WMSG Chapter 75
by VolareChapter 75: This Isn’t Your Home
When the sky had just barely begun to brighten at dawn, Ye Yueshen woke up very calmly. He didn’t feel too uncomfortable about being awake at an odd hour, nor did he wake up abruptly.
He was being held in Gong Xunwu’s arms. He only moved slightly, and Gong Xunwu lowered his head to look at him, asking somewhat uncertainly, “Am I holding you too tightly?”
“You shouldn’t be holding me,” Ye Yueshen said, pulling away from him. After thinking for a moment, he added, “We shouldn’t be sleeping in the same bed anymore.”
But he didn’t actually intend to get out of bed and keep his distance. The sky was dimly lit, the room was quiet and slightly cold, and the fire in the floor furnace had died out. The servants who added charcoal and started the fire wouldn’t be on duty for another hour.
Ye Yueshen felt there was no need to leave the warm covers and suffer in the cold.
The two lay quietly, and suddenly Gong Xunwu opened his mouth, then fell silent again.
Escaping Gong Xunwu’s embrace, Ye Yueshen’s side quickly became a bit cold, and the distance between them allowed a cool breeze to slip through the gap.
Ye Yueshen couldn’t help but ask, “Were you going to say something just now?” Actually, a thought flashed through his mind: *I wish he could still hold me.*
Gong Xunwu nodded slightly, “In my expectations, the Crown Prince shouldn’t have had such an insignificant end.”
Ye Yueshen understood a certain subtext, turned over to lie on his side, facing him, and asked, “Did I disrupt your plan?”
“It was me,” Gong Xunwu said, looking into Ye Yueshen’s eyes. “I was only sixteen when Jin-Yin died.”
Ye Yueshen reacted for a moment before remembering that “Jin-Yin” was the eldest prince, Gong Jinyun.
“Because the eldest prince was murdered by the… by the second prince, you’ve been planning revenge ever since, and that’s why you secretly supported the fifth prince, right?”
Gong Xunwu reached out to touch his cheek. “How do you know so much?”
“How did you originally plan to take revenge?” Ye Yueshen asked him.
“Initially, I wanted to reveal Gong Ruiyin’s crimes in the main hall of the court: regicide and usurpation, a crime deserving ten thousand deaths. I wanted the court officials to witness his conviction, wanted him to be scorned by the world in the marketplace.”
Gong Xunwu said calmly, “The Emperor didn’t believe Gong Ruiyin murdered his brother. I spent two years struggling, and was placed under house arrest countless times. Later, I led troops into battle, and every enemy I killed had Gong Ruiyin’s face.”
Ye Yueshen asked, “After seeing so much blood, do you feel numb?”
Gong Xunwu gently placed his fingers on Ye Yueshen’s face. He was silent for a while before saying, “I’m more afraid of becoming numb to hatred, because after a few years, I forgot the feeling of hating Gong Ruiyin. I even stopped missing Jin-Yin.”
Ye Yueshen was a little surprised. He originally thought this would be a hatred that consumed all his energy, but he didn’t expect it to fade away.
“But when I eliminate the Crown Prince and the Consort’s influence in the court, I will be briefly submerged in boundless hatred.” Gong Xunwu’s tone was calm, but it made Ye Yueshen feel oppressed.
“I’m forgetting a loved one, but the emotion of hatred is preserved in the depths of my heart in a way I don’t dare touch.” Gong Xunwu cupped Ye Yueshen’s face in his hands. “Yueshen, maybe one day you’ll forget me, but you’ll remember the evil I did to you at some moment.”
Ye Yueshen paused for a moment.
“So let me stay by your side,” Gong Xunwu said, almost seductively. “To prevent you from having nowhere to vent when your hatred overwhelms you, okay?”
Ye Yueshen was speechless for a long time. Finally, he gently removed Gong Xunwu’s hands and asked him, “What kind of person was the eldest prince?”
Gong Xunwu didn’t get an answer, and he couldn’t tell if he was disappointed or relieved. He knew Ye Yueshen was rejecting him, but he couldn’t help but ask again and again, only to regret it the moment he asked, afraid of hearing the result he didn’t want.
“If he were in an ordinary family, he would be an honest person that everyone could take advantage of. If he were in a family of nobles, he would be a sincere person who didn’t compete for anything and was warm to everyone. But he was born in an imperial family, so he seemed too mediocre. If someone with ambition has expectations for him, he’ll never accept that mediocrity.”
Ye Yueshen knew very little about the eldest prince, Gong Jinyun, but this was the first time he had heard him described as “mediocre.”
“He was unlucky,” Gong Xunwu said, his thoughts seeming to drift far away. “He wasn’t as lucky as I am in that regard.”
The atmosphere was gloomy and oppressive when they talked about the deceased. Ye Yueshen hesitated for a long time. He felt that he should act like he didn’t care about anything.
So he reached out and hugged Gong Xunwu in what he thought was a reasonable way to express his comfort, “Don’t be too sad, because you will also die. Maybe decades later, you’ll meet again. Or maybe sooner, who knows.”
Gong Xunwu’s expression became complicated. Ye Yueshen’s wording for comforting people was so bad that Gong Xunwu wasn’t sure if he was doing it on purpose.
“I know these words don’t sound good,” Ye Yueshen said, his eyes a little wet. “But I used to be all alone, and I relied on this kind of thinking to comfort myself and live on.”
Gong Xunwu realized he was talking about his former identity. When Gong Xunwu recalled the details of their interactions, he could guess that Ye Yueshen’s previous life wasn’t happy, and was even very difficult.
So he embraced Ye Yueshen in return. “We understand each other’s feelings, we are confidants. Confidants should accompany each other for a long time.”
