“Fu Sang…”
Qi Changying had just left the long nail when Fu Sang pulled him over and kissed him. He sensed an unusual meaning in the kiss and wanted to ask, but he couldn’t pull himself away.
Fu Sang’s cold fingers sank deeply into his hair, forcing him to raise his head.
This person had always liked this posture of having absolute control and dominance.
Qi Changying did not fight him either, simply letting him do as he pleased.
The beginning and ending of their relationship had always been decided by Fu Sang. Only after Fu Sang had kissed enough did he release his long hair and push him away.
Afterward, Fu Sang raised his hand and wiped the corner of his lips, then glanced up at the window.
Qi Changying did not understand and followed his gaze.
There was only one window in this room. It was not large to begin with, and half of it was blocked by the curtains. There was not much to see through the remaining half either. Qi Changying could only vaguely see a figure leaving.
He withdrew his gaze and asked Fu Sang:
“What’s wrong?”
“Mind your own business.”
Fu Sang lowered his eyes to confirm that the monitoring signal light on the bracelet had already been turned off, then instructed:
“Pull the curtains.”
Qi Changying answered and went over as he wished, pulling the curtains closed and covering the other half of the window as well.
But even after the curtains had been drawn, a sliver of light still quietly slipped in. The hole in the curtain, which no one knew when or how it had appeared, was still there today, twelve years later. It had not been sewn up, nor had it been torn any larger. It remained exactly as it had been back then.
Fu Sang stared at the hole for a long time before finally looking away.
With the heavy chains around his wrists, he arranged the pillow and tilted himself onto the bed.
Only at this moment did the fatigue and soreness in his shoulders, neck, and waist truly ease. Fu Sang let out a long sigh, turned over, and curled up sideways on the bed as he had when he was little.
“This was your home before?”
Not long after he closed his eyes, Fu Sang heard Qi Changying’s voice.
“How could you tell?” Fu Sang opened his eyes slightly.
Hadn’t everything related to him been cleaned away twelve years ago? This place was now just an empty room. Where could there still be any trace of him?
“It has your scent. Although it’s very faint, I can recognize it,” Qi Changying answered.
“…”
Fu Sang did not respond and closed his eyes again.
“What was this chain used for?” Qi Changying continued asking.
“There was only one person living in this room. It couldn’t have been used to tie up a dog, could it?”
“…I heard Miss Huo say that you were locked up here for seven years.”
“Didn’t she give you my ID number too?”
Perhaps he did not know how to answer that, because Qi Changying fell silent.
After hesitating for a long time, Qi Changying finally spoke again. It seemed that during that period of silence, he had gone through a great deal of inner struggle, but in the end, he still decided to ask:
“…Are you okay?”
“What could be wrong?” Fu Sang sneered.
“Even if I was tied up like a dog for seven years, I am still lying here perfectly fine, right? Physically and mentally healthy, sunny and cheerful. Where do you think I’m not okay?”
“That’s not what I meant…” Qi Changying had actually become somewhat accustomed to Fu Sang’s barbed words.
“Last night, I heard that person seemed to use torture on you. I don’t know what punishments are like in your era, but I know that it definitely wouldn’t have been pleasant. Fu Sang, you were in pain.”
“Pain? I like pain. It makes me feel like I’m still alive.”
“There is more than one way to be alive.”
“I can only feel this one.”
Fu Sang’s voice was somewhat hoarse. After a pause, his lowered his voice and said:
“You caused me pain too. Qi Changying, the pain that thing brought me wasn’t even one percent of the pain you brought me. That thing made me excited, but you made me want to die.”
“…I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to apologize, because you’re going to die with me.”
“…”
After waiting for a long time without hearing anything further, this topic was probably considered over.
Fu Sang curled up there, his consciousness gradually becoming somewhat hazy.
He felt a little cold and unconsciously wrapped his arms around himself in his sleep.
Later, his body seemed to become warmer, but that warmth did not come from his own body temperature.
Someone had covered him with a blanket.
There was no heating or air conditioning in this room. The thin walls could neither keep out the cold nor retain the coolness. It was cold in winter and hot in summer, and either way, it was torture.
