Who Wants to Be the Affectionate Cannon Fodder?! [Quick Transmigration] - Chapter 50

Xiao Jingyan snapped the iron chains binding him.

Before the guards could even react, he had already seized a horse.

The wounds on his hands were still seeping blood, the wind whistled past his ears, and the shouts of those chasing him behind were incessant, but he could no longer hear them.

The horse tripped and broke its leg mid-gallop. Xiao Jingyan tumbled into the muddy ground. He propped himself up with his sword, staggered to his feet, and pushed against the horse’s back, forcing it to stand again, roaring, “Get up! Keep running!”

The attendants caught up and grabbed his arm: “Second Young Master, you can’t go! Rebellion is a crime punishable by the execution of nine generations. Now that the Marquis has failed, everyone in the Marquis of Anding’s manor has only one path—death. I’m afraid we’ll be captured before we even enter Jinling City…”

“Do you think I want to linger in this world! Alone… all alone… leaving my brother behind…” Xiao Jingyan shook off his hand, stubbornly trying to climb back onto the horse, but the animal’s leg was broken; it twitched and could not stand. “Even if it means death, I must go back and kill him!”

More guards swarmed forward, pressing down on his shoulders and pinning him against the horse’s back. Xiao Jingyan gasped sharply and violently, struggling, yet he could not move an inch.

“Let go of me!” The torrential rain beat against his face like a blade scraping his bone and severing his blood. Tears mixed with the rain. Xiao Jingyan choked, crying until his voice was hoarse and his heart was broken.

“We were ordered by the Marquis to send the Second Young Master to the North Sea. Please, Second Young Master, do not let the Marquis’s painstaking efforts go to waste!”

“Brother…” Xiao Jingyan pounded the saddle again and again, his tears bursting through the dam, “Brother…”

His brother.

His only remaining kin.

Thunder crashed down in waves.

Xiao Jingyan slid into the cold rainwater, his parched throat unable to make a sound.

In this world, he was finally left alone to walk the long road ahead.

After returning from the traveling palace, Wende Emperor fell gravely ill and issued a decree for the new Crown Prince to oversee the state. Xiao Xiyun had been close to the Crown Prince since childhood, and the male protagonist Luo Heng was also his teenage friend. The three of them carried out drastic reforms across the court and the commonalty. Everyone tacitly forgot the matter of the Marquis of Anding’s rebellion.

The officials involved back then had all been eliminated by Xiao Jingke; he was only one step away from the culprit atop the bright hall to complete his final revenge.

Xiao Xiyun spent a great deal of effort before finally finding the confession letters of the army supervisor and the Minister of Revenue in the secret passage of the confiscated Marquis’s manor.

The world only knew that she accompanied the Crown Prince into the palace that day and had a long talk with Wende Emperor in the Yangju Hall for three hours. The next day at court, the Crown Prince publicized a self-indictment decree handwritten by Wende Emperor.

However, the decree only mentioned that he had misplaced his trust in treacherous officials back then, leading to poor reinforcement efforts, and that the Marquis of Anding was also harmed by villains. Now that the culprits had been executed, Xiao Langying was posthumously titled the Prince of Anding.

As for the rest—including how he grew suspicious back then, how he sent people to assassinate, and how Xiao Jingke’s rebellion should be judged—not a single word was mentioned.

Xiao Jingyan’s wanted posters were still hanging at the city gates everywhere. Just after passing Wuning, he once again broke free from his iron shackles and rushed back day and night.

He didn’t know how many horses he had worn out on the road.

When he arrived in Jinling, it was late autumn. The cold wind bit into his cheeks, and the withered yellow leaves fell with a rustling sound. Jinling was the same as it had been months ago, but while the distant mountains remained, he was no longer the Xiao Jingyan of old.

Before he could enter the city, he was intercepted by the secret guards Xiao Xiyun had arranged outside.

“The General said that if the Second Young Master returns, I am to invite you to Old Mountain for a meeting. The General has something to give to the Master.”

What Xiao Xiyun wanted to give him was a sword.

Xiao Jingke’s sword.

When clearing the battlefield, she had used some unknown method to hide this sword.

“Now, the item returns to its owner.” Xiao Xiyun looked at the wordless tombstone on the cliff and said calmly, “The Emperor does not allow a headstone, so I had to resort to this. After all, he…”

Xiao Jingyan took his brother’s sword, wiped it gently with his sleeve, and pressed the cold scabbard against his chest, choking out, “Thank you.”

“The Emperor cannot admit he was wrong; the current situation is the maximum concession. I know the hardships you two brothers faced, but those who died wrongly were also innocent—”

“Today, I will pretend I never saw you. Don’t come back.”

Having said that, Xiao Xiyun took one last look at the tombstone and turned to leave.

The autumn wind raged across the wilderness, filled with withered grass and slanting, bare branches.

Xiao Jingyan held the sword in his arms, leaning stiffly against the cold tombstone, quietly staring at the grey horizon above.

The once finely-dressed young master was now haggard and defeated, with dark circles under his eyes and hollow cheeks. The blood scabs on his wrists were startling, and his tattered clothes were covered in mud.

But his heart felt a sense of fulfillment like never before.

The freezing aura of the tombstone transferred unreservedly to his back, yet it felt as warm as snuggling in his brother’s arms when they were young. Xiao Jingyan clung to it, reluctant to leave, as if his missing soul had finally found its home.

Dazed, he seemed to hear the rustling of footsteps.

Xiao Jingyan looked up blankly—

“Brother…”

He drew the sword in his hand, the cold light reflecting his features.

Suddenly, he pulled the corners of his mouth into a joyful smile, his phoenix eyes curving, a hint of innocent and brilliant spirit flickering across his face.

