Chapter 109: Ridiculous Theories

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“Alright, how many fingers am I holding up?”

Feng stared at Lianshi, a touch confused and a little insulted. “This feels… extremely basic.”

The two of them were alone back in his estate. Lianshi had both hands behind her back, obstructing them from Feng.

“Feng, if you can’t even get this right, then there’s no point continuing,” she stated bluntly. “Just get your wraith to tell you how many fingers there are behind me.”

“I loathe being treated like this,” the wraith scoffed, a touch petulant. “Am I a pet to perform party tricks now?”

“She’s not too happy about this,” Feng relayed.

“She can see, right?” Lianshi pushed, undeterred. “Um, do ghosts have eyes? I’m not sure.”

“She can. She only has one eye, though,” he informed her.

Lianshi looked disturbed. “Like… In the middle of her head? You have weird taste in women…”

“Not like that! Her right eye is just missing, or something,” Feng hissed, blushing. “Stop making me sound like I have weird fetishes!”

“You are the one with the imaginary girlfriend,” Lianshi grumbled. “Also, quit stalling. How many fingers?”

Feng sighed. He looked towards the wraith standing behind Lianshi questioningly.

The woman did not look happy, but obliged all the same. “She’s holding up six fingers, two on her left, four on her right.”

You better not be lying. I’m in enough trouble as is… Feng cleared his throat. “Six fingers.”

Lianshi frowned. “Okay. Lucky guess. One more time. How many?”

Feng looked up once more. The wraith huffed, a touch amused. “Eleven.”

The Young Master opened his mouth, nearly answering before his brain caught up. 

I told you not to mess with me! He hissed in his mind. Are you trying to get me in trouble?!

“I’m not. Your concubine just grew an extra finger.”

Feng blinked. He gave Lianshi an accusing look. “Growing extra appendages is cheating!”

Lianshi tilted her head. “Hm. Okay, not bad.”

“Do you believe me now?” he asked hopefully.

“Nope, you are not getting off that easy. I’m still not convinced you aren’t using a special trick or something.” She shook her head. “I have a few more ideas in mind. Do you have some cards or dice around here somewhere?”

