WWC | Chapter 17

Su Tingyan’s brain was still being bombarded by the system’s notification tone: [Congratulations to the player for unlocking the Lu Xuan route achievement [Venomous Snake’s Love] and obtaining the special status [Lu Xuan’s Absolute Infatuation] (effect: Lu Xuan will spare no expense to satisfy your requests, but his possessiveness and protectiveness will reach their peak!). Charm +10000!]

Charm plus ten thousand???!!!!

He had only wanted to disgust the man a little and, by the way, give himself a way off the hook. Who could have guessed the effect would be this absurdly powerful!

Su Tingyan could not help asking the system, “Didn’t you say the Sixth Prince Yan Che’s route was the easiest? How is Lu Xuan’s affection climbing so fast?”

System: [Because, Player, you’re truly gifted. You’re practically born to be a succubus!]

System: [You managed to max out Lu Xuan’s affection this quickly, so no one will ever be able to break your record in the future!]

Su Tingyan: “…I was just breathing normally.”

System: [You’re the undisputed runaway minister from Disney!]

Su Tingyan: “……..”

Had they considered that maybe this damn game’s romance routes were just too easy to conquer, while the career route was harder than eating shit?

Emperor Jingwu’s gaze was profound, a teasing smile curving his lips. “You like him so much you can’t even wait? Minister Su, this is the first time I’ve heard you be so blunt. It seems Minister Lu’s care the other day really pleased you.”

The emperor clearly did not believe Su Tingyan’s nonsense, but he was more than happy to watch the show.

Lu Xuan had already sat back down. He lowered his eyes and said nothing, but his fingertips were practically about to rub sparks out of the teacup. Again and again, lightly and then firmly, he stroked the warm vessel.

It seemed he wanted to use that to suppress the surging emotion in his chest, an emotion even he found frightening.

After all these years in court, when had he ever lost control like this?

All because of one obviously joking remark from the other man?

Yet he had fallen for it, and fallen completely!

When he looked up again, none of that roguish ease remained. Instead, he seemed so lingeringly affectionate it was almost indecent. “To have Minister Su say he likes me, I’d be willing to serve you for ten days or half a month without taking off my clothes, and I’d still do it gladly.”

It was a beautiful response, one that answered the emperor while also making Su Tingyan’s teasing sound a little more real, as if there truly were something unspeakably intimate between the two of them.

Su Tingyan felt a phantom pain in his ass and hurriedly dragged the topic back onto the proper track.

He respectfully said to Emperor Jingwu, “Your Majesty, please see clearly. This minister and Minister Lu are merely officials serving in the same court, showing mutual consideration. What this minister said earlier was not false. In the case of Censor Zhao, there were indeed suspicious traces at the scene. It seems someone deliberately framed another, hoping to stir up conflict in court. Such intent is unforgivable.”

“I have now handed the evidence over to the Dali Temple, and General Xie is also assisting with the investigation into the weapon-related clues. I believe results will not be long in coming.”

The emperor’s teasing expression faded. He nodded. “I am already aware of this matter. Since Minister Su has found a direction, then go ahead and investigate. I want to see who dares, under the very feet of the Son of Heaven, to use such methods to harm a court official and stir up trouble!”

The emperor’s stance was enough to bring this covert, turbulent probing to a temporary close.

After a few more casual exchanges, Emperor Jingwu returned to the palace.

Once the emperor left, the atmosphere inside the open pavilion changed again.

The officials accompanying him felt as if they had been granted amnesty, and they all found excuses to take their leave, disappearing faster than rabbits.

Soon, only Su Tingyan and Lu Xuan remained inside the pavilion, along with a few attendants standing at a distance.

Su Tingyan immediately wanted to stand and leave as well. He truly did not want to be alone with a fully maxed-out Lu Xuan!

But the moment he moved, Lu Xuan’s voice rose lazily, like rippling spring water, almost spilling out that absurdly excessive tenderness.

