At night, Gao Sijin and Tsukiyuki Rio slept together in the innermost room of the castle’s long corridor. Their futons were laid out on pale green tatami mats, and the two shared a single quilt as they closed their eyes.
The boisterous clamor of the earlier banquet had now faded into complete silence. It was as if the entire mountain had reclaimed the tranquility that rightfully belonged to it, thanks to the Tsukiyuki Clan’s rest.
“Gao-kun.”
Almost every night, Tsukiyuki Rio would call out Gao Sijin’s name with such deep affection.
In this situation, unless one wanted to need an impossible medical remedy, the most sensible course of action was to stay silent and pretend to be asleep.
“Actually, I know what Father said to you.” Tsukiyuki Rio gently clutched Gao Sijin’s sleeve with her slender, snow-white fingers. “After all, he is my father. I know what’s on his mind far better than he does himself. My father and Gao-kun do share some similarities, but they are also completely different.”
Gao Sijin continued to feign sleep. His heart was in turmoil.
If Kazo’s fate were to repeat itself in his own life, Gao Sijin felt he would likely go insane.
In most cases, the reason Gao Sijin refrained from breaking rules, committing crimes, or benefiting himself at others’ expense was simple: his family was still alive.
Gao Sijin wanted to be a good child, not because he truly desired to be one, but because he didn’t want to disappoint his aunt and cousin. That was all.
If one day they were no longer around, Gao Sijin felt he might lose control.
He didn’t want that day to ever come. He wanted to be able to appear the moment his family needed him most.
“It seems I shouldn’t have let you meet Father. Father really is something else. He was the one who chose the Tsukiyuki Clan in the first place, and now he regrets it, always playing the victim.”
“Doesn’t a person have the right to a moment of folly?”
“Of course they do. Actually, Father could abandon everything and return to his grandmother at any time, but he never did. Because the Tsukiyuki Clan can give him more.” Tsukiyuki Rio’s small lips curved into a grin as she spoke to Gao Sijin. “Hmph, Gao-kun really was pretending to sleep. What a sly, bad child.”
“Rio, your father chose the Tsukiyuki Clan, but I never chose the Tsukiyuki Clan. You kidnapped me and brought me here.”
“Gao-kun, have you ever thought about what kind of life you would have had if you had never met me?”
“Never met you… I would have kept working in Bincheng, kept writing. I believe that one day, I could have written a work recognized by the majority of people, and then changed my fate with that book.”
“I don’t think so. And I wouldn’t want Gao-kun’s book to be recognized by the majority. Gao-kun only needs to be recognized by me.”
The man’s hand and the young woman’s hand intertwined.
Gao Sijin had no way to resist her.
If he had never met Tsukiyuki Rio?
It would surely have been a much better life.
Though Tsukiyuki Rio was undoubtedly the most beautiful girl Gao Sijin had ever seen, she had stripped him of his freedom. The sorrow of losing one’s freedom is something one can only truly understand when trapped in that predicament.
The feeling was like a powerless insect falling into a spider’s web, wrapped up in silk by the spider, struggling to breathe, suffocating.
Amidst this oppressive feeling, Gao Sijin slowly closed his eyes, embracing that burning, delicate body as he drifted into sleep.
~~~#!)(@$) sizzle~~~
“You are my most important… little sister…” Gao Sijin forced the words out with difficulty. “You have to listen to your older sister, don’t make her angry…”
A scene of blood gushing like a fountain appeared before Gao Sijin’s eyes. He endured the intense pain, crawling on the ground.
A golden-haired girl, eyes vacant and lifeless, held a cleaver…
Why was he being killed by her? And why did that golden-haired girl look somewhat like Feng Xiaona?
Where even was this place?
Why did it feel so foreign, yet so familiar?
Ah, that’s right. Xiaohe is my wife.
I remember now. It felt as if all of that had actually happened.
It was clearly just a dream.
So why, why did it…
When Gao Sijin opened his eyes again, the night outside the window looked as if it had been cleaved apart by a sharp sword.
Dawn had arrived.
The air outside was exceptionally fresh, perhaps because they were deep in the mountains.
“Tss—”
Gao Sijin’s face instantly went pale. The headache was back. This feeling was exactly the same as when he had been with Feng Na before. It felt like countless ants were crawling inside his brain, melting it away.
Could he possibly die from this?
He couldn’t die.
The thought of his aunt and cousin grieving over his death steeled Gao Sijin’s resolve. He absolutely could not die before them. He had to live, to care for his elders in their old age and see them off properly. Only after they had departed could he ever lightly consider giving up his own life.
Hold on…
Gao Sijin clenched his teeth, enduring the pain. Countless memories that didn’t belong to him surged forth.
“I love Brother Sijin the most.”
It was Xiaona’s voice.
“Little Ai, take some initiative and make me feel good too, okay? You are the man here, aren’t you?”
It was Xiaohe’s voice.
“Brother Sijin (Little Ai), happy birthday!”
The combined voices of the two sisters echoed simultaneously in Gao Sijin’s left and right ears.
A birthday song.
The joy of passing the College Entrance Exam with flying colors.
Daily life of simple, homely meals.
Being encouraged and comforted after failure.
What on earth was all this…?
“Gao-kun, are you alright?”
Noticing Gao Sijin’s abnormal state, Tsukiyuki Rio immediately tensed up, drawing closer to his face to carefully observe his condition.
Cold sweat seeped from Gao Sijin’s forehead as he trembled uncontrollably.
“I’m fine.”
“How could you possibly be fine? Someone, come quickly!” Seeing Gao Sijin like this, Tsukiyuki Rio looked as if she was about to cry.
She really did seem to like him quite a bit; otherwise, she wouldn’t have shown such an expression.
“Qingxue, hurry!”
He never expected to hear a young lady like Tsukiyuki Rio yell with such a loud voice.
But even when shouting, her voice was still lovely to the ear.
Gao Sijin felt a slight urge to laugh, but the pain wouldn’t let him. He had indeed harbored ill feelings toward Tsukiyuki Rio before, but seeing the deep concern and worry in her eyes now, his resentment towards her lessened considerably.
“I’m really fine. Don’t worry about me…”
Without realizing it, her fingernails had dug into her flesh. It must have hurt quite a bit.
“If anything happens to Gao-kun, I will go to the world on the other side to accompany you.” Tsukiyuki Rio’s eyes grew moist. “We finally met after overcoming such a long span of time. I absolutely won’t allow anything to happen to you…”
“Have we met before?”
“That’s something Gao-kun doesn’t need to know.”
Yu Qingxue rushed in, and with her came the private doctor in a white coat.
The diagnostic skill of the Tsukiyuki Clan’s private doctor nearly represented the highest level in all of J-Country. He quickly examined Gao Sijin’s brain with instruments and even took scans, but couldn’t find any abnormalities whatsoever.
To relieve Gao Sijin’s pain, the doctor first gave him an anesthetic injection.