Fu Sang thought this was probably another method Zhuge Lin used to torment him.
Summer was slightly better, but when winter came, the chains around his ankles were like pieces of ice that could never be warmed or melted. They pressed against his flesh, freezing the skin until it turned bluish-purple and ulcerated, soaking the cold and pain into his bones and sending it straight through his blood to his internal organs.
Even now, twelve years after the chains had been removed, that place would still ache faintly whenever it was cold.
Fu Sang originally forgot most of these things, but perhaps because he had seen people from the past and returned to a familiar environment from the past, the related memories that had been sealed away slowly unfolded as well, resurfacing one by one and returning before his eyes.
The memories of this room were truly boring and dull to the extreme.
He used to huddle in this gloomy little room every day, spending his days reading and studying. Thick books and ancient texts had been carried over from Jingguan Pavilion by Zhuge Lin trip after trip, forcing him to read and forcing him to study, as if the only meaning of his life was those talismans and spells, as if he had been born solely for these things.
Fu Sang hated the door of the room because whenever it opened, the person he hated would walk in.
He also hated the window in the room because all he could see through it was a boring brick wall.
The wall was very high, so high that it blocked the sun, causing the sunlight that could enter the room each day to be pitifully little, almost nonexistent.
Fu Sang did not agree with the idea that something was better than nothing. If he could not have it all, he would rather throw it all away.
So he drew the curtains, blocking all the light outside, just as Zhuge Lin had tried to use four tall walls to isolate everyone else in the world from him.
But there was no absolute one-net capture in this world. Even the most perfect plan would have fish that slipped through the net, whether it was walls or daylight.
“Knock, knock, knock!”
Someone rapped their knuckles against the glass window.
For a moment, Fu Sang could not tell whether the sound came from Huo Wei, who had appeared outside the window countless times in his memories, persistently trying to talk to him, or from reality outside his dream.
“Knock, knock, knock!”
Only when the sound completely shattered the dream did Fu Sang frown and struggle to open his eyes.
Before sitting up, he lowered his eyes and glanced at the blanket that had been pulled off him at some point.
Then he looked elsewhere. Qi Changying was no longer in the room. Only the long nail was quietly lying on the table beside him.
“Knock, knock, knock!”
The person knocking on the window seemed to have little patience. Judging by the frequency, they were clearly very anxious.
Fu Sang, however, was not anxious at all.
He scratched his messy hair, slowly got out of bed, walked to the window, and pulled open the curtains, dragging the heavy chains on his wrists.
Just as Zhuge Heng said, the walls had been knocked down, and the unobstructed daylight was slightly glaring.
Fu Sang narrowed his eyes. Only after he had somewhat adjusted to the light could he clearly see the people standing outside the window.
It was Zhuge Buhuo and Zhuge Buyi.
“What’s your situation?” Zhuge Buhuo asked the moment he saw Fu Sang’s face appear behind the window.
He had just returned from Chuanning to the capital a couple of days ago. Before he could even settle in, he received Fu Sang’s call saying that he had found his missing younger sister, Qianyi.
Zhuge Buhuo felt that he and Fu Sang must have some kind of ill-fated fate, making them so entangled that they could never separate.
But there was no choice. Qianyi’s matter could not be delayed. After hanging up the phone with a sigh, he prepared to pack his things and rush back to Chuanning again. But before he had even opened his suitcase, he heard that Fu Sang had already been arrested by the Spirit Supervision Bureau for kidnapping and blackmailing, and that it had even dragged out the cases Fu Sang had given him and their blood oath.
Everything was simply too dreamlike. When asked about the situation, Zhuge Buhuo pulled Zhuge Buyi along and kept explaining to others that everything was a misunderstanding. Although it did not look like it, Zhuge Fusang was actually alright as a person. At least, he had never done anything particularly bad.
But no matter how hard he tried to explain, no one believed him. Everyone who heard them speak would not think they were sincere. They would only think that they were two pitiful unlucky bastards who did not dare to violate the blood oath and therefore had no choice but to say good things about the person who had harmed them.
It was too powerless. Even more powerless was that before Zhuge Buhuo could think of a solution, his grandfather, the family head, had already transported the suspect from Subei back to the main branch with extremely high efficiency, stuffing Fu Sang into the little dark room from before and locking him up there, just like criminals being paraded through the streets in ancient times.
