Chapter 33 (End Arc)

The war with Xia lasted for two years. Considering the scale of the forces of the two sides, this was an extraordinary speed. Half of this could be attributed to the assistance of the Ayam forces. The other half was attributed to the genius and daring of Young General Yu who had taken the initiative to spearhead the war effort.

Well, the general public praised him for his courage and daring, as well as the ingenuity of his battle plans and unconventional methods of fighting which allowed him to take down much larger forces with only a small number of battle-hardened men. But in the eyes of his father and uncles it was nothing short of near-suicidal risk taking. But every time they cautioned him to take a step back, to spend more time consolidating his forces rather than continuing to keep pushing forward, he always rejected it saying; “He’s waiting for me. I have to go back as quickly as possible to accompany him.”

Since he wasn’t shy about saying this no matter who was listening, the legend soon spread out through the Empire that after being rejected by the Crown Prince and having knelt for so long without getting what he wanted, the Young General Yu had resorted to making this kind of grand, heroic sacrifice in order to gain the affections of the Crown Prince.

After that, the love story between the proud Crown Prince and the heroic Young General Yu was spread throughout the Empire and reproduced in many songs, poems and plays.

Two years later,  Young General Yu returned victorious from the western front. He had inherited the title of ‘Protecting Nation General’ from his father who had fallen ill after becoming injured during the war. Although he pulled through, he still decided to pass on the mantle of the Yu Army to Yu Xian. 

Unexpectedly at the end of the war there was a little hiccup. When the Emperor thanked the Ayam envoy Lord Namboyar and asked him what he wanted as a reward; the thick, handsome man abruptly knelt down and declared boldly that he would like to become ‘The Crown Princess’. Before the new Protecting Nation General, whose eyes had been fixated on the Crown Prince ever since he’d returned to the Palace like a thirsty man in a desert seeing a pool of spring water, could jump up and behead him, a feminine cry rose up behind as the delicate Thirteenth Princess of the Ayam broke in through the befuddled group of envoys and yelled, “Uncle, don’t fight with me! The Crown Princess has to be me!” 

After that a young and promising nobleman, a non-inherited Duke’s son, also knelt down and said with a red face that he would like to throw his hat into the ring.

Yu Xian turned furious eyes on that philanderer Lin JunYi who merely blinked his eyes innocently, as though he had not spent the last two years disturbing flowers and grass. Actually Yu Xian really wronged Lin JunYi. He’d never spoken to Namboyar since the day he danced ‘Peony’s Farewell’ and only met the Thirteenth Princess twice, both times orchestrated by her. As for the Duke’s son, they’d worked together on some jobs for the Emperor and all he’d done was smile a few more times and occasionally teased the young man a little.

There were probably a few other people who wanted to seize this opportunity where the Emperor was in a very good mood to profess their love for the Crown Prince but they were interrupted by the sound of the new Protecting National General lifting up his armor and lifting up his sword. The sword was still in the scabbard of course - he wouldn’t disrespect the Emperor in that way - but both the meaning and the gesture was clear. 

That’s right. Hadn’t this guy been rejected by the Crown Prince before? Looks like he still hasn't given up yet.

The Emperor only smiled indulgently and said with a twinkle in his eye. “This decision… I’ll let Yi’er make it himself.”

But Lin JunYi wasn’t in a hurry. As he left the assembly with a spring in his step he was accosted by a black figure who wrenched him away from his frightened servants. If it wasn’t for Xiao-Bao recognizing the Protecting Nation General and Lin JunYi having warned them previously that such an event would most likely occur, they really would have raised the alarm that the Crown Prince had been kidnapped. After all, Yu Xian’s face looked really terrible.

Somehow they ended up in a back garden where Lin JunYi found him summarily pressed against the column of a pagoda while his lips were attacked furiously by a madman. When he finally couldn’t breathe he knocked on Yu Xian’s shoulder and the other person released him with a black face. “Ah-Yi, you black-hearted fox demon. For two years I’ve been fighting for you, eating snow and drinking wind, thinking of nothing but you! But all you’ve been doing is flirting and spreading flowers everywhere, how do you think I should punish you!?”

