Chapter 171 - 170: Pei Xuan VS Cui Jinghan! Neither Will Back Down
Chapter 171: Chapter 170: Pei Xuan VS Cui Jinghan! Neither Will Back Down
The words exploded like a clap of thunder by his ear, and Cui Jinghan’s pupils contracted sharply.
He spun around abruptly, only to find a person standing behind him, no more than a meter away. Yet he hadn’t heard a thing.
The man had delicate, handsome features and a pair of narrow, curving eyes. He looked down on Cui Jinghan, sizing him up, exuding an incredibly sharp aura.
This sharp, confrontational feeling was something Cui Jinghan disliked from the bottom of his heart. It was too arrogant, too unrestrained.
Seeing the incredulous expression on his face, Pei Xuan smirked. "It really is you. Who else would come to a place even tourists rarely visit?"
The ruins of the Jianghuai Pei Family’s former residence were vast, laid out like a classical garden. It would take at least four hours to see the entire place, with all its flowers and trees.
Its sheer size left visitors marveling that the Jianghuai Pei Family was truly worthy of its title as the foremost of the four great noble families of the Xuan Dynasty.
But in reality, it was called a ruin for a reason—only a small fraction of it remained.
In its heyday, the Pei Family had controlled half of Jianghuai. Its thousands of glowing lanterns were a spectacle of unparalleled prosperity.
Unfortunately, all that prosperity vanished overnight. Now, only this tiny patch of land remained, leaving him with no trace of the life he once lived here.
Cui Jinghan stared at the handsome man he thoroughly disliked. He took several deep breaths and remained silent for a long moment before finally speaking, his voice hoarse. "...Pei Xuan?"
"Let me guess what you’re thinking right now." Pei Xuan savored the shifting expressions on Cui Jinghan’s face. "Did you think you were the only chosen one in this world 400 years in the future? That you were the only anomaly?"
Cui Jinghan didn’t speak. His breathing slowly slowed and deepened.
’When I was reborn as a baby and opened my eyes to this strange world, I thought I’d died and arrived in the realm of the gods.’
’Only later did I learn that 400 years had passed since my era, and this was now the burgeoning New Nine Provinces.’
’I was overjoyed, believing heaven had granted me a second chance. But that joy was followed by endless pain and sorrow.’
’Because in this future, I was alone. The people I knew were either reduced to a page in a history book for modern people to study, or they slumbered nameless beneath the vast earth.’
’So what was the point of me being the only one to live on?’
"What a shame. You’re not the only one." Pei Xuan tsked. "Your dream of being one of a kind has been shattered. You must be in a terrible mood. I can understand."
Cui Jinghan raised a hand to press his temples. His voice was cold. "Pei Xuan, are you talking about yourself?"
"Me?" Pei Xuan raised an eyebrow. "Of course I’m talking about you. Just look at yourself. How pathetic you are right now."
"Before you showed up, I did indeed believe I was the only one who had been reborn." Cui Jinghan looked him straight in the eye. "But I’m not you. I wouldn’t think of myself as the chosen one, nor would my mental defenses crumble because of it. Pei Xuan, you’re the pathetic one."
His innermost thoughts exposed, the smile vanished from Pei Xuan’s lips.
But with his temperament, how could he possibly admit defeat just like that?
"So what are you doing in Jianghuai?" Pei Xuan asked, his hands clasped behind his back. "And why did you have to come to *my* home? What are you plotting?"
"First," Cui Jinghan said flatly, "this isn’t four hundred years ago, and you, Pei Xuan, are no longer the overlord of Jianghuai. Second, this isn’t your home anymore. This is a 5A-level scenic area. You have to book a reservation and scan an ID to get in, just like everyone else."
He paused, then added, "You must have grown suspicious of me earlier at the Zhongwu Tomb. But you didn’t come in. It seems you didn’t have a reservation."
After a few seconds of silence, Pei Xuan scoffed. "We haven’t seen each other in years, yet your tongue has gotten quite a bit sharper. It seems you’ll no longer resort to writing an entire essay when she asks you a question."
Cui Jinghan fell silent again. He gazed at the plaque on the pavilion, his mind suddenly flashing back to a night four hundred years ago.
He and several other colleagues had accompanied Empress Taichu to Jianghuai. Although Pei Xuan was a thousand times unwilling, he had no choice but to host them.
When they arrived at this pavilion, the Empress noticed it had no name. So, she had him write the seven words, "Pillowed by the Moon, Listening to the Pines," to be made into a plaque and hung on the pavilion.
And that deeply poetic name had been chosen by the Empress herself. It was even a perfect fit for the pavilion’s surroundings.
’At that moment, I realized that the Empress wasn’t truly ignorant of such things; she simply never had the time to learn.’
Pei Xuan, having finally found an angle of attack, said unhurriedly, "I still remember her birthday in the Second Year of Taichu. You only managed to say six words—not even as good as Gu Qingjin. You haven’t forgotten that, have you?"
’Of course I haven’t forgotten. I remember every word I ever said to Empress Taichu.’
’How had I offered her birthday wishes back then?’
’After struggling for a long time, I finally said, "I wish Your Majesty eternal youth."’
The wish was very plain, without so much as a single idiom, but the Empress was quite pleased by it and rewarded him with many fine things.
After he took his seat, the person next to him was Helan Jing, a man who had always been spontaneous and unrestrained, often making him impossible to read.
At that moment, Helan Jing was slumped bonelessly in his chair. He said lazily, "Well, Mr. Cui finally found something to please Her Majesty. I thought you were going to recite an entire essay on the spot. I was planning to take a nap and wake up when you were done."
He had fallen silent.
Because that was indeed what he had prepared to do at first. But Ye Yu had stopped him. Thankfully he’d been stopped, or he would have certainly ruined the Empress’s birthday banquet.
’It was just that I was never good with words. Cramming at the last minute, I could only manage to stammer out those few words.’
But now, as Cui Jinghan recalled that grand banquet, tears fell from his eyes. His voice trembled. "I shouldn’t have wished for her to be eternally young."
My words became a prophecy. She died in the prime of her life, leaving nothing behind.
Pei Xuan’s body jolted. His hands clenched and unclenched, veins popping on their backs. Clearly, the deepest nerve had been struck.
’Looking back at the more than four hundred emperors across the twenty-four dynasties of Jiuzhou, how many were not even Crown Prince at the age of twenty-six? Yet she had already ruled for eight years.’
’If she had been given another eight years, the Southern Region, Western Continent, and Northern Region might well have become territories of Jiuzhou.’
’That bolt of Heavenly Thunder didn’t just obliterate her life; it obliterated their faith.’
"Also, I wasn’t here mourning your ancestors." Cui Jinghan finally regained his composure, his voice cold. "I came here to pay my respects to Her Majesty. Don’t flatter yourself."
’He wished Pei Xuan was buried in the ground, turned into a skeleton that could never speak again.’