The White Moonlight Turns Out to Be a Black-Hearted Lotus - Chapter 15

“What are you thinking about?” On the carriage, Ji Yuanhui leaned in cloyingly close, pressing against him.

Pei Xu felt a sense of melancholy; compared to his teenage years, Ji Yuanhui’s temperament had become much more peaceful. He let go of the carriage curtain and calmly allowed Ji Yuanhui to hold him and nuzzle against him. “I was just remembering some things from the past.”

Ji Yuanhui buried his head in the crook of Pei Xu’s neck, taking a deep breath with a look of satisfaction.

The sensation of his breath made Pei Xu feel a bit itchy, and he pushed at the other’s face. “Your Highness, your clothes are getting wrinkled…”

Ji Yuanhui rubbed against him twice more with utter indifference. “Let them be wrinkled.”

Pei Xu reminded him, “There are only about fifteen to thirty minutes of travel left before we enter the palace.”

Ji Yuanhui acted as if nothing had happened as he smoothed the folds in Pei Xu’s clothes, picking up the previous conversation: “The past? How long ago?”

Pei Xu said it was when they were children.

Ji Yuanhui gave a low chuckle. “You were much more lively when you were small—fond of crying, making a fuss, and clinging to people. At night, you refused to sleep alone and insisted on pestering me. If I tried to shoo you away, you’d cry, or you’d climb onto my desk and sit there, refusing to leave…”

He spoke slowly, his voice gentle like a trickling stream. Pei Xu couldn’t help but turn his face slightly to look up at him. From this angle, he could only see the sharp line of Ji Yuanhui’s jaw, but the side of his face he could reach with his gaze was filled with a lingering, tender affection.

Pei Xu stared blankly for a moment before suddenly feeling as if he had been burned by that expression. His fingers curled unconsciously, and he hurriedly lowered his eyes, not daring to look further.

He craved Ji Yuanhui’s gaze and love almost desperately, and he would even use unscrupulous means to seize them. Yet, when Ji Yuanhui truly loved him—to the point where even subconscious reactions revealed a protective cherishing—he found himself at a loss.

He had only ever thought about how to hollow himself out to love someone; he had never considered how to respond if that person happened to love him back. Love was something too scalding and searing; he felt somewhat unable to catch it.

Ji Yuanhui wrapped his arm around Pei Xu’s waist, smiling as he pinched his hand and continued, “If I carried you out along with the desk, you would grab the window lattice and knock on the glass. You wouldn’t sleep yourself and wouldn’t let me sleep either. You were quite wicked.”

Pei Xu remembered that such a thing seemed to have happened. His face felt a bit hot, and he tried to sound natural: “I was ignorant as a child, just fooling around.”

“I actually wish you could act that way with me now,” Ji Yuanhui said, propping his chin on his hand as he looked at him. “When you first returned from Longxi, you didn’t call me by my name with claws and teeth bared like before. You didn’t even call me ‘Your Highness.’ You only coldly called me ‘Third Prince,’ and called my eldest brother and the others ‘First Prince’ or ‘Crown Prince’…”

“That way of addressing me made it seem as if I were just like everyone else—no longer special in your heart.” Ji Yuanhui lifted a lock of Pei Xu’s hair and sniffed it. He lowered his eyelashes, pressing the strand of hair against his own heart. His tone was half-lonely and half-teasing as he closed his eyes, the corners of his lips curling into a very faint smile. “My heart was breaking back then.”

Ji Yuanhui rarely showed weakness to others, much less would he say something like “my heart is breaking because of you.”

He was special…

Even though Ji Yuanhui had told him many times that he liked and loved him, Pei Xu would still anxiously confirm the truth of those words over and over in his mind. Even when everything indicated it was true, he could never be at peace.

He always felt that perhaps Ji Yuanhui favored him slightly because of this face, or because he remembered their past friendship. That slight favor was already a lot; he didn’t dare believe that Ji Yuanhui’s feelings for him were the same as his own for Ji Yuanhui.

He didn’t dare think it, yet he couldn’t stop craving more. Torn between these two sides, his emotions became increasingly fractured.

The childhood version of himself might have felt it was only natural for others to like him, but the current him had suffered too much malicious ridicule and cold treatment. His dignity and integrity had long been shattered and scattered across the ground, making them hard to pick up. He didn’t feel that someone like himself was worthy of anyone’s love.

