Suddenly I heard a cold voice coming from the front. I was startled. I came to my senses and looked up. I found that a few steps away was the door of the room I lived in. In the deep corridor, the Saint Lord, who had been walking in front of me with a lantern, stopped.
“Just now, were you the one speaking?”
“If it wasn’t me, who else could it be?”
What-what did he say? I was stunned, then reacted: “Saint Lord, please forgive me. This humble one know that I was wrong. Next time, I will never break into your place of meditation again. I will paint for you tomorrow after I have rested well.”
There was a dead silence. In the corridor, only the howling of the wind and snow outside the window remained.
I dared not breathe but heard a “creak” sound, and he raised his hand and pushed open the window on the right side of the corridor.
Fine snow drifted in with the cold wind. Although I was wearing thick fur, I still shivered with cold. But the Saint Lord was only wearing a thin white robe, but he seemed to be unaware of the cold. He looked out the window. “It’s snowing.” He said in a low voice, “It snowed that night, too.”
“That night?” I looked at his back in confusion, my heart aching for some reason. I couldn’t help but walk closer to him, but my wrist was grabbed unexpectedly, and he pressed me against the window. A hand touched my cheek, grabbed my wet hair, and held my chin with his thumb, forcing me to look up and meet the pair of cold blue eyes in the moonlight.
“You have earned a thousand gold coins, so shouldn’t you be living a good life? How come your face is like this?”
A thousand gold coins?
A gust of cold wind blew, and my headache suddenly flared up.
Just like every time when the attack occurs, my head feels like it’s being pierced by thousands of needles. I am in so much pain that I can’t speak. My mind is in a mess. I just clench my back teeth tightly, afraid that if I make a sound, I will cry uncontrollably. I am like that at home. I can’t stand the pain, but I don’t want to get addicted to the mandrake medicine soup. So I cry all night long, causing my adoptive father to stay awake all night.
My mouth held back, but my eyes couldn’t. Tears welled up uncontrollably, spilling down my cheeks and dampening the Saint Lord’s fingers as he grasped my chin.
His fingers trembled, and he pinched harder, speaking faster: “Why are you crying? Did I say something wrong? Didn’t you take it? But I clearly saw you…”
I wanted to hit my head because of the pain, but he held my hands tightly.
He stared at me and said, “Do you feel aggrieved? Then explain it to me, I’m listening! Why was I arrested right after you left? When you got on the carriage with the bag of gold coins and looked back at me, what were you thinking? Tell me!”
“Ouch…” My head was splitting. I begged, “Let go…”
“Let go?” He smiled as if gritting his teeth, “Don’t even think about it.”
My headache became more severe, and something seemed to be surging up from the depths of my mind. But at this moment, I heard footsteps coming from the end of the corridor. His fingers loosened, and I almost slid down the wall and sat down. I looked in the direction of the sound and saw several priests in red robes.
“Saint Lord!” The leader quickened his pace when he saw the Saint Lord and walked in front of him. Several people knelt down in unison. I recognized two of them. They were the ones who sent me into the palace, a fat man with a kind face and a thin man with a gloomy expression.
“Why would the Saint Lord come to our dormitory?”
Noticing my presence, several priests couldn’t help but reveal strange expressions.
“I came out to relieve myself in the middle of the night.” I pushed open the door, rushed in, and fell to the ground, banging my head against the ground. I almost fainted, and the headache gradually subsided. I turned over, lying on my back, closing my eyes, and the words that the Saint Lord said kept lingering in my mind. Did Saint Lord know me before?
Or did you recognize the wrong person just like the king?
“It’s the end of the month, don’t you guys need this saint lord’s blood?”
I was dizzy and thinking about all sorts of things when I suddenly heard the Saint Lord’s voice.
“The Saint Lord actually came to us on his own initiative? This is…”
“Thank you, Saint Lord! We have been having a hard time these past few days, Saint Lord must have noticed it!”
“Thank you, Saint Lord, for your consideration! Can you give… give me more this time?”
“Yes, yes. Ever since the Saint Lord insisted that we use only the most heinous prisoners on death row as magic tools, our risk of backlash has increased a lot. If the Shengzun knew…”
“I understand. I will give you more this time, as long as you keep your mouth shut.”
“Thank you, Saint Lord. We will not gossip about it…”
The voices of the priests outside sounded flattered, but somehow, I also heard a hint of greed. I got up, opened the door a crack, and peeked through the crack. The priests were lying at the feet of the Saint Lord, looking up at him with eager eyes, their expressions were as hungry as a group of hungry dogs waiting to be fed.
