Chapter 44

"Hey, hey, hey! Why call anyone? I'll talk, all right!" Bu'er hurriedly stopped Lou Yun and spilled everything about why he had come.

"Haven't you always been troubled by this madness of yours? And you refuse to let my gu worms help suppress it. So the moment I found a lead, I came looking for you."

The boy looked haughty, clearly angling for praise.

"How did you know I was at the crown prince's residence?"

Bu'er proudly shook his porcelain bottle. "I didn't, but they did. I originally meant to go to the imperial palace, too, but then I learned Princess Jing'an had died, supposedly in some fire. I thought, how could you possibly die for such a ridiculous reason? So I had my little darlings look for you. And sure enough, here you are. Caught you~"

"What did you find?" Once Lou Yun knew the reason, she brought the conversation straight back to the point.

Bu'er rolled his eyes and put on a mysterious air. "No. If you want to know, A Xie, you have to tell me what your relationship is with that person just now."

Lou Yun immediately turned and walked toward the bed without the slightest hesitation.

"If you don't want to tell me, forget it."

"Don't!" The boy immediately jumped up and followed Lou Yun, smiling ingratiatingly. "I was only joking with you, A Xie. Don't be impatient~ I'm guessing..." Bu'er drew out his voice, hoping to whet Lou Yun's appetite. Unfortunately, he failed utterly. Her gaze did not waver in the slightest, and he said dejectedly, "That person just now is the one you love, isn't he?"

"How lucky, to have you like him, A Xie, when his fate clearly gives him such weak family ties." The boy's voice grew quieter and quieter. His words, filled with envy and hatred, sounded like a demon's muttered curse.

"What? You don't dare get close to me yourself, but you won't let anyone else get close to me either?" Lou Yun laughed, but there was not a trace of amusement in her eyes, only endless mockery and ridicule.

"A Xie, don't look at me like that. It hurts." Bu'er held his hand loosely before Lou Yun's eyes. Loosely, because he did not dare actually touch her. He feared that if he really did, he would lose both his hands.

"Heh." Lou Yun sneered and began undressing for bed without paying him any further attention.

At first, Bu'er gazed hungrily at the woman's body. Then he immediately remembered that the moment Lou Yun got into bed was the moment he had to leave, and hurriedly blurted out what he had come to say.

"I suspect your madness isn't an illness, A Xie. It's a curse."

Lou Yun paused, pulled her clothes back up, and sat down beside the bed. Resting her elbow on her crossed legs and propping up her chin, she asked, "What do you mean?"

"Curse arts are a type of witchcraft. The difference is that witchcraft communicates with spirits, connecting with heaven, earth, and the immortals to pray for blessings."

When Bu'er said this, Lou Yun could not help recalling the way Pei Qing had looked while performing the New Year's Eve rites. That sacred, inviolable appearance was probably what he meant.

"Curse arts, on the other hand, are purely for harming people. They've always been forbidden in my clan, so I don't know much about them either. All I know is that they're different from gu worms and poison arts. Those are placed inside a person's body and can be removed with things like antidotes. But curses are different. If you can't find the person who cast one, then to break it, you have to figure out the mechanism by which it was cast. In other words, if you want to break the curse on you, A Xie, you have to know what triggers it."

"But there hasn't been anything in common nearby during my recent episodes," Lou Yun said thoughtfully.

"That's what you don't know, A Xie." Bu'er picked up where Lou Yun left off and explained, "A curse isn't placed on someone's body, but on their mind, their soul. Once it succeeds, whenever it flares up, the cursed person suffers so much they wish they were dead. They lose all reason and become like an animal. Our ancestors designated it a forbidden art precisely because it's so vicious. It can follow someone through lifetime after lifetime."

It could follow someone through lifetime after lifetime? Lou Yun sneered inwardly and lowered her head. It was unclear whether she was looking at the ground or at everyone she had encountered in her previous life.

Who could hate me this much? It really is... so hard to guess. She had made too many enemies. She actually could not find a single person who had not wanted to harm her.

Her sisters, her relatives, her teachers, her subjects-which of them had not racked their brains trying to put her to death?

Her imperial mother disliked her, so she climbed upward, climbed until she stood against her, and watched her hate her yet have no choice but to use her.

Her teachers looked down on her, so she kicked all her sisters down and made it so the realm could only rest in her hands.

Her ministers reviled her, so she crushed them with the imperial power they least dared oppose, until the court fell utterly silent and hers was the only voice.

Dislike, contempt, condemnation-so what? A star of calamity, a curse on her mother, her father, her country, a lone star of heavenly doom-it was all bullshit! If there was one thing she, Lou Fangyi, did not believe in, it was fate!

So what if the Underworld had imprisoned her for three hundred years in the name of being a tyrant? In the end, had they not obediently held up her achievements and begged her to give them a chance to make amends?

It was a good thing she had come. Pei Qing's face suddenly flashed before Lou Yun's eyes. If being imprisoned for three hundred years had not bored her so much that she had come to this world on a whim, she would never have met Pei Qing, nor experienced these feelings that were so unfamiliar yet filled her with such joy.

