FEIYAO TERRACE was festooned with lanterns hung high and low in picturesque disorder. Woven from bamboo and covered in paper paste, they resembled a river of stars glittering against the night sky. Snow drifted down through the halo of light, dusting the engraved red lacquer railings with a layer of white.
Two women stood in the snow amid the glow of the lanterns. One of them, attired in a red dress and short coat embroidered with butterflies, spoke with a sweet smile on her face. The other was dressed in goose- yellow robes embellished with bamboo and plum blossoms. She stood by the railing, face tilted up as she gazed at a graceful fish-shaped lantern.
In spite of his patchy memories, Gu Mang knew almost immediately that the second woman must be Murong Mengze. Moments ago in the palace hall, he'd noticed something strange in Mo Xi's expression. In all the time he had known Mo Xi, Gu Mang had never seen him show so much concern toward someone. He'd thought this "Princess Mengze" must be very beautiful indeed.
Now, as he saw her through the kaleidoscopic snow, he realized that beautiful was too shallow a descriptor. Murong Mengze did not boast extraordinary proportions, but she was slender, tall, and elegant, possessing an aristocratic air. In the light of the lanterns, her fair, delicate face shone like fine jade, and the nape of her slender neck arched from her collar like a flower's stem, making her appearance even lovelier.
"Mengze."
Murong Mengze turned and stared briefly before breaking into a smile. "Ah, Mo-dage. Long time no see."
The girl in red was her handmaiden, Yue-niang. The young lady made her own obeisance to Mo Xi and smiled. "This one greets Xihe-jun, ten thousand blessings to Xihe-jun."
Mo Xi walked over to Mengze. "Why are you standing out here? Isn't it cold?"
"I've just spent time recovering at the hot spring palace. These lanterns are so pretty, and they're only here once a year," Mengze said, still smiling. "It's fine."
Mo Xi couldn't think how to persuade her otherwise. At that moment, however, his thoughts were interrupted by the sight of a hand reaching out from behind him to touch Mengze's temple.
"You should go back inside. It's very cold out here."
Because Mengze was dizzyingly highborn, it was rare for anyone to invade her personal space like this. She took a step back almost instinctively. But once she got a good look at the person beside Mo Xi, her expression changed. "General Gu..."
Gu Mang had once been the most popular man among the maidens in Chonghua; within him remained a tenderness toward the fairer sex. Though faint, some annoyance had surfaced when he saw Mo Xi treat this woman with such familiarity. He still said kindly, "The snow is so heavy, and your ears are red from the cold."
Murong Mengze was struck speechless. She had heard reports of Gu Mang's condition even before she returned, but such close and sudden contact with this traitorous devil was nevertheless difficult for her to stomach.
Yue-niang's temper, however, was more explosive. Unable to bear the sight of such insult, she upbraided Gu Mang, "You traitorous bastard, how dare you touch my lady with those filthy paws?! If it weren't for you—"
"All right." Murong Mengze softly cut her off. "That's enough."
Yue-niang pouted. "Princess, why are you so even-tempered... Even I... I feel wronged on your behalf!"
"What nonsense." Murong Mengze didn't raise her voice, but her air was imposing. "Yue-niang, stop making such a fuss. You should go back inside and warm up."
"...Yes, at once." Despite her reluctant acquiescence, Yue-niang shot a furious parting glare at Gu Mang, her cheeks puffed in anger.
With her handmaiden sent away, Murong Mengze turned to Mo Xi. "Does he live at your manor now?"
It was clear of whom she spoke. Mo Xi murmured in assent.
Murong Mengze lowered her lashes and sighed. "I don't want to harp on it either. You've already been wounded. You should remember to be mindful."
"I know."
Gu Mang didn't catch much of Mengze's meaning. But because this woman hadn't let that mean lady continue to scold him, he thought that she was probably a good person. Just then, a plum blossom fluttered down from one of the trees arcing over the terrace and landed in Mengze's hair. Gu Mang reached over, wanting to help her get rid of that flower...
This time, Mo Xi caught his hand before he even touched Mengze.
"A flower fell on her head..." said Gu Mang.
Mo Xi cut him off, his voice flat. "This is Princess Mengze. Make your obeisance."
"Never mind," said Mengze. "His mind has been damaged. There's no need for him to go through the motions."
Gu Mang didn't reply, his blue eyes flitting between Mengze and Mo Xi. In the end, he slowly lowered his head. "I only wanted to help..."