“It’s windy outside. Minister Su’s illness hasn’t healed yet, so why rush off? You said such heartfelt things before His Majesty, and now that no one’s around, you want to avoid me instead?”

Su Tingyan stiffened all over.

He drew a deep breath, braced himself against the edge of the table, and sat more steadily. “Minister Lu, that was only a joke just now. Surely you didn’t take it seriously?”

“Is that so?” To his surprise, Lu Xuan actually nodded faintly, his face dark as the boundary where daylight had just split open into shadow. “But I did take it seriously.”

“Su Tingyan, whether your words were genuine or false, I know that our paths are different, but I insist on forcing them to meet.”

“Today I will tell you this: I, Lu Boyu, took it seriously. And not only did I take it seriously, I will use every method, every possible means, and I will spare no cost, even unto death, to make you take it seriously too.”

That unbroken string of bold declarations left Su Tingyan momentarily stunned.

He really had not known Lu Xuan was this easy to provoke. A few casual flirtatious lines, and he had driven the man straight into a blackened state?

Great. The Lu Xuan from before had merely been a restrained yandere. Now he had fully evolved into an extroverted pervert.

The way he looked at him now seemed, at every moment, as if he wanted to force himself on him.

After speaking, Lu Xuan turned and had someone fetch a brand-new snow-white cloak with a fox-fur collar.

The black-and-gold cloak that the female attendants had draped over him had long since fallen to the ground at some unknown point. The beauties had already withdrawn, and Lu Xuan stepped on that cloak as though crushing a carpet of fallen flowers, moving closer to him step by step.

No, being fucked in a pavilion in this freezing, snow-covered place was poetic, sure, but completely inhumane!

He seemed to want to use the excuse of helping him into a cloak to draw closer to Su Tingyan. In his panic, Su Tingyan could only turn his head and cough violently.

“Cough, cough cough… Minister Lu, you should still keep your distance, cough… I’m quite infectious, don’t pass it to you. I should hurry back to the manor, cough, go back and rest…”

At that moment, Su Tingyan truly hated the fact that his fever still hadn’t broken today, because it left him unable to talk back at all.

If this had been any other day, he would have cursed the man’s affection back down to negative numbers and still considered himself as having played this game in vain!

“Minister Su, with this official taking care of you, wouldn’t your illness get better even faster?”

Su Tingyan: “……..” In plain terms, the difference was just between a cold and a split asshole.

He tried to awaken the conscience of this black-hearted minister and powerbroker. “Minister Lu, I really am sick.”

Lu Xuan: “Mm, no one said you were faking it.”

“Minister Lu, we are political enemies.”

Lu Xuan laughed. “Political enemies is two characters, and lovers is also two characters. Minister Su, don’t you think that’s a little too much of a coincidence?”

“Maybe political enemies are lovers?”

Su Tingyan: ……..

When faced with a pervert, there were moments when he truly felt helpless because his swear vocabulary was not rich enough.

The system in his head kept dinging with notifications that his charm value had increased. He knew, without question, that it was because Lu Xuan had once again become a hard man.

Su Tingyan closed his eyes, then said shakily, “Minister Lu, the Imperial Medical Office is offering half-price castration today. Why don’t you go get it done…”

That made Lu Xuan laugh again, helplessly.

He was already standing in front of Su Tingyan, the snow-white cloak spread open in his hands as he looked at him and coaxed him in a soft voice. “All right, I won’t do anything to you. Put on my cloak so you don’t freeze, okay?”

Su Tingyan said, “I have my own.”

Lu Xuan glanced at the black cloak on the ground, which he had already trampled into a state too terrible to look at, then kept both hands motionless, maintaining that posture of offering the cloak. “Yours is dirty. You don’t need it anymore.”

Su Tingyan finally stopped coughing. He straightened and his expression turned cold. “What right do you have to decide that I don’t want my own things anymore?”

