Dance Of The Dragons

Chapter 557: Chapter 557 : (Extras) The Mausoleum (3)

Xie Jianshen closed his eyes and heaved a long sigh. He pulled himself free from Zhang Fengxi’s grip, straightened his posture, and stared at him.

"Just how long do you intend to keep them away from each other?"

"..."

"Five years? Ten years? Twenty years?"

"..."

Zhang Fengxi clenched his fists, his fingernails digging deep into the flesh of his palm.

"When the Goddess of Fate and Destiny speaks about Little Yu re-entering the samsara cycle, she means that he will start from the lowest form in the human realm, climbing slowly to the peak."

Xie Jianshen gazed upon his beloved younger brother’s sleeping face.

"What is the typical lifespan of an ant?" he asked.

"And a cicada? And a lizard?"

"And a cat? A dog? A cow?"

Zhang Fengxi clenched his jaw, not saying anything in reply.

"Not to mention that there is a waiting period between each cycle of reincarnation. Little Yu’s soul is going to go back and forth between the human realm and the Underworld. Skipping cycles is possible if he manages to gather enough merits in his former lives, but what merit can a chicken gather in its short life?"

"..."

Zhang Fengxi did not want to hear anymore, but he also could not just turn around and leave. He also could not tell Xie Jianshen to leave. Xie Jianyu was his wife, but he was also the Crown Prince of the Heavenly Empire, the younger brother of the current Heavenly Emperor.

Xie Jianshen turned to stare at Zhang Fengxi.

"Wake up, Supreme General," he softly said, but his words cut deeper than the sharpest blade. "We won’t see Little Yu again in this life. If you are lucky, you might come across him again after you are reborn ten times in the heavenly realm."

"I will provide you with as many spiritual stones as you need to preserve Little Yu’s body, but you can only do that for as long as you live. After you pass, after I pass, after the boys pass... it will become inconsequential whether Little Yu returns as Little Yu or a completely different person."

"So why would you purposefully keep Mingrui and Junjie away from their mother? The boys are pitiful enough because they don’t get to taste a mother’s love and experience a mother’s presence as they grow up. Why must you deny them even this tiniest bit of connection?"

"Because I..."

Zhang Fengxi lifted his eyes, wet with tears, and stared back at Xie Jianshen.

"Because I do not want to lose my wife."

"But you have already lost him," Xie Jianshen mercilessly pointed out.

"No," Zhang Fengxi muttered. "He is still here. He is..."

Without warning, Xie Jianshen’s hand shot out and delivered a slap across Zhang Fengxi’s face. Unprepared, the alpha tumbled to the side, almost crashing against the bed.

"Wake up, Supreme General," Xie Jianshen said, his voice as cold as his eyes. "Little Yu is dead."

With that last word, the Heavenly Emperor turned on his heel and left. The sound of his receding footsteps as he descended the stone steps that led to Fuxi Palace’s main building echoed in space, until nothing was left.

Zhang Fengxi sagged against the bed, his gaze fixed on the myriad spiritual stones veining the floor. They throbbed with a gentle, rhythmic luminescence, suffusing the chamber with spiritual energy, constituting the sanctuary he painstakingly crafted to cradle Xie Jianyu’s form.

Zhang Fengxi chuckled to himself, and then he began to laugh.

"Jianbao, did you hear him?"

"Your elder brother, he said that you were dead."

"But you aren’t dead, aren’t you? You are just... You are just gone temporarily. You won’t leave me and the boys behind."

Zhang Fengxi peered above the bed’s surface and stared at his wife’s serene side profile.

"Baby," he called out. "Baby, you will come back, right...?"

As much as he wished to hear an answer, he knew that silence was an answer in itself.

Xie Jianyu was not going to be back in this lifetime.

Without a backward glance, Xie Jianshen exited the mausoleum, his bearing regal and his stride unfaltering, the very embodiment of a Heavenly Emperor’s dignity.

But the facade shattered upon his return to the Golden Dragon Palace. In the confines of his private quarters, the astute ruler, once so unyielding, collapsed. He lay on the cold floor, his strength utterly spent, unable to summon the energy to reach his bed. Only then did he allow the dam of his suppressed grief to break, releasing a flood of tears he’d fought to contain with every fiber of his being.

It was the Imperial Consort Jiang Rufeng who found him in that state a while later.

Gently, the alpha peeled his wife off the floor and cradled him in his arms.

"Ssssh," he whispered while pressing kisses against Xie Jianshen’s forehead. "It’s alright. It’s going to be fine eventually. Jianshen, you will be fine."

"My Little Yu is dead," Xie Jianshen sobbed against his husband’s chest. "My only brother is dead..."

"He is," Jiang Rufeng agreed. "But you two will meet again in another life."

"I don’t know that. What if he doesn’t want to see me anymore? What if he is sick of being my younger brother? What if..." fɾēewebnσveℓ.com

"Sssshhhh... don’t say that."

Jiang Rufeng wiped the rolling tears off Xie Jianshen’s cheeks and cupped the latter’s lovely face in his palms.

"Jianyu loves you deeply. He loves you as much as you love him, if not more. You need to believe in him. You two will meet again one day for sure."

Reduced to the very picture of weak and feeble omega that he hated, there was nothing Xie Jianshen would love to do more than wriggle free from Jiang Rufeng’s embrace and put on the iron, unyielding mask of a ruler. But right here, right now, he allowed himself a moment of weakness in the arms of the alpha who loved him the most.

We will meet again one day, Little Yu, he said in his heart. And when we meet again, your brother will beg you for your forgiveness. And hopefully you will forgive me.

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Author’s note :

Zhang Fengxi : Your Majesty, the Goddess of Fate and Destiny is a scam artist. I want her to be punished severely!

Goddess : Excusez-moi, how am I a scam artist?

Zhang Fengxi : You said that it would take no time before Jianbao returned to the heavenly realm! QAQ! Read Chapter 342 if you don’t believe me!

Goddess : I did not mention a fixed time! "No time" can be a year, a century, or a millenium!

Zhang Fengxi : You said that his soul would return to his body if I kept his corpse intact! QAQ!

Goddess : No, I didn’t. I said that your question was stupid and I didn’t want to answer it.

Zhang Fengxi : AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH QAQ!!!!

Xie Jianshen : You are so stupid, Supreme General... *shakes head in disgust*