The Mad Villain Driven to Death - Chapter 31

The autumn rain fell relentlessly throughout the night, persisting even as dawn broke.

The doctor arrived as scheduled to perform acupuncture on Shen Zhaoxue. When it was time for the doctor to depart, Wan Shenghan personally saw him to the gate. Lowering his voice, he asked, “Looking at his current state, are there any symptoms other than the recurring fever?”

“None that can be clearly seen yet. There might be some memory decline, but it would be difficult to detect,” the doctor replied, handing a prescription to Wan Shenghan with a final instruction. “Use the medicine to keep it suppressed for now. However, regarding intimate matters… they were too excessive. Young Master Shen harbors deep-seated resentment; it would be best to reduce the frequency appropriately.”

Wan Shenghan’s expression remained unchanged. He simply hummed an “Mhm” in acknowledgment, signaling that he had taken the advice to heart.

After seeing the doctor off, he went to the kitchen to brew the medicine according to the prescription and prepared a meal to bring to Shen Zhaoxue’s room. Shen Zhaoxue was lying on the bed, awake but with his head turned away, clearly unwilling to acknowledge the man who had just entered.

Wan Shenghan acted as if it didn’t matter. He laid out the dishes on the table, moved it to the bedside, and leaned over to support the youth. “The Mid-Autumn Festival is approaching. Do you wish to spend it here, or return to the capital?”

As the words left his mouth, Shen Zhaoxue suddenly swung his hand, delivering a sharp slap to Wan Shenghan’s cheek.

Wan Shenghan did not get angry. He simply continued, “Once you’ve vented your fire, eat. Going hungry for too long will hurt your stomach.”

Shen Zhaoxue did not respond. He propped himself up to sit, his head spinning. He was in a foul mood and had no intention of speaking to the culprit. His expression was calm but excessively cold, almost devoid of emotion. He merely reached out his hand, signaling for Wan Shenghan to give him the chopsticks.

Wan Shenghan acted as if he hadn’t seen the gesture. Instead, he took the chopsticks into his own hand and said, “Since you cannot see, your husband will feed you.”

Shen Zhaoxue offered no reaction, maintaining his frozen expression. He figured that if someone was going to serve him, he might as well take the advantage.

The meal ended in a bizarre atmosphere. Shen Zhaoxue had a poor appetite and ate very little before lying back down and turning his back once more. Wan Shenghan, mindful of the medicine that wasn’t yet finished brewing, noted the exhaustion on the youth’s face. He knew he had been too excessive the night before; the youth had been plagued by nightmares and hadn’t slept well.

If Wan Shenghan hadn’t climbed onto the bed to hold and soothe him for a long while, the youth likely would have tossed and turned until morning.

He was gone for half an hour. When he returned, Shen Zhaoxue had already climbed out of bed and was fumbling at the table, attempting to write. Wan Shenghan set the bowl of medicine on the desk and said, “What do you want to write? I will write it for you.”

“Last time, you took it upon yourself to modify my letter,” Shen Zhaoxue said tonelessly. “I do not trust you now.”

“I told Chen E to come to this town to find me for an urgent matter, yet you made me wait for her here in vain for over half a month.”

Wan Shenghan simply blew on the hot decoction, showing no sign of remorse. “I knew what you wanted to say to her and had already alerted her. When you encountered the mountain bandits and she couldn’t find you, she came to me so we could think of a solution together.”

Shen Zhaoxue’s hand paused over the paper. His lashes flickered slightly as he raised his sightless eyes to meet Wan Shenghan’s gaze.

“I do not believe you,” he said.

A flicker of irritation rose in Wan Shenghan. “Why do you not believe me?”

“You have deceived me too many times. I cannot distinguish truth from lies, therefore I cannot trust you. Is there a problem with that?”

It is natural not to trust things or people who have failed you; Shen Zhaoxue saw no fault in his logic, and Wan Shenghan found himself unable to argue. He had indeed practiced many deceptions upon Shen Zhaoxue, but he only…

“I was only worried that if I told you the truth, you wouldn’t want to talk to me. You would want to get away from me.”

Wan Shenghan could not accept such a thing happening. Whether the “dodder flower” couldn’t leave the host, or the host couldn’t leave the blood-sucking flower, had long since become impossible to distinguish.

Shen Zhaoxue treated the statement like a joke. He set the brush aside and leaned back against the chair, a bitter, cold smile playing on his lips. The autumn wind carried a chill into the room, tossing his hair and the hem of his robes. A single red candle flickered on the table. With a sudden gust, a bead of candle wax slid down and thudded onto the paper with a splat.

Shen Zhaoxue toyed with a lock of hair falling by his cheek. Thinking of the past, he felt it was a blur, yet it remained etched into his very soul. Wan Shenghan spoke now of not wanting to be separated, yet back then, when Shen Zhaoxue had begged at the gates of the Wan estate no longer even asking to leave together, but merely wanting a final meeting, Wan Shenghan himself had turned that wish into a hopeless dream.

Shen Zhaoxue was a man who paid back every grievance. Do not talk to him about finding the source of the debt; the heavens had given him a second life not to repay evil with kindness, but to settle accounts. He had sworn to take his revenge on everyone, one by one.

However, things had a hierarchy of urgency; he couldn’t rush and expect instant results. He had to plan slowly.

