Huan Changming's blood was still flowing down his body. Lu Pianpian stood at a low point, and Huan Changming's blood flowed to his feet, staining his shoes.
A hint of confusion appeared in Lu Pianpian's eyes.
He believed anyone who would risk their life and put themselves on the brink of death, but he simply couldn't believe that person was Huan Changming.
Huan Changming cherished his life so much that he disguised himself as a woman for more than ten years to save his own life, deceiving the entire Li Kingdom; he begged at his feet to save his own life; he even used his beauty and affection to lure him into a trap.
Everything Huan Changming did was for self-preservation, to survive and to gain more power to survive.
But now he lies dying in front of Lu Pianpian.
No one forced him to do it; it was his own choice.
Why did he do that?
Repentance? Atonement? Or risking his life again for a bigger conspiracy?
Lu Pianpian didn't know, but she was very clear that she would never entrust anything to Huan Changming, neither her body nor her heart.
He brought two fingers together and pointed them at Huan Changming. Pale golden spiritual energy overflowed from his fingertips, healing Huan Changming's external injuries.
Huan Changming's dying body felt a gentle power that penetrated his limbs and bones, reviving his last remaining life force.
His eyelashes fluttered slightly as he felt the aura healing the scar on his left cheek. He hissed, "No..."
This scar is evidence of his mistakes, a punishment for losing his beloved. Without this scar, he would have no connection with Pianpian.
Lu Pianpian watched him try to preserve the scar on his face with his broken hand, as if he were blaming Lu Pianpian for going to such lengths to restore it for him.
"If you want to be a disfigured ugly person, just take a sword and slash your face."
The voice he had been longing for suddenly rang in his ears. Huan Changming opened his eyes with difficulty and saw Lu Pianpian standing in front of him, healing his wounds.
All the pain he felt seemed insignificant at that moment, because Pianpian had come to find him.
Lu Pianpian avoided his intense gaze, but he laughed out loud.
"What are you laughing at?" Lu Pianpian asked, displeased.
"I'm laughing, cough cough..." Huan Changming's voice was barely audible, but his smile was sincere and gentle. "I'm laughing at you. The fact that you came here to find me means you care about me..."
Lu Pianpian abruptly withdrew her spiritual power and sneered, "I want to kill you, so of course I have feelings for you."
Huan Changming didn't believe it. "If you wanted to kill me, why didn't you do it just now?"
“I am a divine son of the heavens. If I want to kill someone, I will kill them honorably, not kill a dying corpse to show off my power.”
Huan Changming was stunned for a moment, then clutched his chest and struggled to his feet.
"Lu Pianpian..."
He walked unsteadily toward Lu Pianpian, who subconsciously took a few steps back until she reached the side. Only then did she realize that her act of running away seemed to be a return to the way she was when Huan Changming trapped her in the Li Palace.
He is now a divine being, and he no longer needs to fear Huan Changming.
"Huan Changming, what are you trying to do?"
"Lu Pianpian, I'm wondering... just how much do I love you?"
Lu Pianpian's expression froze. Huan Changming's palm, still wet with blood, touched his cheek, and he was stunned, forgetting to dodge for a moment.
"I've thought about it, and it seems I didn't love you that much." Huan Changming's thin lips parted, a self-deprecating smile appearing in his captivating blue eyes. "It's just that for the two hundred years you've been away from me, day and night... I've been going crazy thinking about you..."
"Pianpian, I miss you so much when you're not in front of me..."
Huan Changming, whose name is Changming, was born in the darkness and grew up in the darkness.
When he was a traitor who left his country, he was weak and lowly, and everyone could bully him.
He endured being abandoned by his own father, despised by his countrymen, envied by his own sister, and crippled after his meridians were severed.
He had suffered the cruelty of this world, and his body and soul had long been tempered into coldness, ruthlessness, cruelty, and violence.
Huan Changming once thought that nothing in this world could shake him anymore.
But the moment Lu Pianpian threw herself into the incineration furnace, all the invincible power he had cultivated crumbled and shattered.
