Chapter 10: Heart’s Fire

MO XI BADLY WANTED to kick Zhou-gongzi to death, but he had to remain anonymous. All he could do was pitch his voice lower and icily snap, "Get lost."

"Hey, what's with that tone?" Zhou-gongzi's friendly overture had been rudely rejected, so after a momentary shock, he turned nasty. "Do you know who I am?"

"Do I care who you are? Don't you see what I'm doing? Hurry up and get lost!"

Gu Mang seemed fascinated by Mo Xi acting the tyrant, and stared unblinkingly into his eyes. They were so close to each other that Gu Mang's direct stare made him uneasy.

"Stop looking at me like that," Mo Xi whispered.

Gu Mang was exceptionally obedient, so he lowered his lashes to stare instead at Mo Xi's pale lips.

Mo Xi was at a loss for words.

When Zhou-gongzi saw the pair still tangled together, paying him no mind at all, he raised his voice to shout angrily. "You're telling me to get lost? Why don't you check yourself first!" He ground his teeth. "Your Zhou-ge wants that one to keep him company, so why don't you smarten up and get out of my way? Don't you know where I'm from? The Bureau of Military Affairs ! I'm friends with Xihe-jun, General Mo! You scared now? Just wait until I tell on you—he'll break your legs!"

Mo Xi blinked in silence.

Zhou-gongzi was too far gone—and the longer he spoke, the worse he got. "And you, Gu asshole, you little bastard, last time you wouldn't let me kiss you no matter what I said, but you're fine with it now that it's someone else? Everyone says your souls are damaged and your mind's broken—pah! How could you be picky if your mind was broken?"

Mo Xi's heart skipped a beat.

Souls damaged… Mind broken?

He stared at Gu Mang's face up close, all the strangeness from earlier coming back to mind. His ears rang; he felt like he couldn't breathe.

"You're only faking it for some pity! What souls are you missing? How is your mind broken? You're just a bastard! Traitor!"

Gu Mang frowned, wanting to say something.

"Don't move." Even though blood still pounded in Mo Xi's ears, he reacted in time to stop Gu Mang. He closed his eyes, willing himself to remain composed. "Don't move…"

Their mouths were so close that Mo Xi's every whisper sent a gust of heat sweeping over Gu Mang's lips. This sensation startled him. He instinctively tried to struggle free, but Mo Xi's formidable strength kept him restrained with one hand. "Listen to me!" he hissed.

Gu Mang didn't want to listen, but neither could he move. And so, Mo Xi's warmth melded into his lungs only to leave on the next exhale, breaths entwining in the searing heat between them.

Gu Mang's eyes were glued to Mo Xi's face.

Mo Xi swallowed, head spinning as he slowly surfaced from the revelation of Gu Mang's condition. He collected himself with effort and opened his eyes to look at Gu Mang again. Afraid he would make a fuss, he chose his words carefully. "Have I hit you before?"

Momentarily confused, Gu Mang shook his head.

"Has he hit you before?"

Gu Mang nodded.

"Then listen to me and ignore him."

They were too close together, the air from the depths of their lungs tangling between their bodies. Mo Xi deliberately avoided his clear-eyed gaze. "As long as you listen, I'll make him scram."

Another wordless nod.

Seeing the two were still caught in their inseparable embrace, Zhougongzi began to feel as if he really had intruded on their intimacy. He became even cruder and more furious, aroused yet frustrated. "What's wrong, Gu Mang? You still won't say anything? What a miracle! You ignore everyone else who comes to your room—so is this man especially handsome? Or is he especially good in bed? Or is it that he's broken our agreement and he secretly paid you, traitorous bastard that you are?"

Zhou-gongzi stepped closer, his ragged breaths smelling of alcohol. "How come a little whore like you wants him to fuck you so bad…?" he mumbled.

Drunk people always sounded a little incoherent, rambling this way and that. After Zhou-gongzi was done taunting Gu Mang, he decided to move on to provoking Mo Xi.

