That night, Yang Siguang and Li Bo were almost scolded by Aunt Qiao for an entire evening.
In the end, however, the woman still pressed her temples and, with a dark expression, told them to think it over at home for another three days.
“…Three days. If you still want to court death after that, then come find me.”
With that, Aunt Qiao slammed the door heavily and left.
*
Yang Siguang did spend the next three days thinking.
But not in his own home.
Instead, he was taken by Li Bo to the latter’s upscale apartment in the city center. In truth, it was impossible for Yang Siguang to return to what was supposed to be “his home.”
During those three days, his phone was flooded with accusatory and abusive messages from his parents, along with a slew of missed calls.
It was then that Yang Siguang learned the copper coin extracted from Ding Xiaolong’s body had been removed without his parents’ consent. Li Bo might even face a lawsuit over the matter…
“It was just a minor endoscopic surgery.”
When the topic came up, Li Bo was having breakfast with Yang Siguang. His tone was indifferent, though a faint trace of undisguised disgust lingered in his eyes.
“But they didn’t agree to it?”
Before Li Bo could finish, Yang Siguang had already caught on.
Li Bo nodded, a hint of confusion flashing in his eyes.
“The foreign object in his body was strange enough to pose a serious health risk. I really can’t understand why they were so resistant.”
As he spoke, the image of Yang Siguang’s parents’ flushed faces and the spittle flying from their twisted mouths as they screamed surfaced in his mind again.
“Surgery? What surgery?! My child is so young! What if the surgery damages his health?!”
“This child has already suffered enough. He was kicked so hard by you, and now he’s lying in bed dazed. Who knows if what you’re saying about something in his stomach is even true? What if you’re lying to cover things up? Where would I go to argue my case then—”
“What does this surgery have to do with my eldest son? Enough, shut up! I don’t want to hear it! Where is that Yang Siguang anyway? His younger brother is hurt this badly, and he doesn’t even come to take care of him?! Fine, if that ungrateful brat dies, so be it! He’s just a layabout wasting his days anyway…”
*
Yang Siguang let out a chuckle, but the laughter didn’t reach his eyes.
He picked up the fried egg on his plate, put it in his mouth, and chewed slowly before swallowing.
Breakfast was made by Li Bo. Considering the man’s status, his cooking skills were surprisingly excellent. Whether it was the simple bowl of noodles or the perfectly cooked soft-centered fried egg served alongside, everything was delicious. At least, when Yang Siguang took his first bite, he couldn’t help but feel his appetite stir.
At this moment, he found himself inexplicably unable to taste the flavor of food.
“They’ve always been like this,” he said softly to Li Bo.
They seemed to genuinely love their child—or at least, they doted on Ding Xiaolong. However, when faced with real problems, they would reveal a shocking indifference, stupidity, and selfishness.
“Besides, you shouldn’t have mentioned me to them…”
In the end, Yang Siguang lowered his eyelashes and added in a low voice.
If that couple had initially been willing to agree to a minor surgery to remove the foreign object from Ding Xiaolong’s stomach out of concern for his health, the moment they realized it involved Yang Siguang—especially if it had anything to do with their precious son—they would immediately fall into an irrational state of resistance.
“Sorry.”
Then Yang Siguang heard Li Bo say to him.
“What’s there to apologize for? Strictly speaking, your actions saved my life…”
Before he could finish, Li Bo interrupted him, “That’s not what I want to apologize for.”
The man sat at the other end of the dining room, his gaze deep as he stared at Yang Siguang.
“I should have punched those two people.”
“Huh?”
“I actually had the urge to do so at the time, but I forcibly restrained myself. Looking back, I should’ve just given them a taste of my fist—to let them know that not everyone in this world can get away with treating a family member so abusively…” Li Bo’s voice grew increasingly agitated. “In fact, I’d even say I wish I’d met you earlier.”
…
“If that had been the case, at least when you faced those things, I could have protected you—truly protected you.”
Li Bo gave a self-deprecating laugh, then lowered his eyelids, looking somewhat desolate.
“But in the end, I just sat in my office and let Li Chen, under the control of Mirror Immortal, do so many… so many terrible things to you.”
“…Yes. Your behavior was indeed terrible,” Yang Siguang said dryly.
“That’s why I hope you can give me a chance.”
“A chance?”
“If all goes well, and you truly manage to eliminate Mirror Immortal and come back, could you give me a chance to make up for the harm I’ve caused in the past?”
Sunlight streamed into the bright and cozy dining room, casting a radiant golden edge around the man sitting solemnly at the table.
In that brilliant light, the color of Li Bo’s irises seemed to have lightened, becoming a subtle golden-brown hue that stirred both nostalgia and heartache in Yang Siguang.
“…”
Yang Siguang sat there in a daze. He vaguely sensed a certain intensity in Li Bo’s voice, but he couldn’t figure out what expression he should wear in response.
Yang Siguang had felt ambiguous signals from Li Bo more than once.