The Underworld had misjudged Lou Yun's merits, forcibly detained her soul, and imprisoned her for three hundred years. Just as Lou Yun had gathered enough yin energy and was preparing to take the Underworld down with her, the Yama Kings of its Ten Courts had eagerly come to apologize.

"If Your Majesty wishes to perish together with us, that is not out of the question. But even then, your madness would remain incurable when you entered the cycle of reincarnation again."

"Oh? Then how am I to rid myself of this madness?"

"We will send Your Majesty to another world. You will find the answer there," one Yama King said with an ingratiating smile.

"So I have to make another trip through the mortal realm? What? Can't you lot give me an answer?" Lou Yun asked with a smile that did not reach her eyes.

Another Yama King, who looked like a handsome, fair-faced young scholar, stepped forward to soothe her. "This is a heavenly secret. Your Majesty can simply treat it as a trip to the mortal realm to clear your mind. Once you have enjoyed yourself and cured your illness along the way, it will not be too late to return and settle accounts with us. The Underworld cannot move away, after all. We will be here awaiting Your Majesty."

That Yama King's words were not without reason. Lou Yun had only just begun, "Fine, but..."

Then the fair-faced scholar bowed to her, and the next time Lou Yun opened her eyes, she was here.

As Bu'er watched Lou Yun, his body retreated again and again against his will. The gu worms on him were not as restless as usual, either. They all curled up obediently, trembling slightly from time to time.

After all, Lou Yun had spent three hundred years in the Underworld, and her soul was heavy with yin energy. Ordinarily, because she had possessed an emperor's fate in her previous life and had been born into royalty again in this one, nothing showed. But whenever she grew angry or recalled the Underworld, she could easily stir up that yin energy again. It was only natural that Bu'er was afraid.

"Then how do I break it?" Lou Yun pulled herself out of her thoughts.

Bu'er also let out a breath and answered, "We just have to find out what triggers your curse, A Xie, and then help you overcome it and move past it."

After recovering, Bu'er once again approached with no regard for his life. "So

"for the time being, I'll stay by your side, A Xie, and help you find the cause, then guide you through overcoming it! What do you think? Aren't I considerate?"

"No need," Lou Yun refused. As long as she knew the method, she could handle the rest herself.

"Don't say that, A Xie. Don't you like that person from just now? If he knew about your madness, could he still stay calmly by your side like I do?" Bu'er tried to use Pei Qing to change Lou Yun's decision.

"He already knows," Lou Yun said coolly.

"Then did he look frightened and afraid?" Bu'er pressed maliciously, then hurried to promote himself. "See, A Xie? He's that scared. Don't you want to resolve this as soon as possible? It wouldn't be good to frighten him."

"He isn't afraid." With one sentence, Lou Yun shattered the boy's fantasy.

"How is that possible? He isn't even afraid of you like that?!" Bu'er's expression instantly turned ugly. There was not a single thing in which he could compare to that man.

"Not everyone is scared out of their wits over someone's fate," Lou Yun said coldly.

Bu'er's face scrunched up, but before long, it blossomed into a smile again. "How can you say that, A Xie? I can't read your fate, so of course I'd hesitate a little. Besides, didn't I later think of a way to control you with gu worms and balance your fate, so the two of us could coexist harmoniously~? If you hadn't refused, we would have married long ago."

"Heh. This is the first I've heard that loving someone requires controlling and hurting her," Lou Yun retorted.

Bu'er wanted to say more, but Lou Yun cut him off mercilessly. "That is why I won't accept you."

The boy's face fell. If he could not stay and keep trying, what had he come to the capital for? It was all that man's fault. If not for him, how could A Xie possibly reject him!

"But you were right about one thing. It would be best to remove this curse as soon as possible," Lou Yun said, pressing her forehead.

Bu'er's eyes lit up. Past the shadowed willows, another village bloomed in the light-here was his chance! He nodded eagerly. "Exactly, exactly! So let me stay for a while, A Xie. I'll help you find the trigger. Resolving it sooner is better than having worries hanging over you."

Chapter 44

Lou Yun did indeed want to break the curse soon, so she let Bu'er stay for the time being.

Because of this, Pei Qing kept feeling that whenever he went to see Lou Yun lately, he would always see that unwelcome figure.

Bu'er had never been one to behave himself. Knowing Lou Yun favored Pei Qing, and knowing that Pei Qing was not the sort to tattle, he would stand to the side provoking and showing off to the young man every time he saw him.

Pei Qing had originally not known what he had come for. Later, with an extremely insulting gesture, Bu'er crooked his finger as though coaxing a dog, luring him out to tell him.

"Don't you want to know what I'm here for? Come with me, and I'll tell you."

Pei Qing watched the boy's gesture and followed him out without a word. This made Bu'er even more smug. What imperial preceptor? All he had to do was crook his finger and he came over. He was even easier to lure out than the big yellow dog next door.

"You know about A Xie's madness, don't you? I've already found a way to save her. That's what I came here for. Well? Dumbfounded, aren't you? I'm the only one who can stand by A Xie's side~" Bu'er waved the porcelain bottle before the young man's eyes and even stuck his tongue out at him, sneering, "Trash."