"Hey there, who exactly are you? Why don't you turn around and let your big brother take a look? Judging by your behavior, you must come often." Zhou-gongzi dared to tug unsteadily on Mo Xi's sleeve. "How many times have you had him? How does our Great General Gu feel? Is he hot? Is he tight? Does he make you feel good?"

This Zhou-gongzi had managed to utterly disgust Mo Xi.

Mo Xi's hand whipped out to slap that Zhou asshole square across the face. It was a violent strike; blood spurted from Zhou-gongzi's nose as he crumpled to the floor. Before Zhou-gongzi could get his bearings, Mo Xi kicked him to the ground, making sure he fell flat on his face at an angle that prevented him from turning.

"I told you to get lost." Sparks flew from Mo Xi's eyes, his teeth tightly gritted. "Don't you fucking get it?"

"You dare to hit me! You actually dared to hit me! H-how insubordinate!" Zhou-gongzi wailed. "Wh-wh-who are you?! I'll report this to His Imperial Majesty! No! I'll report this to General Mo! I'll report this to my dad, I—"

There was a loud clang.

Mo Xi had tossed something before him. One bleary glance was all it took for Zhou-gongzi to break out in a shock of cold sweat. He sobered up a great deal, convulsing with a squeak before going still.

Mo Xi was so repulsed by Zhou-gongzi's earlier crudeness that his expression was yet twisted. "Will you?" he asked menacingly.

"N-no."

"Are you going to visit him again?"

"N-no."

Mo Xi let him go with one last kick. "Get lost! Don't let me see you again."

Zhou-gongzi staggered up and stumbled away, too afraid to even look back.

Mo Xi stood there stonily for a time, letting his anger dissipate. Then he bent down and picked up the command token marked with Chonghua Bureau of Military Affairs and fastened it back into the compartment within his sleeve. He turned to glance at Gu Mang, who stood by the wall with his hands behind his back, obediently watching without making a sound.

In the chaos, his initial bewilderment had faded. Mo Xi had wanted to interrogate Gu Mang further, but at the sight of Gu Mang's peaceful face, all he felt was a pain like his heart was being cut apart, a turmoil he couldn't suppress.

There was no point in asking Gu Mang anything more, and Mo Xi had no idea what would happen if he stayed any longer.

Into this silence, Gu Mang suddenly spoke. "He's scared of you."

Mo Xi said nothing.

"You're scared of him too."

Mo Xi seemed deeply insulted by this, turning to shoot him a fierce glare. "Why would I be scared of him?"

"You were scared he would recognize you."

Mo Xi looked at him. His mood was no longer so vicious, though his expression remained displeased. "What does that have to do with you?"

"Did he?"

"No." Mo Xi's voice was cold and stiff.

It was as if the scalding breaths that had brushed against Gu Mang's skin earlier had never existed. "But he saw your token…"

"There's no name on it. Every high-ranking official at the Bureau of Military Affairs has one." Mo Xi glanced at him as he fastened his sleeve compartment. "You did too."

Gu Mang was surprised. "Me?"

His confusion upset Mo Xi. He didn't want to talk to Gu Mang anymore, and he still feared what he would do if he stayed. He pushed open the door and left without a backward glance.

The freezing night wind blew at Mo Xi's face as he stepped into the street outside. He tried to calm himself, but to no avail.

Souls damaged… Mind broken… Ah ha ha… Mind broken?!

Wind whipped across his face, the corners of his eyes stinging as if flayed. He'd yearned so long for closure, only to receive such an open ending.

Who had done it! Who?!

Had it been the Liao Kingdom? Murong Lian? Or…had it been Gu Mang himself, unable to bear the humiliation, who'd chosen to—

Mo Xi's imagination ran wild. In the end, it was grief, of all things, that suffused him.

Mind broken.

Why did that make his heart ache so much…? Yes, true, Gu Mang had given him friendship and redemption, but Mo Xi had done everything he could to repay him—had nearly sacrificed his life to pull Gu Mang back from the brink! Did Mo Xi owe him anything else? Had he let him down in any other way? Whether Gu Mang's souls were whole or his mind hale, what did that have to do with Mo Xi?