He gently stroked Lu Pianpian's face, smiling through his tears, and said, "Without you, Huan Changming is just a walking corpse that could go mad at any moment."
"Can you forgive me just this once? I'll die, I'll go crazy if you're not by my side."
He cautiously approached Lu Pianpian's face, wanting to kiss her lips. Lu Pianpian snapped out of her daze and pushed him away in disgust, but somehow Huan Changming grabbed her waist, and the two of them fell into the lake together.
As soon as she entered the water, Lu Pianpian kicked Huan Changming away. Huan Changming was kicked several feet away and swam around haphazardly for a while. Whether it was due to a relapse of his wound or some other reason, he quickly sank to the bottom of the lake.
Just before Lu Pianpian was about to leap out of the water, she felt a burning gaze coming from behind her.
He suppressed his displeasure and looked toward that gaze, but Huan Changming had already sunk to the bottom, the murky lake water almost completely obscuring his figure.
Lu Pianpian clenched her five fingers tightly in her palm, and suddenly pointed her finger and threw a sword technique in Huan Changming's direction. The water at the bottom of the lake surged and splashed up, and Huan Changming was also blasted out of the water and fell back to the shore.
Lu Pianpian used a spell to clean her clothes, walked to the shore, and caught sight of Huan Changming, who was soaking wet and whose forehead was bleeding from the blow. She snorted coldly, put away Xuanwu's tail, and prepared to return to the Demon Realm.
Huan Changming limped over to him, grabbed a piece of his clothes, and said with red eyes, "I can't swim. If you don't save me, I will die."
Lu Pianpian saw right through him, "So you couldn't wait to drag me into the water with you, afraid that you would lose your own life."
“No.” Huan Changming swallowed hard. “You’ve always been heartless to me… If you pushed me into the sea once to save Huan Juntian, you’ll do it again.”
"In your heart, I will never be as good as him."
The word "ruthless" sounded extremely harsh to Lu Pianpian. "Ruthless? If we're talking about ruthlessness, how could I possibly compare to His Majesty the Prince of Li?"
"His Majesty the King of Li's ruthlessness leaves me utterly defeated and deeply scarred! My junior brother Ren Shan is a thousand times, ten thousand times more important to me than the cold and ruthless His Majesty the King of Li!"
Huan Changming felt as if he had fallen into an ice cellar, his whole body chilled. He grabbed Lu Pianpian's clothes tightly to prevent her from leaving. "It was me, I misspoke... I'm sorry, he has never wronged you, you like him... it's only right that you like him."
He should have known long ago that he had never truly loved Huan Juntian in Lu Pianpian's heart, especially since there was an insurmountable chasm between him and Pianpian.
“I just envy Huan Juntian. I’m jealous of him because you’ve always kept him in your heart.” Huan Changming lowered his voice. “I’ve been jealous of him for a long time. We’re both princes, but he grew up surrounded by admirers. And me… I can only live a lowly and wretched life in the cold palace. To survive, I don’t hesitate to disguise myself as a woman…”
"But I don't care about any of that. What I care about is you, whether your eyes and heart can only hold me?"
“Pianpian, I’ve never loved anyone before, so I didn’t know how to treat you. I just wanted you to look at me and go along with me. But you always went against me and made me angry, so I acted like a fool and argued back with you.”
"But I won't do that now!" He raised his head and looked earnestly into Lu Pianpian's eyes. "I will treat you a thousand times better from now on, make up for the mistakes I made to you before, and I will never make you angry or sad again!"
"Even the most heinous criminals have a chance to be forgiven. Pianpian, could you please give me this one chance, just this last one?"
For the first time in both lifetimes, Huan Changming poured his heart out to Lu Pianpian.
Lu Pianpian looked into his eyes, and saw regret in those blue eyes, but even more so, an unconcealable deep affection.
Huan Changming seemed to be just as he himself had said: his love was graceful, sincere, and as deep as the sea.
Lu Pianpian remained silent for a long time before suddenly raising her hand to wipe away the tears from the corner of Huan Changming's eyes.
