After Being Mistakenly Taken for a Fellow Traveler by Emperor Long Aotian - Chapter 156

Chapter 156: “So this is what I’m worth.”

 

Rong Fen lay on the couch, having a long dream.

 

In the dream, peach blossoms fluttered down in abundance, many falling onto his shoulder. He was walking through a peach blossom forest, continuously, walking hurriedly. His steps were light, his attire elegant, his face exquisite and handsome. But he was in a hurry, looking for someone.

 

Who was he looking for?

 

After passing through the peach blossom forest, he heard the sound of a babbling stream. Finally, he saw the figure in the distance. That person was holding a white oiled paper umbrella, standing by the stream, not turning back.

 

“Xun…”

 

When he spoke that name, the pain woke him up.

 

What woke him up was the rheumatism in his joints. He had lost a foot in an injury, and not only did he drink without restraint, but he never properly cared for it. Thus, that leg had become infected and rotted repeatedly.

 

He was no longer the young man in the dream, with his crown-like face and light footsteps. Now he was a waste, drunk and exhausted, the spirit and poetry of the past gone, replaced by a crippled leg and endless regret.

 

Outside the window, the rain began again. Rong Fen, with his drunken eyes, thought to himself: “It’s raining again.”

 

He didn’t know if Xun was still in Rong Xuan’s arms now…

 

He thought this, but when he saw his broken leg and his body, like rotten mud, he felt that even thinking of himself was a kind of blasphemy.

 

So he could only keep dreaming, repeatedly dreaming of the confident self from before, meeting him again.

 

Rong Fen drank more, fell asleep again. In the dream, he saw the young man with the umbrella again. This time, he nervously reached out his hand, wanting to pat the young man’s shoulder…

 

Then he felt a sharp pain coming from his body.

 

“Rong Fen! Rong Fen!” A frantic, old, ugly voice exploded from outside his dream, almost maddened but filled with immense joy, as though a ray of light had pierced through the extreme darkness, “Rong Fen!”

 

Who is making such noise…

 

His fingers were almost a little away from the young man in the dream.

 

“Rong Fen! Wake up! If you don’t wake up now, it’ll be too late!”

 

Shut up.

 

The young man’s black hair tips and pale neck were right before his eyes.

 

“Wake up, Rong Fen! Go! Go to Baixiang Tavern! Kill them! Kill the Emperor, kill Prince Su, let them both suffer, hurry up!”

 

Silence.

 

He saw the young man’s nose, delicate and pale.

 

How strange… He had been in his mansion for two years, why had he never once… kissed him?

 

“Rong Fen—”

 

—!! Wake up!! Quick!!” The voice nearly screamed, shaking his shoulder, “This is the only chance in all these years—the best opportunity, hurry, hurry!!”

 

Shut up!!!

 

At that moment, all the embraces shattered like mirages. Rong Fen finally understood, it was all his dream.

 

Outside the dream, there was no Xun, no peach blossom forest, no young man with the white umbrella, no graceful, crown-like him.

 

Only…

 

A face, twisting and shaking him, ugly and dirty!

 

When that face saw him wake up, it let out a frenzied, ecstatic sound.

 

“Rong Fen, you’re awake?” The man seemed hurried, wiping his face with his hand, combing his hair, as though only this could prevent him from looking pitiful. He looked at the Fifth Prince with infatuated eyes and said, “I’ve come to find you! Hurry, let’s go, let’s go to Baixiang Tavern! I’ll make you the Emperor…”

 

But what he received was the Fifth Prince’s scream: “What kind of thing are you?”

 

“A thing, I…”

 

“How did you get into the mansion? Where is the steward? The steward…”

 

When the steward was mentioned, Rong Fen remembered.

 

Because of his absurdity, the steward had always persuaded him. He was angry for a moment and broke the steward’s head with a vase.

 

The steward was already elderly, and this injury almost took his life. Now the steward was probably recovering at the mansion.

 

If the steward didn’t care, how could he expect the other servants to care?

