Chapter 163

“Life under the Slayer Emperor wasn’t all that unbearable, truth be told.”

“The late Crown Prince wasn’t exactly useless, was he? My grandfather used to man the palace gates during the previous reign. He told me that when the northern borders were breached and no one in court dared step up, it was the Crown Prince who volunteered to go.”

“Oi, oi, oi—have any of you ever been to the outskirts of the capital? There’s a garden there, I think it’s called Song Garden. That place… tsk, tsk, tsk… even calling it a mortal paradise doesn’t do it justice.”

“Speaking of which, my family’s distant cousin was once engaged to the Fourth Princess. That Highness… well, she didn’t seem like one of those proud noble ladies raised behind palace walls.”

“……”

Rong Tang and Lu Jiaxi had come out for a meal. They didn’t bother with a private room… just found a quiet corner, ordered a few simple dishes, and sat down.

Wine, women, and wealth. Nothing loosens the tongue more. It’s always been that way. After a few cups and some meat, anyone would start to talk.

Rong Tang listened in silence as more than one table around them whispered, but his chopsticks remained untouched.

Lu Jiaxi sat with his head bowed, a little dejected. In a low voice, he asked, “Shizi, what do you think counts as truth, really?”

Once, people had been filled with rage, wishing they could dig up the former emperor’s family and hang their corpses in the sun. And now? Their words were laced with nostalgia, almost pride in having any tenuous connection.

The court hadn’t done much. A few ministers and princes had died in quick succession. There was that shocking scene at the Empress Dowager’s funeral… and then Slayer hit the streets. The rumours grew legs of their own and scuttled straight into a thousand homes.

Rong Tang lowered his gaze, thought for a moment, and replied, “Myself.”

Lu Jiaxi didn’t quite understand. He looked up at him, eyes full of confusion.

Rong Tang picked up a piece of perch, tasted it, and frowned slightly.

Freshwater fish from the plains around the capital simply couldn’t compare to the taste of Jiangnan’s.

He set his chopsticks down. “Eternity and reality are only constructs; labels created by ordinary people. Truth isn’t something fixed. What’s real to you might be false to someone else. It’s just a matter of perspective.”

Lu Jiaxi blinked, and Rong Tang added, “So just hold onto what you believe. Your own truth. Don’t let outside voices shake it.”

In the main hall, waiters bustled about, customers chatted over their meals. Royal scandals had become no more than casual gossip over dinner. The conversation soon drifted elsewhere.

Rong Tang collected his thoughts and made do with the meal. Once the person opposite him was also done, he asked, as if offhandedly, “What’s Huaijing been busy with lately?”

Lu Jiaxi paused, caught off guard. It took him a moment to respond. His gaze darted away, and he murmured, “Probably just business at the Censorate. His Majesty’s been in poor spirits lately. The Censorate’s overwhelmed.”

“Is that so?” Rong Tang replied with a mild smile. “Alright then.”

The Emperor claimed illness now and then, while rumours ran rampant in the streets. Ministers petitioned for a crown prince to be named.

It was nothing new. In every dynasty, it was the same. No empire could be without a ruler for even a day. If the sovereign’s health was failing, a successor had to be named, lest an unexpected death throw the court into chaos with rival heirs vying for power.

But the man on the throne now was Sheng Xuyan.

A ruler who would cling to power at any cost. Suspicious of every official, every son. For ministers to jointly request the naming of an heir now… he would surely be livid, wishing he could have the lot of them executed.

So yes, the Censorate was indeed busy. Silencing ministers, digging up dirt on officials.

They were the emperor’s dogs and his mouthpiece. Their every action bent to his will.

Lu Jiaxi’s answer was honest to a degree, but it wasn’t the answer Rong Tang truly wanted.

Yet that very evasion confirmed his suspicion.

Su Huaijing and Sheng Chengli had come to an arrangement. The rumours now rampant across Yu capital weren’t just preparing the ground for Su Huaijing’s claim to the throne. They also handed Sheng Chengli a political gift.

Rong Tang felt uneasy. It was the fifteenth day of the seventh month: Zhongyuan Festival. The capital sky hung thick with smoke. Ash and burnt offerings drifted through the air. After burning paper in the courtyard, Su Huaijing had said he had something to attend to and left for the study. Rong Tang remained in the room, waiting for the system.

The moonlight poured down, soft and hazy. Earthly smoke drifted high enough to shroud the clouds. A glow flickered into being before him.

Rong Tang smiled instinctively, but saw that the usually sprightly system looked dim and listless, the whole little ball of light drooping with gloom.

He raised a brow, reached out to stroke it gently, and asked, “What’s wrong?”

System: “Tangtang…”

“I’m here.”

A whisper: “It’s almost over.”

Rong Tang blinked, then understood. The smile faded from his lips, but his voice remained calm as ever. “It’s almost over.”

Three lifetimes, woven and rewound… finally approaching their end.

The system was downcast. Rong Tang didn’t press it, only kept it company. After a long silence, the little light ball suddenly asked, out of nowhere, “Tangtang… do you remember how long you’ve been here?”

Rong Tang froze, his gaze sharpening. The words “eleven years” nearly slipped out—

—but just then, a sudden chime rang in his head. The toll of a Buddhist bell, from nowhere and from everywhere at once. He collapsed without warning.

The last thing he saw was the Eight Immortals table… and the tiny particles shedding gently from the lightball’s form.

Each shimmered faintly, like dew in moonlight.

—

The world was blank.

Endless clouds drifted as far as the eye could see.

