Reborn To Be The Imperial Consort [BL]-Chapter 98: Crimson Spider Lily — III

Assuming that Li Xinyuan was not boiling with rage as a complementary emotion alongside grief and heartache for Hu Lijing would be a grave, grave understatement.

Just because his demeanour concerning the entire story that Hu Lijing had told him of his life was calm didn’t mean that inside Li Xinyuan was not bursting with the murderous desire to kill, slaughter and tear apart those dastardly dragons with his Sui Yue.

He didn’t care if he was just a mortal man and those bastards were thousands of years old literal dragons. In his furious state, Li Xinyuan knew only one thing — forget knew — he cared about only one thing.

Dragons were just some freaky arse weirdly big lizards who could fly.

The species that Hu Lijing told him about — Spirit Dragons — just happened to be extra freaky, being able to shapeshift and all.

In his eyes, they were just some mutated fantasy lizards who the surgeon was going to make a skewer out of. If not all of them, then at least one of them had to fall under his blade, otherwise Li Xinyuan might end up suffering from a heart attack with how extremely furious he was for the last few hours.

Oh, with the exception of Long ZhenHai. That dragon was too much of a pure sweetheart. He loved Hu Lijing till the end and even gave up his life to save the nine-tailed fox instead.

The surgeon could respect the amount of love and desperation Long ZhenHai had for Hu Lijing.

Li Xinyuan bit back a sigh, his hands shaking with the effort to keep his murderous fury at bay and not show it to Hu Lijing lest the latter should fall into a deeper spiral of distress.

Taking a deep breath, the surgeon swallowed and looked down at Hu Lijing, pulling the male away from himself slightly as he stared at his face intently, a frown on his lips as his brows furrowed.

"Swear to me," he said firmly, eyes narrowing at the nine-tailed fox. "Swear to me that you will not so much as entertain the idea of toying with your own life out of guilt, Hu Lijing, swear to me. And do not break it, please."

Truthfully, Li Xinyuan was now somewhat terrified of what the nine-tailed fox in his downward spiral might do. What if he decided to take a drastic step and did something irreparable?

That would devastate Li Xinyuan to his very core. So what if he was an internally twenty-six but externally sixteen year old transmigrated reincarnator?

He had feelings. He was more rooted with his feelings than he would like to admit, in fact.

The surgeon mentally shook himself out of his distracted train of thought and refocused on Hu Lijing’s reply, watching for his reaction like a hawk gazing at its prey.

Hu Lijing turned away slightly, unable to meet his eyes as he pressed his lips into a thin line and chose to remain silent.

The furrow between Li Xinyuan’s elegant brows deepened as the silence stretched on, the tension between them so thick that he would have been able to cut through it with his sword if he tried.

By the virtue of his enhanced hearing, as the silence continued to ripple without an end in sight, Li Xinyuan could hear the rustling of young leaves, of tall blades of grass. He could also hear the noise made by the crickets residing within the forest, he could hear the fading calls of the birds and the gurgling sound of the stream rushing on its course beside them.

The silence that settled and rolled out was not unlike a heavy blanket as well as suffocating waves of the relentless sea.

It made him feel anxious, the wait was setting his nerves on fire while prickling his skin like thousands of needles simultaneously.

Neither of which were particularly good sensations, if Li Xinyuan was to say so himself.

Finally, unable to bear the silence anymore, he took a deep bracing breath and opened his mouth to speak, his hands resting on Hu Lijing’s shoulders as he gave them a light and gently reassuring squeeze.

"Lijing..." He began with a sigh, while keeping his tone even and soothing, he urged him to answer. "Please, say something. Do not just remain silent."

He needed to know just what was going on inside his head. For a man like Hu Lijing... After everything that he had gone through—

—The odds of him partaking in self-harm alongside suicidal ideation would not be out of bounds. Hell, it would even be the most common and easy coping mechanism for him!

Guilt.

Guilt was a vicious little thing. It was so much more harmful than one could possibly imagine. And guilt paired with self-loathing...

Guilt—the dark tendrils of which would constantly gnaw away at one’s heart, self-loathing that always made one feel disgusted with and inadequate about themself, never good, never enough, never deserving of anything they ever had. Lastly, suicidal ideation, the thoughts that lingered perpetually, like a hidden, treacherous and nagging voice lurking in some dark and hidden corner of one’s mind. It was a voice, a thought that stuck around, pushing and pushing a person towards that endless and bottomless precipice of end. Of death. A false promise of relief believing in which would inevitably lead to nothing but infinite regrets at the end of their life.

Oh heaven, was it a deadly amalgamation of emotions? A combination of guilt with self-loathing was a concoction without poison.

But it was a combination so much more potent than any concoction in this world, poisonous or not.

Li Xinyuan would know. He had been through a phase similar to this and while his own experience with guilt, self-loathing and suicidal ideation had been anything but pleasant, it had not been as bad as Hu Lijing’s.

Hell, it had even been easy.

In comparison to Hu Lijing, he had had it so much easier in his previous life. It almost seemed like a petty joke.

Almost.

Of course, in his own point of view, in his own shoes, grappling with the crippling depression, guilt, self-blame, self-hatred and the urge to just put an end to all his sufferings had been so much harder now that he looked back at himself.

He had just been a mere sixteen year old child, after all.

And it had been a slippery slope, an attractive and permanent escape. Li Xinyuan was not too ashamed to admit it to himself that he had nearly succumbed to its thrall, teetering on the edge of ending his own life. If not for the people his father had planted all around himself.

Self-harm... It had been a sweet moment of relief, of liberation from gnawing thoughts. It was not a good thing, never a good thing, but he had been desperate and no matter how much he hated himself afterwards, he always ended up doing it over and over again.

The road to recovery had been a long journey. It was hardly an easy path to embark. But he had saved him, allowing him to live a successful life for as long as he had.

Having experienced it himself, Li Xinyuan wanted it to be the last thing Hu Lijing fell prey to.

Even after his urging when Hu Lijing gave no answer, Li Xinyuan knew something was wrong. Suicide and Self-harm, they were almost a common ground between victims who tended to blame themselves.

As for which of the two was lesser evil...

"Lijing," Li Xinyuan started again, his voice tight and so imperceptibly filled with dread as he gazed at him in distress. "Did you... Have you ever consciously harmed yourself? Not to kill yourself... But just enough to cause you pain?"

To be honest, Li Xinyuan did not want to guess the answer to his question. He was scared of hearing Hu Lijing’s answer.