Ink Blade Chapter 76 (Part 2) End
Translated by Sylver (ko-fi)
Extra 9.2 If (Part 5.2)
Lin Yun also lowered his voice. “Do you feel a headache again? Miss Qiu, burn some medicine.”
Chu Yan swept the medicine stove to the ground with his sleeve. “Get out!! All of you, you…”
They didn’t believe him at all, they must have thought he was crazy, that was the look of a madman!
But– How could he prove that he was not a madman?
Chu Yan suddenly shivered, after all, how could he be sure that the cruel order was not really his own? Over the years, his brain has become more and more useless. He often forgets things, day and night were reversed. Maybe he gave the order when he was confused, maybe he was confused after giving the order, if that’s the case…
His words choked in his throat, Chu Yan could no longer argue a word. Fatigue surged from all over his body, he slumped to the ground, his palm pressed hard against his temple.
“Master.” Qiu Jin looked over worriedly.
Chu Yan stared blankly out the window. The night was snowy, the mountains were white, it seemed like this snow would never stop.
“Forget it, forget it.” Chu Yan muttered to himself in a daze, his heart was like being cut by a knife, but he couldn’t shed tears.
“Qiu Jin, light the medicine stove, this Master wants to sleep.”
He paused, and then thought that Mo Ren must be scared, he turned around and reached out to touch the man’s hair. “This Master was wrong, this Master will sleep in the side sleeping hall, you stay here.”
Qiu Jin was taken aback. “Master, the side sleeping hall hasn’t been taken care of for a long time…”
Chu Yan just shook his head, didn’t speak, and walked out with a dazed expression.
****
By the time Chu Yan had finished washing and changing clothes in the side sleeping hall, the night had been almost worn away, and it would be dawn in about an hour.
Qiu Jin lit the calming incense burner and was chased away by Chu Yan, the palace master lay in bed with his eyes blank, unable to sleep.
He was still thinking about that matter: was that order really his own?
Did he ruin Mo Ren… and then banished him to the Side Hall, wanting to torture him to death with such a humiliating method?
Mo Ren had silently endured for three years…
What was he thinking?
In the thick night, Chu Yan heard a strange and subtle noise, and it took him a while to realize that it was his own teeth chattering. He lay on the cold bed in the side sleeping hall, exhaling white mist, squinting his eyes and raising his hands in front of him, his ten fingers were also trembling.
Fear struck again, Chu Yan suddenly sat up, gasping in horror.
No, no, that couldn’t have been his order, he didn’t, he really didn’t–
Knock, knock, knock.
The sound of knocking on the door came.
Chu Yan was so scared that he rolled off the bed. He stumbled to open the door as if he was avoiding something, and as soon as the door opened, he almost fainted.
Mo Ren was barefoot and thinly dressed, his withered black hair spread out, and he knelt there, swaying. He stared straight at Chu Yan, his pale lips moved. “…Palace Master.”
“You,” Chu Yan crushed the door frame with his five fingers, he stared at Mo Ren’s pale ankle, his eyes full of blood, “What do you mean by this!?”
He didn’t know before, so he didn’t know. Unlike now, when he looked at Mo Ren, his heart began to bleed.
From the main hall to the side sleeping hall of Zhongqian Palace, there was a short distance, it was so cold outside, did this person walk over or crawl over?
When he came to his senses, he had already held Mo Ren in his arms, tremblingly wrapping the quilt he had just covered himself with around this person.
“You don’t make a fuss,” Chu Yan murmured almost in collapse, “It’s this Master who wronged you…this Master is sorry…what do you want, you say. You say…”
Mo Ren’s voice was weak. “Master.”
Chu Yan: “Do you have something to say to this Master? You say.”
Mo Ren gasped lightly in his arms, “That day…”
Chu Yan: “What?”
“That day,” Mo Ren said, “…it should be dusk, the sunset over the western mountains, the person came with the Palace Master’s Jiuyun Jade Token.”
He gasped for a moment, and continued to speak laboriously under Chu Yan’s astonished gaze. “At that time, this subordinate knew he was guilty of a serious crime, and because of the loss of blood, was dizzy, and didn’t suspect… so this subordinate let the person cut off the meridians in the hands and feet.”
“But if it wasn’t this Master’s order…”
“Who else could have the Jiuyun Jade Token?”
Chu Yan stared blankly, holding the cold body of Mo Ren, he was like falling into a dream. Only then did he finally realize what it meant for Mo Ren to avoid others in the middle of the night, dragging his dying body to come to him and say these words.
Mo Ren asked, “Master, do you remember anything?”
It meant that he believed those baseless defenses of his, which were like a madman’s.
The end