In the empty streets, in the dead of night, Mo Xi stopped walking and took a deep breath.

So many years of obsession, only to receive this emptiness…

His hands shook against his will. Without warning, flames blazed from his palms, coalescing into a fireball that smashed explosively into the distant river's surface. Smoke hissed upward from where it struck.

Gu Mang had betrayed him.

Only the heavens knew how dearly he wanted to hear Gu Mang say, I regretted abandoning, deserting, and lying to you. I cared for you. Why couldn't he have even that small thing? Why had he received nothing but a mentally impaired madman who had completely forgotten him?! Why?!

Mo Xi closed his eyes, agonized. After so many years, he'd thought he had freed himself of this fixation, but in truth, he had been lying to himself. Gu Mang was too important to him.

That man had taken too many of Mo Xi's firsts: the first time he exorcised demons, the first time he talked for hours around a warm bonfire, the first time he fought shoulder to shoulder…

And that year he turned twenty, on the day he came of age, on that specific night—perhaps he had drunk too much, or perhaps it had never been the wine—that had been the first time he made Gu Mang his.

He still remembered Gu Mang's expression back then. When it came to such matters, Gu Mang cared about his pride. Even though his eyes were teary and his lips were bitten bloody, he endured, insisting that he would never leave any flower unplucked.

You're fine! We're both men here, so it's all good as long as we make each other feel good. C'mere, do you want your Gu Mang-gege to teach you how to move?

Gu Mang shouldn't have said such things. At the time, Mo Xi's sanity had already been hanging by a thread. His heart was burning up; he didn't know if the flame of affection behind his ribs would ever go out. He knew he couldn't have done something like this merely because of some wine. No —his actions were born out of searing, passionate desire and deep, undeniable love.

Alas, Gu Mang didn't understand. He only wanted to regain his dignity, and so started babbling all sorts of lewd things. In the end, he personally destroyed what remained of Mo Xi's rational mind.

Later that night, Gu Mang had reached his absolute limit. Lying on his stomach, he began shaking his head and sobbing, begging Mo Xi to be gentler, wailing that—honestly—even if he'd done it with many girls, he'd been lying about having done it with other men, and he'd especially never let another man do him. But no matter what he confessed or revealed, or how he beseeched…

Mo Xi could no longer stop himself.

Finally, when he had bullied Gu Mang to the point of tears—until Gu Mang was crying so hard he couldn't quite speak, his eyes red at the corners as he looked at Mo Xi—only then did the desire in Mo Xi's gaze begin to subside.

He stroked Gu Mang's cheek and said, "I'm sorry, does it hurt?"

Gu Mang's lashes were still wet with tears, his face flushed in Mo Xi's palms, his lips quivering. Mo Xi had left him a pathetic sight indeed. Even more pathetically, who would have believed that a crude army thug like Gu Mang, in truth, hadn't even slept with a single girl before?

Faced with Gu Mang's silence, Mo Xi bent down to kiss him again. As their wet lips touched, Gu Mang's tears streamed down into the hair at his temples. Mo Xi caressed his hair, then wordlessly embraced him once more, kissing his teary eyes and taking warmth from the man in his arms.

A young man getting his first taste of carnal desire could never stop himself, no matter how virtuous he was.

Besides, Mo Xi had never really been virtuous. It was only that before Gu Mang, he'd never met someone who could make him lose control.

He had fallen in love with Gu Mang first.

So he had trod carefully all this time. He had never dared to demand Gu Mang's first time; had only ever, with utmost care, passed all his own firsts into Gu Mang's hands. He had stubbornly refused to say how important these were to him, but in his heart, he still nervously hoped Gu Mang would treasure these moments.

But Gu Mang had trampled his heart underfoot.

Yes, it was true that Mo Xi hadn't wanted to stop Chonghua from putting Gu Mang on trial—or even killing him. Mo Xi had even thought that if there ever came a day when Gu Mang had to die, he wanted to be Gu Mang's final judge and final tormentor, to take hold of him with his own hands and crush him into a bloody pulp and grind his bones into dust.

