manynovel Chapter 80 The Two
Chapter 80 The Two
Mingxun hurriedly wrapped the strip of cloth around her wrist, but her voice still tried to remain calm: "Excuse me, sir, please wait outside a little longer, my clothes aren't ready yet—"
Before she could finish speaking, the door behind her creaked open.
Zhong Li walked in slowly and deliberately, and seeing that she was already dressed, he asked, "What was Miss Xun Ming about to say?"
Mingxun hadn't expected him to come in so directly. Faced with the undeniable truth, she had to swallow back the lie she had only made up halfway through. She calmly put her hands behind her back and said, "It's nothing. I just wanted to ask where would be a good place to put these dirty clothes for the time being, sir."
Zhongli glanced around and replied, "Just put it in the basket that Yi Guan used to use to store clothes."
Mingxun stuffed the wet clothes into the laundry basket, then bent down and picked it up, trying to block Zhongli's view in this way.
She didn't know if the short sleeves were related to Zhongli's sudden visit, but based on her understanding of Morax, if he really found these injuries on his wrists, he would definitely ask what happened.
But Zhong Li remained silent, and never even glanced at her wrist.
As Mingxun brushed past Zhongli, she breathed a slight sigh of relief.
But then he spoke up.
"Miss Xunming, where are you headed? Just leave the wet clothes here. My maidservant had an urgent matter to attend to and just left a short while ago."
It's not a dangerous problem.
Mingxun's heart, which had been in her throat, calmed down again, and she put the clothes basket back in its original place as Zhongli instructed.
At this moment, she still naively believed that her disguise had fooled Zhongli's eyes. It wasn't until she looked up and met those amber eyes staring straight at her that she realized her cleverness was a joke in the eyes of the demon god.
Perhaps sensing from the sudden tremor in her eyes that she understood, Zhongli lost interest in teasing her further and said softly, "Miss Xunming, would you mind showing me your right wrist?"
There was no excuse left. Since Zhongli had already become suspicious, saying anything more would only make things worse. Ming thought for a moment.
She decided to take a different approach.
Tears fell effortlessly. Mingxun remained silent, only hiding her hands behind her back.
She rarely resisted something so strongly; most of the time, she was like a pretty doll that could be manipulated at will, agreeing with whatever others said.
Now, and even more so in the past.
Zhong Li took a few steps closer and said meaningfully, "If you could have done the same before, perhaps things wouldn't have turned out this way. But crying won't solve all the problems, nor will it make the self-harm wounds on your wrists disappear."
"Miss Xun Ming, you can't hide it from her."
The sobs paused for a moment, then turned into even more torrential tears flowing from the woman.
Zhong Li sighed and took off his gloves to wipe away the tears on her cheeks.
This was the second time he had wiped away her tears; the first time was at the Xun residence.
Morax, two thousand years ago, would never have done such a thing. Mingxun's tears were a novel toy to him, and he would be even more pleased if those tears were shed because of him.
Even though he later came to empathize with Mingxun and could taste her distress in her sorrowful tears, he still hadn't learned to use those hands that had been used to kill enemies to touch and comfort her.
But Zhong Li is now just an ordinary person.
Her arms, usually hidden under gloves, gleamed with a metallic sheen. Despite her cold and hard demeanor, her movements were gentle and tender.
Zhongli looked down at her still tearful eyes and sighed again: "Don't cry."
Perhaps sensing that he had no intention of pressing the matter further, the sobbing gradually subsided.
Now that the goal has been achieved, it's no longer appropriate to wear this short-sleeved shirt.
Zhongli had already asked Yiguan to prepare two sets of clothes, one long-sleeved and one short-sleeved. He only sent the short-sleeved clothes to make Mingxun back down and take the initiative to explain the wound. But if she actually wore this clothes out, it would inevitably be a bit like touching up someone's old wound.
He told Mingxun to wait there while he went next door to get another set.
The door closed, locking the woman inside.
Zhong Li didn't plan to come back so soon. Mingxun was someone who tended to overthink things, and he needed to give her some time to think.
Unfortunately, someone betrayed his good intentions.
"Sir," Mingxun, who had already changed into long sleeves, finally spoke hesitantly after a long silence, "who are you referring to when you say 'the past'?"
Zhong Li stopped moving and stared at her intently.
Mingxun, unusually bold, looked directly into those inhuman amber eyes: "Who exactly is the person you're looking at through me?"
