Reborn To Be The Imperial Consort [BL]-Chapter 70: Zopyra — XI

It was dark. It was cold.

Why was it so cold? Was it his body that felt cold or was it his heart that had been reduced to nothing but a muscle merely beating to keep him alive?

Why couldn’t he feel anything? Why could he hear nothing but deathly silence so eerie that it made his skin crawl?

His body did not hurt. For it was a mere husk of what he had once been. His bones rattled, his heart beating out a frantic rhythm. Frenzy flowed in his veins and emptiness resonated in his person.

His body did not hurt.

Blood flowed down his head, smeared on his face was the darkened red fluid, viscous and disgustingly warm as it trickled down the trails of his — let down and tangled — hair. It was bone-chilling as it whispered softly against his skin, peeking through the ups and downs of his features, dripping down his elegant brows, down his long lashes as he forgot to even blink.

It trailed through the high of his nose, down to the parted chasm of his lips.

He could taste the nauseating taste of metal on his warm tongue, the cooling crimson resting in the wet cavern of his mouth. free𝑤ebnovel.com

He didn’t move.

The streams of blood flowed down his chin, deceptively gentle trickle tracing his thrumming nerves as he leaned his head back, it danced down his bobbing throat and seeped into the dirty fabric of his robes, stained it grime now the blood joined its aimless conquest.

He felt cold. Unbearably cold. Unfathomable silence drummed in the vaults of his mind. No thoughts, no sound, no voice, no whispers.

Just him.

And the darkness that threatened to swallow him whole and erase the entirety of his being.

He felt cold. His clammy hands ached, sweat drenching his slender fingers as they curled around the cooling body of the person he held.

Silence.

Silence.

Silence.

Impregnable silence.

Why was it all so silent?

Why did the winds howl, yet his mind remained so quiet? Where were the thoughts, those voices that quipped?

Where was mercy and where was pain?

Why did he feel so cold?

The sun was high, hanging on the vast blue expanse of the sky with neither a mere wisp of cloud nor a single drop of rain beating down on his exhausted body.

So why was it so cold? Why did his body tremble?

Why was the silence so deafening that all he could feel rising in his heart was pounding desperation he had come to become familiar with?

His heart ached, his body shivered. Waves of cold, of merciless agony held his throat in a tight chokehold.

He blinked, his vision turned red. The cool blood of his people had dripped into his eyes. He blinked again. He could see nothing.

His fingers clenched, dull claws piercing through the tattered fabric of the cooling body in his hands. His arms felt tired.

He felt tired and oh so cold.

He swallowed, his mouth was dry and yet, yet he could taste the metallic tinge of blood, the cool viscous fluid riding down his parched throat.

He swallowed again. Then, he blinked again.

Head tilted back, his blood stained face looking up at the sky. It wasn’t raining.

So what was the warm wetness on his cheeks that mingled with the cold disgust of blood on his face?

Silence. Silence.

Why was the world so silent all of a sudden?

Why wouldn’t his kin, his people, speak? Why wouldn’t they make a sound? Where were the rambunctious noises they made?

A sigh heaved past his bloody lips, a quiet noise of fatigue making itself known through his mouth.

In his arms, the final heaves of the body passed, falling completely still as the last breath left the lungs.

He then looked down. His eyes half-lidded as he blinked again, blood cleared away from his vision. He would no longer see red.

No, he was wrong.

His amber eyes quivered, his shoulders hunched forward, fragile spine curved like the crescent of moon in the dead of the night. His body quivered like a lone twig on a windy night, his body so cold as though he’d been tossed into an icy lake in the winter. His lungs ceased, he could no longer breathe.

Ice filled his veins faster than it did his once burning, now in ashes, heart.

His claws tore through the fragile garb of skin covering the skeletal form under it.

Hu Lijing took a deep breath, his blood-ridden face was buried in the unmoving chest of the fox spirit he once called his mentor.

His throat bobbed, his arms shook with the exertion of his restraint. His hair tangled as he rubbed his face against the cold chest, the unmoving body housing a heart that was no longer beating.