Shen Zhaoxue curved his eyes and released the lock of hair. He told Wan Shenghan, “So, all the things you’ve done boil down to not wanting me to get away from you?”

“Wan Jingyao and the servants bullied and humiliated me for three years because of your neglect was that because you didn’t want to be separated? Wan Jingyao threw my jade pendant into the pond, and you clearly saw it but did nothing but watch from the sidelines was that also because you didn’t want to be separated?”

His words were aggressive, every question like a sharp blade stabbing at the other man’s heart, as if intended to strip away his very flesh and blood. Wan Shenghan’s pupils shrank. “That was not my intention,” he said hurriedly. “I was only—”

But he did not finish the sentence.

Shen Zhaoxue covered his mouth and leaned over, coughing for a moment. He slowly rose and moved toward Wan Shenghan, leaning down to close the distance between them. The posture was incredibly intimate; their breaths intermingled, each sensing the other’s rhythm clearly.

“Eldest Young Master Wan,” Shen Zhaoxue whispered. “You seem to still have secrets.”

He clearly felt the man’s breath hitch for a second. Shen Zhaoxue laughed. “Don’t be so nervous, Eldest Young Master. I have no interest in your secrets. I only hope you understand one thing: I will not allow anyone to stop my plans. No one.”

“Whether you want your career or not has nothing to do with me. Correspondingly, my affairs have nothing to do with you.”

Shen Zhaoxue wanted to say more, but his throat felt parched. After a fit of coughing, he completely forgot what he intended to say and simply gathered his sleeves to return to the bed.

Two days later, the rain finally ceased, and Chen Shi prepared to return to the capital. Shen Zhaoxue kept track of the time, listening for news from the outside, but the announcement of the Chancellor’s passing never came.

He felt a rare sense of bewilderment. Did I remember incorrectly? The Chancellor should have passed by now, paving the way for the foreign King to rebel in the spring. Why was the timeline different from his memory?

Muddled with thought and a headache, and with his eyes feeling particularly uncomfortable, Shen Zhaoxue went outside to clear his head. Lately, his eyes could vaguely perceive some light. He knew his previous suspicion was correct: ordinary poison wouldn’t have damaged his sight. Someone had secretly tampered with his eyes.

Why target me? At the time, he was a dependent in the Wan estate with no ability to care for himself. The only consequence of his injury was Wan Jingyao being sent to prison. Did the culprit think the cousin’s crime would affect Wan Shenghan’s future?

Shen Zhaoxue pondered for a long while, mentally cycling through everyone who had been near him that day. Finally, his suspicion settled on Zhang Shu.

The retainer of the Wan family. Was this man around in my previous life? Shen Zhaoxue found he couldn’t remember.

He stood in the courtyard for a while. Wan Shenghan entered from the outside; the man’s silhouette was blurred, appearing as a figure in a green robe with a scholarly aura, but Shen Zhaoxue couldn’t see his face clearly. The effort only made his eyes dry and painful. He closed them and turned his face away with a look of distaste, acting as if he hadn’t noticed the man’s arrival.

Wan Shenghan’s hurried footsteps slowed. Observing Shen Zhaoxue’s expression, he knew the youth was still furious about being forced to kowtow and marry him the other night. Being in the wrong, Wan Shenghan had been walking on eggshells for days, afraid of provoking more anger yet he did not regret what he had done.

He slowly approached Shen Zhaoxue and said softly, “Chen Shi has already boarded his carriage. Do you wish to return to the capital with them?”

Shen Zhaoxue remained silent, turning to walk back into the house.

“If you have something on your mind, you can tell me. I will not tell any outsiders.”

“I do not trust you.”

Wan Shenghan felt a wave of defeat. He didn’t know how they had reached this point. Almost pleadingly, he followed the youth. “Trust me just once, Ah-Xue. I truly will not harm you. If I lie, may I be struck by lightning.”

Shen Zhaoxue finally stopped. He tilted his head slightly and said indifferently, “Have you forgotten? That night you forced me to kowtow to the wind and rain as a vow, saying that you and I… must die in the same place.”

Wan Shenghan was struck speechless.

Shen Zhaoxue found it amusing and offered a generous smile. “Fine. If you want me to trust you once, it isn’t impossible.”

“First, tell me: that retainer of yours, Zhang Shu—who exactly is he?”

“I knew you would be suspicious of him,” Wan Shenghan said. “He is a diviner I met in Lingdu. He is proficient in both bagua and medicine. Since you were often ill, I invited him to be a retainer.”

Divination?

Shen Zhaoxue froze. He suddenly remembered his own ominous divination. That prophecy had been calculated by Li the Third before he was born. The conditions were complex, but was it possible Zhang Shu had calculated the same thing?

A chill ran down Shen Zhaoxue’s spine. “Has he ever said anything to you… regarding me?”

The secret of the divination was a sharp knife hanging in Shen Zhaoxue’s heart. Ever since he realized he had been summoned to the palace in his past life because of it, he had been filled with anxiety. He wondered if anyone else in this world currently knew the truth.

Wan Shenghan hesitated for a long moment before answering. “He only said your constitution is poor and you were born weak. He mentioned nothing else to me.”

It was only a split-second hesitation, but Shen Zhaoxue caught it. Wan Shenghan is lying.