The whole spectacle was so showy and ostentatious that it was just missing a crowd of onlookers throwing rotten vegetable leaves and stinking eggs and shouting, “Serves you right!”
Zhuge Buhuo had a bellyful of words with nowhere to say them. After Zhuge Heng and the inspectors of the Spirit Supervision Bureau left, he wandered around the area with his brother for half a day before finally finding an opportunity to avoid the surveillance and miscellaneous people along the way, sneak over to Jiangchen Residence, and knock on Fu Sang’s window to ask about the situation.
“Nothing’s going on. I committed a crime, and now I’m in prison.”
Fu Sang leaned lazily against the wall and casually opened the window so that the two brothers outside could hear him more clearly.
“No… How could that be? If you were wrongfully accused, you have to say so! Don’t stay silent and take the blame for someone else for nothing! Although I am cursing you in my heart every waking moment, if something really happened to you, I would really step up, okay! Hurry up and tell me the whole story. Brother will help you analyze it. It doesn’t matter that you’re trapped. The two of us are still free and can go anywhere. We can go wherever it’s convenient! Let’s think of a way together. I’ll definitely clear your name and get you out!”
Zhuge Buhuo was so agitated he looked like he was about to jump off the ground.
“Yeah.” Zhuge Buyi also nodded.
“Junior Uncle, I believe you couldn’t have done something like that. There must be a misunderstanding here, right?”
“…”
Perhaps the weather was simply too good today. The sunlight falling on these two people was extremely glaring.
Fu Sang narrowed his eyes slightly.
After a moment, he said:
“There’s no misunderstanding.”
He smiled slightly, a faint curve to his lips. “I’m just this kind of person.
“Don’t think you understand me so well. How many days have you even known me? Didn’t Huo Wei tell you? I hate everyone surnamed Zhuge. If I had the chance, I would kill everyone here, including the two of you. Unfortunately, my plan had only just begun when it was exposed. You two should stop standing there putting on this fake act either. What are you acting out with the whole‘sincere friendship’? What the hell are you two? Do you really think I would be moved or appreciate it?”
After saying that, Fu Sang did not give the two brothers a chance to respond. He directly pulled the curtains shut, blocking them behind the dark-colored fabric.
“…Zhuge Fusang!” Zhuge Buhuo grabbed the window and shouted angrily:
“You fucking have the surname Zhuge too! Your ID hasn’t even been changed, so don’t fucking think I don’t know!!!”
Unfortunately, the curtain opposite him did not move at all, nor did it make the slightest sound.
The window was still open. The person inside had definitely heard him, but had no intention of responding to him at all. He could not even see a single hair.
Zhuge Buhuo was given the cold-shoulder just like that.
Zhuge Buyi had spent far less time with Fu Sang than his brother. After being frightened like this, he blinked somewhat blankly, having been somewhat intimidated.
“Brother, is what Junior Uncle said true?”
Zhuge Buhuo, furious, put his hands on his hips and let out a sneer.
“You think, if he really wanted to do something, there would be any possibility of his plan being exposed beforehand?”
Zhuge Buyi immediately shook his head.
Although he did not understand Fu Sang’s character, he greatly acknowledged Fu Sang’s ability.
“Then isn’t that obvious?”
After saying this, Zhuge Buhuo deliberately raised his voice and spoke toward the window so that Fu Sang could hear him.
“Let’s go! Some people think the two of us are useless, won’t tell us the truth, and don’t appreciate our kindness. A whole heart has been fed to a dog! Sigh, how cold and heartless the world is, how pathetic and lamentable!!”
The curtain remained completely still.
Zhuge Buhuo knew that continuing to waste time here would be like playing the qin to a curtain and he still would not get anything out of it. After all, Zhuge Fusang was a stubborn donkey. Once he decided something, no one could change it, and he would not fall for provocation either.
So he decisively dragged his younger brother away.
Listening as the footsteps outside the window grew farther and farther away, Fu Sang withdrew his gaze from the curtains and returned to the bedside, lying down again.
