One moment you are a reveler, the next you are a decapitated man.
Those Japanese soldiers were still looking around in panic. After a burst of gunfire, the soldiers surrounding Xu Hang were shot to pieces one by one. They were riddled with holes, and blood was oozing from every hole.
In just one minute, the entire Qiyuan pond turned red.
Kuromiya Naniwa never understood what was going on until his death.
The bayonet fell to the ground. Xu Hang lost the support of the people holding him and fell down among the corpses. He was still in a daze and did not react at all. He was even unaware of the reversal of the situation.
Because the costume was cinnabar-colored, his wounds and bloodstains did not look too scary.
Until someone walked in from outside Qiyuan, someone walked up to him, and someone seemed to want to touch him.
“Xu Hang?”
Someone is approaching. This is a signal in Xu Hang’s vague consciousness.
Almost subconsciously, he grabbed the knife beside him and threw it out. The man dodged in fear and fought with Xu Hang for two moves.
“Xu Hang! Are you crazy? Can’t you tell friend from foe?”
Kill them! These people deserve to die! Xu Hang was still occupied by this thought. He couldn’t see the face of the person coming. He just fought instinctively.
But he was injured too badly. Any woman or child could easily knock him down. The person on the other side obviously didn’t dare to hurt him, so he held out for a few seconds. Finally, he shouted loudly, “Xu Hang! I’m Yuan Ye!”
Like a long breeze blowing into the hall, sweeping away all the smoke and haze, Xu Hang’s eyes suddenly widened and his vision slowly focused.
He began to see the man in front of him clearly, he was frowning, dressed in a white suit, with neatly combed hair and slightly tanned skin, but his features were familiar.
“Yuan… Ye?”
When he meets an old friend at a time like this, he really doesn’t know what expression to use to greet him.
Seeing that he had recovered, Yuan Ye supported him and said concisely, “I am the military equipment escort sent by the United States.”
It can be explained in one sentence. The military equipment bought by the Japanese fell into Yuan Ye’s hands. He naturally could not bear to watch the Japanese attack his own land, so he secretly contacted the army in Hezhou when he came.
But he arrived too late and heard that Hezhou had already fallen.
Fortunately, he still encountered a group of Hezhou soldiers and learned that Kuromiya Naniwa came to Qiyuan, so he was able to catch them off guard.
It was a close call, it was really close. If he had been a little later, Xu Hang might have died.
After hearing what he said, Xu Hang’s face showed no joy of surviving a disaster at all. He still stood there listlessly, looking like he was about to faint.
At this time, a soldier approached and said to Yuan Ye: “Mr. Yuan, everything has been resolved here. The Japanese outside have been dealt with. We are not many in number. What the Commander means is that we must leave quickly. Otherwise, when the large Japanese army outside the city finds us, we won’t be able to leave even if we want to…”
Yuan Ye nodded and replied, “I understand. Hurry up and find a clean cloth… Forget it, help me hold him. I remember I have a first aid kit in my car outside!”
Just as the soldier stretched out his hand to take Xu Hang, Xu Hang, who was in Yuan Ye’s arms, suddenly moved, pulled Yuan Ye’s arm, and raised his head. His face was a little chapped: “… Which commander?”
Yuan Ye didn’t hear what Xu Hang asked clearly and looked back at Xu Hang with a question mark. Xu Hang stood up and grabbed the soldier again. He looked a little scary and ugly now. The soldier shivered and heard him ask weakly, “Who was the… commander… you were talking about?”
“Commander… Duan… Duan.”
Xu Hang’s face, mottled with powder and ink, suddenly came closer, his eyes were red with anger: “Full name!”
“Duan… Duan Yelin, Commander Duan.”
He took a breath, then held it in, unable to swallow or spit it out. After a long minute, he finally let it out with a whoosh.
Xu Hang took two steps back, his chest visibly rising and falling. He first froze like a wooden man, with only his eyeballs trembling left and right and his teeth chattering slightly. Then he suddenly blinked, and all the muscles on his face twitched. He pushed away Yuan Ye and the soldier and then rushed out.
He fell after taking the first step out; he was too weak.
“Xu Hang!”
Yuan Ye hurriedly helped him up, but Xu Hang broke free again and continued to run out. He staggered, holding onto the wall, the door, the tree trunk, and the stone pillar. His ridiculous and absurd appearance, as well as his bloody footprints as he ran, frightened the soldiers who were cleaning up Qiyuan and made them dodge left and right.
Really? Is it that Duan Yelin?
No, he doesn’t believe it anymore. He has to see it with his own eyes.
He couldn’t get out properly at all; he crawled like a snake, twisting and turning, and nearly bumped into people several times. Then he finally reached the door, tripped over the steps, hit his knees on the stone, and fell to the ground.
When he looked up, he heard Chan Yi crying and laughing as she ran towards him from outside the door: “Alive, alive! Head of the Household! I already said that Commander Duan would not die!”
