanned star systems. That nebula still sparkles on the empire’s star charts.”
Listening to these curious, romantic palace anecdotes, Ning Ning’s tense nerves eased and a little color returned to his face.
Just then, at the fork up ahead, a party came straight toward them and blocked their path.
Leading them was a man in extravagant princely robes whose face bore some resemblance to Gu Qingfeng’s but with a more flashy, sharp temperament — the empire’s Eldest Prince.
A number of noble lackeys clustered behind him in servile formation.
The Eldest Prince fixed a smirking, insincere smile on Gu Qingfeng and said mockingly, “Oh? Isn’t that my second brother who worries over the nation? Father is ill and you should be at his bedside, not taking leisure to stroll the palace with such a… beauty.”
His words dripped with provocation; the contempt in his gaze cut at Ning Ning like a blade. It paused for a moment over the ill-fitting military uniform that belonged to Xiao Lin, his look turning more disdainful and filthy.
“Heh, wearing Marshal Xiao’s clothes too — seems you’ve been well-served.”
The Eldest Prince raised his voice on purpose so the surrounding attendants could hear.
“Second Brother, you, the future heir, are you sharing a plaything with the Marshal? If this gets out, what’ll happen to the royal face?”
The insult was vicious: not only did it turn Ning Ning into an object, it humiliated Gu Qingfeng and Xiao Lin by implying they were squabbling over a man without regard for dignity.
Ning Ning froze at the filthy eyes and words. His blood went cold as if poured with ice.
He instinctively stepped back half a pace and bumped into the warm, solid chest behind him.
[Play—plaything? System, am I supposed to slap him and say ‘you wait and see’? Forget it; less trouble the better. Let him say what he wants; I’ll pretend not to hear…]
Before his inner monologue finished, an ice-cold, abyssal killing intent suddenly erupted!
“Shut your filthy mouth.”
Xiao Lin placed a hand on Ning Ning’s slender shoulder and stepped forward. His tall body stood like a mountain, completely shielding the boy.
He didn’t raise his voice, but the iron-hard tone contained murderous intent that froze the air.
He lifted his head; on his stern face there was no expression, but his dark-gold eyes boiled with a terrifying storm, as if a black hole about to swallow everything. He stared straight at the Eldest Prince.
That S-grade sentinel’s pressure, tempered through blood and corpses, crashed down like a physical force.
The noblemen behind the Eldest Prince went weak in the knees and turned ashen, nearly falling to their knees; only by clutching the wall could they stay upright.
“Your Highness the Eldest Prince,” Xiao Lin’s voice sounded out, each word deliberate and icy. “He is a meritorious subject of the empire. There will not be a next time — I won’t hesitate to personally pull your tongue out.”
The atmosphere tightened to the breaking point; the temperature seemed to drop several degrees.
The Eldest Prince was struck dumb by the pressure. His face flushed but he forced himself not to back down.
At that moment Gu Qingfeng stepped forward with his usual smile, graceful and noble, turning the hostility into nothing.
“You jest, Brother,” he said softly. “Father’s health is of course important, but Ning Ning’s spiritual recovery is equally a top matter for the empire. After all, Ning Ning’s mental stability concerns the empire’s future for a hundred years. That is the true way to help Father, is it not?”
He paused and looked at the Eldest Prince; his smile remained but there was a faintly pitying chill in his eyes, as if regarding a ridiculous fool.
“Since you have time to concern yourself with my private affairs, why not think more about how to secure another shipment of supplies for the border? Or…” His smile deepened and his tone grew both innocent and cruel. “Do you think flitting about with words is more important than the lives of soldiers at the front?”
That line was a masterstroke.
Not only did it raise Ning Ning’s importance to the level of state strategy, contrasting it against the Eldest Prince’s shallowness and ignorance, it publicly nailed him to the pillar of shame as someone who would risk soldiers’ lives for petty gossip.
“You accuse me of not helping Father? I am doing what truly matters for Father and the empire. You only know how to care about things unfit for court, and you’d ignore the empire’s safety.”
The Eldest Prince’s grin froze; he hadn’t expected Gu Qingfeng to be so silver-tongued and to seize the moral high ground in a few words, blocking every avenue of attack.
His face went stone-cold. Chest heaving, lips trembling, he could not spit out a single retort.
His followers were similarly cowed; they gave him looks tinged with fear and distance.
Just as he was about to erupt, his gaze landed on Ning Ning — the silver-haired boy sheltered between the two men.
The boy timidly poked his head out from behind Xiao Lin and raised those dreamlike purple eyes to look at him.
That look was clear and innocent, a little dazed and bewildered as if frightened — not fear, not hatred.
It was a pure, unadulterated confusion.
As if asking why this person was yelling in the middle of the corridor and behaving oddly.
That one glance, with its naive cruelty, detonated the Eldest Prince’s pent-up rage and jealousy.
Why him?! A rumored B-grade guide, a pretty useless thing who only knows how to play the victim, why could he have the simultaneous protection of the empire’s marshal and the second prince?!
Why could one sentence from him make those two top men in the empire lose their composure?!
Why… does he look at me like I’m a clown?!
The burning jealousy drove him irrational. He could not find a reasoned rebuttal.
That look of contempt was more humiliating than any vicious words.
His face grew red with suffocating anger; finally he made a pathetic sound — a muffled, humiliated puff — and shuffled aside, letting them pass.
The sight was both ridiculous and pitiable.
Gu Qingfeng nodded slightly and, unchanged in his courteous manner, walked past with Xiao Lin on either side, shielding Ning Ning between them.
As they brushed past, the Eldest Prince clenched his fists until his nails bit into his palms and hurt.
He spun around and stared fixedly at the thin back wrapped between the two men, his eyes full of mixed jealousy and malice.
He thought: This Ning Ning, the root cause of Xiao Lin and Gu Qingfeng losing their composure — this one who could take everything from me, this so-called “Moon God”…
He must be destroyed!
Completely, utterly, wiped from this world!
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