 

“Steward? Steward, you… told me how to get in! You told me I could come in from Chunshen Alley…”

 

“Impossible, how could I tell you…” The Fifth Prince frowned and yelled in disgust, “What exactly…”

 

But the next moment, he suddenly froze.

 

In that twisted, old, and dirty face, he saw a familiar outline.

 

A familiar outline…

 

The Fifth Prince suddenly began to shake.

 

If anyone had stared at a person’s face for as long as he had, they would recognize such an outline!

 

That outline was…

 

Zhou Cai!

 

The dirty beggar, only in his fifties, but looking as old as someone in their sixties, was still babbling incoherently. He seemed to have finally gone mad from years of torment. Speaking in disarray: “I finally came back here, back from twenty years in the future to over a decade ago… This is my fate, this is what I deserve! I was always meant to be the protagonist of this world… I should return and put things right. I went to the hunting grounds, wanting to explain, but they took me as a madman and locked me up in prison for many years, no way out, no one came to see me, no one listened to me… Everyone said I was crazy, but I…”

 

“But I remember one chance! The only one, the chance to turn things around, then I’ll be the top scholar, I’ll be the scholar, I’ll be the best, most elegant protagonist in this world, all the luck should belong to me…”

 

“What…”

 

Everything he said was beyond Rong Fen’s understanding. His brain had long been muddled with alcohol, and now, he could only blankly stare at him.

 

He couldn’t understand what this “Zhou Cai” was talking about. He had always been drunk and living in a dream, still half asleep, his once sharp mind now rusted.

 

“And you, you were my loyal dog, you were supposed to be my loyal dog. You should have guarded me for life, even though I had a passionate love affair with the Emperor for life, but the Emperor changed… But you were supposed to be mine…” The old man continued to ramble, “Yes, that’s it, as long as we kill that impostor, kill Zhou Xun, everything will be fine…”

 

“Zhou Xun?”

 

Rong Fen’s muddled brain finally became slightly clearer at that moment.

 

“Prince Su set up a trap in the tavern, yes, before I came back, it was at this time, he was going to kill the Emperor… Qin, Qin Liang was caught, he confessed, and Prince Su will be desperate, yes, that’s it. We’ll go out and kill Prince Su. In the original plot, that’s how it went, you helped me kill Prince Su, the Emperor got injured, I took care of him, and then… you killed Prince Su! Everything should be set right! As long as that happens, everything will be set right!”

 

The old man suddenly began to roar. He grabbed Rong Fen’s neck and started shaking him, “I’ve waited so many years, I finally escaped, I finally found you. Let’s go, let’s go quickly, kill Zhou Xun, he must be with the Emperor, the impostor, with that slut…”

 

When Rong Fen woke up, he saw a vast amount of blood.

 

The crazy old man was dead.

 

Dead by his own hands.

 

His hands were still covered in that man’s blood. In his madness and chaos, he pushed the old man down. When the old man fell, his eyes were still filled with confusion and emptiness. He seemed to have no idea why the Rong Fen, who he thought would always help him…

 

Actually pushed him down.

 

And the fragments of the vase or wine cups that Rong Fen had broken earlier, one sharp, long piece, directly pierced into his temple.

 

On the ground, he struggled and twitched for a long time, finally, completely dying.

 

Until his death, he stared blankly at the sky.

 

Rong Fen got out of bed. His first step didn’t move—his knee hurt too much, and he wasn’t used to the prosthetic leg. But in the end, he still staggered to the man’s side.

 

The body was twisted, and what was most strange was his feet—those feet were also twisted, as if they had been wrapped and then released.

 

How did he endure the excruciating pain to crawl here? Or when he came here, what kind of longing did he have in his heart? After so many years of torment, was there still a frenzied longing?

 

Rong Fen confirmed the old man’s death. He turned the body over. Because of the angle when he fell, his body and face were filled with shards. His mind was still in a blur, but he finally caught one sentence from the confusion.

 

Zhou Xun was in danger!

 

Someone wanted to kill him… Prince Su!

