Chapter 31

The hospital room was now empty save for Jing Chi and Yu Xingzhou.

Jing Chi still wore that faint smile on his face. In front of the young man, he seemed capable of anything.

But as Yu Xingzhou gazed at Jing Chi’s pallid complexion, his eyelashes trembled, and his eyes gradually reddened.

“I’m sorry. It’s all because of me that you got hurt.”

His voice caught with emotion, his fingertips shaking as he reached out toward the wound, only to pull back for fear of causing more pain.

Watching the young man’s hesitant, conflicted expression, Jing Chi took hold of his hand and gently placed it on his own shoulder.

He gazed unwaveringly at the person before him, his eyes brimming with tenderness. In a soft voice, he said, “Don’t apologize to me. This has nothing to do with you. Let’s not cry, all right?”

With that, he brushed his thumb across the corner of the young man’s eye.

Cupping the warm palm against his cheek, Yu Xingzhou nuzzled into Jing Chi’s hand before nodding obediently. After all, he didn’t want to worry him.

Only then did Jing Chi relax with a smile. “Right, you’ll have to put up with staying cooped up like this in the hospital for a while. There are too many people around, so you can’t come out too often. Once we’re home, it’ll be fine.”

The thought of confining the young man to that small casket tugged at Jing Chi’s heart, but he had no other choice.

Yu Xingzhou, however, didn’t mind at all. As long as he was by Jing Chi’s side—even if he couldn’t always see him—it was no problem.

Besides, this was only temporary. To him, Jing Chi’s recovery was what mattered most.

Without hesitation, Yu Xingzhou nodded.

Seeing how compliant he was, Jing Chi felt an itch in his fingers.

Before he could act on it, Yu Xingzhou suddenly leaned forward. His pale lips hovered mere inches from Jing Chi’s shoulder—so close that Jing Chi could feel the temperature radiating from him.

It wasn’t the warmth of a normal person. It was faintly cool.

“How…”

Before he could finish the question, he looked down to see the young man gently blowing on his wound.

The scene felt familiar, as if it were a mirror of the time Yu Xingzhou had been hurt and Jing Chi had done the same for him.

Now Yu Xingzhou had learned it too. He murmured softly, “Blow on it, and it won’t hurt anymore.”

After yesterday’s surgery, Jing Chi’s upper body was bare save for the bandages.

The cool breath ghosted over his wound, yet Jing Chi felt a surge of heat.

At that moment, Yu Xingzhou lifted his head while Jing Chi remained bent low.

Only then did they realize how close they were.

Close enough for Jing Chi to make out the fine down on the young man’s face. Close enough that just a slight dip of his head would bring their soft lips together.

Jing Chi had to admit, in that instant, he wanted nothing more than to kiss him.

Right then, a knock sounded at the door. Jing Shao poked his head in and called out, “Bro, the nurse is coming to change your dressing.”

The moment he heard about the dressing change, Yu Xingzhou pulled back abruptly. Recalling what had just happened, a flush crept over his cheeks. Without waiting for Jing Chi to speak, he slipped straight back into the casket—equal parts embarrassed and afraid of holding up the treatment.

Watching the young man vanish in an instant, Jing Chi shot Jing Shao a glare.

Jing Shao: ?

Why’s the doctor glaring at me? It’s not like I meant to interrupt.

Moments later, a nurse entered, changed Jing Chi’s dressing, and gave her instructions. “No water for the next few days. Avoid spicy foods and alcohol… otherwise, it won’t heal properly.”

“Got it. Thank you.” Jing Chi nodded obediently. He needed to recover quickly so he could get started on making a body for Yu Xingzhou.

Once the nurse had left, Jing Shao sidled up to Jing Chi’s bedside, his face alight with gossip. He was a far cry from the guilt-ridden brother of before.

“Bro, what’s the deal between you and that… uh, Yu Xingzhou?”

Jing Chi ignored him and closed his eyes. “I’m hungry,” he said flatly.

The word “hungry” set off Jing Shao’s own stomach with a growl. “Hang on, Bro. I’ll go grab you some breakfast.”