Mo Xi decided to bring an end to this conversation. "You should go back to the Great Hall. I have something to discuss with her." Now it was Mo Xi's turn to chase someone off. As it turned out, Gu Mang and Yue- niang were quite alike—they were both the ones to be sent away. Gu Mang looked silently at Mo Xi and Mengze. After a few seconds, he quietly turned to go.
Gu Mang had always been gentle and accommodating toward women. Even after he lost his memories, this part of his personality hadn't changed. He'd always felt that they were fragile, delicate, and beautiful, deserving of the utmost protection. He, on the other hand, was a coarse and brutish grown man. Women deserved the best he had, and he ought to treat them courteously.
Thus he felt that what Mo Xi did was right. Princess Mengze was a princess, an extraordinary woman who was even more deserving of reverence and care than usual. He was filthy; he was a slave. Of course he shouldn't be trying to touch her.
But for some reason, he felt deeply distraught.
He returned to the Great Hall, rubbing his cold-reddened hands and cupping his freezing ears. By this point, the hall had filled with many guests, but he didn't recognize anyone when he looked around. He suddenly felt intensely helpless, like a dog abandoned in the wilderness. He turned instinctively to look for Mo Xi, his only point of support; but in that moment, he realized Mo Xi was the one who had sent him away. He had nowhere to go. He could only stand blankly next to the terrace entrance, gazing at the two distant figures under the lights.
Beneath the splendid lanterns, Mo Xi bent his head to speak to Mengze. Mengze laughed, sometimes interrupted by a cough. At some point, Mo Xi seemed to ask her something; Mengze covered her mouth to cough, and then shook her head.
They were too far away for Gu Mang to hear anything, but Mo Xi's features were distinct. Even at this distance, Gu Mang could clearly see the expression he wore. Mo Xi unmistakably sighed, then unfastened the outer coat of his ceremonial military robes and passed it to Murong Mengze. He didn't drape it over her shoulders or touch her in any way, but for some reason, the sight made Gu Mang's heart throb. His brows drew together, and he brought a hand to his chest and pressed.
Before he had quite figured out what this feeling was, an assortment of disconnected snatches of dialogue flashed through this mind—
Shixiong, I meant it when I said I liked you. It was Mo Xi's voice, full of the same youthful sincerity it had held in his dreams. His Imperial Majesty has named me Xihe-jun. In the future, I'll never have to bow to the whims of others again. I will achieve everything that I promised you. I want to rightfully and properly be together with you.
Gu Mang, I will give you a home. Wait for me, okay? Believe me...
Gu Mang's heart hurt more and more fiercely, as if a thistle had grown roots and sprouted in it, only to be violently torn out. Those old words echoed in his ears; his vision doubled. The sorrow caused such agony he couldn't remain upright. Gripping the balcony's doorframe to keep himself steady, he panted, head hung low.
He didn't quite understand the meaning behind those words he'd just remembered. Nor could he recall what had happened before and after, or how those oaths had been sworn. But this pain, along with his old feelings, were distinctly carved into his bone marrow. Even breathing was difficult. The air caught in his throat.
Somewhere in his subconscious, he felt like he'd expected a pain like this. It was as though his past self had foreseen events like the one he now witnessed. It was as though he had never taken Mo Xi's oath seriously.
The future Mo Xi had painted for him was so beautiful. The young man in his memories seemed to have pledged that oath with his whole life, his heart, his body, his passion, and all of his love. Gu Mang could tell that once, he had wanted to believe it. So much so that he had ached and shivered and nearly shattered. He had wanted to take Mo Xi's hand, to throw caution to the wind and heedlessly trust him and love him.
But despite all this, in the end, he was too afraid. Mo Xi was the darling of the heavens, a descendant of Chonghua's nobility, the fourth in a line of generals. And Gu Mang was nobody. This love was too heavy; he couldn't bear its weight. He knew there would come a day when Mo Xi would grow up, grow wiser, and come to know that his feelings for Gu Mang were nothing but an impulse of his youth. A life was a very long time; the one accompanying him through it would never be a lowly and baseborn slave.
But it seemed that he hadn't confessed any of this to Mo Xi back then. As he recalled it now, he realized that it was because he'd been afraid of this as well. Voicing these thoughts would have constituted a wretched defeat. He already had so little; he could not afford to hand over the sincerity of his heart.
To the gentry, a slave's heart didn't count for much. It could be broken, toyed with, discarded, or even crushed underfoot. But to him, this little heart was all he had, the only thing he had to his name in this life. So Mo Xi could love and break taboos with him in a moment of rash impulse, but Gu Mang had no such luxury. Fate had its own hierarchy. Such was life, as loath as he was to admit it. Even if he closed his eyes, he couldn't hide from the truth. Fate had dealt him a meager hand.