Decayed on the inside, leaving only a passably decent skin, he lived by a breath of spite, hanging on precariously.

Having been disappointed too many times, he told himself not to harbor any hopes for this life. The greater the hope, the greater the disappointment, and it would only be more painful when the time came. He seemed to have given up, yet he wasn’t entirely ‘dead’ inside; he was still unwilling to yield, for he was still so young after all. Ji Yuanhui could make his heart tremble with just a few words, making him struggle like a man grasping at a life-saving straw, unwilling to die.

Ji Yuanhui was like a red thread tied tightly around his heart; as long as the other end was tugged, he would become so sad he could hardly breathe.

Seeing the loneliness of the man before him, Pei Xu’s heart fell into chaos. He couldn’t care about anything else and reached out to touch Ji Yuanhui in a flurry of confusion. “Your Highness… please don’t be sad.”

Ji Yuanhui gripped the hand extended to him, his eyes fixed unblinkingly on Pei Xu as a smile gently rippled at the corners of his mouth. “If you tell me more about how much you like me, I won’t be sad anymore.”

Pei Xu was captivated by that gaze, unable to look away as if under a spell. He wanted to pour out his loyalty and love to the person before him, wanting to pounce on him and cling to him like a puppy…

But in the end, reason prevailed. He showed a gentle, dignified smile: “Alright.”

[Your Highness, please smile for me more often…] [I would even be willing to die for you.]

The carriage stopped at the palace gate. Within a few steps of getting out, a eunuch quickly approached to greet them: “Greetings to the Third Prince and Young Master Pei.”

Ji Yuanhui recognized him as someone close to the Crown Prince. His eyes narrowed slightly as he raised a hand. “At ease. If you have something to say, say it quickly.”

“His Highness the Crown Prince has ordered all the Princes to gather at the Hall of Manifest Rectitude,” the eunuch said with a fawning smile. “I was just about to leave the palace for Your Highness’s manor to deliver the message, but I didn’t expect to run into you right here.”

Ji Yuanhui asked, “Did he say what it’s about?”

Zhao Dehai replied, “I am merely a messenger; anything further is not for me to know.”

The Emperor had gone to the Xiaoshan Palace to recuperate, and the Crown Prince had been appointed as Regent. He was likely feeling quite smug and looking for a way to show off his authority. Ji Yuanhui couldn’t think of any reason for gathering the brothers other than to give them a dressing down and establish the rules.

“This is Young Master Pei’s first time in the palace, isn’t it? The paths here are crisscrossed and complicated; it’s easy to get lost.” Zhao Dehai’s tone carried a hint of flattery. “These two apprentices of mine are quite clever. Why not let them guide the Young Master?”

Ji Yuanhui glanced at the two low-ranking eunuchs behind him, who stood with lowered heads. He gave a short laugh. “There’s no need. Though the attendants by my side aren’t brilliant, they aren’t so foolish as not to recognize the way.”

No matter how sincere he acted, the man belonged to the Crown Prince. Ji Yuanhui wasn’t so thick-headed as to casually hand Pei Xu over to the Crown Prince’s people.

Ji Yuanhui turned to Pei Xu. “Go sit in my mother’s palace for a while and wait for me a moment.”

Pei Xu nodded. “Alright.”

They had originally planned to visit Consort Shu today for a small family gathering, so they had only brought three attendants. Ji Yuanhui kept one for himself and left the other two with Pei Xu just in case.

When he stepped into the Hall of Manifest Rectitude, where the Crown Prince conducted business, two people were already waiting.

The person sitting below the main seat glanced up at him with a contemptuous expression, curling his lips as if looking for trouble on purpose. “Oh, Third Brother is quite late. I thought you were like Eldest Brother—looking down on the Eastern Palace and refusing to come.”

It was the Fourth Prince, Ji Hao, who was born to the same mother as the Crown Prince.

Old Fourth was born in the same year as him, only a month younger. If Ji Yuanhui hadn’t been born prematurely, the “Old Fourth” might have been him instead.

Ji Yuanhui didn’t understand why everyone in the Crown Prince’s faction acted like aggressive roosters, wanting to peck at anyone they saw.