Although he was very tired, he had lost his sleepiness.
Whenever he closed his eyes, his mind was filled with the glaring light he had seen outside the window.
He remembered that when Huo Wei first appeared before him, it was the same situation.
Even now, he still did not quite understand why these people were so strange. They had clearly seen and understood his viciousness and darkness, yet they still chose to believe in him and tried to pull him toward the light.
Fu Sang had never been courteous to Buhuo and Buyi. He made the blood oath without leaving the slightest room for leniency, neither treating them like people nor using them as people.
Under such circumstances, when he saw those two standing outside, he genuinely thought they had come to kick him while he was down.
But they had not.
Why?
Was it because people like this were born with an endless desire to help others, or was there some other reason?
“…Why do you always say the opposite of what you mean, pushing away those who treat you well?”
Another voice suddenly appeared beside his ear. The ghost’s slightly cool temperature quietly pressed against him.
“I don’t need those things.”
Fu Sang’s voice was even colder than Qi Changying’s temperature.
Yes, he did not need them.
He did not need anyone to treat him well. He only needed disgust and hatred. He needed others to constantly target and hurt him, so that he would have a reason to return those wounds and pains a hundred or a thousand times over, satisfying his vicious tastes and twisted temperament.
He could accept many Zhuge Lins and Zhuge Cans, but he could not accept more people like Huo Wei.
To him, care and concern like Huo Wei’s were a very heavy burden, because he did not possess that kind of kindness or empathy. He was not good at accepting those things, nor did he want to accept them, and he had no idea how to repay them.
People should simply not care about each other and live their own lives. Once they became entangled, it was all trouble.
“…Fu Sang.”
The room remained quiet for a long time, until Qi Changying spoke again, softly calling his name.
“If you have something to say, say it.” Fu Sang said coldly.
But after those words, there was another long silence.
In the end, Qi Changying reached out and gently wrapped his arms around Fu Sang through the blanket, buried his face in the crook of his neck, slowly took a deep breath of his scent, and then told him in a very low and soft voice:
“…I really hate you.”
Fu Sang was stunned.
He didn’t expect Qi Changying to actually say something so sharp.
It was as if cotton that had never seemed to have a temper had grown thorns, aimed at him and only for him.
He did not know what the feeling rising in his heart was. Perhaps the force of the electric current had not yet passed, and there was still a faint numbness lingering.
Fu Sang ignored those strange feelings and smiled very lightly.
He turned his face and pressed it against Qi Changying’s lips, which were so close.
This ghost was very strange. He said he hated him, yet did not refuse his kiss.
Fu Sang was not really in the mood to kiss. After rubbing his lips for a moment as a declaration of ownership, he wanted to leave, but Qi Changying held onto him and would not let go, kissing deeper, very proactive and serious.
“…Even hatred is mine. It’s all mine.”
After the numbness came another indescribable excitement and satisfaction flooding into his heart.
Fu Sang raised his hand and wrapped it around Qi Changying’s neck, lowering his head to lick and kiss his Adam’s apple, where the markings of his fatal wound grew.
“If I tell you to die, then you have to die. If I tell you to live, then you have to live.”
No one was allowed to spy or covet him.
Anyone who possessed him or laid hands on him had to die. Anyone who wanted to take him away from his side had to die. Anyone who wanted to cross over him to hurt him had to die.
Anyone who could not belong completely to him had to die. Anyone who thought about someone else also had to die. And anyone who actively tried to leave him had to die even more.
“I hate you…” Qi Changying lowered his head, his hands tightly gripping the chains around Fu Sang’s wrists.
He repeated this sentence in a low voice, words that he had almost never been able to utter before.
Fu Sang was in an excellent mood, so good that he even chuckled softly and had the leisure to ask:
“What do you hate me for?”
“…” Qi Changying no longer spoke.
As Fu Sang wished, Qi Changying truly hated him.
But it was not because he hated his extreme possessiveness, nor because he hated Fu Sang’s control and humiliation, nor because he hated his autocracy and tyranny, nor because he hated his vicious behavior and hurtful words.
Now, he simply hated him…
Hated him for treating himself so badly.
Hated him for insisting on keeping all kindness and love a thousand miles away.
