Black Bellied Belle: Demon Lord, Bite the Bait Please - Chapter 91

Chapter 91.1: The Truth is Just That Cruel

“You were looking for me?”

To Mu Chi, Xuanyuan Che’s Crown Prince Residence should be become too familiar to him. Because he was going to leave here tonight, he came over here straightaway after he received word from a foot soldier.

The man was dressed in an ivory white brocade robe as he stood, his hands held behind his back, looking different from the normally lofty and unreachable Crown Prince in the Imperial Palace. He was in his own residence now and dressed in such simple regular clothes made him a lot more approachable.

Xuanyuan Che immediately saw the young man fall right onto the lounge like he did not have any bones in his body and Xuanyuan Che’s eyes glinted slightly before he tossed a exquisitely well made little urn over. Seeing that, the young man sprung up like a carp in water to catch the urn firmly before bringing under his nose to take a whiff. His good looking eyes then lit up. “Such great wine! This is of at least a fifty year vintage! Where did you get this precious treasure from?”

Mu Chi was a born alcoholic and he was clearly only about seventeen or eighteen years old but he had already developed a great tolerance for wine where a thousand cups would not take him down. It could be seen from here just how many years he had been immersed in drink.

“It was a gift from a friend many years back and I have kept it for very long.” Xuanyuan Che said with a gentle voice.

Hearing those words, Mu Chi’s gaze turned fierce, the expression on his face filling up with anger. “That’s just great, you hold such great wine and you did not bring it out to share earlier but kept it hidden for yourself. You can still call yourself a brother?”

The young man looked like his feelings had been gravely deceived. Xuanyuan Che merely glanced at him and then slowly said: “The wine….. was kept just for you but when I wanted to bring it out to share, you had already left without a sound.”

[Left without leaving even a single word.]

Mu Chi was taken aback a moment and he lowered his eyes to smile to himself without saying a word as he plucked the wooden stopper off the wine urn. The thick heady fragrance of wine immediately filled up the entire room.

“Mmm… This wine is really great.” Mu Chi said in high praise before he picked up two cups from the table to pour out the wine. “Have a taste?”

Xuanyuan Che walked over and sat down, watching the young man down the entire cup like a thirsty cow. His eyes narrowed and he took a very slight sip.

Mu Chi saw his actions and could not help but burst out laughing. “You are still as self restrained as ever. But compared to the past where you would refuse even a single drop, you have improved quite a bit.”

“Ah Chi, you know what I want to ask you.” Xuanyuan Che put down his cup and said in a soft voice.

Mu Chi shook his head as he poured out another cup for himself. “It’s all already in the past, why are you still worrying about it? I have let it all go.” Just as he was about to empty the cup of wine, a large hand held his arm.

“You’ve let go? You’ve truly let it go completely?” Xuanyuan Che knew that Mu Chi was just doing what he had always done, refusing to face up to the problem and running away from speaking about it.

“If you’ve truly let go, then why are you still so distant towards me?” Xuanyuan Che said with a curl of his lips, his tone seemingly slightly mocking. “Do you know what you were like in the past? You were a person whose feelings were clearly written upon your face, be it joy, anger, sadness or delight. When you were angry, you would vent it out on me but now, you seem to have become like all the hypocritical and pretentious people, always showing only a slovenly and indifferent smile on your face.”

Mu Chi froze a moment before he arced his lips up into a smile. “Isn’t it good? The person I was in the past was young and brash, always making rash decisions.”

“Back then….. What really happened?”

Xuanyuan Che’s hands pressing down on his unconsciously tightened. He desperately wanted to know why after he returned from the Faint Mist Sect’s recruitment trials back then, everything had changed completely.

Ah Chi’s mother was the most revered Imperial Concubine who was second only to the Empress. How did she end up being discovered by people in the palace to have taken her own life in her own bedchambers?

Chapter 91.2: The Truth is Just That Cruel

[And why had our Imperial Father been so heavy handed with Ah Chi who had not even been a full ten years of age back then?]