He wasn’t so easily provoked by such crude tactics, nor did he care to argue. Instead, he shifted the conflict with a clever deflection, feigning surprise: “What? The eldest brother looks down on the Eastern Palace? Where did you hear that? Father hates nothing more than brothers quarreling; you shouldn’t speak such nonsense.”

Ji Hao was annoyed. “Why do you only listen to half of what I say? I was talking about you!”

Ji Yuanhui pointed at himself with an innocent face. “Me? What does that have to do with me?”

He added fuel to the fire: “Didn’t Fourth Brother say that Eldest Brother and Second Brother, the Crown Prince, have turned against each other? That they are engaged in fratricide, internal strife, and have no regard for family ties…”

Ji Hao bolted upright, his face flushed bright red. “Don’t talk nonsense! I never said that! You savage from the wild lands, don’t learn a few words and then start lying through your teeth!”

Ji Yuanhui sat down opposite him, dusting off his robes and smiling at him. “It was just a joke between brothers who haven’t seen each other in a while. Why is Fourth Brother reacting so strongly, as if I touched a sore spot? Could it be that you’ve actually said such things in private?”

After making him red with anger, Ji Yuanhui dismissed it with “just a joke.” Ji Hao couldn’t swallow his pride, but he had no way to refute it. If he accepted the excuse, his own slip of the tongue would also be labeled a “joke.” If he argued, he would fall into Ji Yuanhui’s trap, and the man would likely twist his words again.

The more he said, the more mistakes he’d make. Ji Hao shut his mouth and sat down, glaring at him fiercely.

Ji Yuanhui ignored him and turned his gaze toward a boy standing timidly to the side, who had very little presence.

“Little Fifth, why are you standing there?” Ji Yuanhui patted the chair next to him. “Come sit here.”

The boy looked to be only fourteen or fifteen. Hearing someone speak to him, his eyes lit up. He cautiously peeked at Ji Yuanhui’s expression, and once he was sure Ji Yuanhui actually wanted him to sit and wasn’t playing a trick, he moved over awkwardly. He whispered, “Th—thank you, Third Brother.”

Ji Yuanhui raised an eyebrow, wondering what there was to thank him for, but said anyway, “You’re welcome.”

Strangely, this brother, whom he had rarely met, seemed to become a bit cheerful just because of a couple of words.

Ji Hao let out a cold, mood-killing laugh. “Truly narrow-minded.”

Fine, the boy wilted again.

The group bickered for a long time, yet there was still no sign of the Crown Prince. Ji Yuanhui felt a faint sense of unease. He stood up to leave but was blocked by guards holding long swords.

“The Crown Prince has ordered that no one is allowed to enter or leave without permission,” the guard said. “We ask for Your Highness’s forgiveness; please wait for the Crown Prince.”

Ji Yuanhui pushed back the sword that had been partially drawn. “Why so tense? My Second Brother and I are blood brothers. Would he really trouble his own brother over such a small thing?”

The guard’s expression remained unchanged as he drew the sword another inch.

They were likely death-sworn guards; ordinary guards wouldn’t dare draw a sword against a Prince.

Ji Yuanhui changed his tune: “I’m not leaving. I need to change my clothes.”

The guard stayed in place and pointed in a direction. Ji Yuanhui followed the gesture, turned a corner, and vanished from his sight.

After looking around to ensure no one was following, Ji Yuanhui curled his fingers to his lips and mimicked a mountain bird’s whistle. Before long, a dark shadow landed on the wall.

Ji Yuanhui asked in a low voice, “Has Pei Xu arrived at Zhaoyang Palace?”

“Your subordinate has been guarding Consort Shu in secret at Zhaoyang Palace. I have not seen Young Master Pei.”

It had been too long; he should have arrived by now.

Ji Yuanhui rubbed the white jade ring on his finger, his heart growing more anxious. “Go look for him. Once found, escort him to the Zhaoyang Palace immediately. If you can’t find him, go ask my mother for help right away.”

“Yes.”

Meanwhile, in a desolate, remote palace.

Pei Xu’s wrists were tied behind his back, but his expression remained calm. He looked at the person before him. “What are you waiting for?”

The person gave a bright smile. “Naturally, I am waiting to see if your Highness will choose for you to live, or for you to die.”

“How could my life or death be in someone else’s hands?” Pei Xu looked at him quietly. “Shouldn’t that be something I decide for myself?”