He moved sideways to avoid Lu Xuan, and there was no longer any trace of the amused spirit he had shown while sparring with the man.

Even though his illness made him sway slightly, he still walked firmly to the cloak that belonged to him.

He picked up the black cloak from the ground and, turning his face aside, said flatly, “I actually think this cloak is cleaner than you are.”

In all his life, Lu Xuan had never suffered this kind of humiliation from someone again and again, and yet been unable to stop himself from savoring it.

The man was right on his own territory, and the surrounding forces were all his. If he truly wanted to do something by force, then even if it ended in mutual destruction, no one present today could stop him.

But looking at the faint moisture at the corner of the other man’s eyes from coughing, and those lips flushed red from fever…

Too pitiful, and that was enough to make him lose interest.

In the end, Lu Xuan did not advance any further. Instead, he stopped at a distance like the edge of a cliff, lifted the snow-white cloak in his hand a little, and threw it to the ground as well, then stepped on it.

“Forget it.” He let out a soft sigh.

“Since you know your illness hasn’t recovered, don’t force yourself next time. Just how have the people under you been taking care of you? How have they managed to make you sicker instead?”

These words no longer held any sharp opposition or false sincerity. They carried no desire, and no probing either, only genuine concern.

But Su Tingyan did not answer him anymore. He simply raised a hand and called over Qinghai from outside to help him.

Lu Xuan did not stop him. Standing where he was, he silently watched Su Tingyan’s back, thin as a fallen leaf.

“Minister Lu.” It was only when he was about to step out the door that Su Tingyan finally regained a normal tone.

He said seriously, “Between you and me, there is nothing but enmity. In my eyes, separate paths can never meet again. Xiao Lang can only be a passerby. Since you go toward Xiaoxiang and I go toward Qin, our paths differ, so we absolutely should not force this.”

“I hope you won’t remain obstinately blind to this. And if you truly insist on deceiving yourself, then don’t forget that the reason you now stand alone atop the mountain is entirely because of the countless despicable things you did before.”

“You have no one to blame but yourself.”

Having said that, he no longer lingered, and with Qinghai’s support, he slowly walked outside.

Those final words of his were like an entire snow mountain collapsing onto a sea of raging flames, water and fire in opposition, forever irreconcilable.

Yet after hearing them, Lu Xuan did not grow angry, nor did he retort. In fact, every expression on his face gradually vanished.

What replaced it was an extreme emptiness.

Alone atop the mountain? Because he had done countless despicable things? No one to blame but himself?

Yes, of course he knew.

More than anyone, he understood exactly how he had climbed step by step to the peak of power, with bones piled beneath his feet and filth clinging to his palms.

He had long since grown used to the world’s curses, his colleagues’ wariness, and the criticism of the clean and upright.

But he had never cared, and he had never regretted it.

The officialdom was crooked. How could someone with a spine too straight ever force his way in?

Even you, Su Zhao, if you put your hand on your heart and asked yourself honestly, were you really that spotless?

You once held the books of sages in your arms and trudged through snow so deep it reached your knees, but did you think I had never walked through that same white expanse, never once carried my own lofty ambitions?

Only that the vicissitudes of the court and the world had already, through day after day of schemes and calculations, suffocated that red heart of sincerity alive.

It died cold. It died completely.

Even Lu Xuan himself could not explain why. That poisonous heart and liver he had buried so long ago had somehow begun to beat again because of Su Tingyan, like the great drum outside the yamen covered in dust, suddenly alive once more, its booming rhythm ringing in his ears and tightening his chest.

Every word Su Tingyan had spoken struck like a blade, powerful enough to pierce him and bring up a long-forgotten sharp pain.

But how could any of this count as his own self-deception?

It was clearly the other man who had toyed with him first.

That one line of liking him had been disgustingly fake, yet he had still willingly taken the hook.

