Broken Jade - Chapter 119

Chapter 119

At this point, Sheng Zhaoning had actually begun to feel grateful to Chi Wan.

If not for her, perhaps even now, Sheng Zhaoning would still be trapped in that prison woven in the name of love, unable to escape.

A set of soft footsteps stopped beside her.

“Is this wind not cold enough for you, or do you just think your medicine isn’t bitter enough?”

Zhou Wei sat down beside her with a mocking remark and casually tossed her the cloak he had brought.

Sheng Zhaoning caught it and, without standing on ceremony, obediently draped it around herself.

“No matter how bitter the medicine is, you get used to it after drinking it for long enough.”

Zhou Wei visibly froze at those words.

He looked at Sheng Zhaoning, hesitating. Only after a long silence did he finally summon the courage to ask, “I’ve always wanted to ask you this. What happened to your martial arts?”

Ever since the Shangyuan Festival, when the Crown Prince had carried the unconscious Sheng Zhaoning back, Zhou Wei had watched her grow weaker by the day.

At first, he had not understood why.

But when Sheng Zhaoning gradually became sensitive to the cold and could no longer lift even a moderately heavy object, he understood everything.

After wavering several times, he had finally dared to ask.

Yet Sheng Zhaoning merely replied airily, “They’re gone.”

Zhou Wei did not even know what to say. After a long while, he finally squeezed out, “You really could bear to give them up.”

He still remembered the first time he saw Sheng Zhaoning-that startling glimpse outside Baoyue Tower. In the darkness, she had been cold, ruthless, and dangerous.

Zhou Wei knew her martial arts had been extraordinarily powerful, far beyond what an ordinary person could achieve.

Who knew how much suffering she had endured to reach that level?

Sheng Zhaoning did not seem to care. She looked at Zhou Wei and said, “So if you want to run now, I won’t be able to catch you.”

She was hinting that he could leave.

Zhou Wei had followed her all the way from Xuzhou to Capital City to repay the debt he owed her for saving him that day.

In the blink of an eye, two years had passed. Whatever debt of gratitude he thought he owed, Sheng Zhaoning had never really cared about it in the first place.

Zhou Wei’s expression shifted.

For a moment, he seemed suddenly at a loss. Once he recovered, he looked a little angry.

But he soon returned to his usual flippant self.

“Why should I leave when I can stay here, spend your money, and eat your rice?”

Before meeting Sheng Zhaoning, he had wandered the jianghu, drifting from place to place. The whole world was his home, yet he had nowhere to call his own.

He had been free, but lonely.

Now that he was staying in Capital City with Sheng Zhaoning, he occasionally felt constrained, but far more often, he felt grounded and secure.

He liked his life as it was now.

There was no need to fight or kill, no hatred dragging him along, and no turmoil. Everything was calm and peaceful.

“Sheng Zhaoning, who exactly are you?”

Zhou Wei finally asked the question he had wanted to ask all this time.

Sheng Zhaoning turned to look at him and smiled. “Don’t you think it’s a little late to ask now?”

It had been two years, and he had never once asked.

Zhou Wei choked, realizing that asking the question now was indeed somewhat awkward.

“Forget it if you don’t want to tell me. It’s not like I’m that interested.”

He turned his face away, deliberately refusing to look at her.

Sheng Zhaoning sometimes found his awkwardness rather endearing. He was like a lion cub that had yet to grow up, pretending to be fierce when, in truth, its teeth had not even come in.

A gentle breeze swept past, carrying her unexpected answer to his ears.

“I was one of Prince Zhenbei’s people.”

“…”

At that casual statement, Zhou Wei’s neck stiffened, and he turned to stare at her in disbelief.

Wait-she was actually telling him?

Before he could even process that revelation, Sheng Zhaoning spoke again.

“But I’ve defected now.”

This time, Zhou Wei went completely rigid.

Every part of him, from his eyes to his expression, radiated indescribable complexity.