Feng groaned in union with his wraith’s sigh.

~~~

About an hour later…

“Correct again! That’s five times in a row! C’mon, let’s go again!”

Scattered around the pair were rows of discarded cards, board games, and overturned cups with dice within them. Lianshi had them playing gambling games of all sorts for the last hour. Each challenge necessitated the wraith’s involvement to win, often requiring her to assume rather strange roles and amusing positions.

Lianshi eagerly shook the cup in her hands, rattling the dice within before slamming it down on the floor. Feng gave his wraith an expectant look, and the phantom signed as she lay down for the umpteenth time to glance within the overturned cup on the ground. 

“A six, a three, and a pair of twos,” she grumbled.

Feng relayed the information. Lianshi beamed.

“We could make a living out of this,” the Young Miss giggled evilly. “I know a few gambling dens around the Province. We could swindle their money dry faster than they could blink!”

“We don’t really need money, though?” Feng’s voice was unsure. His Fiancée was having more fun with this than he thought she would.

It was not an unwelcome development; far from it. Feng could not remember when he last saw Lianshi smile so brightly again. He chuckled, passing her another set of dice.

“She simply enjoys spending time with you. It has been a while since the two of you have engaged in such mundane activities together, and all your previous interactions with her for the last month have been either forced intimacy or stifled conversations. Remember that you are her best friend as well, even if the two of you do not share the same affections for each other.”

That wraith’s explanation sombered his mood. Feng had almost forgotten how much he had neglected her recently.

No, not simply recently. His Fiancée was a good pretender, despite her raw strength and cultivation. Her mind was sharp, and her skills at deception fooled even him all this while, until she confessed her true grievances earlier that day.

Lianshi had been aware of his lack of feelings for the longest time. Despite her efforts, all becoming increasingly affectionate and understanding as time passed, she never once sensed from him the love and desire she always wanted.

Still, she said nothing. Still, she patiently waited for him to love her, giving him more opportunities, allowances, and care that he did not deserve.

And even after all that, if he still could not love her… She was prepared to let him go, even going as far as to ensure any political fallout would fall on her shoulders instead, so that he could move on unhindered and unmarred by ill reputations.

Even when all those doubts and fears of inadequacy must have festered, she had no one to turn to, no way to alleviate those pains.

Lianshi had endured it all the way. For him. Unfalteringly. Unconditionally.

Because she loved him.

Feng clutched his fist. “Lianshi?”

“Hm? What is it, Feng? Do you want to change the game? I think there’s another card trick I want to test—”

He reached over and hugged her, cutting her off.

“... Ah,” she said, voice muffled as she leaned against him. “I was hoping not to think about this. We were finally having fun together, for once…”

“I’m sorry. For everything. For making you doubt yourself. For letting you endure your fears alone,” he said. “And… for being the cause of them.”

“It’s not your fault. We don’t choose who we love. Not really,” Lianshi uttered, her voice returning to a shade of melancholy. “This woman of yours must be quite incredible. Even discounting these little tricks, if what you told me is true… She must be a spirit of unfathomable power. A deceased Immortal, maybe. Small wonder you would choose her over me.”

“It’s not like that,” he protested, though it felt weak. “I… I think… I knew her before I was even born.”

Lianshi looked at him curiously. Feng continued.

“She keeps getting my name wrong. My nightmares involving her… They allude to another person. I keep getting memories of another life, and they are…”

He hesitated. But Feng had already come this far. And more than anyone else, Lianshi deserved to know the whole truth.

“Memories of an entire Age ago. During the time of the Gods. During the Great Rebellion. I felt as if… I lived through them,” he confessed.

Lianshi’s eyes widened. “You believe you are a reincarnated soul? But that’s… Only Immortals can perform a proper incarnation, and they do so with their full memories. And if you came from the Age of the Gods… Your real spirit would have been lost in the Well of Samsara for over a thousand years. That’s not possible. Your memories and sense of self would be long lost in the maelstrom already.”

“I know. It’s nonsense,” Feng admitted. “It should be nonsense. But there’s more, and it gets even more ridiculous.”

Lianshi waited quietly, eyes rapt with attention. Even the wraith was silent.

Feng took a deep breath.

“I dreamt… that I was the one leading the rebellion, that I was at the centre of it all. Training my disciples, moving my armies, creating alliances with powerful forces. I remember… Mount Tai. I was there at the final battle, and I…”

I saw Mount Tai die.

Feng could not bring himself to finish, but the implications were clear. He closed his eyes, waiting for judgment.

Then… a snicker.

Feng tentatively opened one eye and saw Lianshi holding back her laughter.

“Feng, are you trying to say you think you are the Emperor reborn?”

The Young Master huffed, feeling quite silly. A smile broke upon his face. “Well, I have the charisma for it, don’t you think?”

Lianshi laughed freely then. Her body reverberated against his, and he laughed with her as well.

It was the first time he ever told anyone of his theories; the first time he ever gave such ridiculous thoughts a voice. Now he had said it…

It felt utterly ludicrous.

“If the Perverse Emperor had your abysmal charisma, I dare say the rebellion would have been doomed from the start,” Lianshi giggled. “You have the subtlety and the awareness of a rock sometimes.”

“You love me in spite of it, anyway,” he softly said as he pulled her closer.

“I do,” she admitted freely, without shame or hurt. “Because you are kind, and stubborn, and you stayed with me when the entire world was against me. You are not someone who would ever abandon another if they needed you.”

He held her tighter. Felt her warmth. Despite her height, she fit perfectly in his arms.

“I dream too, sometimes,” Lianshi confessed. “Your flesh, your kisses… They awaken something in me. I remember flashes of things. Always so strange, but they all involve you in some way. The taste of you haunts me. It is Divine. It is… home.”

A sense of unease filled him. There was another matter that haunted him — a theory that terrified him to even think about, let alone speak it.

Still, Feng chose to give voice to his concerns.

“Have you ever wondered why that was the case? That maybe… You never had a choice but to love me?”

Lianshi looked taken aback. “What?”

Feng swallowed. He turned away, unable to meet her gaze. “No matter how you look at it, it doesn’t make sense. Your strength. The impossible growth of your cultivation. The supposed love you hold for me, so firm and unyielding, you have defied the hand of suitors a hundred times better than me, for me. Everything you did to accommodate me and my inadequacy… Your dedication is frightening precisely because it doesn’t make sense.”

“What are you saying?” Lianshi softly asked. There was, he thought, something very vulnerable in her tone.

A threshold was met. Past this point was the edge of no return, more so than even his previous confessions. 

And yet…

“You owe her this much.”

Feng shakily sighed. “I have… a theory. My flesh, my body, it is… wrong, somehow. And it might have influenced you.”

It was evident in the way he tasted. Lianshi always looked rapturous when he consumed his flesh, but a part of him always assumed that stemmed in part from her love for him.

However, his brief (and rather erroneous) tryst with Disciple Jin had informed him of the unnatural potency of his flesh. Combined with his nightmares evoking brief, physical changes in him, as well as the scarring wounds he somehow left on Lianshi on those nights despite her vastly superior standing, Feng could only come to one possible conclusion.

He might not be the Emperor reborn — the Emperor himself should still be on His Throne, after all, manifesting His Divine Domain of the Eternal Banquet — but there was undoubtedly a foreign quality to Feng’s body that could not be easily explained.

And as such, he could not simply discard a horrible theory that he had harboured for the longest time.

That his flesh might have perverted Lianshi’s judgement, who has devoured more of him than anyone else before in his life.