Xu Hang supported himself by the ground, and with his last effort he managed to stand up. He finally ran to the door but stopped just before he took a step forward.
It was as if the world had paused and everything was silent.
Outside the door, Duan Yelin was standing there. He was not wearing his neat military uniform, he had a wound on his head, bandages wrapped around his body, and was covered in dirt. He was panting, his eye sockets were sunken, but his eyes were sincere and bright.
Though there are faces as beautiful as blooming flowers, but time slips away like water, never to return. Yet if no debts of love are left between us, perhaps that is the greatest peace one can hope for. Maybe this is what it all means now.
It was not a miracle that Commander Duan returned from the battlefield unscathed and alone; it was merely that someone had traded their own sacrifice for Duan Yelin’s righteousness.
This person is Duan Zhanzhou.
When Duan Yelin was in the shaft, he felt a numbness at the root of his tongue after smoking a cigarette, and suddenly he couldn’t move his whole body. He watched Duan Zhanzhou jump down the shaft, tie him up, pick up the cigarette butt, and say with a smile, “I’m sorry, Ge.”
He drugged the cigar.
Duan Yelin certainly wanted to stop him, but he was powerless and could only allow himself to be pulled out of the shaft by the soldiers. As he cast his final glance at Duan Zhanzhou, his last words were only seven.
“I just miss Cong Lin.”
Then, there was an explosion and destruction, and the war ended.
Later, he met Yuan Ye, turned against the army, and stood here safe and sound.
Things in the world change so unpredictably.
There was only a threshold separating them, and Xu Hang dared not cross it. Dressed in a Chinese opera costume, he couldn’t help but wonder if he had somehow enter the scripted of The Peony Pavilion, where someone was visiting the garden and he was awakened from a dream, leaving everything feeling utterly meaningless.
In fact, Duan Yelin also found it unreal. He looked at Xu Hang with a little surprise.
When the soldier who had just entered to strangle the man came out and recounted the scene of Xu Hang’s killing in Qiyuan, he found it hard to believe. But now, the figure standing before him, covered in blood, looked no better than he himself had on the battlefield.
How can he be so embarrassed?
His hair was stuck to his face in clumps due to blood, and there was blood at the corners of his mouth. The rouge was fading and dripping as if he had cried tears of blood. His face was so pale, and even though he was covered with white powder, one could still tell that he looked bleak after experiencing great sorrow and joy.
He was staggering even when he was standing, his eyes were filled with sorrow.
Subconsciously, Duan Yelin spoke.
“Who hurt you?”
His first reaction was still concern. When he saw Xu Hang injured, he suddenly forgot everything else.
It was as if someone had stuffed his still-beating heart back into his chest. Xu Hang felt a surge of warm blood flowing from his heart to his cold limbs and bones, and he began to come back to life.
Seeing that Xu Hang didn’t answer, Duan Yelin felt that he had asked a stupid question and then turned his eyes away: “It’s alright, I didn’t break my promise. I remember the oath I made. I will not step into Jinyan Tang, nor will I get close to you…”
Plink.
Normally, a drop of water falling on the ground would make no sound, but in Duan Yelin’s ears, it was as clear as the echo in an empty cave.
He looked straight at Xu Hang, looking at the bruised and battered person in front of him with surprise, shock and touch. His eyes were like a spring that had been dry for too long and finally came alive. As a little red appeared outside his eye circles, tears finally fell, flowing down his cheeks and chin, washing away some of his makeup and revealing his true face.
Xu Hang is crying? Is he really crying?
Duan Yelin took a long time to process the news, to the point where he stood frozen, his mouth slightly ajar, and the cigarette butt slipped from the corner of his mouth.
The tears are like pearls and jade, flowing continuously, accumulating in the eye sockets, condensing into bean-sized pieces, and then overflowing, quickly filling up again, constantly washing away the traces of the previous round of emotions.
Xu Hang shed tears and took a step forward.
He stepped out of the door.
He threw himself into Duan Yelin’s arms like Zhu Yingtai rushing to Liang Shanbo’s grave. He opened his bleeding arms, hooked them around Duan Yelin’s neck, and pressed his cheek against Duan Yelin’s chest. He wanted to listen, to listen to the signal of life coming from that body, one by one, powerfully.
Duan Yelin’s hand was suspended in the air. The sudden tenderness made him unsure of how to respond.
Then he heard the person in his arms speak: “Ye… lin, I’m hurt…”
It was as if Duan Yelin’s heart was kissed by the feather.
He couldn’t believe that Xu Hang was complaining to him in such a sad and affectionate tone, which made him heartbroken and moved at the same time.
Xu Hang now looks like a child who has fallen down and needs help.
“…Shaotang?”
Xu Hang was short of breath due to crying, and he spoke weakly: “I came to find you… this way it won’t be considered a violation of the oath anymore.”
