The day before the Sword Venerable emerged from seclusion, the little mute he kept by his side to warm his bed set his new clothes alight and silently disappeared into the sea of flames.
*
Ran Chaoyin was born with an illness. He couldn't speak, and was doomed to die young.
He lived alone beneath the water for a long time, until one day he found a badly injured man among the wreckage of a great battle.
He dragged the man home and nursed him for two days. The injuries were too severe to treat, and he had been ready to give up, but then he accidentally discovered the man's secret: he had a heart refined from a rare heavenly treasure.
It could save him from his misery and the fate set in store for him.
Greed took root in his heart. He did everything he could to save the man, planning to make him repay the debt of his life. But when the man woke, he had regressed into a boy who remembered nothing, and that heart was barely beating, as if it might stop at any moment.
So Ran Chaoyin had no choice but to communicate with gestures and struggle to make a life for the two of them in the mortal world, carefully keeping the boy alive.
He didn't notice that the boy's gaze toward him was gradually changing.
*
Many years ago, Chu Heng woke from a grave injury with only a little mute by his side.
He had lost all his memories, and the mute knew nothing when questioned. He simply followed him in silence and cared for him.
Chu Heng had a nasty temper, but with time, he couldn't help falling for him.
Everyone said the two were a pair of star-crossed lovers who'd eloped. Chu Heng was secretly delighted. He vaguely remembered that he seemed to have had a fiancee.
So he naturally concluded that the little mute was his wife.
Otherwise, why would anyone care for him so devotedly while he was gravely injured?
It didn't matter if that wasn't true, Chu Heng thought. The little mute liked him, so of course he had to take responsibility.
When he asked about it, the little mute met his burning gaze and didn't deny it. He simply lowered his head obediently, as though he didn't dare look at him.
Chu Heng would never admit how happy that made him feel.
Then one day, strange changes in the heavens brought his former fellow disciples to investigate. They exposed the truth: the mute was a demon, and he was after the heart inside Chu Heng, which had been refined from a rare heavenly treasure.
The little mute really wasn't his fiancee.
He had come to kill him.
Chu Heng's expression slowly darkened. He bent down and gripped the little mute's neck, squeezing so hard he nearly crushed it, but got no response.
In the end, he said nothing and took him away.
*
Ran Chaoyin was brought back to the immortal mountain and became Chu Heng's bedmate.
Everyone said Chu Heng was repaying him for saving his life. Only Ran Chaoyin knew it was revenge.
He had taken in someone he should never have desired, and let greed and delusion take root in his heart, hoping to escape the misery of his curse.
But the thing he should never have let himself do was hope, if only for a moment, that they might stay together forever.
At last, he found a way to escape. He would no longer be confined to Chu Heng's side, and he burned himself to ashes.
He thought Chu Heng must be satisfied.
But what he didn't know was that Chu Heng had gone mad.
==
Theme: Sincerity deserves sincerity
