“The king and queen are His Highness’s parents, but I have my own mother to worry about,” Mu Qing replied. “She also needs my care. I can’t neglect my own mother for the sake of someone else, or someone else’s parents. I pray Your Highness will understand that I cannot stay at your side.”

Xie Lian felt faint and leaned against a nearby wall.

“Is that the real reason?” Feng Xin questioned coldly. “How come you’ve never mentioned it before?”

“It is one of my reasons,” Mu Qing replied. “Another reason is that I feel we’ve become mired in this situation and have very different ideas on how to pull ourselves out. Pardon my honesty, but if we keep going like this, nothing will get better—even in a million years. And so, our paths have diverged.”

Feng Xin was so angry he began to laugh. He nodded and turned to Xie Lian. “Your Highness, you hear that? Remember what I said back then? I said that he’d be the first to run off if you were ever banished. Didn’t I tell you?”

Mu Qing seemed aggravated by his words. “Please stop trying to guilt trip me, thanks,” he requested flatly. “I’m only speaking the truth. Everyone has their own outlook. No one was born to be the center of the world, the justice of the Mortal Realm. Perhaps you enjoy orbiting around another person, but others might not feel the same.”

“Well, don’t you have a load of sour, veiled excuses? I don’t give a damn,” Feng Xin said. “Is it so hard to admit you’re an ungrateful traitor?”

“Enough!”

At the sound of Xie Lian’s voice, the two of them stopped arguing. Xie Lian removed his hand from his forehead and turned to Mu Qing. He stared at him for a while before he spoke.

“I don’t like forcing people.”

Mu Qing’s lips pursed, but he still stood tall.

“Go,” Xie Lian said.

Mu Qing looked at him, not saying a word. Then he bowed deeply, turned around, and walked away.

Feng Xin stared at his retreating back without blinking as it disappeared into the night. “Your Highness, you really let him go, just like that?” Feng Xin said in disbelief.

Xie Lian sighed. “What else can I do? I just said I don’t like forcing people.”

“No… But…? That bastard!” Feng Xin exclaimed. “What’s with him? He actually left?! He ran off?! What the fuck!”

Xie Lian crouched on the riverside, rubbing his forehead. “Never mind it. If his heart has already left us, what’s the use in making him stay? Should I tie him up and force him to wash my clothes?”

Feng Xin didn’t know what else to say either and crouched beside him. A moment later he spat angrily, “Goddammit. That bastard was happy to share the wealth but not the suffering. He ran away the moment things got tough. Does he remember nothing of your kindness?!”

“I’m the one who told him not to remember it,” Xie Lian said. “So…you don’t need to bring it up constantly.”

“But he couldn’t possibly forget it for real?!” Feng Xin refuted. “What the actual fuck! Don’t you worry, Your Highness. I will never, ever leave you.”

Xie Lian forced a small smile but said nothing. Feng Xin stood back up.

“Shall we go pick up the king and queen? I’ll find a carriage—you just wait here.”

Xie Lian nodded. “Thanks. Be careful.”

Feng Xin acknowledged him and left. Xie Lian also rose to his feet and walked alongside the river for a while. His whole body still felt a little unsteady, like nothing was real.

Mu Qing’s departure had truly shocked him to the core.

He never expected someone so close to him to leave just like that. Xie Lian had always believed in “forever”—friends would always be friends forever, with no betrayal, no deception, no breaking up. Perhaps there would come a time when they had to part, but it wouldn’t be for a reason like “things got too horrible.”

In all the stories he’d read, the hero and the beauty were a match made in heaven. They never parted and would remain true to each other forever and ever—and if they couldn’t, it would be because they were forced apart by a tragic death and not because the hero preferred to eat meat while the beauty preferred fish, or because the hero scorned the beauty for spending too lavishly and the beauty scorned the hero for his bad habits.

It wasn’t a pleasant feeling to lose your footing and plunge millions of miles, only to find yourself still in the Mortal Realm when you hit the ground.

As Xie Lian randomly wandered, he suddenly saw shimmering golden lights floating ahead. The sight snapped Xie Lian out of his haze. On closer inspection, he saw the lights were lanterns—lantern after lantern floated on the water, drifting with the river’s current. There was a pair of children laughing and playing by the riverside.

“Ah, today is Zhongyuan,” Xie Lian remembered.

There had been a grand service at the Royal Holy Temple for the Zhongyuan Festival every year; he’d always looked forward to it and would have never just forgotten. But now, it had completely slipped his mind. He shook his head and continued on his way.

Just then, a voice came from the road ahead. “Kids, kids, wanna buy one?”

The voice was extremely old and raspy, and it was laced with eerie ghost qi. Xie Lian instinctively knew something wasn’t right. He looked over to see two children with lanterns in their hands stopped by the roadside. They were staring at something with curiosity—and fear.

Someone was seated in the darkness in front of them. He seemed to be an old man, unkempt and dressed in black robes that allowed him to blend in with the equally black night. With an unlit lantern in his hand, he beckoned the two children in a shady manner.

“My lanterns are very different from the ordinary lanterns you’re holding, I tell ya. These are rare treasures; if you make a wish on them, it’s guaranteed to come true.”

The two small children seemed doubtful. “R-really?”

“Of course,” the old man said. “Look.”

The lantern in his hand was clearly not lit, but it glowed just then with an ominous red light. There were over a dozen other lanterns on the ground next to him, and they began to flicker haunting green. It was a terribly eerie sight.

The two small children were amazed, but Xie Lian knew exactly what he was looking at. Rare treasures? That was clearly phosphorescence from the souls of the dead!

A little ghost’s soul must have been sealed into that lantern for it to glow with such a peculiar, ominous light. As for the old man, he had to be some sketchy scam cultivator who had captured those unlucky wandering spirits from somewhere and sealed them into the lanterns. The two children didn’t know about those sorts of tricks and clapped in delight, wanting to buy the lanterns.

Xie Lian quickly rushed over. “Don’t buy them. He’s lying to you.”

The old man glared. “What’re you talking about, boy?!”

“These lanterns aren’t treasures–they’re wicked contraptions,” Xie Lian stated plainly. “There are ghosts sealed inside them, and the spirits will cling to you if you bring one home to play with.”

When the children heard that they were ghosts, they didn’t dare linger. They ran away, wailing as they went.

The old man leapt to his feet, yelling angrily, “You dare ruin my business?!”

“How could you run such a business? Even adults who bought your wicked lanterns would fall into great misfortune—and you sell them to ignorant children? Vengeful ghosts could cling to them,” Xie Lian lectured. “And wouldn’t that be a great wrong? If you must sell such things, you should sell them in a specialized market.”

“You make it sound so easy. Where would I even find a ‘specialized market’ to sell things like this?” the old man rebuked him. “Everyone just sets up shop randomly on the roadside!”

He gathered up his supremely ugly, poorly made lanterns, preparing to leave with a huff.

“Wait!” Xie Lian hastily called out.

“What? What do you want?” the old man said gruffly. “Are you going to buy?”