Yin Wuwang wasn't sure what had steered the conversation. Maybe it was He Jinsong's exhale earlier today—that moment when something pressing down for years was finally set down. Maybe the apartment was too quiet, quiet enough that his guard had loosened by half an inch on its own.
"Today, when He Jinsong found out the truth about Chen Wan—" Yin Wuwang's voice carried a trace of languidness, as if he were just making idle conversation. "He'd hated the man for years, and it turned out the hatred was built on a misunderstanding."
"Mm."
"Do you think, if he'd known five years earlier that Chen Wan was being crushed by debt, would he still have hated him?"
Xie Qingyan considered it. "No. But he wouldn't have forgiven him either. Five hundred thousand was still gone. The nature of the hatred would just be different—from 'you swindled me' to 'why didn't you tell me sooner.'"
Yin Wuwang let out a quiet laugh. Fuguang dissected human emotion the way he dissected swordsmanship—with a precision that left you nothing to argue with.
"The way I see it," Yin Wuwang gazed up at the ceiling, "whether you hate or not sometimes has nothing to do with what the other person did. It has to do with you. If you're willing to let go, you let go. If you're not—even after the reason disappears, you'll find a new one to keep hating."
Xie Qingyan's hand paused on his teacup.
Several seconds of silence.
"Watching He Jinsong let go today moved you," Xie Qingyan said. Not a question.
Yin Wuwang didn't deny it. His gaze rested on that diffused patch of warm light on the ceiling. The light was soft, like a thin veil of mist.
"There's actually something—" Yin Wuwang's tone shifted suddenly. Not the casual drift of idle chat, but something carrying a gravity he hadn't even noticed himself. "This sovereign has been meaning to tell you."
Xie Qingyan looked at him.
Yin Wuwang's gaze was still on the ceiling. The floor lamp's warm glow spread across that white surface like a faint layer of fog.
And he thought of the Mist-Veiled Forest.
That fog had been cold. In the Mist-Veiled Forest at the edge of late autumn, mist had risen from the ground, wrapping everything in a damp shroud of gray-white. He had been ten years old, so thin his ribs jutted out one by one, running barefoot through the mud. Behind him, a Foundation Establishment cultivator was shouting curses—he had stolen the man's spirit fruit.
He'd taken one bite before the fruit slipped from his hand. He couldn't run anymore. An old wound on his leg from a wild dog's bite made him lurch and stumble with every stride. The cultivator caught up, drove a kick into his back, and he went face-down in the mud—mouth full of dirt and blood.
The cultivator raised his hand.
Then a streak of sword qi sliced through the fog.
He lay in the dirt and saw a pair of boots stop in front of him. White. Spotless. Not a speck of mud.
"This is my quarry."
A young voice. Clear and cold, carrying the distinctive chill of a sword cultivator, like meltwater from the forest itself.
The cultivator left. The white boots stood before him for a while, and then their owner crouched down.
A hand reached toward him.
Slender, pale fingers. Thin calluses on the fingertips—worn from gripping a sword.
That hand set down three things in front of him: a bottle of medicinal pills, several spirit fruits, and a small pouch of spirit stones.
Yin Wuwang, face-down in the mud, looked up.
The fog was too thick to see the person's face clearly. He could make out only the outline of a boy—fifteen or sixteen, white robes, a sword at his waist.
Then the person walked away. Steady, quick steps, as if he had somewhere to be. The hem of his white robes was swallowed by the fog, disappearing into the depths of the forest within seconds.
From start to finish, the boy never gave him a second glance.
Yin Wuwang sat in the mud for a long time. The bottle of pills was clenched in his fist, knuckles white from the force of his grip.
That was the first time in his ten years of life that someone had given him something, instead of taking something away.
—Three thousand years later. Today. The pills were long gone, the spirit stones long spent, the taste of those spirit fruits faded from memory. But the image of those white boots stopping before him—he could see it the moment he closed his eyes.
"Actually, a long time ago—" Yin Wuwang began.
Then he slammed on the brakes.
Not the gradual kind of pulling back. A full-force emergency stop.
Because he'd suddenly realized that if he finished that sentence—Back then, you saved me—Xie Qingyan would ask: When?
He wouldn't remember. Those few minutes in the Mist-Veiled Forest had been nothing to him—a filthy child caught stealing spirit fruit, a few things left behind, a turn and a walk away. He'd probably forgotten before reaching the forest's edge.
But Yin Wuwang had remembered for three thousand years. And there was only one reason in the world that could make a person turn someone else's offhand kindness into the defining catastrophe of their fate.
To say you saved me was to tell Xie Qingyan: You are the entire reason I stayed alive. From the year I was ten. Every single day since.
Yin Wuwang was not ready for him to know that.
"A long time ago, what?" Xie Qingyan's tone was calm, his gaze resting on Yin Wuwang's face.
Yin Wuwang completed the redirect in half a second.
"A long time ago, this sovereign has been meaning to say—your tea is too weak." He picked up the cup and swirled it, his tone snapping back to its usual teasing register. "The sugar, though, is just right."
The sentence was so stupid that even he wanted to slap himself.
Xie Qingyan looked at him for several seconds.
In that gaze was something Yin Wuwang recognized well—not scrutiny, not confusion. A quiet confirmation that said: I know you didn't finish. Identical to the look Xie Qingyan had given in Arc 1, when Yin Wuwang had said, "I've done a lot of things wrong."
He saw. But he didn't push.
"All right. I'll make it stronger next time." Xie Qingyan stood, collected both empty cups, and walked toward the kitchen.
Yin Wuwang sat on the sofa, listening to the sound of water rinsing cups in the kitchen.
He closed his eyes for a moment.
So close.
Back then, you saved me. Seven words. He'd held them in his mouth for three thousand years, and tonight they'd nearly spilled out on a single breath.
[End of V2_Chapter 49]
Next: "There's No Rush"—Three Words Worth More Than Three Thousand Years