For a moment, he doubted whether any of this was true. But Sheng Zhaoning’s gaze was so open and candid, without the slightest hint of deception.

She wasn’t lying to him.

“Y-You just told me? Just like that?” Zhou Wei still couldn’t accept it.

Sheng Zhaoning tilted her head and looked at him. “Weren’t you the one who asked?”

Zhou Wei nearly exploded. “You really don’t treat me like an outsider at all, do you?”

Sheng Zhaoning’s gaze remained calm.

“You’re my guard. Of course you’re not an outsider.”

Zhou Wei tugged stiffly at the corner of his mouth. “Could you not be so sappy?”

Sheng Zhaoning fell silent.

She simply turned away and focused on the scenery before her.

The moonlight was hazy, and the shadows of the trees swayed. The spring breeze rippled across the water, crinkling the silver sheen on its surface.

Zhou Wei sat beside her in silence for a long while. In the end, he decided he might as well get all his questions answered at once.

“Do you like men?”

He had wanted to ask that for a long time.

Though Sheng Zhaoning had made it rather obvious, he still wanted confirmation.

Unable to hold it in, Sheng Zhaoning laughed before answering without hesitation.

“Yes.”

Zhou Wei missed the teasing note in her voice. His mind was entirely consumed by the revelation that Sheng Zhaoning truly liked men.

“Then did you betray the Zhenbei Prince’s Mansion for the Crown Prince?”

Once again, Sheng Zhaoning replied, “Yes.”

Zhou Wei sucked in a sharp breath and arrived at a staggering conclusion.

“So the Crown Prince likes men too?!”

At those words, Sheng Zhaoning’s smile froze, and she lapsed into complete silence.

Sometimes, she truly admired Zhou Wei.

How could anyone be this dense?

He had gone so far as to suspect Wei Heng of liking men, yet it had never occurred to him that she might actually be a woman.

“Good boy. Go buy yourself a rattle to play with,” Sheng Zhaoning said helplessly.

Once again, Zhou Wei failed to hear the mockery in her words.

He merely lowered his head, lost in thought. A moment later, he looked up and asked, “Then won’t they come after you?”

According to Sheng Zhaoning, she had once belonged to the Zhenbei Prince’s Mansion.

Judging by her skills, she had most likely been a Secret Guard or an assassin.

How could someone like that simply walk away whenever she pleased?

Sheng Zhaoning thought of the Shadow Pavilion’s rules, and her gaze dimmed.

“Perhaps.”

Before her, no one who had betrayed them had ever made it out alive.

Though she had severed her own meridians and lost all her martial arts, she feared that was still far from enough.

Zhou Wei’s expression instantly turned serious. “I can take you away.”

They could leave Capital City and escape the Zhenbei Prince’s Mansion’s pursuit.

He was a wanderer of the jianghu, accustomed to drifting from place to place. Surely, he could take Sheng Zhaoning somewhere no one knew her and let her live out the rest of her life in peace.

But Sheng Zhaoning smiled and shook her head.

“If I leave, what will happen to him?”

Her Ah Heng still carried responsibilities that belonged to him alone. He was trapped within the palace’s confining walls, unable to free himself for the rest of his life.

Countless open attacks and hidden schemes from the Zhenbei Prince’s Mansion remained trained on him at every moment. How could Sheng Zhaoning possibly leave him here alone?

They would share both joy and hardship and never abandon each other, not even in death.

It was an unspoken promise between them, unshakable as stone.

Sheng Zhaoning said to Zhou Wei, “Can you do something for me?”

She had finally resolved to stand against the Zhenbei Prince’s Mansion. She would use neither blades nor swords-only this broken body of hers-to carve out a bloody path to survival for herself and her Ah Heng.

“Tell me what you need,” Zhou Wei said.

Sheng Zhaoning’s thoughts returned to five years ago, to that unremarkable carriage bound for Yanzhou.

“Help me find someone.”