Duan Yelin backed away repeatedly until he reached a chair, staggered, and fell into it.
He remembered the night in Shucheng.
That day, the entire army was ordered to set fire to the city. A soldier’s duty is to obey orders. Although he felt it was a pity that the history of the ancient city was destroyed, but he also could do nothing about it.
It’s just that they all thought that the people had already been relocated, but they didn’t expect that Wang Ronghuo, Yuan Sen, and Zhang Yaochen would deceive their superiors and subordinates and disregard the lives of the people in the city.
The fire was set in the middle of the night, when everything was silent, like an empty city.
Once the fire started, it spread like wildfire.
When cries for help rang out in the city, Duan Yelin knew that this was an unprecedented conspiracy and scam.
He led a few of his brothers to fight the fire and rescue people, but firefighters can never outrun arsonists. In the end, when they managed to save only a small house, the entire street on the other side was reduced to ashes.
He rushed into the fire again and again, also carrying out the injured again and again, but there were more people burned to death, and the stench of corpses spread throughout the city.
That night was so chaotic that he himself couldn’t remember which garden he was in. There was a dying child pressed down by many corpses. His face was so dirty that he was unrecognizable. He looked like he was breathing, so he carried him on his back and took him out of the fire.
Perhaps because he was too scared, the child bit him hard.
He also heard the child’s suppressed cry, and he couldn’t bear it, so he just let him bite.
Until he put the child down in a safe place, he saw his dirty black face, and his eyes were full of hatred and despair.
In the end, he was exhausted and almost died in the fire. He was carried out by his fellow soldiers and fainted by the empty river.
This was all his impression. Fate is really a funny thing. After going around in circles, it actually came back again.
How could he have thought that the child who left teeth marks on him also left a mark in his heart?
Duan Yelin looked at Xu Hang in a daze: “When did you know?”
Xu Hang’s lips trembled, and then he said, “From the very beginning, when I first saw you in Qiyuan, I already recognized you.”
With a loud bang, Duan Yelin heard Xu Hang’s response in his left ear, while his right ear rang with a crackling noise, like several bolts of lightning striking at once.
It was true, Xu Hang hadn’t known until Zhang Yaochen told him. Yet back at the Qiyuan banquet that year, just one glance across the garden had been enough for Xu Hang to recognize those eyes and that face.
In other words, if it weren’t for Duan Yelin, Xu Hang might not have entered Xiaotong Guan so calmly.
There are so many words and sentences in the book, but Xu Hang couldn’t find any one to describe his feelings for Duan Yelin.
Duan Yelin’s hands tightly grasped the handrail, almost breaking it: “Can I be thankful that you put me last in your revenge plan?”
Xu Hang’s heart was also trembling. He knew, of course, that Duan Yelin should not be blamed for the incident. He was just a knife in someone else’s hand. But the relationship between them was full of holes and could not be repaired anymore.
Seeing Xu Hang’s silence, Duan Yelin walked up with a gloomy face: “Then tell me, what kind of ending have you prepared for me?”
The moment has finally arrived.
Xu Hang closed his eyes, let out a long breath, turned around and walked to the main seat in the main hall, sat down on the chair, and said in a tone that could not be refused, “I hope you leave here. From now on, you are Chuhe and I am Hanjie[mfn]It was the borderline on the Chinese chessboard—the border of two opposing powers.[/mfn], with clear boundaries and no contact anymore.”
It was like someone was stabbing Duan Yelin’s heart, and after bleeding, he bit off a piece of flesh and chewed it until it was crunchy. He repeated what Xu Hang said, and then his forehead was bulging with veins, and he punched the small tea table next to him: “No contact anymore? What makes you think that I will let go at this point?”
“I’ve had enough of being your forbidden food. I don’t want to die as just a rabbit raised by you, Duan Yelin.”
“Forbidden food? Rabbit? When you say this, are you insulting yourself or me?”
Xu Hang raised his head and looked at him without giving in: “No matter how well you treat me, it can’t change the reason why I entered Xiaotong Guan. This beginning is a thorn in my heart, which can’t be pulled nor smoothed out. It will always be there, showing my humiliating past! Now, I just want to pick up the self-esteem I lost at the gate of Xiaotong Guan from four years ago!”