What Mo Xi wanted he couldn't give. What Mo Xi gave he couldn't bear.
The best place for him was where he was now, standing outside the terrace in a dim and unremarkable corner, glancing at love affairs that had nothing to do with him. Maybe even laughing a little to himself...
But Gu Mang couldn't laugh. A deep-rooted instinct protected him; he dimly knew he should smile with relief, but in any case, he was no longer the General Gu of old. The smile wouldn't come. He turned his head away, no longer daring to look at the scene on the terrace. As though fleeing those figures, he walked over to the tiered tables and stood beside them, soothing his aching heart.
More and more attendees arrived. Standing by himself, a convicted criminal, Gu Mang was naturally the target of many sidelong glances. Some of these guests had blood debts with Gu Mang, and their gazes fixed upon him as though they would have rushed to devour him whole if not for the occasion.
As Gu Mang slowly returned to his senses, he realized that something was wrong. He looked around and saw ice-cold faces full of hatred surrounding him in every direction. He hastily grabbed some food from the table at random and, clutching it to his chest, scurried away in panic like a universally reviled rat.
At last, he found an unremarkable corner to crouch in. Only then did he notice that none of the things he'd grabbed were tasty; his foraging skills were terrible indeed. From a table full of delicacies, he'd grabbed only two green onion and sesame pancakes. It contained that hated vegetable, and it was cold too... At this point, however, he couldn't afford to pick and choose. Gu Mang lowered his head and began to nibble on a pancake.
As he chewed in silence, a warm and low voice sounded from behind him. "Gu Mang? Why are you here?"
Gu Mang turned around with the pancake dangling from his mouth. Jiang Yexue sat in his wooden wheelchair, looking at him in astonishment. It was the man who had helped him put on the necklace. Gu Mang let out a sigh of relief. He didn't feel any hatred toward this man, and even felt that they might have been quite close. He bit down on the pancake and mumbled, "I won't annoy anyone if I'm here."
Of course Jiang Yexue was aware of how others would treat him. He sighed. "Where's Xihe-jun?"
"He's with the princess."
"I see. No wonder he left you here alone..."
Gu Mang swallowed a bite of pancake. "Why are you here? Do people not like you either?"
Jiang Yexue smiled. "Pretty much."
He glanced into the distance. Yue Chenqing was beaming as he chattered to his fourth uncle, radiant with delight. As usual, Murong Chuyi treated him with indifference, perhaps not even listening. Jiang Yexue watched them for a while and then looked away. "Indeed, people don't like me."
Gu Mang scooched over to make some space for Jiang Yexue. The two watched snowflakes drift outside the window in wordless silence. Suddenly, Gu Mang glanced at Jiang Yexue's legs and asked, "Why are you always sitting?"
A pause. "I was wounded in battle. I can never stand up again."
Gu Mang didn't reply right away. He took a few more bites of the pancake, but he truly couldn't bear the taste of the green onion anymore. He held it out to Jiang Yexue. "Want some?"
After a moment's silence, Jiang Yexue sighed. "You're just the same as you were before."
Gu Mang's eyes widened slightly. "You knew me too?"
"...Who on earth would not know you?" Jiang Yexue said with a grin.
"I...don't really get it."
"I did know you. You, Xihe-jun, Lu Zhanxing, and I used to defend the borders together." As he spoke, Jiang Yexue glanced at the pancake in Gu Mang's hands. "Back then, when you couldn't finish something, you'd also try to fob it off on us."
Gu Mang stared at him in confusion. "So, are you also an old friend of mine?"
"Yes," Jiang Yexue replied. "We risked life and limb together." He sighed softly. "So I can't hate you."
Gu Mang looked down. "But Mo Xi hates me."
Jiang Yexue chuckled, dark eyes gleaming with a peaceful, clear light. "You're not wrong. Although, out of all the men in the world, he's probably the one who least wants to hate you."
A pause. "Really?"
"Yes."
Snowflakes floated onto the window lattice, stained orange by the lights from the palace hall. Jiang Yexue smoothed the coat draped over his shoulders and admired the snow with Gu Mang. "In the past, he did treat you quite well."
Gu Mang made no sound.
Jiang Yexue's voice was mellow and deep. "When you were trapped, he insisted on rescuing you despite the risk to his own life. When you fell unconscious from your wounds, he stayed up for days on end to watch over you. When you received any honor or award, he was happier for you than for any of his own achievements. When you made jokes... He's such a serious person, but he always sat with the other soldiers and watched you. As soon as you delightedly finished the joke, he always laughed first. But you ve forgotten all this."