—Give blood?
“Then, please move to the altar, Saint Lord.”
“Right here.”
“Right here?”
“Do you guys want it or not?” The Saint Lord raised his hand. There was a scar on his wrist with blood dripping. He stretched it towards them as if he was going to feed it to a dog.
Several priests looked at each other, and they all grabbed his arms impatiently and actually competed to lick the wound on his wrist.
I covered my mouth and looked at this scene in shock but saw that he looked at me sideways, raised his chin slightly, and raised the corners of his mouth slightly, as if smiling but revealing a kind of madness.
I didn’t know why the Saint Lord wanted me to witness this scene. My heart felt as if it was being tightened by an invisible hand. I was in so much pain that I couldn’t breathe. I stood there stiffly, watching him finish feeding the blood, pull down his sleeves, wave his hand, and send those priests away like driving away dogs. Then he held on to the wall and stumbled towards me.
I instinctively closed the door.
For some reason, although I had never met the Saint Lord, I was a little afraid of him at this moment.
“Open the door.” His voice sounded behind the door, as cold as the wind and snow outside.
“It’s-it’s late at night, why doesn’t Saint Lord go back?”
“I’m not feeling well and can’t go back.” He spoke word by word, breathing heavily, “Open the door.”
I scratched my palms, not daring to open the door, and didn’t answer either.
With a “bang”, the door was smashed hard!
I was so frightened that I shivered, knowing that the Saint Lord must be angry. I pulled the bolt with trembling hands, but as soon as I opened the door, he fell on me and pressed me to the ground.
“Saint Lord?” I held him, at a loss. I called him twice, but he didn’t respond. He closed his eyes, his face was as pale as paper, and even his lips were bloodless. I thought that he must have gone crazy because of me during the day and lost blood at night, so he couldn’t hold on and passed out.
I hurriedly dragged him into the room and finally helped him onto the bed.
Unexpectedly, before I could stand up, my wrist was grabbed, and I was turned upside down in an instant. My vision darkened, and I found myself being pressed down by him. The faint scent of sandalwood enveloped me. My breathing tightened, and when I raised my eyes, I met a pair of blue eyes like a cold pond.
“Saint Lord?” I didn’t expect that he was pretending. My whole body froze, and I clutched the blanket under me in confusion. “Saint Lord, what are you doing?”
He tightly grasped my wrist: “Saint lord… what are you avoiding? Why are you pretending? Mi Jia, even if your face turns to ashes, I can still recognize it!”
This name gave me a shock.
Could it be that I really knew the Saint Lord before?
But how could I, a commoner, have the chance to meet such a noble man as him? Could it be that I was exiled from the palace to the common people?
“Why were you crying so terribly just now?” He brushed his fingers across my cheek, his thumb wiping away the lingering traces of tears. It rested at the corner of my eye, gently rubbing, and for a moment, his gaze softened, yet it remained dark and deep, like the still waters of an ancient, bottomless well. “What do you want to say? Do you wish to explain something? I’m listening. Even if you can’t explain, telling me a lie would be better than calling me ‘Saint Lord’ over and over, pretending not to know me.”
“Saint Lord…” My heart was in turmoil. “I wouldn’t dare deceive you. I truly… do not know you.”
The fingers at the corner of my eye froze.
He stared into my eyes, his gaze growing even darker. The waters of that ancient well surged, as if they might spill over at any moment and drown me completely.
I vaguely felt that I had said something wrong, and my heart was pounding. I saw him leaning down, his face pressed very close to me, his eyes fixed on me: “I can forgive you for what you did to me and start over with you, but if you treat me like this again, don’t blame me…”
Suddenly, a series of dang, dang, dang rang out from outside, making me jump. It was the palace night watch bell. I had heard it at midnight the night before as well. Soon, the patrol guards would come to inspect the rooms, ensuring that no palace attendants had secretly slipped out.
“Saint-Saint Lord, if the guards find you here in my quarters at this hour… will it be alright?” I cautiously whispered a reminder. The Saint Lord’s face remained dark as he stood up. He cast me a deep look but said nothing more before turning and heading toward the door.
I closed the door, but my heart was still racing, my thoughts a tangled mess.
Start anew… things I’ve wronged him? The person the Saint Lord spoke of — was it truly me? In the past, had we… been lovers?