Some things, once done, are like crumpled white paper that cannot be smoothed out. The relationship between them is an unfair transaction, or it can be said that it is Duan Yelin’s unilateral pressure and Xu Hang’s unilateral calculation.
The play is out of tune at the beginning, and even if you try to make it right later, it always feels unsatisfactory.
Duan Yelin reached out and wanted to touch Xu Hang’s face: “It’s been four years, have you never felt happy for a moment?”
He was afraid that it was not even for a moment, but not even a little bit.
That hand hadn’t touched his skin yet, but the warmth was already coming up. Xu Hang could even imagine how comfortable it would feel to have that slightly calloused palm against his skin. On cold winter nights, he had once longed for this bit of tenderness.
But at this moment, the pain brought by his drug addiction was like a sinister and cunning assassination team. They suddenly attacked, causing Xu Hang’s back to stiffen and his whole body to begin to feel intense pain!
Only then did he realize that three hours had passed since his last injection of morphine.
“No! Not at all!” Xu Hang slapped his hand away, stood up suddenly, ran to the window and held onto the window frame, took a deep breath with his back to Duan Yelin, and waited until he had recovered from the initial shock before deliberately speaking in a cold tone, “Duan Yelin, I have made up my mind to leave you. You have to leave today, or I will force you to leave.”
He had to force Duan Yelin to leave. If he didn’t leave, he would be exposed.
It was already a mess anyway, so he might as well just ruin it completely.
The word “no” hurt Duan Yelin deeply. His hand was hanging in the air and he felt like an idiot.
He forced a smile in self-abandonment, and Duan Yelin’s tone was icy: “Really? What other tricks do you have? Don’t hide them. Anyway, you and I have torn our faces apart already, so why not use them all at once?”
Xu Hang was trembling from the drug addiction that made his blood feel like it was boiling in a frying pan and his meridians were being pulled out and plucked like strings. If he had not been wearing a loose robe and standing by the window in the strong wind, he would have been seen through already.
Duan Yelin’s angry words upset him, and he just prayed in his heart that he could leave quickly. So he pulled out a certificate from his pocket: “Do you think I am still the ordinary Xu Shaotang who can be dealt with by you?”
Duan Yelin waited to see what other “surprises” Xu Hang could give him.
He raised his eyebrows and hit Duan Yelin on the chest: “Duan Yelin, look carefully. This is the certificate appointing a special commissioner issued by the cabinet minister himself. I am already the appointed special commissioner. My status is no lower than yours.”
Xu Hang was facing Duan Yelin, with his hands behind his back, tightly pinching the flesh around his waist.
Duan Yelin didn’t know how many times he had been shocked by Xu Hang’s words. He lowered his eyes and looked at the certificate spread on the ground. The bright red seal on it proved its authenticity. Xu Hang’s name was printed on it, clearly, without any possibility of falsehood.
No wonder Zhang Yaochen suddenly died, unclearly, after Xu Hang left.
Duan Yelin actually felt a little chilly. He even began to doubt whether Xu Hang, who was lying in his arms, had looked at him while he was sleeping, with eyes like a hunter looking at his prey during the past days and nights or not.
What kind of tortuous and scheming mind and cunningness lies beneath the innocent appearance of the person whom he has embraced for many years?
He stepped on the certificate and said with a stern face, “Special commissioner? Good… very good. Do you want me to kneel down and welcome you as a new official?”
“Duan Yelin, don’t force me.”
“Do you think that you can make me helpless just by getting something like this? Go out and try to see if my soldiers will listen to the orders of a new special commissioner like you!”
Xu Hang pushed him and said, “Do you think I want to fight you head-on? I know how loyal your soldiers are, but Duan Yelin, don’t forget why I went to Lincheng a few days ago.”
Lincheng… that batch of special medicine!
“You…”
Xu Hang’s voice was getting louder and louder. He could only rely on bluffing to suppress all his abnormalities: “According to the rules of your military department, in order to prevent enemy spies from taking the drugs, the special commissioner will have to contact the medical institute with military codes to obtain the drugs.” He looked at Duan Yelin sharply: “In other words, without my authorization, you can’t get that batch of special medicine!”
Until this moment, the feeling of powerlessness swallowed Duan Yelin from bottom to top. He finally understood that no matter how he being gentle or tough, all the means could not make up for the gap between him and Xu Hang.
It was really time to lose him.
