Chapter 24

Chapter 24: A Thousand-Year Dream (Part 2)

Song Wei Chen was a pure courtesan in a courtyard called Annex Villa. Her guqin and singing had made her famous; even the Noble Consort favored her, summoning her to perform time and again. That was why she could maintain her aloof, untouched air.

Even when people with terrifying power came and went through the estate, none of them dared to truly lay hands on her. At most, they asked to see her face, drink tea, and exchange a few words.

In the time it took to finish a cup of tea, the servant boy returned with her guest.

The candlelight was dim, but the man’s presence was unmistakable—tall, poised, wearing a dark ink-green robe embroidered with silver bamboo. A refined young master, the sort who belonged under moonlight, not in a place like this.

If he was truly pure as clear wind and bright moon, she thought, why would he leave a card at a pleasure estate?

Her distance returned at once.

“I don’t drink,” she said, tone calm. “If the young master wants wine, please help yourself.”

The young master smiled. “I don’t drink either. May I ask Miss for a cup of tea?”

There was no trace of alcohol on him. Instead, there was a faint scent like temple incense, likely from a special sachet. It was unexpectedly pleasant.

With that small thread of goodwill, Song Wei Chen poured him tea.

“What guidance does the young master offer tonight?”

“I wouldn’t dare,” he said, glancing around. “I’m simply curious—what does the female assassin beneath these gauze curtains actually look like?”

Song Wei Chen had been lifting her cup; she set it down again, unhurried. “What does the young master mean?”

“Miss played Guang Ling Lament with such skill—sliding, bending, and striking, slow one moment and urgent the next. I listened and felt danger at every turn, hardly daring to breathe. It was like watching Nie Zheng assassinate the King of Han.”

“That kind of sharp, ruthless edge—if you’re not a female assassin, then what are you?”

Song Wei Chen laughed softly. “The young master understands music.”

“In these years, countless people have come to flatter their way into conversation with me. But this ‘female assassin’ angle… at least it’s new.”

“I have something even newer,” he said. “Would you like to hear it?”

Song Wei Chen lifted an eyebrow, half-smiling, and waited.

“The important person I came here to meet tonight listened to Miss’s piece and turned pale. He claimed sudden illness and hurried back to his residence.”

“Miss ruined a crucial matter for me. I suffered heavy losses.”

“So I’m here to demand compensation.”

For the first time, Song Wei Chen laughed out loud. “And what do you want me to pay?”

She paused, then added, almost lazily, “I don’t have a person to give you… but if you want my life, you may take it.”

The young master picked up a bronze teapot with silver filigree inlay from the warmer. He poured her a cup, then filled his own and drank it down in one swallow.

“With such boldness, I don’t even know what to ask for,” he said. “Let’s save that question for next time. For now, you can owe me.”

He rose and nodded. “I have other matters. Farewell.”

He had barely turned when he glanced back, as if struck by an afterthought. “The moonlight is beautiful tonight.”

“Young master,” Song Wei Chen called, something stirring in her chest.

He turned back.

“May I know your name?” she asked, smiling faintly. “I should at least know which princely scion I’m in debt to.”

“Mo,” he said simply.

His face made something in her falter—familiar, too familiar. Song Wei Chen stared, searching.

“Song Wei Chen,” he said, “I’m Mo Ting Feng.”

His features overlapped with Mo Ting Feng’s, merging until there was no difference at all.

Song Wei Chen thought she must be seeing things. She shut her eyes, shook her head, then opened them—

And the pavilion was gone.

Mo Ting Feng sat beside her bed, watching her with a quiet, unsettling concern.

He couldn’t explain why he’d rushed back from the Yellow Springs Bureau. He didn’t need to care this much. Yet after finishing his business, he returned at once. An attendant had just brought the boiled medicine; Mo Ting Feng had taken it himself, and the moment he entered, he heard her murmuring like a delirious patient, asking his name over and over.

“You’re feverish and talking nonsense,” he said. “Here. Drink some water first.”

He slipped an arm around her shoulders, helped her sit up, and let her lean against the headboard while he fed her water.

“I dreamed of you,” Song Wei Chen murmured, her mind still tangled in the dream.

“A dream of me?” Mo Ting Feng asked, stirring the medicine with a spoon to cool it.

“Mm. I’ve had the same dream for years. When I wake up, I never remember the man’s face. But this time I saw it clearly.”

She looked at him, eyes hazy with fever. “He looked exactly like you.”

“And it wasn’t Gu Cang Yue?” Mo Ting Feng asked, before he could stop himself.

He didn’t know why the words came out so sour. As if to cover it, he added quickly, “In the dream, was I making you drink medicine too?”

“You came to hear me play.”

“What did you play that was worth me making a special trip?” he asked, voice flat, still stirring.

He scoffed inwardly. She was acting like that girl Ruan, always wanting him to listen to music. In all his long life, there had been only one person he’d ever gone out of his way to hear.

And that woman had talent without character. Better not to think of her.

“Guang Ling Lament,” Song Wei Chen said.

