My Gentle and Pure Sect Leader Husband - Chapter 80

When Yan Hongyin left Su Mengzhen’s place, she didn’t see Yu Luocha. Instead, Little Thorn pointed toward the outside of the deep valley and flicked its thorny whip twice, producing several whooshing sounds cutting through the air.

Yan Hongyin looked puzzled.

Su Mengzhen understood, however, saying, “Someone must have come looking for him, and he went with them.”

The only people who would come here looking for Yu Luocha were the secret guards and death warriors who served him.

…..

When Yan Hongyin returned to the Luocha Sect and entered her room, her keen ears immediately detected some slight sounds.

These sounds…

Yan Hongyin casually placed the food box on the table and followed the sound to a wall. Her fingers traced over the wall, searching, until they finally stopped at a mechanism that was almost imperceptible to the naked eye.

She didn’t act rashly but carefully scanned the wall around the mechanism inch by inch. When she turned her body to block the sunlight coming into the room, she discovered faint silver powder marks left on the wall surface.

She pressed the mechanism, hooked her fingers into a bronze ring, and executed a specific sequence: left three, right five, lift one, press four.

With a crisp click, a mechanism hidden under the carpet on the floor released.

…..

The stairs led to a secret chamber.

Clearly, it would have been quite impossible for Yu Luocha not to have a secret room in his own territory and courtyard.

Yu Luocha sat sideways in a chair, legs crossed, his elbow resting on the chair back, his distinctly knuckled fingers pressed against his chin. His curly hair fell loosely around his forehead and shoulders, giving him a languid and casual appearance.

Before him, a young man in white clothes was curled up, drenched in sweat as if just pulled from water. His trembling body seemed to be enduring great pain and cold, yet the entire secret chamber was as warm as if sitting beside a heating stove.

There were no torches or night pearls in the secret chamber, only a carved-out stove burning logs that crackled. The roaring flames rose and fell as if trying to dry out the not-so-large secret chamber completely.

Half of Yu Luocha’s body was bathed in the orange-red glow of the fire, his lips curled in a smile. The other half was hidden in shadow, allowing his murderous intent to prowl freely.

He merely sat there with his eyes slightly narrowed. Though there wasn’t much piercing killing intent in his eyes, he gave off an extremely dangerous, shudder-inducing aura.

Due to Yan Hongyin’s arrival, several wisps of breeze entered the closed and deathly still secret chamber, allowing the suffocating Gong Jiu to breathe deeply as if liberated.

Yu Luocha didn’t turn to look at Yan Hongyin, but continued to gaze at Gong Jiu with an assessing and contemplative expression.

Yan Hongyin didn’t speak either. She closed the entrance to the secret passage behind her and walked down the steps one by one. With her arms crossed, she leaned against the wall and silently watched them.

In front of the little dumpling, Gong Jiu behaved like a perfectly normal, albeit awkward older brother who cared for his younger sibling, occasionally offering clever strategies that impressed them both.

He wasn’t trained in martial arts and hadn’t practiced any fighting techniques for the first dozen or so years of his life. His status as a royal clan member meant he had studied the proper classics, poetry, and literature. Combined with his inability to recognize directions or numbers, Gong Jiu appeared to be the most ordinary of the three.

Yet when Yan Hongyin and Yu Luocha first noticed them, their attention wasn’t drawn to the precious little dumpling, nor to the upright and principled Ye Gucheng, but to the seemingly unremarkable Gong Jiu.

Yan Hongyin had seen many desperate people and many vicious criminals, but she had never seen eyes like Gong Jiu’s – mad, struggling, contradictory, hateful, hopeful…

If his hatred for the King of Taiping had already twisted to such a degree, Yan Hongyin didn’t think letting it continue unchecked was a good idea.

Gong Jiu was too clever.

Yes, he even concealed his intelligence behind the little dumpling, disguising himself almost flawlessly.

Moreover, Yan Hongyin noticed Gong Jiu secretly practicing Ye Gucheng’s sword techniques.

A delicate royal heir who had never learned martial arts before had managed to grasp five or six tenths of Ye Gucheng’s sword techniques after merely observing a few times, without any instruction.

Such frightening talent immediately reminded Yan Hongyin of Wang Lianhua.

But Gong Jiu was not Wang Lianhua. He might have Wang Lianhua’s natural talent and physique, but buried deep in his eyes were coldness and hatred.

Yan Hongyin saw a quality in Gong Jiu that made her heart chill.

——Gong Jiu and the Luocha Sect were too compatible, so compatible that he seemed to belong here.

A royal clan heir who had never seen blood before, after witnessing the bloody death of his mother, watched people of the Luocha Sect kill indiscriminately with an expression that was calm to the point of indifference.

As if the death of a person was no different from the death of a bird.

This made Yan Hongyin constantly unsure of what attitude to take toward Gong Jiu, or rather, whether she should interfere with his choices at all.

The logs in the stove crackled. Yu Luocha’s hand hanging at his side lightly tapped in the air a few times, and with a smile on his lips, he asked, “How is it?”