Rong Tang stood dazed for a long while, slowly realising this perspective wasn’t unfamiliar.

He’d been here before—in a nightmare. He had seen the imperial capital of Dayu. He’d been woken by Su Huaijing. Blinded, cradled, comforted… reassured that this life was safe.

But now… now he could no longer tell if this was a dream.

There was no one in sight. His vision hovered above the world. The sky had no end. The land stretched into desolation.

It felt like he was the only soul left. Dead in one world, passed into another.

He drifted atop the clouds for what felt like an eternity. The sun, moon, and stars cycled day after day; life on earth flourished and waned; the rings of the years turned, one after another. From the uppermost reaches of the clouds, he followed the passing of time, waiting for the destined plot to unfold.

It was hard to say exactly when it began. Perhaps it was when the boredom grew unbearable. A cloud floated past beneath him, and, on a whim, he reached out and tugged… pinching off a tiny wisp from that vast sea of cloud.

The skies and winds stilled for a fleeting moment. The act had been surprisingly effortless. Stunned, he froze for a heartbeat. Then, like a petty thief, clutched his stolen tuft and fled.

Since his arrival, he had felt neither sorrow nor joy. Day by day, he had merely watched from above, a silent observer of rise and fall, of dynasties born and buried. But now, having stolen this little fragment from the great cloud below, his heartbeat returned with a vengeance, thudding wildly in his chest. Rong Tang ran, darting away to a place where there was neither cloud nor wind. He opened his palms and gazed down at the tiny tuft of cloud he had taken.

He said, “How boring. Let’s play pretend. You can be the system!”

“After all, I’m a transmigrator. Just like in those novels.”

“I’m the host, you’re the system. Let me tell you where we are.”

“…”

The god adrift upon the clouds had stolen himself a companion. For thousands of years after, he told that little cloud, again and again, about a book called The Emperor’s Journey. He said he rather liked the main villain.

Said he had come here to stop the war and the first great mistake.

—

“Ha—!”

His body was pulled into an embrace. A scene from memory repeated itself. Su Huaijing cradled him gently, patting his back over and over. “It’s all right now, Tangtang. I’m here. Everything’s fine.”

Rong Tang trembled involuntarily. His eyes were open, straining to make out his surroundings, but he could see nothing clearly.

In the darkness, several small orbs of light hung suspended, glowing faintly. Just like the vision he had glimpsed before falling unconscious.

His thoughts were disoriented, veering between fear and confusion. But that familiar voice, that gentle touch, calmed him nonetheless.

He sat still for a long while, like a man long blind slowly regaining sight. At last, he blinked, lifted his head, and rasped hoarsely, “What day is it today?”

—How long was I out?

Su Huaijing replied, “The twentieth of the seventh month.”

Rong Tang’s throat bobbed slightly in a swallow. Five days. He hadn’t fainted in years, and never for so long at once—let alone with such strange dreams while unconscious…

Su Huaijing, by contrast, was far more composed. He hadn’t panicked or lost control. Instead, in a low voice, he asked gently, as if afraid to disturb something fragile: “Tangtang… what do people dream of, when their obsessions run too deep?”

For a moment, Rong Tang thought he was being asked about his own dreams. But no, it wasn’t that.

Su Huaijing posed the question… and then answered it himself: “They say when one is too consumed by obsession, one dreams of their past life. But why have I never dreamed of anything?”

There was a flicker of bewilderment in his voice. “Am I… not obsessed?”

Rong Tang froze. As realisation dawned, a chill crept over him.

Of all the people he knew, only two had ties to their past lives.

Qin Pengxuan. Ke Hongxue.

One had met a tragic end. The other had been lost to death and parting.

Rong Tang had assumed Qin Pengxuan’s memory of his past life was a shortcut granted by the system to Sheng Chengli. But if the explanation lay in the word obsession…

Then it couldn’t have been just those two.

He suddenly thought of Wang Xiuyu, who, in this life, had orchestrated her own divorce with unnatural ease.

Su Huaijing was still holding him, his voice soft as a sigh: “I’ve always wanted to appear in Tangtang’s dreams. But I never have. Why is that?”

The autumn night was dark and still. A suspicion stirred faintly in Rong Tang’s heart… one that, if confirmed, would only bring sorrow too heavy to speak.

—Because in each life, Su Huaijing had already let go of his obsessions. Even if he had become someone unrecognisable, he had exacted his revenge. And in the end, he stood alone. His worldly ties severed, with no more obsessions to bind him.

No desires. No hopes.

No need to dream of a past life in the next.

Rong Tang’s voice was raw. “What happened?”

He added, “While I was unconscious.”

The room fell into a long silence. At last, Su Huaijing spoke… so softly the words were almost lost: “They’ve named the crown prince.”

Rong Tang jolted, eyes wide with disbelief. He stared through the dark, trying to make out Su Huaijing’s expression, trying to comprehend this new twist that had never occurred in any version of events.

Su Huaijing said quietly, “The Eighth Prince has been named heir apparent.”

The one most unlikely to ever become crown prince had been raised to that station by Sheng Xuyan himself. The most naïve, most scrutinised of all the princes had now become the empire’s successor.

It was a direction no one had foreseen. And yet Su Huaijing was neither flustered nor vexed. He only asked, in an oddly gentle tone, “Tangtang… why did you come here?”

He lowered his head and rubbed lightly against Rong Tang’s cheek. The brush of soft hair against skin made Rong Tang’s throat tighten again and again. He could not find his voice. He dared not answer.

—To stop the war. To stop the first mistake.

Did he succeed?

No.