Lin JunYi smirked. He reached down between Yu Xian’s legs and saw his face change rapidly. Right now it was broad daylight so they couldn’t do much except rub against each other excitedly and use their hands to relieve the boiling, built-up lust that had accumulated over the last two years.

After that Yu Xian couldn’t calm down so Lin JunYi had no choice but to take him back to the Eastern Palace. After that he didn’t come out again for another three days. Once the rumors fanned out, the old General and the Emperor rushed the two of them into marriage and thus Yu Xian gained a second title, that of Crown Princess. 

It was lucky that they were now living in a time of peace because Yu Xian seemed to take this position a lot more seriously than his other one, reluctant to ever leave Lin JunYi by even one step. Many of the courtiers and ministers often looked amusedly at this tall, broad-shouldered warrior dedicatedly playing the part of a doting Crown Princess, waiting on the Crown Prince and serving him better than any maid or eunuch.

Years passed peacefully. As for what happened to the protagonist shou in those years, Lin JunYi only heard a brief summary from 729. 

After escaping from the Imperial City with the Sixth Prince and knowing they were being pursued by the Imperial Army, they were eventually forced to leave the Wen Empire entirely. They ended up settling in a small, mountainous country which, while being somewhat backwards, was friendly to Wen people. Song Ming was resourceful and ended up starting a small school.

Song Ming of course proposed marriage to Ruan Xi but the other person hesitated and didn’t answer him straight away. Right now the other person was no longer the proud Sixth Prince of the Wen and was nothing more than a schoolteacher who could barely make ends meet. Deep in his heart, Ruan Xi still felt that he was meant for better things, a better man.

His hesitation made Song Ming’s heart become more and more cold. He watched with a mocking smile as Ruan Xi got all dressed up and snuck out one day to meet a local magistrate’s son. His old parents tried to cover up for him, since they didn’t want their son to lose his ‘spare tyre’. However Ruan Xi had no idea that this charming young man, who appeared to be a ‘rich second generation’, was in fact a paid actor hired by Song Ming.

Hadn’t Song Ming warned him once long ago not to play with a man’s heart?

The actor got Ruan Xi drunk and lured him into a barn where several brawny, peasant men were waiting for him. Although Song Ming’s heart wasn’t totally black and spared Ruan Xi the final act, just the foreplay alone terrified Ruan Xi out of his mind. For the first time he truly understood what kind of desperate situation he was in.

After being ‘rescued’ by Song Ming, he obediently married the other person. And so it came to be that the protagonist gong and shou ended up together after all, only in vastly differences to the original story. Previously Lin JunYi had speculated if ‘happily ever after’ really meant what it seemed to and now he got his answer.

Perhaps this series of to and fros eventually made Song Ming’s passion for Ruan Xi cool, but in any case once the Sixth Prince obtained the jade that he once longed for it seemed to transform into common rock in his hands. He didn’t mistreat Ruan Xi but after only half a year of marriage, he married a wealthy widow whose son attended his school. Although his living conditions vastly improved, Ruan Xi’s position as ‘wife’ was summarily demoted to ‘concubine’. As for the details, Lin JunYi wasn’t interested and 729 only said that, “It doesn’t seem that the protagonist shou is very happy even though he ended up with the protagonist gong.”

“Hm, don’t you think your main system isn’t very good at matching up people?” Lin JunYi remarked and 729 drew circles before facing the wall to avoid having to show its guilty expression to the host.

Lin JunYi outlived the original diagnosis he was given of 30. But as he approached 32, he began to get more and more frail. Often he would fall asleep for days at a time and sometimes would only be semi-lucid when awake.

During these times he would say a lot of strange things to Yu Xian who stayed beside him constantly, holding him tightly while a terrible, consuming fear clawed its way through his heart.