She still refused to acknowledge her identity, but her tone was extremely serious, not like she was acting.
Zhong Li suddenly realized that something was wrong.
*
When Lingyuan slunk back to Shenyu Valley from Liyue Harbor, Fujin had already started flipping through the little trinkets that Mingxun had specially prepared for her because she was so bored.
She was engrossed in reading a storybook at the moment, and even after noticing Lingyuan's return, she couldn't tear herself away from the captivating text. She could only offer a verbal inquiry: "How did it go? Did you see Mingxun?"
Ling Yuan reverted to his original form, looking dejected, and rested his enormous head on Fu Jin: "I saw him, and he seems to be in pretty good spirits."
"You seem to be in good spirits?" The vague answer piqued Fu Jin's curiosity. After all, the lion-like beast was always simple-minded and straightforward, saying whatever came to mind.
She glanced at her suspiciously: "Didn't you see Mingxun's hand?"
The lion-like beast felt both guilty and aggrieved: "She wouldn't let me see, and I can't even beat the man next to her."
"Huh?" Fu Jin became interested. "There are mortals that you can't beat? Are all the people outside this powerful now? I clearly remember that even guys with the Eye of God couldn't beat you even if they teamed up in groups of four. If you hadn't always gone easy on them because you were too lazy to fight, they would never have been able to get your scales."
At this point, Fu Jin paused, then stammered, "...Wait, could this mortal be a Rock God?"
She recounted to Lingyuan in detail the story of the Rock God incarnated as a mortal, which she had previously forgotten to mention, and the more she talked, the more likely it seemed.
Ling Yuan, whether he felt it was too embarrassing to hand it over to a mortal or simply didn't want to use his brain, nodded the whole time without any objection.
Fu Jin was immediately relieved: "That's good. She won't be so presumptuous around the Rock God."
Ling Yuan tilted his head: "How did you know?"
Logically speaking, when the two met Mingxun, Mingxun had already left Morax's side. They had only ever heard the beautiful story of the god and the priest, but had never actually seen it.
Fu Jin smiled sheepishly, "Hehe, I just asked about it out of curiosity before, didn't I?"
However, she originally only wanted to hear Mingxun tell two short stories, but she didn't expect the latter to directly suggest that he could write his and Morax's story into a storybook for her to pass the time.
Yes, it's the book she was reading before Lingyuan came back.
Fu Jin pushed the storybook towards Ling Yuan, trying to get her to read it together. But after only a few chapters, Ling Yuan smacked her lips and pushed the book away, saying, "I thought it would be a first-person perspective, but it's written from an observer's point of view."
When she said that, Fu Jin also found it strange. After all, this was supposed to be Ming Xun's memoir, so wasn't it odd to write her own name and Yan Shen's name directly?
"And Mingxun in this is so innocent..." Fu Jin felt a chill just looking at her. "She's clearly a super ruthless person."
Although it was Ling Yuan who was always the one being tricked, not her, she was still a little apprehensive.
"In short, they're like completely different people."
"Hmm, it seems that Mingxun really doesn't think the version of herself next to the Rock God is the same person as the one she is now..."
*
The idea of truly separating the priest from oneself probably arose when I first saw Morax in a dream.
Mingxun never considered herself a fragile person, but the cold sweat soaking her clothes silently proved that she was indeed afraid.
She was afraid that her lie would be exposed, afraid that Morax would really look at her with the same disgust as in her dream.
She knew that someone as base as herself did not deserve such aspirations, but she still couldn't help but maintain this dignity and uphold the noble image of the priest.
All that Mingxun is doing now is not to make Zhongli recognize her, reconcile with him, and return to the past of Morax and the priest, but to use as bait to evoke his memories.
She wants to forget and cherish her past self.
I am not as good as her, so it's enough that you love her, but don't look for her shadow in me.
"Whom are you looking at through my eyes?"
Inside the Hall of Rebirth, she asked again.
Before Zhongli could reply, she continued, "In any case, sir, the one standing before you is me, Xun Ming, and not anyone else."
Their names, arranged in reverse order, reflect their distinctly different personalities.
"I've always been looking at you—" Zhong Li avoided using formal terms of address and suddenly asked, "Will you marry me?"
(End of this chapter)
The author says: Mingxun portrays a romance between two people as if it involves three, and it still has that melodramatic, "white moonlight" feel to it.