Just like the boy he once was.

Xiao Jingyan’s role ended here.

When the scene finished, no one on set spoke for a long time. Li Rui took a long breath before calling out, “Pass! This take was excellent! Xingzhuo has really improved a lot; he’s much more mature than when we started filming.”

“Congratulations on wrapping up.”

In the original novel, Xiao Jingyan’s ending was that he finally saw a phantom of Xiao Jingke, so he resolutely took his own life before his brother’s grave. At the last moment of losing consciousness, his soul seemed to fly to the endless grasslands of the Southern Border, where a teenage Xiao Jingke held his hand as they both rushed into their parents’ arms.

During filming, it was changed to this open ending.

Ning Jinghe stood behind the monitor, quickly reviewing Yu Lin’s performance with Li Rui. Seeing that look of having nothing left to love in his eyes, he felt an inexplicable ache in his heart.

If he were Xiao Jingke, he would probably go up and give him a hug.

“Xingzhuo, are you okay?”

Zhou Yao’s worried voice rang out. Hearing this, Ning Jinghe looked up and saw Yu Lin leaning listlessly against the tombstone, showing no reaction no matter how Zhou Yao called him.

“What’s wrong?” Li Rui also heard the commotion and stood up to ask.

Zhou Yao said, “Maybe he hasn’t come out of character yet.”

Ning Jinghe couldn’t help but frown.

After filming Xiao Jingke’s rebellion scenes, Yu Lin had specifically asked Li Rui for a copy and promised repeatedly not to leak it. He had rewatched the part where Xiao Jingke died countless times, until he knew exactly at which minute and second which line was said, and at which minute and second the blood was spat and the final breath taken.

Yu Lin’s emotions were different from ordinary people; simple imitation was not enough to complete the diverse and complex emotions of the later stages. So he tried to immerse himself in Xiao Jingyan’s persona using Ning Jinghe’s method, imagining his brother, imagining the loneliness, anger, and resentment after being abandoned.

If it were Lin He…

Yu Lin thought of the sudden parting in the previous world, and a strange trace of melancholy quietly grew in his heart.

If it were Lin He who had left him behind…

Before filming this scene, Yu Lin constantly recalled the scene of Xiao Jingke’s death; it was as if it was carved into his mind, having witnessed the death personally.

So much so that now—

He hadn’t learned to be Shen Xingzhuo, but he had first learned to be Xiao Jingyan.

Ning Jinghe walked over to Yu Lin and stopped, about to squat down to check on him.

The person who had been as dull as a pool of stagnant water suddenly looked up. His empty gaze instantly brightened when it hit Ning Jinghe’s face, as if his whole being had come alive.

“Brother?” Yu Lin tilted his head and said slowly.

Ning Jinghe couldn’t bear to see him like this. His hand hanging by his side curled unnaturally, wanting to touch Yu Lin’s face, but he suppressed it with all his might: “Mhm, are you okay?”

“Brother—”

Before Ning Jinghe could react, Yu Lin lunged into a bear hug, filling his arms.

“I thought you really didn’t want me anymore.”

Xiao Jingke’s sword fell to the ground with a dull thud. Zhou Yao, along with the staff on site, looked at the scene in disbelief and confusion. After a while, some awkwardly looked away.

Yu Lin hooked his hands around Ning Jinghe’s neck, nuzzling his chest affectionately like a cat, and buried his head in the crook of his neck to tentatively sniff.

Ning Jinghe stood there stiffly, his hands raised and lowered with nowhere to go. His darting gaze swept over the hesitating Zhou Yao, then at the “looking for trouble” Li Rui, and finally at Tang Mo, who was watching from a distance with glowing eyes—truly, not a single person could rescue him from his predicament.

Seeing that he didn’t speak, Yu Lin looked up again, staring expectantly: “Have you come to take me home?”

Ning Jinghe’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. Finally unable to suppress it, he raised his hand and brushed away the stray hairs on Yu Lin’s forehead. His fingertips grazed Yu Lin’s brow and the corners of his eyes. Using the gentle voice belonging to Xiao Jingke, he said, “Mhm, I’ve come to take you home.”

Thus, Yu Lin happily hooked his pinky finger.

“Then let’s go.”

Ning Jinghe lowered his eyes, his gaze sweeping over their intertwined fingers, his eyes dark and unreadable.

“Xingzhuo…” Seeing that Ning Jinghe was about to pull him away, Zhou Yao called out one last time.

This time, Yu Lin heard his voice. He turned his head and blinked, looking at him with some confusion.

Ning Jinghe said, “Don’t worry, I will take him back to the hotel.”

Zhou Yao: “…” It’s precisely because it’s you that I’m not worried.

But in the end, he still let Ning Jinghe take Yu Lin away.

At the same time, Monitor No. 1, who had been dozing off in front of the light screen, suddenly jolted awake, staring in disbelief at the surging values on the “Seven Emotions” panel.

The movement of standing up knocked over the chair, and while dodging, a teacup was clumsily tipped over. Clattering sounds filled the laboratory.

Gu Yunshen yawned as he walked in from the door, saying casually, “What’s happened to get you so excited? Did the Alliance lottery numbers come out?”

The monitor pointed tremblingly at the bar chart on the panel: “It’s ‘Grief’! Yu Lin’s ‘Grief’ and ‘Joy’ moved together!”

Gu Yunshen squinted, looking thoughtfully at the light screen, and said, “What does Seven say?”

“Brother Seven said…”

The monitor was silent for a while, a strange and awkward expression appearing on his face. He glanced cautiously at Gu Yunshen’s curious face and said hesitantly, “…Brother Seven said Yu Lin was taken away by a wild man.”