After eating the breakfast Jing Shao brought, Jing Chi settled back to rest. He needed to conserve his strength if he wanted to get out of the hospital soon.

~~~

Night had fallen.

A sudden knock at the door roused Father Nan from bed. He shrugged on a coat and went to answer it.

When he opened the door, there stood his son.

“Musheng?” Surprise flickered in his eyes.

Nan Musheng seemed not to hear him. With a dazed expression, he wandered into the living room and sank onto the sofa.

Father Nan hurried after him. “Musheng, where have you been these past few days? You have no idea how worried we were. And some young fellow even called specifically to ask after you. Have you gotten in touch with him?”

Father Nan’s words snapped Nan Musheng back to reality.

Someone asking after him?

It had to be Jing Shao.

Nan Musheng thought back to the look Jing Shao had given him when he was loaded into the ambulance. He knew right then that the two of them were finished.

“Yeah, yeah,” Nan Musheng replied halfheartedly. His face was pale, etched with exhaustion.

Suddenly, as he gazed at his father, a thought struck him. “Dad,” he said abruptly, “whenever I messed up in the past, you’d always tell me not to follow bad examples—like that classmate of yours who went astray and ended up killing himself.”

Father Nan’s expression froze, but he nodded anyway, unsure why his son had brought it up out of nowhere.

“Then, Dad… didn’t you say his name was Yu Xingzhou?”

Nan Musheng fixed his gaze on Father Nan’s face. As expected, a flicker of unease crossed his father’s features.

“So what if it was? Why drag him up now?” Father Nan demanded, his voice heavy with gravity.

“Dad, back then… did he go through school bullying? And were you one of the people who took part?”

Father Nan’s face darkened. “What the hell are you talking about? School bullying? Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Dad, stop lying to me. I know everything. I’ve met him.” Nan Musheng’s eyes went vacant as he shouted.

The outburst startled Father Nan. “Musheng, what’s gotten into you? He’s dead. How could you have met him?”

Nan Musheng stared straight at his father, repeating himself. “He’s not dead. He’s not dead. I’ve seen him.”

“It’s all my fault,” Father Nan said. “Back then, I felt so guilty that I started badmouthing him to you later on. I never should have let you hear that name. Musheng, what the hell happened to you?”

Father Nan let out a deep sigh at the sight of his son’s icy demeanor.

More than twenty years earlier, Father Nan and Yu Xingzhou had been classmates—desk mates, in fact.

It happened during the Senior Year class placement exam. Father Nan had been assigned to Yu Xingzhou’s class and, by chance, ended up sitting next to him.

At first, they got along fine. But as time went on, Father Nan learned that Yu Xingzhou was relentlessly targeted by their classmates—and even kids from other classes.

They mocked him, hurled insults, beat him.

No one was allowed near him. Father Nan, as his desk mate, grew scared for his own sake—too cowardly to risk getting dragged in—so he asked the teacher to switch his seat.

That alone might not have been so bad.

But later, Father Nan joined in with the class, shunning and isolating Yu Xingzhou. The worst of it came that one day.

It was pouring rain, the sky a brooding gray. The boys who always picked on Yu Xingzhou dragged the scrawny teen up to the rooftop and locked him in.

Father Nan had come back to the school for something and spotted the group hauling the boy toward the rooftop.

Without a second thought, he trailed them in secret.

From outside, he heard their jeering laughter, the vile insults, the thuds of a body slamming into things. Then came the click of the rooftop door locking shut.

The boys sauntered off, chuckling to themselves. Only after they’d vanished did Father Nan step forward.

Peering through the crack in the door, he saw Yu Xingzhou sprawled on the ground, his face bruised and purple.

Their eyes met in that moment.

Father Nan knew he’d been seen. Then came the boy’s faint plea: “Help me.”

His voice was so weak, drained of strength.

What did Father Nan do? He turned and walked away.

He didn’t tell a soul that Yu Xingzhou was trapped up there.

He was terrified those boys would find out he’d freed him—or worse, that he’d snitched. Then he’d be the one in the crosshairs.

Pretending he hadn’t seen a thing, he left.

The next day, word spread through the class: Yu Xingzhou had been stuck on the rooftop all night. A security guard on routine patrol had found him collapsed there.

Yu Xingzhou fell deathly ill after that and vanished for days.

When Father Nan saw him again, the boy looked even frailer, as if a stiff breeze might carry him off. There used to be a spark in his eyes, but now there was only hollow despair—as if nothing in the world held any appeal anymore.

A few days later, Father Nan ran into him in the hallway.

“Nan Yufeng,” the boy said softly, gazing at him, “why did you leave that day?”

There was no anger in his voice, only bewilderment.

In Yu Xingzhou’s eyes, after all, they’d been desk mates for a time.

But the question struck at Father Nan’s deepest shame, painting him as heartless, as someone who’d watched a boy suffer and done nothing.

And the truth was just that.

Father Nan would never forget the venom he’d spat in his rage:

“Why the hell should I save you? Everyone knows there’s something wrong with you. And why do they pick on you out of everyone? It must be your own damn fault.”

He stared at the boy across from him, stunned for an instant, as if he hadn’t expected him to say such a thing. Then he let out a light chuckle and murmured under his breath:

“So that’s how it is.”

He watched Yu Xingzhou walk away, unaware that it was the last time he would ever see him.

That evening, the wail of an ambulance pierced the air.

At the same time, the voices of his classmates rang in his ears:

“Hey, did you hear? Yu Xingzhou killed himself. He jumped off the rooftop.”

He couldn’t say whether he regretted his words in that moment, but afterward, nightmares plagued him for days on end.

He was terrified, wracked with guilt. If he hadn’t said those things, would that boy really have jumped?

Yet perhaps life truly was that fragile.

Under the crushing pressure of senior year, no one uttered Yu Xingzhou’s name again. Everyone seemed to collectively erase that boy from memory.

But Father Nan could not forget—especially not years later, when he learned by chance that everyone who had bullied the boy had died in freak accidents. Whether it was mere coincidence, he couldn’t say, but from then on, he lived in constant dread, haunted every night by the same recurring nightmare.

And so, he began ceaselessly disparaging Yu Xingzhou, convincing himself the boy had deserved his fate. Only then could he silence his guilt, quell his fear.

Twenty years drifted by in a haze like that. It was only in his old age that Father Nan realized how utterly foolish he had been.

Father Nan pulled a photo album from his desk drawer and set it before Nan Musheng. He flipped through until he found their only group picture.

Pointing to the figure on the far edge, he said slowly, “That’s Yu Xingzhou.”

Nan Musheng’s pupils contracted. Though he had already encountered Yu Xingzhou, it was only now, seeing him captured in that photograph, that the reality began to sink in.

Haha, like father, like son.

His own father had treated Yu Xingzhou that way back then—and now he, too, refused to let the man go.

All because that name filled him with disgust. All because of his self-righteous perch atop the moral high ground, from which he condemned him.

In truth, it was nothing more than his own cowardice and selfishness.

Father Nan watched as Nan Musheng suddenly let out a low, eerie chuckle.

“Musheng, what’s gotten into you?” There was anxiety in his voice.

“Dad, you know what? He didn’t die. He’s coming back.”

He began repeating the words again.

Father Nan frowned. Those deaths flashed through his mind, but so many years had passed—if he didn’t dwell on them, he might have forgotten entirely. He decided Nan Musheng was simply delirious.

“Musheng, you’re not making any sense. You must not have been sleeping well lately. Go back to your room and get some proper rest.”

If Jing Shao had been there, he would have seen the black mist Yu Xingzhou had planted on Nan Musheng swelling larger and larger. The day it fully enveloped him would mark how close the man was to utter madness.

The black resentment qi fed on every negative emotion, growing ever stronger. Nan Musheng had ensnared himself at this point; from here on, endless nightmares would torment him until death claimed him.

It was all just the consequences of his own actions.

The wheels of karma turn inexorably—not that retribution fails to come, but that its hour had not yet arrived.

Sometimes death brings release, while it is the living who endure the deepest agony.

No one is ever truly forgotten. The seeds sown in the past inevitably bear fruit in time.