Gong Jiu was breathing heavily, unable to see clearly before him. He only felt the black and white lights intertwining into a beautiful mist. His bones were cramping, his body twitching, but strangely, he felt no pain.

He even felt an extreme joy and happiness that he hadn’t experienced for a long time.

“Hiss——“

Yu Luocha casually threw the water pouch in his hand into the fire pit. The flames suddenly extinguished, and he brushed aside the blackened logs with his internal energy, revealing several ventilation holes beneath.

The air in the secret chamber began to circulate, and the previous suffocation and oppression dissipated. Only Gong Jiu remained on the ground, limp as a rag doll, his hair scattered around him.

“So… you’ve been addicted to it too, haven’t you?”

Finding strength from somewhere, Gong Jiu used his palms to prop himself up bit by bit, sitting on the ground. Looking up, though his face was deathly pale and his wet hair clung to his cheeks in a wretched state, his lips somehow bore a smile.

“The feeling of approaching death… is much more delightful than living.”

The current Gong Jiu was so weak before Yu Luocha that he seemed like an ant that could be crushed with a single thought. But Gong Jiu showed not the slightest fear or submission to Yu Luocha. He seemed completely unconcerned about Yu Luocha’s slow torture that had just pushed him to the brink of death. Those eyes of his shone frighteningly bright.

“What about you? You enjoy this kind of release too, don’t you?” The young man laughed softly. “Otherwise, why would you have a secret chamber like this?”

“Yes, after all, I was once like you, absolutely loathing and hating someone’s existence,” Yu Luocha remained in that casual sitting posture, looking down at Gong Jiu with a hint of deadly interest in his eyes. “Countless times I wondered, why is he still alive?”

Yan Hongyin looked at Yu Luocha.

She couldn’t help but wonder who Yu Luocha was referring to. This room where one could survive if the flames were extinguished, yet be unable to move due to extreme suffocation, keeping someone teetering on the edge between life and death… what kind of enemy with a deep grudge was he preparing to torture?

“I’ve also wondered countless times why I couldn’t kill my dear father… That way, he could have accompanied my mother forever,” Gong Jiu’s face showed a hatred like that of a vengeful ghost from the deepest hell, filled with absolute loathing. “He loved her so much, why didn’t he die with her?”

“The person you hate is your enemy?” Yu Luocha said with an unclear meaning, then threw his head back and laughed loudly, laughing until his body shook and even his voice trembled upward, “You hate your father?”

Gong Jiu sat there, looking up at Yu Luocha, not making a sound.

Yu Luocha laughed until the corners of his eyes reddened before gradually stopping. He changed his posture, still wearing a smile, his voice pleased. “But wasn’t your mother the one who died for you?”

Gong Jiu’s pupils suddenly contracted, and his hand at his side clenched into a fist.

“To protect your life, so you wouldn’t be implicated to death by a mother who was a foreign spy; to protect your position as heir, to enjoy luxurious clothes and food, power and authority, she even schemed for the King of Taiping to die in his arms, leaving a vivid and heavy stroke in this poor and pitiful man’s heart…”

“What a clever woman, isn’t she?”

Yu Luocha looked at Gong Jiu, whose expressions had frozen and congealed on his face into a grotesque mask. He leaned back, showing a kind of smug satisfaction and a sigh for the ignorant.

“Your mother gave you enough intelligence, but the cowardice and avoidance in you are consistent with your father.”

“Throughout your life, you’ll never escape their imprint, forever living in the bloodshed of that day, hating your father’s weakness and hesitation, hating your mother’s abandonment and surrender, and what else do you hate?”

“Oh, yes,” Yu Luocha gently clapped his hands. “And yourself.”

“You hate yourself for not rushing out to kill your father, you hate yourself for seeing through all the truth, you hate yourself for being unable to accept, you hate yourself for still being alive… You hate yourself for always being the one who’s abandoned?”

Gong Jiu had been away from home for so long, yet the King of Taiping had never made a public effort to find him.

Why?

Because the King of Taiping chose the lineage of the King of Taiping. He couldn’t let the queen’s suicide become known, could only cover everything up with a secretive illness and death, and naturally, there was no angry departure of the heir of the King of Taiping.

Gong Jiu was abandoned by his dead mother and then abandoned again by his living father.

Gong Jiu’s teeth were clenched tightly, his eyes looking as if he wanted to tear the man before him to pieces.

“You can’t be unreasonable, little fellow. You started this conversation,” Yu Luocha had been smiling from beginning to end, sometimes composed, sometimes manic. “You asked me who I’ve hated?”

“Little fellow, as clever as you are, haven’t you figured it out?”

By this point, Gong Jiu naturally understood.

Although he didn’t know why, the person Yu Luocha hated wasn’t some enemy. The one he would torture repeatedly yet leave with a thread of life was himself.

“The feeling of approaching death is indeed enjoyable to the point of addiction, but unfortunately, if one day you really die, you’ll die in your indulgence of your own stupidity and cowardice.” Yu Luocha flicked his fingers, his gaze falling on Gong Jiu. “Do you know what that represents? Incompetence, cowardice, failure, ridiculousness – all consistent with your father.”

