For no apparent reason, Lu Zhao stabbed him in the back.
They had once been the most dazzling pair of blades in Yingtian Prefecture.
Until the day the Ghost Gate opened. Lu Zhao took the item they'd risked their lives to retrieve and offered it as his "ticket of loyalty," earning a promotion to the Embroidered Uniform Guard, while leaving constable Shen Yanshu to face
A blood mirror grinning eerily, embroidery on human skin, a suspended corpse writing with a blood-dipped brush, a headless actor singing The Peony Pavilion night after night...
"Lu Zhao, you son of a bitch." Leaning heavily on his saber, Shen Yanshu staggers and curses him for the Nth time. "We said we'd set this corrupt world right together."
"I will never forgive you!" Blood seeps from the corner of his mouth, and his vision grows dark.
As he falls, a familiar warmth comes from behind him. A hand with sharply defined knuckles steadies his waist.
"If you can't handle it, don't push yourself." Lu Zhao's face is cold as he wipes the blood from Shen Yanshu's lips with his thumb. "...You're filthy."
*
Hotheaded constable x sharp-tongued Embroidered Uniform Guard
Next novel: The Haunted House You Can't Escape. Please add it to your reading list!
Mad beauty bent on revenge x upright, aloof Embroidered Uniform Guard
#Ten years between life and death, reunited in hell#
A house no one can escape has claimed nine lives.
When the seventh person falls, Wei Chu grabs Mo Huaimian's hand, his knuckles turning white.
"Stop..."
Dark red blood spreads over Mo Huaimian's pristine white sleeve like a blooming red spider lily.
He laughs softly, his voice like scorched stone tempered in fire.
"Seven loved ones. One hundred and twenty-three lives. Three thousand six hundred and fifty-one days... Lord Wei, and only now you tell me to stop."
"Isn't it too late?"
His cold wrist slips free of Wei Chu's grasp.
"If you have evidence, Lord Wei, then put the cuffs on me yourself and send me to the Imperial Prison."
*
The moonlight blurs, and Wei Chu once pinned that man against a wall and demanded,
"Why did you choose me of all people?"
Mo Huaimian lifts his head beneath the moonlight, his Adam's apple moving like a mountain of jade on the verge of shattering.
"Because in this world, you alone have kept that vow for ten years without fail..."
He suddenly leans close, his breath brushing Wei Chu's bloodstained lips.
"Light a lamp amid a sea of blood, gaze at the moon from the abyss."
The two unspoken words echo through the scars of time: For you!
Theme: Life is nothing but a series of choices.
The relationship between the main characters doesn't need to be so contrived, and there's no need to use one protagonist's stupidity to highlight the other's intelligence.
I can't really comment on every segment, but I couldn't help but comment after listening to the audiobook for so long. Shen keeps falling down, and then Lu has to grab him around the waist. It makes the protagonist seem like he's not very bright. Every time he falls, it's a solid fall that provides evidence, giving off a kind of old-fashioned Mary Sue vibe.
Ah, it's over... Is it a bad ending...?