“No,” Ye Yueshen said decisively. “We are not confidants. I know that no one will understand me. I have clearly let go of everything you once did, but I stubbornly refuse to turn back and give each other a chance. It seems that life would be better if I turned back. I came from one place to another, and this matter is a secret in my heart. Projected onto you, it’s a deception. My energy is already severely overloaded. I don’t expect life to get better, I just want to become simple.”
Gong Xunwu repeatedly pondered the word “overloaded” that he said, as if he were experiencing Ye Yueshen’s state of mind firsthand. He thought, conflicted and unwilling: *How can this not be considered a confidant?*
He felt that he understood Ye Yueshen even better than Ye Yueshen himself did.
They lay quietly in the quilt together until the charcoal was added to the floor furnace. Ye Yueshen got up to wash, and after breakfast, he suggested leaving the Imperial Palace.
In fact, the Emperor hadn’t relented on the issue of whether he could leave, but now that the war had suddenly broken out, he didn’t have the energy to deal with this small matter.
Ye Yueshen looked at Gong Xunwu expectantly, and Gong Xunwu agreed to send him out of the Imperial Palace.
At this hour, only Ye Yuanshen had finished his breakfast and entered the Imperial Palace. Those in the capital with good connections already knew that Mangzhou was at war.
Gong Xunwu watched Ye Yueshen get out of the carriage, watched him enter the gate, and then ordered Shaou to drive back to the Qi Wang Manor.
Ye Yueshen walked in the Marquis Manor with a guilty conscience. He deliberately avoided the servants and walked on the small paths, but he still ran into Ye Lingshen, who was out in the cold wind.
Usually, Ye Lingshen slept late and woke up late. Even if he hadn’t been drinking the night before, he wouldn’t open his eyes until after breakfast, and he would still laze around in bed for a while before washing and going out.
Ye Yueshen had slept in the same room with him, and knew what his routine was like.
In the dead of winter, Ye Lingshen was alone wearing a cloak, and his hair wasn’t neatly tied up, as if he had casually done it himself.
He turned to look at Ye Yueshen, his eyes full of indifference.
In the entire Ye family, Ye Yueshen felt that the person he was closest to was this second brother, Ye Lingshen. He was outgoing and passionate, and his behavior was informal, although he was a bit improper.
But he was indeed the family member that Ye Yueshen spent the most time with and talked to the most.
They went to the manor together for fun, attended the princes’ estate-establishment banquet together, and also had nights where they stayed up talking until they fell asleep from exhaustion.
In comparison, Ye Yuanshen seemed unsmiling and emotionally reserved. Ye Yueshen and Ye Yuanshen had almost never chatted about too many personal things.
But Ye Yuanshen still accepted him. Ye Yueshen gave Ye Lingshen what he thought was a natural smile, and then greeted him, “Second brother, you’re up early today.”
But Ye Lingshen always looked at him indifferently. Just when Ye Yueshen couldn’t help but want to take another path to get around him, Ye Lingshen opened his mouth with red eyes, “I’m not your second brother. My brother is someone else.”
Ye Yueshen paused, but he actually didn’t have the right to blame Ye Lingshen’s coldness. Ye Yuanshen’s acceptance had made him forget that he had occupied another person’s identity.
As a family member, as an elder brother, Ye Lingshen had reasonable reasons to reject him, both morally and emotionally.
Ye Yueshen forced himself to accept it. He said softly, “I see, I’m sorry, I misspoke.”
“If you misspoke, then get out of here.” Ye Lingshen showed strong hostility. “This isn’t your home, I don’t want to see you.”
Ye Yueshen nervously twisted his fingers. Gong Xunwu only told him that he hadn’t kept it from Ye Lingshen, but he wasn’t sure if the Junzhu and Marquis Ye already knew.
They weren’t present, and Ye Yueshen didn’t have the courage to shamelessly ask them face-to-face, so he just took a step back. He didn’t seem to have another choice, so he could only say, “Okay, I’ll leave right away.”
He paused, feeling that he should offer some explanation for these days of occupying the magpie’s nest. He cared a lot about Ye Lingshen. No matter how Ye Lingshen saw him now, he had indeed treated Ye Lingshen as his own brother.
Just for the fact that he confronted Gong Xunwu for him, Ye Yueshen couldn’t help but be grateful.
He didn’t want Ye Lingshen to hate him, but after racking his brains, he couldn’t explain anything. Ye Yueshen had no choice but to leave an apology and leave the Ye family in a mess.
Gong Xunwu’s carriage had already left. Ye Yueshen stood at the corner gate of the Marquis Manor and looked around for a while. Suddenly, a gust of wind blew. He originally wanted to stand at the door to avoid it for a while, but he was afraid that people from the Ye family would come out and drive him away, so he left the Ye Manor in the wind.
He walked aimlessly on the street. Half an hour ago, he felt that his strength was failing him, and his face and ears were numb and hot. At a corner, he encountered the biting cold wind without any shelter.
Ye Yueshen took a few steps back and wanted to hide under the courtyard wall, and accidentally bumped into someone.
Ye Yueshen apologized and looked back, suddenly feeling that the young man in front of him looked familiar.
The young man was also very surprised, and his eyes lit up immediately. He greeted him enthusiastically, “Brother Yue! Why are you here all alone?”
When Ye Yueshen heard this Brother Yue, memories broke through the barriers. He remembered that at the end of the Fourth Prince’s Li Manor banquet, he and Ye Lingshen had met “Ye Yueshen’s” friend from Jianghu on the way back, including the round-faced young man who gave him the wedding cake.
“I’m lost,” Ye Yueshen lied. “I was just passing by.”
“It’s too cold.” The young man invited him enthusiastically, “Why don’t you go to my house first?”