 

Baixiang Tavern!

 

Only when Rong Fen staggered out did another person appear in the room.

 

He was wearing clothes clearly from a different era, his fingers pale and slender. He turned Zhou Cai’s body over, looking lazily at something in the air and saying: “System, he’s dead.”

 

“As expected of the original child of fate in this small world, even though a temporal distortion brought someone who shouldn’t exist in this world, changing his fate, this small world has to repair its own logic and make him, after learning the original plot, return to the past with his own body after more than ten years.”

 

The entity he referred to as “system” answered him.

 

“Unfortunately, he’s too stupid, actually daring to charge into the royal hunting grounds with a body in its thirties instead of collaborating with his younger self when he was just a few years old.” The person shrugged, “But then again, this is all the mess left by Number Two. Originally, she should have crossed into Miss Yan’s body to complete the wife reversal mission. But not only did she fail to arrive on time, she accidentally caused the time-space distortion, throwing a person from another world into the emperor’s body in this world.”

 

He crouched down, placed his finger on Old Zhou Cai’s body, and snapped his fingers.

 

After the snap, the body that had collapsed to the ground turned to ash.

 

“In the end, I still have to clean up her mess.” The person said.

 

“However, strictly speaking, that out-of-plan traveler also needs to be sent back to their original world,” the system said, “So… anyway, you’ll soon be able to successfully get rid of your quick-change mission and get a promotion. Just finish this cleanup task well.”

 

The person yawned, his eyelashes long, and the tips of his eyes slightly upturned, like a lazy cat.

 

……

 

With his crippled leg, Rong Fen started running.

 

He had never hated his drunken stupor so much; if he had ever, even just a little, rehabbed his leg, he wouldn’t be feeling such pain while running.

 

He broke out of the royal manor through the dog hole in the wall and ran through the streets and alleys filled with sewage. Mud and water splashed on his body, making him look like a filthy beggar covered in dirt.

 

The connection between his knee and the prosthetic seemed to have worn through, flesh and blood were mixed together, but he didn’t care.

 

Because Zhou Xun… was waiting for his rescue!

 

He ran faster and faster, stumbling, at that moment, he almost felt like a savior, or perhaps someone who, in order to atone, would nail himself to the pyre.

 

He thought he had loved Zhou Xun.

 

Someone like that… a person who could smile just because of a box of peaches… how could he not have loved him?

 

He wanted to compensate him, he wanted to save him. He didn’t care about the emperor, didn’t care about the nonsense from “Zhou Cai,” at this moment, he just wanted to appear before Zhou Xun, save him, make up for him, apologize to him…

 

Or perhaps, simply, find Zhou Xun before everything happened, and tell him this love.

 

Even if it was just a little bit of compensation.

 

Yes, he remembered now.

 

The young man, when he first arrived in the capital, was so gentle and beautiful. He didn’t smile much, always cautiously watching for cues from others, but when he smiled, it was clear and soft, like a mountain spring, like a stream reflecting all the beauty.

 

Everyone wanted fame and wealth, but all he wanted was to be a teacher in Jiangzhou, with a peaceful and carefree life.

 

He had once been such a beautiful young man, even with such a past, when he smiled, it seemed to reflect the whole world. But he…

 

He had turned him into that form.

 

Tears started to fill Rong Fen’s eyes, and at that moment, he no longer thought of himself, nor of anyone else. All he thought about was that stream.

 

He had once destroyed such a beautiful stream.

 

He wanted to make it up to him.

 

He calculated the time; he could still make it, still make it. But when he turned the next corner, he ran into a group of people.

 

These people seemed like thugs, reeking of alcohol. Upon seeing him, they thought he was some beggar, and immediately started cursing.

 

Rong Fen didn’t want to deal with them. He turned around to keep running, but was blocked by the thugs.

 

“This bastard’s a cripple.”

 

“Smelling like booze, a beggar, an old cripple!”

 

“Look! I kicked him down!”

 

“Come on! Let’s see how he gets up! Get up!”