A flush appeared on Gong Jiu’s deathly pale cheeks, and a feeling of nausea accompanied by an urge to vomit rose in his throat.

He painfully bent over on the ground, breathing heavily, dry-heaving, feeling every corner of his body screaming with pain and disgust.

He was addicted to everything that could bring him pleasure, yet disgusted by anything similar to that man.

Yu Luocha walked over to Gong Jiu, lifting the young man from the ground. The casual motion was like picking up a stray cat with no ability to resist.

“In all these years, you’re the only one who has discovered this Lord’s secret. If this Lord hadn’t met Ah Yin first, this Lord might have taken you as a disciple.” Yu Luocha’s gaze at Gong Jiu even carried a hint of appreciation, but more than that was a kind of playfulness. He laughed lightly and sighed, “What a poor little thing.”

Gong Jiu could bear it no longer and cursed loudly, “Get away! You barbaric foreigner! How dare you pity this heir?”

“Little heir, even at such a time, the only card you have to play is your identity as the heir of the King of Taiping?” Yu Luocha clicked his tongue. “No matter where you are, using the same card a second time won’t work.”

“I’m also the princess’s prince consort. Little heir, do you think if I killed you in front of the princess now, would she stop me?”

“…What exactly do you want?”

Gong Jiu’s nails had almost carved crescent-shaped bloody marks into his palms, pressing so hard that a few drops of blood hung from his fingers.

“Just giving you a small piece of advice as your senior.”

Yu Luocha’s hair fell down. He casually brushed it aside, released Gong Jiu, and stood in the dark shadows, lightly smoothing out the wrinkles in his sleeves.

“If your heart is too fragile, remember to forge a body strong enough to be invincible.”

“You want me to exercise self-restraint? Hahahahahaha——” Clever as he was, Gong Jiu suddenly understood Yu Luocha’s implied meaning and laughed as if he had heard the ultimate joke. “How ridiculous, a madman teaching another madman self-restraint!”

“Little madman, have you ever seen a snail?” Yu Luocha said calmly. “Without that shell, your fragile heart would be enough to kill you if exposed to sunlight.”

“But think about it. One day someone will pierce your fragile heart with a few words, stir your sensitive strings, and make you end yourself in a dark corner in madness… What a cowardly and pitiful way to die.”

“Impossible! I’m not like them!” Gong Jiu snarled with a hoarse voice. “Even in death, I would die spectacularly, making everything I care about accompany me to the grave! I want everyone in the world to hear my name, to remember my voice——I am Gong Jiu, not Zhu Minghan!”

“Oh? This Lord will wait and see.” Yu Luocha’s voice was calm, and he didn’t look at Gong Jiu again. “Alright, you can get out now.”

Gong Jiu bit his lip, a trace of surprise passing through his eyes. He asked hoarsely, “You don’t plan to take me in?”

Yu Luocha’s words had affected Gong Jiu. Initially, he didn’t think there was anything wrong with being a madman. As long as he could get revenge on the King of Taiping, torture him, see him suffer, Gong Jiu felt satisfied.

But now he had developed a strong desire for control. He wanted to control himself, control the people around him, control everything that could influence him.

That way, no one would ever betray him again, and even death would only be the grand and spectacular final curtain he most desired.

——He absolutely refused to become like that man, so weak and incompetent that he could only abandon his wife and child.

Whatever it took, as long as he could stay in the Luocha Sect, as long as he could practice martial arts…

If the path through Yu Luocha was impassable, how else could he find a more suitable candidate?

“This Lord doesn’t have the energy to waste on you. If you don’t leave, this Lord will make you stay here forever.” Yu Luocha’s eyes, hidden in the shadows, flashed with killing intent as he impatiently said, “Split you into firewood.”

……

Yu Luocha sat back in the chair. The secret chamber suddenly fell silent, with only the faint, barely audible sound of their breathing.

Yan Hongyin walked toward him, standing two steps away.

Yu Luocha remained silent for a moment, then stretched out one hand toward her, palm up, and said softly, “Will you come here?”

Yan Hongyin said instead, “I want to see Yu Luocha. Let Ah Yu go back first.”

Yu Luocha paused, shook his head helplessly, then turned his face and said in a deep voice, “Come here.”

Yan Hongyin smiled and walked over to take Yu Luocha’s hand.

Yu Luocha raised his hand and wrapped it around Yan Hongyin’s waist, burying his face against her waist. He said self-mockingly, “Compared to Yu Luocha, Ah Yu is better, isn’t he?”

Yan Hongyin’s hand slipped into Yu Luocha’s hair, the silky long strands twining between her fingers. Having witnessed the previous scene, her expression remained as usual.

“Want to hear the truth?”

“Mm.”

“Really?”

“…Mm.”

“In bed, Yu Luocha would probably be better,” Yan Hongyin sincerely suggested. “Don’t you think Ah Yu is always being bullied by me?”

“Besides, whether it’s Ah Yu or Yu Luocha, they are both my prisoners. You can’t always keep Yu Luocha hidden in a corner without coming to see me. That’s not fair to me.”