Since he would not accept the other man’s pity, then from this point on, what he wanted would only be to pin him down at the peak and ruin him, fuck him to death.

He would pluck every single feather from that phoenix plumage all over his body, break his proud backbone, force down his head, and make him go from sitting high in the golden tower to yielding beneath someone else’s crotch.

Lu Xuan slowly lifted his eyes and looked toward the direction Su Tingyan had gone. That place was already empty, with only pearl curtains swaying lightly as the cold wind blew through the hall.

After a long while, he set down the teacup in his hand and told his trusted aide in the shadows, “Go investigate who Zhao Shuyan had his last contact with before he died, and who he had censured. Even if it’s the most insignificant clue, dig it out for me.”

“Yes, my lord!”

The aide accepted the order, then hesitated before asking, “My lord, why are we helping Minister Su investigate…”

Lu Xuan gave him a faint side glance, and that look instantly shut the aide up.

“Helping him?” Lu Xuan said. “I’m not helping him.”

Su Zhao was right. They were enemies.

But so what?

Even if they were enemies, they were destined to be entangled with each other until death.

Su Tingyan wanted to draw a clear line?

Too late.

The moment he stepped into the center of this vortex, the moment he used that push-and-pull act to draw Lu Xuan’s attention, the moment he blurted out that word like that, he was already not getting away.

Lu Xuan turned to look out the window. The golden crow was sinking westward, and dusk had already closed in.

“Su Tingyan, you’d better truly have heaven-defying abilities,” he murmured slowly. “Otherwise, from here on out, I won’t leave even a shred of tenderness for you.”

–

By the time Su Tingyan had already boarded the carriage, he had opened the system and was quietly analyzing things.

System: [Detected intense emotional fluctuation in target Lu Xuan. Affection value remains stable (1000/1000), but emotional state has undergone an unknown transformation. [Absolute Infatuation] has advanced into [Dark-Eroding Embrace]. Effect: possessiveness and protectiveness have transformed into deeper obsession and latent destructive tendencies! He cannot let go, and may also be unable to love in a normal way. Danger level: Extremely dangerous! Player, proceed with extreme caution!]

Su Tingyan: “What kind of dark-eroding embrace is that? At least give it a less middle-school name. So Mary Sue.”

The system continued: [Love and hate are two sides of the same coin. When extreme infatuation encounters sober rejection, mutation is a normal probabilistic event. Congratulations, Player, on unlocking a hidden state!]

Su Tingyan: “……..” If there was nothing to congratulate me on, you could actually just not congratulate me.

Su Tingyan asked, “Didn’t you say before that I was the absolute protagonist of this game? So as long as I don’t want something, no one can force me, right?”

“Then even if Lu Xuan has blackened, he shouldn’t be able to rape me first and kill me later, should he?”

That point was very important to him.

If not for the system’s assurance, he would never have dared to provoke Lu Xuan so casually!

System: [Of course. Everything is based on the player’s will. But will is a very subjective thing. If we detect that the player feels pleasure in bed, it will automatically be judged as mutual consent.]

The more Su Tingyan listened, the more wrong it sounded. “What? You can even detect whether I’m pleased or not???”

System: [Theoretically, yes.]

Su Tingyan: “That’s way too presumptuous! You still need to monitor that? I’m not impotent, so I’m not worried about it, but if other players came here, wouldn’t you people…”

System: [Uh, actually, we just analyze the player’s facial expressions and body movements to reach a conclusion. The system can’t feel what you feel!]

Su Tingyan: “The fact that you bastards can see other people going through that process is already presumptuous as hell! Where can I message your developers? I’m filing a complaint about this feature!!”

System: [Don’t complain about me!! At worst, I can just turn it off when you don’t want to be monitored. It’s mainly to protect you, Player!]

Su Tingyan: “…It had better be!”

Author’s Note:
———————-

Yanyan: “You people who start dating after just playing a game, are you even playing the game properly?”