What Kind of Love-Hate Relationship is in this Cursed Script?
“You don’t have to be so alert,” Su Huaizhu voiced. “To you, this favour won’t be difficult.”
Then he pulled out a letter from his sleeve and passed it to Gu Feidi.
Gu Feidi didn’t grab the letter right away. The letter was unsealed, and the contents on it were displayed before Gu Feidi’s eyes:
“The invitation from that year still stands?”
There was no heading, no signature, only a few strokes in the letter's corner that resembled a bunch of bamboo.
Gu Feidi lifted his head and looked at the Sect Leader in doubt.
Su Huaizhu clarified, “Help me deliver this letter to Alliance Leader Gu, and I’ll hand you the keepsake. I will allow you to take Su Yang to search for the person who can help him.”
“My father?” Gu Feidi was surprised.
“Yes,” Su Huaizhu’s eyes were deep. “...Your father.”
Gu Feidi still hadn't reached for the letter.
Seeing Gu Feidi’s distrust, Su Huaizhu recalled, “I think you’ve heard that Alliance Leader Gu and I used to be fellow disciples in the House of Jade…”
—Over twenty years ago, Su Huaizhu, who was now the Leader of the Evil Sect, entered the House of Jade to further his study and training. He made a friend in the same generation, Gu Ruohai, who was now the Leader of the Wulin Alliance.
Among their group, there was a young man named Luo Yu.
Although Luo Yu’s martial arts were not solid, he was extremely gifted in the art of medicine and poison. Old Qi cultivated him.
Later, when several disciples finished their training and began to leave the House of Jade, it seemed that Luo Yu was running from someone’s pursuit, so he lived in seclusion at Elegant Jade Snow Mountain, a snowy mountain located at the Central Plain’s southwest border. In order to survive, Luo Yu would go down the mountain to treat patients. Because of his miracle stories, he gradually became known as the ‘Elegant Jade’s Miracle Doctor’—
“If you want to get rid of the Blood Gu inside Su Yang, you must go find the doctor.” Su Huaizhu said calmly. “But that man has a strange temper. He once vowed that he would only treat common folk, not the people in the Jianghu nor high-ranking officials. You’ll never see him without the keepsake.”
Hearing this, Gu Feidi frowned slightly and muttered to himself, “Snowy mountain in the southwest…”
After a moment’s silence, Su Huaizhu took out a hairpin and twirled lightly in his hand.
“This hairpin is a remnant of Su Yang’s mother,” He remarked collectedly. “Su Yang’s biological mother has somewhat of a relationship with Luo Yu. Luo Yu will see you if you have this hairpin.”
After a pause, he added, “Naturally, I’ll allow the two of you to leave my Sect’s Sanctuary. But, I won’t know whether you’ll deliver the letter for me, let alone force you. But I believe that as long as you accept this hairpin, you’ll pass the letter to your father.”
Gu Feidi’s gaze landed on the flower hairpin and the paper in Su Huaizhu’s hands. He didn’t move as time passed.
“Nonetheless,” Su Huaizhu suddenly concluded. “If you are not willing, I won’t force you.”
He drew his hands back along with the two tokens.
But Gu Feidi was faster. He released his sword and seized the letter and the hairpin, closed his eyes and spoke determinedly, “...Fine, I accept.”
Su Huaizhu opened and loosely closed his empty hands. Not adding anything else to the conversation, he turned around and as he was about to exit out the entrance…
Suddenly, Gu Feidi’s voice called out from behind him, “Senior...”
Su Huaizhu looked back.
Gu Feidi raised his head. The candle flame shone upon his face, making his expression much more solemn.
“That year…” He asked. “...Why did the senior and my father go from friends to enemies?”
After a good while Su Huaizhu stated softly, “That year, I was the Young Master of the Evil Sect, and he was the Young Lord of the Tengyun Pavilion.”
Without further explanation, he left the stone chamber.
Gu Feidi stood in a daze in the illuminated room, completely motionless.
* * *
Before he slowly regained his consciousness, Su Yang had a dream that he could vaguely recall.
He dreamt he was floating in a frozen sea, and he couldn’t summon any strength from his four limbs. His body seemed to be assimilated by the cold water as the chill devoured his soul.
Just as he gave up all hope, wanted to follow the current and be dragged down to the bottom of the sea. A pair of warm lips pressed against the corner of his mouth, immediately followed by a scorching stream of air coming between his lips, passing into his body and rousing his breathing. A warm body wrapped him within an embrace, the warmth fused into his limbs and pulled him back from the edge of death.