Yet, whenever he struggled with how to respond, he would recall that “friendly” assistance in Aunt Qiao’s house, in the pitch-dark bathroom during the power outage. Based on Li Bo’s behavior since, it really seemed to have been just a normal act of mutual help…
He became increasingly unsure of what Li Bo was thinking.
Fortunately, seeing that Yang Siguang didn’t immediately respond, Li Bo changed the subject, brushing away the faint awkwardness from before.
“Actually, I’ve always felt that Mirror Immortal likes you because you don’t seem to have any darkness in your heart.”
At the mention of Mirror Immortal, Yang Siguang’s appetite waned even further. He put down his chopsticks and gave Li Bo a strange look.
“What do you mean?”
“After I came back, I kept thinking about what Aunt Qiao said before,” Li Bo said gravely. “She mentioned that Mirror Immortal’s methods of dealing with others were always extremely brutal. To be honest, I later sent someone to check the records myself and suspected that Aunt Qiao deliberately downplayed the horrifying details to avoid scaring you.”
In Shannan, there was the infamous Grass Sacrifice, where someone took a large sum of money from the Li family’s business rivals to stage some sort of duel with Mirror Immortal.
Before the ritual could even begin, the next day, the person was found lying naked in a pigsty, with most of their body already gnawed away.
When their family came to collect the body, they discovered that the old man had gouged out his own eyes and stuffed them into his mouth.
Then there was the Flower Widow by the coast. Because her daughter had married into a distant branch of the Li family, her newborn child was snatched away as an offering to Mirror Immortal. On the spot, she summoned several deities worshipped by her family to confront the Li family.
Her fate wasn’t much different from the first case.
Her disciples, who stayed behind to pack up her belongings, found her hugging a shattered mirror, mumbling incoherently and crying incessantly.
Upon closer inspection, they discovered her mouth was stuffed with shards of broken glass, and her tongue had been shredded into pieces.
…
“And then there’s my mother…”
The central air conditioning seemed to have malfunctioned. What had been a comfortable temperature now made Yang Siguang feel faintly cold.
Li Bo, however, seemed completely unaffected. His tone remained calm as he spoke of the past.
“You probably heard yesterday that my mother also died because of the Li family… But I’ve never told anyone that after her death, because I’d already been adopted out, those two didn’t even let me go back to see her one last time. It wasn’t until her seventh-day memorial that I was woken in the middle of the night by a scratching noise.”
Li Bo’s hand rested on the coffee cup beside him, but now his knuckles had turned slightly white.
Yang Siguang’s pupils contracted. He instinctively didn’t want to hear more, yet he sat there, unable to move.
“I got up and went to the bathroom. There, I found my mother curled up behind the mirror on the sink. She was frantically scratching at the mirror, her hands covered in blood… When she saw me, her eyes nearly popped out of their sockets…”
Li Bo’s voice grew increasingly low.
“And then I heard her say… she regretted it.”
The man tugged at the corners of his mouth, as if trying to smile, but the expression he ended up showing made Yang Siguang’s chest ache with an inexplicable pang of sourness.
“She said she regretted it… regretted that it wasn’t me who died.”
“Li Bo…”
Yang Siguang instinctively called out Li Bo’s name. But as soon as he spoke, he realized his mind was blank, utterly clueless about how to comfort him.
It wasn’t until Li Bo reached out and placed his hand gently on the back of Yang Siguang’s hand.
“It’s fine. It’s all in the past now,” he said to Yang Siguang. “…Though I seem to have gone off-topic a bit. What I wanted to say is, everyone has an incredibly dark side within them. But you’re different. The aura around you has always been so clean…”
It makes people uncontrollably want to hold you in their palm and stain you as they please.
“Even Mirror Immortal had to use so many illusions and nightmares to frighten you, trying to make you weak, to make you… dark.”
“If it were someone else, I don’t think Mirror Immortal would have gone to such lengths to crave and capture another person’s soul.”
“Your heart has no dark corners, so he naturally couldn’t truly take advantage of any vulnerabilities…”
At this, Yang Siguang scoffed dismissively.
“What nonsense are you talking about?”
The young man sighed helplessly.
“You’ve misunderstood me too deeply, Li Bo. Of course, I have plenty of dark secrets—”
But as he said this, Yang Siguang’s words faltered awkwardly.
For the past three days since he had moved in, Li Bo had sent people to his house to bring over almost everything from his room. Among these items were, naturally, some things he had hidden in the deepest part of a box…
Yang Siguang couldn’t help but stare fixedly at Li Bo.
“Actually, I—”
But just then, Li Bo abruptly raised his arm, extending his pinky finger and wiggling it at Yang Siguang.
“Want to make a pinky promise?”
At that moment, the man’s smile carried an unexpected hint of childishness, strikingly similar to Li Chen’s.
“When you return safely from Mirror Immortal, tell me one of your ‘dark’ secrets,” he said before Yang Siguang could refuse. “And of course, I’ll tell you one of my secrets in return. Deal?”
Sussssss