[Such a young child and he was given fifty lashes. The whip was filled with hooked barbs throughout its length and every single lash from it would hook up slivers of flesh and blood. How had Ah Chi managed to survive through that? !]

He only remembered that when he returned back to the palace, the bright grisly red trail of blood had stretched from the main hall to reach a very far distance, and the palace servants were wiping up the bloodstains on the floor, which took them a very long period of time.

He had been greatly shocked by the scene. He did not know just how much blood Ah Chi had shed but the one thing he knew was that all that blood had been from Ah Chi, the person he cared for the most.

He heard from people in the palace that the Sixth Prince had left immediately after receiving his punishment.

The tiny frame had taken each highly laborious step slowly and painfully as he walked towards the doors out from the palace. It was probably due to the gravity of his wounds that he would waver and fall after moving some distance, but would pick himself back up again to carry on. In the end, he was already practically crawling when he went out of the palace.

Just hearing that and he was able to imagine that scene. Just how painful had it been for Ah Chi? And how was he really feeling in his heart when he was leaving the very place he had grown up in?

Just overnight, his mother who loved him so much had died, and even his Imperial Father had abandoned him.

Everytime that Xuanyuan Che thought about what Mu Chi went through, it was so heartbreaking that he would feel the pain right into his bones.

Mu Chi looked at Xuanyuan Che’s sad and solemn face, his eyes serious. A good while passed before he then brushed off Xuanyuan Che’s hand on him. He then downed the wine in the cup before he said: “You asked me here just to ask me this? That happened ten years ago and why are you still asking about such small old matters that had already gone rotten? Aren’t we still good brothers all the same?”

“You are lying.” Xuanyuan Che’s gaze turned cold. “You hate me, don’t you?”

He had not forgotten back when they had seen each other for the last time, how Mu Chi’s eyes that were always prone to smiles had been filled with unbridled murder. Although it had been just a passing instant, he had still caught that fleeting look.

It was probably because they had spent such a long time with each other and he cared for Mu Chi greatly, Xuanyuan Che still remembered that look in Mu Chi eyes till this day.

But they had once been so very close. Throughout the vast and enormous Imperial Palace, with so many princes and princesses in there, only the two of them were able to chat with each other amicably, and that was also a kind of affinity between them.

This mystery had troubled Xuanyuan Che for many years and it was still a heavy knot in his heart today.

“Big Brother, there are some things that you does not require you to pursue till you get to the bottom of it.” Mu Chi said softly. “It was only because of your invitation that I came to set foot into this place again this time. But, there will not be a second exception.”

“Just what could have caused Father to fly into such a rage that he would denounce your status as a member of the Imperial Family, and also about your mother…..”

“Xuanyuan Che, I’m telling you not to ask anymore. Don’t you understand?”

Finally, the young man’s face no longer had that lazy and indifferent smile hanging upon it and his voice had turned chilling as he spoke, his gaze icy as he stared at Xuanyuan Che.

“Unless you tell it to me.” Xuanyuan Che furrowed up his brows, and replied with steely resolve.

He did not want a barrier to forever remain between them and did not wish to see Mu Chi face him with that fake and perfunctory smile on his face.

After a long silence, Mu Chi finally stood up from the lounge chair and his tall slender frame stood straight as a rod in his spot, the air suddenly turning stifling around him.

“What do you want to know?” The young man then leaned in close, his full red lips slightly open. “Why my mother took her own life? Because her scandalous deed had been discovered when the Imperial Concubine of the kingdom had not been able to endure the loneliness while she was pregnant and had illicit relations with another man which caused her to miscarry? And in order not to shame Xuanyuan Ao, the ruler of the kingdom, besides dragging her own battered and wretched body to end her own life, was there even a better way for her to resolve the problem?”

Chapter 91.3: The Truth is Just That Cruel

“What did you say?” Xuanyuan Che’s eyes widened incredulously as he fell back a step. “How could the Imperial Concubine…..”