“Don’t worry,” Lin JunYi would often whisper as he awakened yet again to see Yu Xian’s red burning eyes, the other person not having shut them for many days since he’d last fallen unconscious. “This isn’t the end… I will see you again in my next life… probably….”

It wasn’t the first time he’d said something like this, ostensibly to comfort Yu Xian about his early death. However each time he said it there would be an odd expression on Yu Xian’s face.

The young general recalled the dreams he often had in the beginning, before he and Lin JunYi had gotten together. In those dreams, there would be another ‘him’ embracing his beloved, wearing strange clothes and having strange hair. At first he thought those were only fanciful dreams but afterwards, when Lin JunYi’s lips became looser, a terrible suspicion formed in the pit of his stomach.

He already knew that Lin JunYi wasn’t truly the Ninth Prince, or at least not the Ninth Prince as he once was. He was a being from another world, some place far away that he didn’t know and couldn’t understand. And Lin JunYi had been with him before, a different him. And expected to be with him again, again another version of him.

But Yu Xian didn’t want that. He wanted to hold onto him now, he wanted Lin JunYi to stay with him, the real him, and not go to someone else. Because no matter how he tried to understand it, he couldn’t. Those people weren’t him. And thinking of Lin JunYi embracing them, calling them “Ah-Xian” with the some loving gaze he looked at Yu Xian, let them possess him the way Yu Xian possessed him, made him feel so jealous that he could kill.

Even if that person was another him, he couldn’t accept it. He wanted to hold Lin JunYi forever and ever, in this lifetime.

“Don’t go. Stay with me.” Yu Xian buried his face in the Crown Prince’s hands, kissing the flesh as though he were worshipping the skin of a God. “I can’t live without you, you’re the only reason for my existence.”

Lin JunYi chuckled. “What a fool. Didn’t you live very well before meeting me?”

“That wasn’t even living. I don’t even know who I was before you appeared.” Yu Xian said honestly. “Ah-Yi please don’t leave me.”

Lin JunYi sadly stroked Yu Xian’s face. In the last world, Xie Xian had died first. It would be good if that could happen in following worlds, so he wouldn’t have to see his lover’s expression of utter agony.

Two months shy of the Crown Prince’s 32nd birthday, he passed away quietly under a flowering osthmanthus tree, in the arms of his husband. His last words were, “Live well as you promised me and take your time. I’ll be waiting for you in my next life.”

Yu Xian didn’t move for a long time, holding dumbly onto the corpse in his arms. No one who came could persuade him or move him. It wasn’t until he passed out from sheer exhaustion several days later that they were eventually able to pry the Crown Prince from his arms and bury him.

Both his elderly father and the Emperor was very worried about him and sent men to watch him at all hours, afraid that he would do something stupid to himself but to their surprise, he didn’t. 

In fact, in the long years to come, General Yu Xian appeared to live well on the surface. He ate, slept and exercised regularly. He fought several more successful battles on behalf of the Wen Empire. He even adopted the son of a cousin of his to be his heir and carry on the legacy of the Yu family.

It was this young man that discovered that his adopted father had passed away at the age of sixty-three, in a secret room behind his study that no one was allowed to go to. After the General had disappeared for more than two days, the young man finally broke the rule and entered the secret room.

He stood on the threshold, spellbound.

All the walls and floors were filled with portraits of a demonically beautiful young man wearing a golden robe. There was a scarlet mote underneath his eye and his smirk, when looking at the viewer, was full of seductive flavor. Some of the portraits had been drawn over and over, as though Yu Xian was never satisfied with them.

The General himself was slumped across his desk, holding a faded osthmanthus blossom in his hand.

Beside his hand was the last line in a letter he had written to a person who would never read it.

Ah-Yi, I belong to you.

You are my only destiny.

Don’t forget me, General Yu Xian, that loved you more than life itself...

***

Author’s note: A short hiatus as I complete the next arc. It's a vampire arc~

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