What thing?
Chi Xuewu, at just the right moment, let a blank, unknowing look show in her eyes.
“It’s like this. Do you still remember where we were the first time we met?” Those starry eyes of Fang Guyuan’s, black as ink, met hers.
—At home, watching with my own eyes while you stabbed my dad to death, and nearly ran me through as well. Chi Yujun thought.
“It seems… it was… in a cave?” She blinked, a little uncertain.
“Mm.” Fang Guyuan nodded. “That place was the territory of a heretical cult named the Immortal King Sect. From the condition of your body, you truly did escape from the heretical cult, and then ran into me and Junior Sister Baizhi.”
“Here… heretical cult?”
This time the expression on Chi Yujun’s face could not hold, and an obvious anger rose on it.
It was not that she did not want to keep wearing Chi Xuewu’s mask.
Faced with this question, she truly could not control the stir in her heart.
—What kind of joke was this?! The heretical cult is you people, isn’t it?! You came killing to the door without a sound and killed everyone in my family? Who gave you the face to stand here and speak ill of them?!
“Yes. A heretical cult.” Fang Guyuan repeated it again, one word at a time. “From all the signs left behind, it’s very possible they brainwashed you, and changed your understanding of reality.”
—???
—Brainwashing???
—What was that thing?
“I don’t really understand what you mean.” Her expression froze on her face, but wariness rose in her heart.
Although her first idea had been to split “Chi Yujun” and “Chi Xuewu” into two people, once she truly met a question she cared about from the heart, she still could not rise above the common, after all.
Her actual experience was still shallow, and she had not reached the point of staying unmoved through every change.
“Brainwashing means they pour into you false understandings and thoughts that harm you and benefit them. You think they are being good to you, but in fact they are harming you.”
Fang Guyuan spoke very lightly, very slowly, but his tone was firm, and it stirred a strong rebellious feeling in Chi Yujun.
“But they were quite good to me to begin with.” She met his eyes and would not yield. “I wasn’t brainwashed.”
Yet when her gaze fell into that vast blue sea in Fang Guyuan’s eyes, she was nearly drowned by the sorrow, the loss, the tenderness, the regret…… and the helpless grief held in it.
It was as if a night sky of stars, bearing countless beautiful dreams, slowly pushed its reflection open beside a light boat rippling on the water, formed an image, shattered it, and then, like gilded years, was kneaded to pieces into the glittering river of light, and quietly flowed.
In that instant, there was only one thought in her heart —
These eyes were truly beautiful, beautiful to the point that… it was as if she had seen them somewhere.
Where… was it?
In memory? Or in a dream?
It was only a moment, and Chi Yujun was already watching in a daze.
Those few short seconds felt to her as long as several centuries.
Only when Fang Guyuan let out a deep, long sigh did she slowly come back to herself.
“I understand. I understand that you feel they were quite good to you. I completely understand…… I also know that telling you these things now, you may not be able to understand them. But I still have to say them. Because if I don’t say them, my own heart will ache. I don’t want to be like the people who hurt you before, and let you, muddled and unclear, do things you don’t know why you are doing, with your body not your own. This is important. I have to tell you.”
“How to let you tell good from evil, and good from bad, is not only something you have to learn. It is even more something I, as your master, need to learn together with you — perhaps you cannot understand it now, but I hope that one day you can understand the words I am saying to you here today. Whenever you understand, that will be when I have succeeded.”
Chi Xuewu nodded as if she half understood, the very picture of obedient listening.
In fact, Chi Yujun was sneering without stop in her heart.
—What kind of joke was this? Would she, because of this fellow she had not even known for a few days, think her own family had “hurt” her? Why should she believe a one-sided story from the enemy who killed her father, and not believe the family that had raised her?
—He said she had been brainwashed, but wasn’t what he wanted to do to her now also “brainwashing”?
—Fang Guyuan clearly wanted to harm her, and that was why he said it on purpose.
“And,” Fang Guyuan went on, his tone serious. “A male master taking a female disciple is inconvenient in many ways. Sometimes, a master’s guiding conduct toward a disciple is very easily taken by a young girl whose feelings have just begun to stir, and who has not yet seen the world, as care from the opposite sex, and then unnecessary attachment arises, and sparks are struck. While our relationship is still shallow, I’ll say it clearly to you in advance. At present I will only take you as a disciple. If later we have been together a long time, I may take you as family, but I will never mix in one thread, one hair, of romantic feeling.”
“I’ll say the ugly words first. I’m afraid that after we grow familiar with each other, some words will instead be hard to open with. I don’t need you to produce any special fondness toward me, and I will not produce any special fondness toward you — later you may marry, or you may not, but that has nothing to do with me. This place of mine will only be an insignificant foothold in your life. Your true place of return is probably with the Penglai Fang family.”
“And I hope you can keep meeting new people, and keep making new friends. Only when thoughts meet and feelings blend can you gradually be helped back to normal — saying it this way may be a little offensive, but I have looked through the related materials. Most survivors who have suffered the poison of a heretical cult develop wounds in the mind that are hard to heal, and some are even left with the illness of mania because of it. I don’t know whether something similar will appear in you…… If at some time you feel unwell, you can come tell me whenever you like. I don’t want you to become that way. Talking with me may not be useful, and I’m not very good at comforting people, but I will do my best.”
Fang Guyuan’s long speech stirred Chi Yujun’s head into an ache, and she could not help finding it funny as well.
—He didn’t truly think she would produce a special fondness for a person like him, did he? Setting aside that the two of them were both men, Fang Guyuan was not only the enemy who had killed her father, but also the enemy who had restricted her freedom. Where did he get the confidence that she would produce a special feeling toward him?
—Even if there were any, it would probably be killing intent, a killing intent that hated him to the bone. And marrying? She was a grown man. How could she possibly marry?! Hilarious. Who would like men? The Penglai Fang family? Then let the Penglai Fang family be destroyed along with the rest!
—And as for some mental wound, that was even more outrageous. Her home was not a heretical cult! She had not been poisoned by a heretical cult! There was even less any talk of a mental wound! This Fang Guyuan, in order to brainwash her, was simply slandering her to death…… truly stopping at nothing.
—This man truly deserved to die. Deserved to die! Deserved to die! Deserved to die!