That beautiful and elegant woman was in such a high position and she was pregnant with an Imperial heir, which was such matter of such high glory. She should have been highly protective of the child in her abdomen so how could she possibly get herself involved in something so absurd like an illicit affair with another man? There must be something more to it no matter how one looked at it!

Seeing him show a look of such utter disbelief, Mu Chi then curled up the corners of his lips mockingly. “You asked me why I had my identity as the Imperial heir denounced, and was made to suffer punishment? Ha! Of course the brilliant and honourable Emperor back then had thought that since my mother dared to do such a abhorable deed, maybe I am also a bastard child from some other men as well! Despite the fact my highly aged maternal grandfather had knelt outside the main hall to beg for benevolence to have me spared, and he had even refused to prove my lineage through dripping a drop of our blood to see if they joined.”

When he spoke about that, Mu Chi then laughed out loud, his face slowly coming closer. So close that Xuanyuan Che was able to clearly see his own reflection in the young man’s crystal clear eyes, the young man’s breath coming out through Mu Chi’s slightly open mouth lightly brushing over Xuanyuan Che’s cheek.

“I hate you. That’s right. There were many times I nearly lost control and wanted to kill you.”

The young man’s eyes were so beautiful it seemed they could almost talk, coming to be tainted with murder in an instant.

“All of it had been the work of your mother, that gentle and virtuous Empress.” Mu Chi said, pausing between each and every word, the expression on his face mocking and filled with ridicule. “How hilarious it is that my mother had treated her as close as a sister for so many years. Just because the Imperial Physician deduced that it was another prince in her abdomen, and because everyone else were saying that I am the one who has the ability to vie for the position of becoming the heir against you.”

Mu Chi hated not just the Empress, he hated Xuanyuan Che, and the person he hated the most was himself.

He should not have displayed his own talents, should not have gotten close to Xuanyuan Che, and really shouldn’t have competed with Xuanyuan Che in everything which then caused the Empress to grow wary, which went on to cause his little brother to be cruelly harmed before he could even be born, and brought harm upon the mother whom had loved him so much.

“I do not believe that!” Xuanyuan Che pushed Mu Chi away from him harshly. “How could my Mother possibly do something like this?”

“Ha, it’s up to you whether you want to believe or not.” Mu Chi’s lips stiffened. “Why do you think she isn’t able to sleep well at night for so many years and turned to Buddhism, becoming a staunch vegetarian? That is because she had cruelly taken the lives of two people, the first one my mother’s, the second being my little brother who did not have the affinity to come into this world, whose aggrieved spirits have been haunting your mother to return them their lives.”

Although the Mu Family is a family clan of Elixir Cultivators, but back in the day, my mother not only possessed outstanding skills in Medicine, she was also a Spirit Master. So if there was aggrievement and injustice present before death, her spirit would continue to haunt the person who brought upon her death.” Mu Chi said very slowly.

He stared at Xuanyuan Che who was in a daze, looking like he had been dealt an enormous blow. Mu Chi curled up the corners of his lips and picked up the wine urn with one hand. He took a large gulping swallow with a throw of his head backwards before he wiped the trickle of wine that had spilled out the corners of his mouth with his sleeve indifferently, and then lifted his foot to walk out from there.

At the very moment he stood outside, his footsteps halted a moment as he said emotionlessly. “I know that this matter does not have anything to do with you, but what happened back then is something I will never be able to forget. So Xuanyuan Che, I had originally not wanted to bring the matter up ever again, but since everything is out in the open now, then we can only do this. The two of us are probably….. no destined to be brothers, and in future, we should just treat each other as strangers.”

Upon saying that, the tall slender body then gradually went further into the distance.

[Strangers…..]

[Ha! You wish.]

A glint of darkness then flashed across the man’s gentle and refined face, and the exquisite wine cup in his hand was suddenly crushed into dust.