 

“Get up! Get up!”

 

The thugs finally found some fun. They kept kicking the cripple down into the muddy water and making him get up again, mocking his clumsy, injured appearance. Rong Fen tried to use the title of Fifth Prince to suppress them, but the thugs laughed, saying he didn’t look like a prince at all.

 

Indeed, how could he look like a prince now?

 

“Please, let me go, just let me go, I just want… I just want to pass…” he began pleading.

 

The thugs finally responded to his plea, letting him crawl through their legs. Rong Fen crawled through the filthy mud, still laughing as they mocked him, and continued running.

 

He ran slower and slower, slower and slower. The thugs threw bricks and tiles at him, kicking his body. It seemed like his bones were breaking, his internal organs began to bleed, and his body was covered in blood and cuts, bruises and open wounds. His clothes as a prince were completely torn, and all the dignity of a noble was gone, but he still ran, still walked with his own feet.

 

He ran, couldn’t run anymore, so he walked, holding the wall with all his strength. He heard the roaring sound in his chest and the feeling of blood flowing from his head. His vision was going dark.

 

It seemed like he was almost at Bai Xiang Lou. As he approached, he encountered a street battle, with the emperor’s men and Prince Su’s men fighting. He trembled and passed through, but was slashed several times in the chaos.

 

He was still walking.

 

His blood was draining, his life was gone, everything was gone, even his legs were gone, he was just walking, walking. He had to go, he had to tell Zhou Xun, he had to give him the information, he had to…

 

What did he want?

 

“Thud!”

 

Finally, he collapsed to the ground.

 

Behind him, a long, dirty trail of blood led into the dark, muddy alley, like a pile of garbage. His eyes, which hadn’t yet closed, reflected the glowing lights of Bai Xiang Lou not far away.

 

Bright lights, he had finally arrived, to his old dreamlike shadow, to his tender homeland.

 

He saw Zhou Xun.

 

Zhou Xun was held by the emperor, so young, so clean, so beautiful, like a handful of snow, like a clear stream.

 

He had always… he was meant to fall in love with such a stream.

 

He lay in the mud, death descending upon him, his right hand spasming, like a chicken claw, as if grasping something, as if wanting something.

 

Not far away, the emperor held Zhou Xun, his shoulder bleeding, but still comforting him. Zhou Xun buried his face in the emperor’s arms, seemingly wanting to cry. The emperor asked him to look up, jokingly pulling a face at him.

 

A comical face.

 

And so Zhou Xun broke into laughter.

 

They looked so well-matched, so loving, so…

 

In love.

 

They were a pair… a perfect pair.

 

He, in his self-righteous compensation, was worth nothing to him.

 

Life replayed like a revolving lantern, in the suffocating haze and extreme pain, he saw the illusion of pain relief. He saw, in the distance, a young man walking toward him.

 

He was sixteen, holding a white oil-paper umbrella, as clean as could be.

 

That was… sixteen-year-old Zhou Xun.

 

Tears fell from his eyes at that moment, not knowing whether mixed with blood or mud. He watched the young man walk toward him, squat down, and place the umbrella over his head.

 

‘Will you forgive me?’ he moved his lips and asked.

 

He saw the young man’s face under the umbrella, the young man looked at him, his eyes like ice and snow, his voice like ice and snow.

 

“You don’t deserve it.”

 

“Is that all I am worth?”

 

That was the last sentence Rong Fen left in the world.

 

Actually, his death was for the best… at least, that person’s life would never again have this piece of garbage.

 

Finally, the pain-relieving illusion vanished. There was no young man walking toward him, no umbrella placed down, no one looking at him before his death, no one speaking to him.

 

He finally saw the final conclusion—In his last illusion, the sixteen-year-old young man held the umbrella, slowly walking through the dark alley. His hair tips were black, his neck snow white, and the umbrella he held was also as snow white as ice.

 

He just walked step by step through the alley, walking out of the alley.

 

Walking out of Rong Fen’s last life.

 

—He never once looked back.