"Xiang Bei... do you trust me?"
In that blood-red, murky world, his eyelids felt filled with lead. The weight of consciousness sank without end, and even thinking had become difficult.
"...What?" Xiang Bei asked.
"I mean, are you still willing to trust me, Zhongli Pingzhang, after all these years of deception?"
Xiang Bei was silent for a long while.
It was not that he did not wish to speak. Even a conversation of thoughts required him to gather a great deal of strength.
Again and again, he struggled to rise beneath Jiaoming's blade, until he was like a fish stranded on shore, already far from the water.
Flopping uselessly, old and spent. Scales scattered, blood drained, with only one breath still hanging on.
"I always knew who you were," Xiang Bei said.
Zhongli Pingzhang's voice clearly froze for a moment. "How did you know?"
"...I just guessed," Xiang Bei said.
"I'm sorry, all these years—"
"You have your secrets. And there were many times when I wished you would return to your room, shut the door, lock the windows, and stop watching my life. That was why I had this key that pushed you through the city gates." Xiang Bei fought bitterly for another breath, then said a great deal in one go. "Now that I stand alone atop the city wall, it is not because you are no longer worthy of trust. It is because I do not want her prying into your past, hanging your deepest thoughts out to dry. Everyone has a few taels of filth at the bottom of their heart, things that cannot be brought out and weighed. I only know that you had countless chances to hurt me, but you never did."
"Actually, at the very beginning—"
"I trust you."
"I'm actually not so