So he greedily clutched the person with his arms and engulfed the other’s lips.
His heart was filled with happiness and excitement that he had never felt before—as if he finally seized the beauty he had been searching for at this moment.
Su Yang gradually opened his eyes, and what appeared before his vision was Gu Feidi with a reddish-gold glow around his face from the candle flame. The next thing he noticed was the glittering and bright dark eyes.
Gu Feidi lay on his side with his arms around Su Yang’s waist and a palm on his back. A steady stream of hot energy emanated from Gu Feidi’s palm and gently entered Su Yang’s body, making him cling to the comfortable temperature.
Gu Feidi inquired in a low voice, “Are you still cold?”
Su Yang’s heart suddenly trembled, and it wasn’t from the cold.
For a split second, Su Yang understood what his dream meant.
He liked Gu Feidi. Really liked him.
Perhaps since a long time ago, he had already begun to have such expectations deep in his heart.
However, at that time, the script was deeply rooted in his memory, making the world fake in his subconscious mind. It even made him question if Gu Feidi in front of him was real or not, because he unconsciously already determined that Gu Feidi was a fictional character.
Now he was awakened by Gu Feidi’s kiss, which transcended reality and imagination. Recalling all of their times together, Su Yang had to admit that his interest and tension toward Gu Feidi had already exceeded his feelings for the characters described in the novel.
Su Yang couldn’t tell whether this new sexual orientation was from him or it was related to the Evil Sect’s Young Master’s homosexual character design—whatever the case, he was sure now he had feelings for Gu Feidi.
But Su Yang also knew that if he really wanted to be with Gu Feidi, there would be many challenges ahead.
—He feared the romance plot had collapsed to the point that it was even unrecognisable to the original author!
The only son of the Alliance Leader fell in love with the Evil Sect’s Young Master? What kind of magical script’s love-hate relationship was this?!
Without getting an answer, Gu Feidi asked again, “Su Yang, are you still cold?”
Su Yang abruptly returned to reality. He tried to sit up and shook his head. “No, I’m not cold.”
Gu Feidi carefully observed Su Yang’s complexion and any telltale sign with his eyes. Once he spotted nothing, he sat up next to the other man with his knees crossed.
After pondering for a moment, he handed over the flower hairpin that the Evil Sect’s Sect Leader had given him.
Su Yang accepted the hairpin in surprise. He didn’t know what to do with it. “What’s this?”
Gu Feidi explained, “When you were unconscious, your Sect Leader visited us.”
“What?” Su Yang was so shocked that he grabbed Gu Feidi’s wrist and looked him up and down. He questioned concernedly, “What was he doing here? Are you alright? Did he do anything to you?”
“No, I’m fine.” Gu Feidi comforted him. “He didn’t cause me any difficulty. Instead, he allowed me to take you to the snowy mountain to search for someone who can get rid of the Poisonous Gu.”
Hearing this, Su Yang’s expression changed and he frowned. “He also knows about the person living in the snowy mountain who can treat the Poisonous Gu?”
Gu Feidi nodded. His eyes landed on the flower hairpin in Su Yang’s hand. “This hairpin is a keepsake that he gave me.”
Then, he gave Su Yang a simple version of the deal proposed by the Sect Leader. Afterwards, he decided, “The path to the snowy mountain in the southwest from the wasteland would have been as easy as crossing rivers and hills. But now we must make a detour to the Tengyun Pavilion at the Central Plains to deliver this letter to my father.”
Su Yang’s attention was elsewhere as Gu Feidi’s words went in one ear and out the other.
He studied the flower hairpin in his hand, and his brow furrowed at the thought of Luo Yu, the Miracle Doctor.
This hairpin was a relic of the Young Master’s birth mother, and there was a connection between her and Luo Yu. In other words, to meet Luo Yu, this hairpin was needed and could only be acquired with the Evil Sect’s Leader’s consent.
But…in the script, after Pu Lingyun and Gu Feidi escaped from the Evil Sect’s clutches, they didn’t interact with the Sect Leader whatsoever. How could they obtain this keepsake and successfully get rid of the Poisonous Gu when they arrived at the snowy mountain in the southwest?
When he thought about the Half-Withered Crimson, a mental skill that required a cool nature foundation, he suddenly began to doubt whether the plot he knew of had been tampered with.