~~~

Jing Chi endured five days in the hospital. Once his wounds had healed well enough, he could bear it no longer and headed home.

After Jing Shao dropped him off, he tried to linger for a couple more days.

But Jing Chi had no intention of putting up with such a glaring third wheel. He shooed the man out without ceremony.

As he did, Jing Chi couldn’t resist one final jab: “When you get the chance, crack open a book or two. Eat more walnuts to sharpen that brain of yours. And stop falling for every weirdo that crosses your path.”

Jing Shao’s face flushed crimson. He had no comeback, so he slunk away in defeat.

Jing Chi’s place was conveniently close to his job.

And that job had nothing to do with being a Celestial Master—it was at one of the companies under Jing Corporation.

Times had changed. Though the Celestial Master lineage was their heritage, they pursued other careers as well: ordinary office work.

In the absence of supernatural incidents, they lived like anyone else, clocking in from nine to five each day.

A century ago, their ancestors had shown remarkable foresight. With the money earned exorcising evil spirits and ghosts, they had launched a business.

Naturally, they never resorted to spells for an edge—that would invite divine retribution. Every asset had been built through honest toil, one painstaking step at a time.

By Jing Chi’s generation, they were full-fledged trust fund heirs.

Yet being Celestial Masters remained their true calling; they could never abandon their roots. Lately, though, things had been unusually quiet on that front.

That was precisely why Jing Chi had ventured into the Illusion Realm back then. Evil spirits of such power had become exceedingly rare.

Anyway, the moment Jing Chi got home, he released Yu Xingzhou.

For the past few days in the hospital, they could only steal brief moments together—after all, it wasn’t convenient. But now that they were here, they could finally be open about it.

Once Yu Xingzhou was out, Jing Chi’s thoughts began to wander.

Catching sight of Yu Xingzhou glancing around his room, Jing Chi suddenly curved his lips in a mischievous smile. He grabbed the young man’s arm and wheedled, “Xingxing, I want to take a bath. Will you help me?”

Yu Xingzhou froze for a moment. “T-take a bath?”