Jiang Yexue had experienced plenty of pain and suffering and had faced his own mortality. When he spoke, his words were mild; it was as though he were calmly chatting about the past with an old friend. Both his tone and expression were light. But those words plunged Gu Mang into shock. In his mind's eye, he could almost catch some blurry shadows, a few shards from the past—
A crowded and bustling little tavern, its atmosphere cheerful, packed with boisterous soldiers. He stood on a chair and grinned as he boasted and chatted with the people below him. Gu Mang scanned the crowd. He couldn't remember the faces of those merrily yelling beneath him, but as soon as he looked up, he noticed the young man sitting beside the liquor cabinet. His posture was perfect, his gaze gentle. Over the heads of the noisy soldiers, that man had eyes only for him.
In an instant, Gu Mang's heartbeat from that past moment was revived. He remembered the promises he'd heard. His past self hadn't chosen to believe them, but nevertheless, he could tell that Mo Xi had meant them wholeheartedly—
I really do like you.
I will give you a home.
Wait for me...
Gu Mang closed his eyes and fell silent.
"If you hadn't abandoned him and hurt him, if you hadn't crossed his lines and violated his deepest taboos, how could he hate you?" asked Jiang Yexue. "He was always protecting you; he was willing to shield you against any hardships—but you stabbed him from behind."
Gu Mang flinched. Was it true? Was that how it was...? He thought of the way Mo Xi had looked when he gripped his hand, pressing it against his chest. Mo Xi had said, You nearly killed me.
"People's hearts are made of flesh," Jiang Yexue continued. "He protected you for so long and gave all that he could give. He is a noble, one of the most highborn young masters in Chonghua. He comes from generations of heroes, a family with a history of unparalleled glory. Yet for you, back then, there was nothing he wouldn't do. But after that last stab you gave him, he couldn't protect you any longer."
No one else had ever said anything like this to Gu Mang. If someone had explained this to him a few years ago, he wouldn't have believed it at all. But after his recent interactions with Mo Xi and the memories he'd regained in the last few days, Jiang Yexue's words left his heart and mind a mess. His blue eyes glimmered. "Why are you telling me all this?"
"I was once your comrade, and his as well." Jiang Yexue paused, his expression complicated. "I don't really want to see the two of you hurt each other again."
Gu Mang sat in a daze for a while, searching for an excuse for his past wrongdoings. "But he...he's very mean," he said almost helplessly. "He said I was very dirty..."
"That's because you didn't know he loathes traitors more than anything."
Gu Mang stared. "Why does he hate traitors the most?"
Jiang Yexue paused to consider this. "I wasn't planning to get into this with you tonight, but..." He sighed. "No matter. I've already told you half of it anyway; there's no harm. Let me ask you—do you know how his father Fuling-jun lost his life?"
Gu Mang shook his head.
"It was because of a traitor." Jiang Yexue turned to look at Gu Mang as he spoke. "Many years ago, Fuling-jun was fighting the Liao Kingdom's armies. He hadn't expected that his second-in-command would defect and threaten the city next to their encampment. While Fuling-jun was helping the citizens evacuate, the traitor captured him."
Gu Mang's eyes flew wide open. "And then?"
"In order to curry favor with the Liao ruler, that traitor killed Fuling- jun with his own hands. He cut off his head and stole his spiritual core, then presented them to the enemy nation for a handsome reward. That man was immediately appointed to the rank of general. Just as you were."
These awful words slipped in through Gu Mang's ears and stabbed him through the heart. His hands were trembling.
"Even more ironically, Fuling-jun had written a letter to his family that he never got the chance to send. In this letter, he'd praised the traitor's loyalty, saying that with a brother like this, his family needn't worry." Jiang Yexue looked down at his own knees and sighed. "He also wrote, 'who says we have no clothes, for we share the same robes of battle.' Fuling-jun put the lives of his own family into his comrade's hands, but his brother didn't even leave an intact body for his family to mourn. When the casket entered the city, Fuling-jun's remains were a gory, dismembered mess." Jiang Yexue turned to look at the pallid Gu Mang. "Mo Xi was only seven years old."
The lump in his throat left Gu Mang unable to make a single sound.
"Gu Mang," Jiang Yexue said, "do you understand why Xihe-jun hates traitors now?" He paused. "You and the man who killed his father basically did the exact same thing."
Gu Mang stared at him blankly. Coldness seemed to have seeped into the spaces between his bones.
"Ask yourself honestly—think it over." Jiang Yexue sighed once more. "What kind of saint would he have to be to bear you no grudge?"