The script was adapted from a novel. According to logic, this kind of adaptation would be revised for censorship, but should not diverge so much from the original work. However…the BUG he had discovered so far was very worrying. Even the deductions not included in the script were much more reliable.
If, in the original novel, the solution to Gu Feidi’s treatment and journey to the snowy mountain was with the Young Master himself...
Why would the original do that?
Weren’t he and the protagonist arch-rivals?
Was it possible that the original author wrote an absurd cliche where the Evil Sect’s Young Master and the only son of the Alliance Leader had some sort of love-hate drama?
Su Yang didn’t have time to sort out his thoughts as a hand appeared in front of him, blocking the hairpin from his line of sigh. The hand shook slowly.
Gu Feidi asked gently with a soft smile, “Are you thinking of your mother?”
Su Yang knew Gu Feidi had misunderstood him from his gaze at the hairpin. He confessed awkwardly, “I actually never met her before. What’s more…you probably guessed my origins.”
Even in reality, he had no impression of this ‘mother’ figure. He lived a simple-minded life with his grandmother who took very good care of him. He never fantasised about living with his actual father and mother.
Gu Feidi placed his hand on his wrist guard and blew a light breath.
Su Yang felt the atmosphere turn depressed so he tried to change the subject. “I wasn’t thinking about my mother really, so don’t sigh. We still have to pack up and return to Iris Island.”
Then, he patted Gu Feidi on the shoulder and got up to pack.
He actually packed a long time ago. The only things left in the stone room was a pile of scriptures on the couch table.
Gu Feidi casually picked the paper up and fed it to the candle fire, two to three pages at a time.
Su Yang watched him and hesitatingly joined him in burning the scriptures.
After a while, Su Yang lamented, “It was a pity that you burned the lyrics…”
Gu Feidi’s hands froze for a second but he didn’t look back at Su Yang. He asked with a smile, “What made you say that?”
Su Yang stuttered and mumbled, “The new lyrics you re-wrote were wonderful…Not to mention your beautiful handwriting. I really wanted to keep it…”
After burning most of the scriptures, Gu Feidi beamed. He sat back down on the couch table and picked up his brush. He dipped a brush into a small dish filled with water, and dropped it on the inkstone’s well. He then picked up the ink stick and slowly ground out the dark liquid.
Su Yang watched his movement and had a premonition in his heart. He knew clearly what Gu Feidi was going to do.
Sure enough, once Gu Feidi ground enough ink, he took a piece of blank paper and earnestly wrote out the altered song lyrics again.
Su Yang memorized the words left behind the brush one by one. He slowly followed the pen upward to the hand, then up to Gu Feidi’s serious face.
Gu Feidi’s eyelashes drooped, covering the eyes that seemed to contain the starry night. His expression was tranquil, showing no other emotion. The corner of his mouth was tilted upward, and his lips followed...
Looking at Gu Feidi’s lips, the first image that came to Su Yang’s mind was that time in the dark room.
He didn’t pay too close attention at that time. Thinking about it now, he could feel the phantom soft, warm and moist touch on his lips out of thin air, causing him to feel an itch in his heart.
Su Yang unknowingly sucked in his lips and wetted them.
“Done.” Gu Feidi’s shallow smile became brighter as he glanced at Su Yang.
Gu Feidi picked up the paper by grabbing its two corners, closed his lips and slowly exhaled gently, trying to dry up the half-wet ink.
Su Yang’s eyes followed the paper to read the elegant handwriting.
Once the ink was dry, Su Yang reached for the paper and read it silently twice. Once he was done, he folded the paper, held it against his chest like it was his most precious treasure, and stored it in his robe.
They burned the remaining scriptures together and tidied the stone room. Then they carried their bags and walked out the stone chamber side by side.
Since there was no sunlight in the Forbidden Ground, their sense of time was vaguely distorted. Once they came out of the cave, they found that it was almost nighttime.
Mei Shisan stood at the entrance of the Forbidden Ground. When he saw Su Yang and Gu Feidi walking out, he bowed and saluted respectfully, “Young Master.”
Seeing Mei Shisan again, Su Yang suddenly thought of who this petal retainer was loyal to, which made him feel uncomfortable.
He flattened his lips and instead of having his retainer stand back up right away, as usual, he asked in a firm voice, “What is it?”
Mei Shisan bowed his head and replied, “This subordinate was ordered to escort the Young Master back to Iris Island and accompany him to the snowy mountain to search for the doctor.”
Susu,, go embrace & kiss him.
Hehe,, Take love from this reader for your hard work❤️