Chapter 124
Chapter 124
The black-robed man sitting opposite her suddenly laughed, his voice hoarse and unpleasant.
Setting down the white chess piece in her hand, Shengsheng Zhou laughed without knowing why as well. “Things are starting to get interesting.”
A-Pang: *…*
The black-robed man nodded in agreement. “Indeed, they are interesting. The City Lord is truly wise. He merely ordered me to wait for the rabbit by the tree stump, and my quarry really arrived.”
As he spoke, he pulled back his robe, revealing an extremely ordinary face. Yet the emotion in his eyes was so malicious that no one could feel favorably toward him. With taunting malice in his voice, he asked, “You didn’t expect me, did you?”
Fusheng Duan arched a brow. “Who are you?”
The black-robed man froze, his tone turning complicated. “You don’t recognize me? I’m the waiter from that inn! I even filled your bathwater!”
Fusheng scoffed. “Even the donkey in the inn’s backyard is more distinctive-looking than you.”
A-Pang burst out laughing.
That was the villain for you: forever young, forever vicious with his insults.
The black-robed man’s face darkened until it matched the label he had been given. But after glancing at Shengsheng, he seemed to think of something and began cackling again.
“Don’t you want to know what happened to her?” In an apparently excellent mood, the black-robed man pointed at Shengsheng, who was urging him to hurry up and make his next move.
Fusheng answered with cold arrogance, “I’ll know once I kill you.”
The black-robed man: “…No. If you kill me, I’ll be silent forever, and you’ll never know that someone tampered with her memories…” At that point, his eyes involuntarily widened and goose bumps broke out all over him.
What was happening? Damn it, why had he blurted that out against his will?
Fusheng’s lips twitched. Still standing leisurely in place, he wore a mocking smile, though his voice was eerily gentle. “So that’s what happened. Her memories were tampered with.”
As he spoke, a small bird covered in pitch-black feathers suddenly flew out from behind the black-robed man. It landed lightly on Fusheng’s shoulder and preened itself.
As though facing a mortal enemy, A-Pang swiftly flew away from Fusheng and pointed at the black bird. “It’s you! You’re the one who nearly pecked A-Pang bald back then!”
The black bird ignored him and rubbed coquettishly against Fusheng’s neck.
Fusheng reached out a finger and stroked it. “Well done, A-Xuan.”
The black-robed man, however, pointed at the bird on Fusheng’s shoulder as though he had seen a monster. His face was full of disbelief. “A Mystic Bird! That’s actually a Mystic Bird! So that’s it… No wonder… You’re actually…”
He muttered to himself. No wonder they had investigated for so long and learned only that the Noble Consort beside Xunlan Liu was actually a man with a highly suspicious identity, yet had never been able to discover who he really was.
So that was it… So that was it…
A-Pang rolled his eyes. The man had spoken several times yet said nothing but nonsense. Would explaining it clearly kill him? Would it?
“Using the Mystic Bird’s power to force me to tell the truth… It seems this woman truly is important to you.” The black-robed man’s tone was complicated. His eyes were filled with envy as he looked at the black bird nuzzling Fusheng. He had originally been confident he could subdue Fusheng, but now it would be a miracle if he escaped alive.
He could only blame himself for underestimating his opponent. If he had brought a few more men instead of showing off, he might have escaped the moment he saw the Mystic Bird.
Fusheng shot back without courtesy, “None of your fucking business.”
Once Fusheng Duan knew that only Shengsheng Zhou’s memories had been affected and that she had not been poisoned with gu like the townspeople, he pulled her straight over.
Shengsheng looked at him in bewilderment, then down at the chess piece in her hand. “What are you doing? I was still playing.”
After knocking the black-robed man unconscious with a blast from his palm, Fusheng asked her, “Do you remember who you are?”
Shengsheng looked at him as though he were mentally deficient. “A-Sheng, is something wrong with your brain? Do you need me to find a physician to examine you later?”
A-Sheng?
Hearing the amusing name, Fusheng laughed softly. A-Pang hovered to one side, somewhat speechless. *Shouldn’t your pupils be contracting right now, followed by you asking, ‘What did you call me?’*
When he finally finished laughing, Fusheng raised his head. His skin glowed like snow, his beauty rivaled peach blossoms, and crystalline tears still clung to the corners of his eyes without falling. That gorgeous, bewitching face left Shengsheng staring blankly.
“A-Sheng, why do you seem even better-looking after coming to the Central Plains?” Shengsheng swallowed.
Fusheng laughed softly and raised her chin with fingers as slender as scallion shoots. “Was I not good-looking before?”
Awkwardly moving his finger aside, Shengsheng turned her head. “A-Sheng, since no one is here, I won’t punish you. Master and servant have different stations. You weren’t this ignorant of the rules among the barbarians. Did the people of the Central Plains teach you bad habits?”
At the word “barbarians,” Fusheng’s expression froze for an instant.
Barbarians?
Those swarthy, unbearably crude barbarians who looked as though they had grown up playing in mud? Not even half a strand of his hair resembled them, all right?
Fusheng was desperately curious about what exactly Shengsheng’s memories had been changed into.
But when had they been altered?
The two had been separated for only a very short time. Her memories could not possibly have been rewritten successfully in such a brief interval.
“Was there anything unusual about her earlier?”
He was clearly not speaking to Shengsheng.
A-Pang knew Fusheng was asking him and thought carefully. “Nothing strange, really. Does her constantly calling me by the wrong name count?”
“When did that begin?” Fusheng asked.
A-Pang thought about it. “Ah, after we encountered Jierge!”
“Right, right! The dark-skinned man even touched Shengsheng’s mole!”
Fusheng narrowed his eyes. “With which hand?”
A-Pang said he could not remember.
Fusheng indicated that it did not matter. At worst, he would cut off both.
Watching Fusheng talk to empty air, Shengsheng could not resist speaking. “A-Sheng, talking to the air isn’t your fault, but tell me–did the air answer you?”
Fusheng nodded subconsciously.
Shengsheng looked at him with pity. “Terminal stage.”
Fusheng pointed at A-Pang in midair. “You can’t see him?”
Shengsheng shook her head frantically. Something would be wrong if she could see anything.
He then pointed at the unconscious black-robed man on the ground. “What about him?”
Following his finger, Shengsheng looked over. “Why has Lord Wu fallen asleep?”
A-Pang finally understood. So the world in Shengsheng’s eyes was different from theirs.
Putting everything else aside, if she could not even see him, the problem was extremely serious.
His soul was bound to Shengsheng’s. Even if Shengsheng died, so long as her soul remained, he would always be able to find her. So what was happening now? How had someone managed to sever even the link between their souls?
Who exactly was Jierge?