He tried to breathe. But he found himself incapable of doing so. His throat bobbed as he swallowed the blood that didn’t belong to him.

The wind around him howled up a storm, it’s cries a melody of mourning as the nine-tailed fox sat on his knees, crashed on the dirt hapless with blood seeping into his robes as he held firmly onto the body of his mentor.

Everything. Everything was gone.

It was all over.

No one lived but himself.

(Was he even alive anymore? Was he something more than a beating heart, a set of functioning limbs?)

His nightmares had rung true.

Here he was, collapsed in the middle of the barristers surrounded by nothing but his fallen people. Where he sat, a thick river of blood flowed around him, expertly, it manoeuvred past him without so much as touching the hem of his robes.

Was he so despicable that even the cold blood of his people refused to touch even just his shadows?

Hu Lijing’s body tensed, like the string of a bow pulled taut and ready to be released. His spine curved, even under the layers of his robes, the ridges of the bones could not be more apparent.

He heaved. The silence was deafening.

Of course, it was all silent. There were no survivors. There was nothing left but the brutalised corpses of his kin.

Mangled bodies littered around. There was no honour in death like this. Screams ignored and final words unheard, their souls fought, their body didn’t. Their life struggled, their body succumbed.

He hoped. He prayed. They found peace in the cold, forgiving arms of death.

All of this pain... The entirety of this ruthless purge, it all— it all happened because he had sinned.

He was but a dirty sinner who knew the fate that awaited him yet still chose to be a sinner. He was a disgraced being closer to divinity and an ashamed spirit ashamed of his being.

He was ignorant, he was arrogant. He had flown, now he fell.

He had burned brighter now there remained nothing of him but the cooling ashes smothered by the blood of the people he had vowed to protect.

Once upon a, he who had succeeded now fell in the most disgraceful manner. He who had risen above all else, he who had dared to touch the feet of heavens, had fallen way below everyone else.

He who had been a salvation now faced eternal damnation.

Pain. Pain. Pain. Agony. Agony. Agony.

Despair.

Despair. Sinner.

Hu Lijing’s prostrating form trembled harder. His merciless claws tore apart the cadaver he had held with utmost care.

His mind was a frightening place. So good, so silent. So dark.

Blood stained his hands—just like the dreams.

Blood tasted on his tongue—just like the dreams.

He was alone, mourning, grieving—just like the dreams.

Surrounded by the fallen bodies of his people, sitting in midst of the gurgling blood that flowed around him, kissing his robes but never climbing past the hem—just like the dreams.

He hated it. He hated this silence. He hated the whimpering of his grief, he despised the disgusting quiet that blanketed his lonesome form. He abhorred the darkness of his mind, the tendrils of resentment, the wisps of thoughts less than decent.

He hated the vicious claws of his malice curled around his heart as it squeezed the last bit of light, of kindness that remained within him.

Above all, he hated the thrumming life, the cursed seed in his damned womb. He hated the disaster star he had conceived, he despised the calamity his beloved had sired.

He loathed himself for his hesitation in killing this damning thing.

Hu Lijing stilled after a while. A heaving breath became stuck in his chest as the unbridled grief of losing everything, the reality of being the reason behind this bloodshed settled into him.

His throat hurt. He could hear someone scream. They seemed to be in immense agony. Their scream became louder and louder. Their voice raw in utter misery of the circumstances they were in.

For a moment, Hu Lijing wanted to go to them, he wanted to hold them tight and share their pain with him.

But his body wouldn’t move. It wouldn’t move no matter how much he commanded it to.

His throat hurt. Why did his throat hurt? His throat felt raw. He could not say a word.

He couldn’t move.

Oh.

Then, he realised. He had been the one screaming in utter agony as unceasing tears fell down his eyes, they fell on the shredded and bloody body of his mentor under him.

It hurts. It hurts so much.

Help me. Someone help me. I will do anything.

I want revenge. I was vengeance for every drop of blood those bastards shed of my clan. I want it and more.

Help me. Help me. I’ll do anything.

Anything.

"Anything? Oh, dear... You’re so pathetic."

A rattling voice chortled.