Huan Changming thought that Lu Pianpian had softened her heart and that there was a new turning point between them. He was overjoyed and a smile appeared on his face.
Unexpectedly, Lu Pianpian said the next moment, "Huan Changming, you really disgust me."
A note from the author:
Does anyone feel sorry for Changming?
Thank you so much for your support! I will continue to work hard!
Chapter 59
In the stillness of the night, Langxu waited for a long time outside the Demon Palace, but instead of Lu Pianpian and Huan Changming, he was greeted by them.
"I am deeply sorry for not being able to greet you properly, Lord Juntian, with your presence."
Langxu smiled and cupped his hands to the newcomer, "However, Lord Juntian has arrived at an inopportune time. The person who went to fetch the antidote for you has not yet returned."
Juntian, dragging his ailing body, approached Langxu and asked, "Where is the divine son of my Heavenly Realm?"
"He went to retrieve one of the parts of the antidote for you." Langxu paused, then added, "With the Demon Lord."
Jun Tian didn't believe that his senior brother would still be involved with Huan Changming. "I advise you to tell the truth."
"How could I dare to hide it from the Divine Lord? Look... aren't they here now?"
Langxu pointed to the night sky, and Juntian looked in the direction he pointed. Sure enough, Lu Pianpian and Huan Changming flew over one after the other.
Lu Pianpian landed in front of Jun Tian. Seeing that he looked unwell, she quickly asked, "Why are you here?"
Jun Tian held Lu Pianpian's shoulder and pushed her behind him, separating him from Huan Changming. "Senior brother is kind and might be tempted to listen to some people's lies out of kindness."
They are indeed fellow disciples; even when they describe each other as "benevolent and kind," they do so in the same way.
Huan Changming smiled dismissively, but Lu Pianpian caught the hint of that smile. He immediately became serious and said, "I didn't lie to you."
Lu Pianpian turned to Huan Juntian and said, "Don't worry, I'm just here to get the antidote for you."
He tossed the Xuanwu tail at Langxu's feet. "Now, you can detoxify my junior brother, right?"
Langxu was somewhat surprised to see Xuanwu's tail. He then turned his gaze to Huan Changming and found that the other man's eyes were fixed on Lu Pianpian, as if he had been bewitched by her. Langxu felt that even if Lu Pianpian asked him to slit his own throat with a sword right now, he would still do it.
Langxu refined the tail with his spiritual power, took out a porcelain bottle from his bosom, cut his palm, dripped half a bottle of blood into it, and handed it to Lu Pianpian, saying, "Divine Child, take this."
Lu Pianpian was still somewhat hesitant when she took the bottle of blood, but Lang Xu laughed loudly and said, "There's a saying that goes, 'You can run away from the monk but you can't hide from the temple.' If this isn't the antidote, the Divine Child can come and seek revenge on me."
“Pianpian, trust me this time,” Huan Changming said softly. “If he’s lying to you, I’ll be the first to kill him for you.”
Jun Tian frowned almost imperceptibly.
At this moment, the demon child who had been calling Lu Pianpian "mother" ran out again, wearing only his undergarments and barefoot, and ran towards Huan Changming, crying out, "Father!"
Huan Changming glanced at the child coldly, "What are you doing out here?"
He pointed at Langxu and said aggrievedly, "He shrank back, he's dead... I'm so worried! I still have to go buy you a coffin..."
Langxu touched his nose. "Wasn't what I said the truth? Your father isn't far from death either." Those who fall into the trap of love and can't get out don't live long.
"And there's more, and there's more..." The demon child grabbed Lu Pianpian's clothes, "Isn't he my mother?!"
Huan Changming was taken aback for a moment, then smiled and said, "Yes, she is your mother."
"Huan Changming!" Lu Pianpian glared at him. "You have your own romantic entanglements with demon women, and you still have the audacity to drag me down with you?"
Huan Changming's smile deepened. "Are you jealous?"
Lu Pianpian sneered, "What does this have to do with me?"