Nobody had ever expected the sunset would swallow with it the entire capital city. It only warned them with a brief tremble before the whole ground collapsed.

People, animals, plants, buildings. All of them fell hopelessly into the void, filling it with screams and cries of terror. They hit one another at their fall and everyone tried to grab anything that could potentially save their lives.

The chaos was utterly silent where Xue Lan was however and all they could witness was the black hole swallowing the city into the pit of its stomach. Only once the land and everything on it hit the ground did he and Tian Chen hear a thunderous rumble from the hole.

Just like that, Qian Jin’s capital city was gone.

Tian Chen was utterly frozen in place.

Xue Lan backed away and appreciated the confusion, dread, disbelief, and all the other emotions clashing in Tian Chen’s mind and very soul.

Tian Chen’s ears buzzed numbingly as his stomach felt like it was squeezed and stabbed by hundreds of claws and blades. He blankly looked at the gaping hole in the earth below the hill and his vision gradually spun.

He dazedly took several steps back. His body was both flaring hot and freezing cold.

What…was this?

What was happening?

He looked at Xue Lan for an explanation and as his last straw of sanity, “This is not your…present, right? This is a natural disaster, isn’t it?”

“Tian Chen,” Xue Lan caressed Tian Chen’s face, “I hate you.”

Tian Chen felt his world crash and Xue Lan’s face distorted in his vision.

“I despise you so much that I’m willing to love you thoroughly just for this very moment,” Xue Lan sighed in satisfaction.

“It was all…a lie?”

“Yes, it was,” Xue Lan didn’t conceal the ruthlessness in his eyes.

Tian Chen caught Xue Lan’s wrist frantically, “No! It can’t be a lie! We love each other and that’s the truth! You would never betray me!”

“Did I ever explicitly say that I love you?” Xue Lan snatched his hand away. “Even saying that now nauseous me.”

Tian Chen clutched his painful chest as his breathing became erratic. His lungs felt suffocated with every breath he takes.

His memories of Xue Lan replayed in his mind. The first they met, the stroll in the garden, the summer hunt, the mid-autumn festival. Everything spiralled unstoppably until he no longer knew which one was his real memory and which one was his hallucination.

“No, you would never betray me,” Tian Chen laughed as hia face distorted and his eyes turned bloodshot. “We trust our hearts to each other. We cherished one another.”

Xue Lan watched Tian Chen in fascination. His endurance for 2 months paid off.

“Tian Chen, I’m glad you’re stupid,” Xue Lan wiped Tian Chen's tears away. His action was gentle yet the words he said were like a thousand cuts, “Thank you for letting me into your heart. Now I can tear it inside out.”

“Why? Have I upset you?” Tian Chen grabbed Xue Lan’s hand as he forced an understanding smile. “That must be it, right? I’ll do anything so stop acting like you hate me.”

“I destroy the entire capital city for you. If you think that’s my token of love, you must be rather sick in the head,” Xue Lan shoved Tian Chen away. “Have you ever think why I never let you touch me while I let another man do so? Because you repulse me.”

Tian Chen dumbly stood still, his eyes utterly blank.

He had everything.

The next thing he knew, he lost everything.

When he looked up, through his blurry vision, he saw the man he hated the most had appeared from who-knows-when.

The demon encircled the man he loved and pressed their bodies together as they exchanged a passionate kiss.

Mo Shen glanced at him and smiled mockingly as he deepened his kiss.

But Tian Chen wasn’t angry.

All he saw was a glimmer of hope.

Hope that his beloved was being manipulated by this wicked demon and that he never really meant to hurt him.

He might have lost the capital city, but it wasn’t the only city Qian Jin had. As long as Xue Lan stayed with him, as long as he had a purpose to live, he could rebuild Qian Jin for him.

Tian Chen whipped out his hidden dagger and rushed to Mo Shen. Xue Lan readily stepped back.

Mo Shen didn’t avoid Tian Chen’s attack and let the dagger sink into his chest. Tian Chen fiercely stabbed him over and over again as he pushed him to the edge before he kicked him off the cliff.

His chest heaved rapidly as he watched the body roll down the hill and went to Xue Lan once again.

“It was him, wasn’t it?” Tian Chen hugged Xue Lan tremblingly. “It’s alright, he’s gone now. We–”

Xue Lan pushed Tian Chen away with disgust in his eyes, “Stop touching me as you please.”

Tian Chen stiffened in place.

“You don’t understand, do you?” Xue Lan tilted his head slightly. “It is just as General Zhou said. All those things that happened after my arrival was indeed caused by me. I want nothing but Qi Ming and Qian Jin to be gone.”

“No, I don’t understand,” Tian Chen couldn’t accept it. “Your desire doesn’t have anything to do with loving me.”

“It is called a betrayal only when it is done by someone you trust,” Xue Lan touched Tian Chen’s heart with sinister eyes. “It is even better when it is done by someone you love. Especially when you believe that they love you wholeheartedly, no?”

Tian Chen looked at bright pair of orbs, trying to find a trace of the man he knew behind the malevolence.

But there was nothing.

As if the past 2 months were all but a dream.

He loved an illusion all along.

Tian Chen laughed.

He laughed at himself. At his blindness. At his incompetence. At his stupidity.

At the fact that even now, he still desired this man so much that his mind had gone mad.

“Then let’s both die,” Tian Chen swung his dagger, “and start anew in our next life.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

A hand grabbed the blade and shattered it with its grip. Tian Chen was flung away from his position and crashed into a tree.

His chest that was kicked was painful and heavy as if it was being crushed by an elephant. He strained himself to his feet and saw the man he just killed standing perfectly fine next to Xue Lan.

“You– How!?”

“Well, I cannot leave my master alone with a madman, no?” Mo Shen kissed Xue Lan’s head.

Xue Lan looked at the sun that was about to be completely gone. The sky had turned dark as the last fraction of light dimmed down.

“Don’t worry, I won’t kill you just yet,” Xue Lan went to Tian Chen. “This is just the beginning of Qian Jin’s end and I want you to witness its death.”

Once the world found out about this ‘unfortunate disaster’, they would certainly start coveting Qian Jin’s enormous piece of land. Surely, everyone would get a portion of the cake with how big it was.

“Will you do that for me?” Xue Lan’s lips curved contemptuously. “You may come find me once everything is over. I’ll be waiting.”

Tian Chen never saw that kind of poisonous smile on Xue Lan’s noble face.

He had understood that his heart had been utterly played with and that the pain and longing he endured in the past was only for Xue Lan’s entertainment, that his words of love were exchanged with sugar-coated lies.

Then why…

Tian Chen gently kissed Xue Lan’s poisonous lips as words bled from his heart, “I love you.”

But the man he loved was cold and pitiless.

“I hate you,” Xue Lan ruthlessly replied.

With a push, Tian Chen was thrown off the cliff. His eyes were fixed on the receding figure as the wind whistled by his ears.

His body hit and roll down the steep earth slope and he arrived on the ground with broken bones and dimming consciousness.

As his eyes closed, he vowed to himself to stay alive.

He would believe Xue Lan’s last lie and find him.

It was the only thing left to believe in his crumbling dream.

“It’s over,” Mo Shen held Xue Lan’s shoulders from behind.

“Mn, it’s over,” Xue Lan watched the sky turn completely dark and the stars started seen alight.

The world was dark and bleak without the vibrant lights of lanterns from the human city. No sound was heard without the chattering and music from people merrying into the night.

The two figures stood silently under the cold sky until a soft white particle fell onto their cloak and disappeared.

Xue Lan looked up to see that it had started snowing. He caught one onto his palm only for it to melt upon his touch.