Chapter 55
Chapter 55: Trapped by Love (Part 1)
Gu Cang Yue went rigid. “After everything that happened, you still insist on leaving. Did you ever think about how I feel?”
“I’ve never been this on edge,” he continued, his voice roughening, “terrified you would—”
Song Wei Chen wrapped her arms around him.
The rest of his words died in his throat. For a heartbeat he stayed frozen, then he held her back as if he’d finally remembered how to breathe.
“I’ll take care of myself,” she promised, her voice muffled against his chest. “For you.”
She rubbed her cheek lightly against him, shamelessly coaxing, and the iron in him softened until it felt malleable in her hands.
“If you insist on going back,” he said at last, low and hoarse, “then I’ll go back with you.”
“No.” She lifted her head, frowning. “I’m going to work. Does it make any sense for you to follow me around every day like some domineering CEO?”
“People will think I got promoted as a grievance-breaker by mooching—no, by living off a man.”
He looked at her so seriously her pulse stumbled. “Wei Wei… do you really have to be a grievance-breaker?”
He could give her anything. Why choose danger? And if the world ever learned the White Robe was his woman, they’d sneer that he had no sense at all—letting the person he loved walk into peril again and again. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to bind her with his own selfishness.
“Where I come from,” she said softly, “women don’t exist as accessories to men. I want to matter to you, but I also want to matter to the world—even if it’s only a little.”
“If I clung to you all day and did nothing but chase pleasure,” she pressed, “you wouldn’t like that either, right?”
“I would,” he said without hesitation. “I’d love it.”
She stared at him, briefly speechless. Then he tightened his arms around her again, as if he could fold her into his ribs and keep the world out.
“Let me hold you a little longer,” he murmured, “and then I’ll let you go.”
At the gates of Gu Cang Yue’s residence, a leaf-thin soul-bearing skiff hovered in wait.
Mo Ting Feng stood inside it, expression carved from ice.
What could they possibly be talking about that took so long?
What couldn’t be said in front of others?
Or—his jaw tightened—was Gu Cang Yue taking advantage of her weakness?
His thoughts twisted darker and tighter until he was a breath away from storming back in and demanding her—
—and then Gu Cang Yue appeared, carrying Song Wei Chen in his arms.
They looked… sweet. Too sweet. Their eyes, their gestures, the way they moved as though they belonged to each other—it stabbed at Mo Ting Feng in a place he didn’t have words for.
Gu Cang Yue set her carefully on the skiff’s wooden bench, still holding her hand as if letting go would hurt.
“I regret it,” he said. “I shouldn’t have agreed to let you go back.”
“You’ve said that fifteen times on the way out,” Song Wei Chen teased, trying to keep it light.
They spoke at the same time.
“Remember to take the Blood-Generating Spirit Pill. No forcing yourself, no risks.”
“And those two lines you’ve repeated twelve times,” she said, laughing softly.
She looked up at him, eyes bright despite her pallor. “How did I never notice our Lord Cang Yue was this naggy?”
He pulled her into a fierce hug, as if he could tuck her inside his chest. “What am I supposed to do? You’re still right here, and I already miss you.”
Her ears warmed. She patted his back to soothe him. “Once this case is over, come pick me up.”
Mo Ting Feng’s restraint frayed. He kept his face hard and his voice harder. “Song Wei Chen. How long are you going to dawdle?”
Jealousy—raw and ugly—hid beneath that coldness.
Gu Cang Yue’s expression sharpened like frost. Before he could speak, Song Wei Chen cut in quickly. “Cang Yue. What did you promise me?”
Gu Cang Yue let out a slow sigh, resignation written into every line of him. Who would have thought the Lord of the River of Oblivion would one day be managed so thoroughly by a little girl?
He stepped off the skiff, reluctant to the last.
Only after the skiff vanished into the distance did he lift a hand, summoning the Captain of the Guard waiting nearby. “What is it?”
The captain presented a bloodstained hairpin—the very one Song Wei Chen had used to cut her wrist.
“My lord, your subordinate found it near the cave. It looks like it belonged to the White Robe Venerable. I thought it might be useful.”
Gu Cang Yue took it, eyes narrowing at the dried blood. He remembered the impossible instant when his blood had fused with hers.
And hadn’t Zhuang Yu Heng mentioned a past-life imprint?
What was that supposed to mean?
He cast a spell. The remaining blood gathered, drawing together into a single drop that hovered above his fingertips, vivid as a living thing. He stared at it, expression unreadable.
On the soul-bearing skiff, Song Wei Chen leaned against the side with her eyes closed. Weakness had stolen her chatter; she’d been quiet the entire way.
Mo Ting Feng watched her, Zhuang Yu Heng’s warning echoing in his head: she had lost too much blood, and because of that past-life imprint, even spiritual medicine wouldn’t restore her completely. From now on, she couldn’t afford to be injured—couldn’t afford to bleed.
The air grew colder as they traveled. Song Wei Chen coughed and curled tighter.
Mo Ting Feng’s voice came close. “Why are your hands so cold?”
Before she could answer, his arms wrapped around her from behind, and he took her hands in his, warming them with quiet insistence.
From any angle, it looked intimate.
Song Wei Chen went rigid. She had just agreed to date Big Bird, and now she was being held like this by another man. Was she seriously becoming a scumbag in the Dream Realm?
She tried to pull free, but she didn’t have the strength.
“Um… Boss, I’m not cold. You don’t have to—”
“I’m cold,” he said.
“What?”
Her brain stalled so completely she could only blink, frozen in his arms.
After a long moment, he asked, controlled to the point of brittleness, “What are you and Gu Cang Yue now?”
Song Wei Chen stared ahead, bewildered. What did that have to do with work?
“Grievance-breakers can’t date?” she ventured.
“You’re really courting and flirting with him?” Disappointment leaked through despite his efforts, and his arms tightened, as if his body refused to let her go.
“It’s just… trying to get along. Understanding each other,” she said carefully. “That’s… not a bad thing, is it?”
His grip made her nervous. She barely dared breathe. One wrong squeeze and she’d be leaving with shattered ribs.
“Why him?” he asked.
Song Wei Chen’s thoughts flashed into wild, helpless sarcasm. Because I’m curious about the genetic compatibility of humans and birds? Because I like masked men whose face I still haven’t seen? Because I enjoy a casual swim in Blackwater?
She swallowed it all and forced a shaky smile. “Have you considered that I just think he’s… pretty great?”
Mo Ting Feng’s voice went quiet. “Am I not good?”