All for the sake of the nation's vengeance.

But if Mo Xi put aside that vengeance, he had to admit that he had never actually wanted to see Gu Mang dead. He had only wanted to obtain a word of truth from his mouth, to receive a single sentence from a sincere heart.

After so long…he…he genuinely only wanted to ask one question: Gu Mang, when you left Chonghua, when you left…me, did you ever regret it, even a little?

Only then would these years of love and hatred, gratitude and resentment, come to a conclusion that could allow Mo Xi to breathe, if only barely.

Then he heard those words: souls damaged, mind broken.

Gu Mang had forgotten. He would not suffer.

But Mo Xi was damned to an eternity without reprieve.

No one knew Mo Xi had gone to Luomei Pavilion to see Gu Mang, but in the following days, the people of the Bureau of Military Affairs could distinctly sense General Mo's displeasure.

Even though Mo Xi went around looking displeased all the time, and his expression was rarely genial when he spoke to anyone, his moodiness had become even more pronounced. He didn't grow distracted during military councils, but his phrasing grew more curt. When others chattered idly during the meeting, Mo Xi would at once level a dark stare at them even if he didn't cut them off—until the offending individual swallowed their own babble.

This was hardly a problem in itself, but one day, General Mo inexplicably berated the young master of the Zhou Clan for an hour straight, saying he had "slacked off on his martial responsibilities" and was "excessively depraved," even though no one knew what Zhou-gongzi had done wrong.

"Copy the Bureau of Military Affairs' rulebook one hundred times and deliver it to me tomorrow," Mo Xi said. "If you commit another offense, you can call your dad to drag you back home."

Zhou-gongzi obeyed in a fit of terror and left, quaking all over.

Yue Chenqing scooched over to Zhou-gongzi with a nosy look. "Hey, what did you do?"

"I-I don't know…"

"If you didn't do anything wrong, why would that ice-cube face get so angry?" Yue Chenqing glanced around, smiling deviously. "Be honest, are you keeping a stash of portraits of Princess Mengze?"

Zhou-gongzi's face paled, looking as if the heavens were about to strike him down. "Bro, spare me! How could I dare?!"

Yue Chenqing rubbed his chin and looked at Mo Xi in the distance, who was staring down at the sand table with his arms crossed. "That's weird. Then why does he have such a short fuse right now…?"

In the end, Mo Xi with said short fuse couldn't control himself. He pretended not to care for two days, but in the end, he asked his head housekeeper how Gu Mang had been these past two years.

In this day and age, being a housekeeper was no easy task. Those in the position had to excel in both managerial duties and menial tasks, advise the lord and comfort the lady, console the concubines and deal with the young masters' disputes.

Xihe Manor's housekeeper was named Li Wei. All the other housekeepers of other noble lords envied him, as they knew General Mo kept a simple staff and had neither wife nor children nor concubines. It sounded like a blissfully carefree arrangement. Only Li Wei knew how hard it was to work in General Mo's employ…because General Mo would ask questions without the slightest warning.

Sometimes General Mo's questions brewed in his mind for ages until he couldn't stand them anymore. By then, General Mo would have worn his own patience thin, so he would want to know the answer straightaway and would be annoyed if it were even slightly delayed.

In working for this master, Housekeeper Li had to think three steps ahead before he did anything, then four steps ahead when it was done. After all these years, he had more or less honed himself into a prodigy. Whenever Mo Xi was quietly sulking, Housekeeper Li would examine his body language to deduce what General Mo was repressing and roughly how long it would take before he exploded—as well as strategize how he should respond once General Mo did finally combust.

This time was no different.

Mo Xi bit his lip, and said lightly, "Gu Mang…"

Housekeeper Li rushed to answer. "Yes, my lord, Gu Mang is utterly ruined!"

"Was that my question?" Mo Xi said.

Sometimes being too clever wasn't a good thing, so Housekeeper Li obediently shut his mouth.

Mo Xi turned around, eyes indifferent as he gazed at the pot of tea on the stove. It was a long while before he said anything more. Face blank, he asked, "How was he ruined?"