Every word in the conversation was ordinary, and the tone was so weak that it seemed to be suspended by a thin thread like a hair, but it touched Duan Yelin’s heartstrings.
But Duan Yelin still found it a little hard to believe. He leaned close to Xu Hang’s ear and asked him, “Shaotang, tell me, are you… is that what I thought it meant??”
Xu Hang’s hands clenched Duan Yelin’s back, wrinkling his clothes. He didn’t expect that he couldn’t stop crying once he started. No matter how hard he tried to suppress it or bite his lips, he couldn’t hold it back. As soon as he opened his mouth, he burst into tears before he could even spoke.
“Angelica sinensis…” He only said a few words and was out of breath.
Any more words would be redundant, any better confession would be too tacky, and this one sentence is worth a thousand words.
It is enough to prove that true love is not given to the broken well and ruins, but to each other.
Duan Yelin hugged Xu Hang all of a sudden!
He put his arms around his waist, stroked the back of his head, and happily felt Xu Hang’s fear, Xu Hang’s worry, Xu Hang’s concern, Xu Hang’s panic, and… Xu Hang’s confession.
For four years, they hugged, kissed, and made love, but they had never been like they are now, like vines winding around old tree roots, entangled in their bones to death.
With a creak—the door of his heart has opened. No matter if there are ruins or cobwebs inside, at least it is no longer a tightly closed door.
“Don’t say anymore, I know. How did you manage to hide it so well? I almost didn’t see through it! Shaotang, I listened to you. I’ve come back.” Duan Yelin hadn’t shaved for a long time. He rubbed Xu Hang’s face and touched the back of his head to comfort him and also to comfort his own turbulent heart. “But how could you do such a desperate thing?”
Xu Hang’s face was embedded in Duan Yelin’s shoulder. All the wounds from the previous fight only felt painful at this moment. Xu Hang cried so wildly, with tears pouring out like a dam breaking. However, he was also very restrained. He did not cry loudly. He even cried to the point of coughing and trembling and biting his lower lip tightly.
Ten years of frost and snow passed without a single tear—only now does he realize he was never heartless. But once moved by emotion, the blossoms of time spill tears all across his collar.
It was not until his eyes were blurry and dry, as if his body had no extra water to waste, that he said quietly, “…We will be together.”
Through life and death.
This was something that had been decided long ago.
Duan Yelin’s eyes suddenly turned red. He held Xu Hang’s face and kissed him tenderly.
There was a slight smell of blood, salty tears, and tobacco in this kiss, all mixed together. They stood at the door of Jinyan Tang, entangled in ecstasy, not caring about the sight of the passing soldiers at all.
After this, what other people think of them doesn’t matter. They are using their body language to express their feelings that words can’t express. Although they are wearing makeup; this time, they are not characters anymore.
It felt like a century had passed since they finally separated.
Duan Yelin wanted to say something, but just as he opened his mouth, he felt his hand was wet. He raised his hand and saw that his entire palm was stained with blood, which was very dazzling.
This hand had been supporting Xu Hang’s body just now.
He suddenly met Xu Hang’s gaze and found that Xu Hang’s pupils were slightly dilated and his lips were surprisingly white.
A hand touched Duan Yelin’s cheek, carefully and gently, then passed under his chin. The open palm caught a drop of emotion that flowed from Duan Yelin’s eyes.
Xu Hang slowly closed his palm, grinned, and chuckled with the last bit of his strength. He looked more calm than ever before, satisfied and without regrets.
It was the kind of smile that showed that one’s wish had been fulfilled.
Duan Yelin’s heart skipped a beat.
Then, the hand hanging on his neck slid down like a puppet with its strings cut and hung weakly, swaying from side to side.
His eyes widened in shock. Xu Hang was standing in front of him, with his neck slightly tilted back, like a swan with a broken neck, slowly falling backwards.
He panicked and hugged his waist tightly but found that Xu Hang was limp, without any strength left, and so light that it seemed as if his soul had left his body, leaving only a skinny shell.
Duan Yelin watched the last action with his own eyes. Xu Hang’s chest twitched tensely, fresh blood flowed out from the corners of his mouth with blood scabs, his neck tilted, and his eyes closed tightly.
Duan Yelin was suddenly at a loss as to what to do.
His lips were trembling, and he called Xu Hang, but Xu Hang didn’t respond.
His ten fingers trembled, and he shook Xu Hang, but Xu Hang didn’t move.
He breathed rapidly and touched Xu Hang, and Xu Hang was cold.
There was no vivid reaction.
A huge haze enveloped Duan Yelin, as if day had turned into night in an instant, and he let out a hysterical cry.
“Shaotang—!!!!”
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T/N: I really wish you guys could listen to the audio drama where XH said ‘I’m hurt’ towards DYL so much T__T it was so emotional.