At first she hadn’t known what the piece was. After dreaming it over and over, she’d deliberately looked it up and learned it.

Mo Ting Feng’s hand stopped.

“You’re saying… I went into your dream to hear you play Guang Ling Lament?”

He lifted his eyes, stunned in a way he couldn’t hide.

A memory flashed—summer night, a starry river overhead, a woman in a drunken den playing Guang Ling Lament with a death-bound ferocity that didn’t belong there at all. Like a female assassin walking toward the blade with her head held high.

Mo Ting Feng stared at Song Wei Chen for a long moment, suspicion and something darker mingling. Then he asked, as if compelled:

“In the dream—who were you?”

Song Wei Chen nearly choked. Great question, she thought feverishly. What was she supposed to say? That she was a courtesan?

With his venomous tongue and deep-seated contempt for women, he’d laugh her to death.

“I was a great master who’d renounced the world,” she blurted. “People admired me because my music was unmatched.”

“Come on. It was just a dream. Don’t take it seriously!”

She was terrible at lying. Her panicked guilt only deepened his suspicion.

“Song Wei Chen,” he said, “look around this Sunless Residence. Tell me how it feels.”

He bit down hard on the name, Sunless Residence, as if the words were a wound.

Song Wei Chen obediently looked around. The room was full of things that clearly belonged to a young woman—an embroidered screen, a bronze mirror and vanity, lacquered boxes, combs, hairpins, rouge, brow paint. There was even a beauty couch by the window.

Why would Wind-Listening Manor have a woman’s room?

And it was right beside his bedroom. Had he prepared it for some female companion?

She felt nothing in particular—other than confusion.

“Boss,” she said weakly, “can you give me a hint? What kind of feeling am I supposed to be aiming for?”

“A keyword would help. Crime scene? Where your wife died? A secret rendezvous spot?”

Mo Ting Feng’s mouth twitched. Of course. He was overthinking.

She couldn’t possibly be her.

Song Wei Chen tried to speak again, but Mo Ting Feng shoved a spoonful of medicine into her mouth without warning.

The bitterness hit like a slap. Her brows pinched tight.

“I swear this was brewed from the gall of a fish that’s been dead three days,” she rasped. “If I’m guilty, let the law punish me—don’t torture me with this…”

Before she finished, he fed her another spoonful. Her stomach rolled. She clapped a hand over her mouth, fighting down nausea until tears welled in her eyes.

“If you’re sick, you take medicine,” Mo Ting Feng said, voice cold.

When had he ever fed anyone medicine? Even he felt his concern had crossed a line. And she was still acting childish, ungrateful—infuriating.

When she refused to open her mouth again, he conceded and brought the snow pear soup prepared on the table, feeding her that instead.

His face remained cool, but his movements were careful, almost gentle. If anyone saw them, they might mistake them for a couple.

“If I can still dream,” Song Wei Chen asked hoarsely, “why can’t I go back to reality?”

“The passage between your dreams and sleep hasn’t been cut,” Mo Ting Feng said. “He Duan is the side that leads back to the Mortal Realm.”

He stared at her, eyes narrowing. “What—are you trying to run?”

“With your current suspect identity, I’ll drag you back no matter where you go. Until the White Robe case is solved, kill that thought completely.”

Song Wei Chen didn’t understand why, in his eyes, she was always so awful—either a liar, or a criminal trying to flee. Why did he have such a deep prejudice against her?

He brought the spoon of pear soup toward her. She turned her face away in sulky protest.

“Did I offend you in a past life?” she snapped. “This level of bias is workplace bullying, you know.”

A past life.

She said it without thinking, but the words lodged in Mo Ting Feng’s mind like a thorn.

He should check her past life. Maybe then her connection to Gu Cang Yue would become clear. And if it exposed a link to the disappearance case, even better.

But investigating a living person’s past life was taboo at the Yellow Springs Bureau. He could ask the Nether Warden Lord in private…

Song Wei Chen caught the way his gaze drifted, calculating, like he was plotting something. She tensed.

“Hey,” she said quickly, trying to sound bold, “I’m a Wraithspeaker, okay? I’m valuable to the Dust Warden Office. Stop thinking about arresting me every five seconds.”

She suddenly regretted not leaving with Gu Cang Yue. Between prison food and living off someone else’s money… no. There was no comparison. A wise person chose the soft life.

“Open your mouth,” Mo Ting Feng ordered.

Then, as if grudgingly patient, he added, “Take your medicine properly and I won’t arrest you.”

He fed her another spoonful—medicine, then pear soup, alternating like a relentless ritual. Song Wei Chen couldn’t resist. She could only submit, a numb little machine swallowing bitterness.

She managed more than half the bowl.

Once, long ago, he had coaxed that woman into taking medicine the same way.

The thought hit him like a blade.

A violent He Dong surged through him, backlash rising in a familiar, dangerous tide. His hand froze midair.

Why did Song Wei Chen keep making him think of her?

It was dangerous.

No…

He shouldn’t have kept her.