“No, I’m getting that same feeling too. I don’t know what it is, they’re nothing alike, neither in personality or demeanor, but seeing them together is like looking at a perfectly whole picture.”
“It irks me to no end this second prince who can’t cultivate is just being handed this beauty, but seriously seeing them together I can’t help but agree that they look like a perfect match somehow.”
“Is this perhaps what happens when two people are fated? This feeling will even be sensed by bystanders looking on?”
Murmurs like this echoed in the crowd, but mostly among the youths.
People were starting to discuss the weird chemistry between Xi Shen and Lu Yue.
Shin who was hearing all of this grind his teeth.
Xi Shen heard them as well, and his face couldn’t help twist slightly into an ugly expression.
He wanted out of this situation since he was still by no means in agreement with this marriage arrangement.
With a soft pluck from Xi Shen, the guqin let out a crystal clear note of the Silent Willow Leaf.
Immediately after, the second note of the song echoed out.
Xi Shen turned to look over to Lu Yue to see her hand on the guqin.
Xi Shen turned his head back around and focused on his side.
The crowd fell into silence as they watched Lu Yue and Xi Shen play together.
Despite the expertise needed, as well as the familiarity with the song and their partner, they were both playing perfectly.
Lu Yue was the one at the tail of the guqin, each time a note was played by Xi Shen Lu Yue would complete it.
At times they would reach over to each other's half to play and complete a note themselves. But their movements did not interfere with each other. It looked like they were playing separately but at the same time seemed as if they were in complete harmony.
The song being played by them also reflected that.
Reaching a certain point in the song, Xi Shen’s movements slowed and his playing became minimal. Lu Yue didn’t mind and instead picked up his slack.
A moment after Xi Shen slowed down his pace, the song prelude ended, and this was where the lyrics of the song started.
Xi Shen’s voice was soft but it still entered the silent crowd's ears.
They were suddenly transported into an imagery where a maiden longingly stared out the window for her lover.
A few youths’ in the crowd were seen with glazed-over eyes.
The Elders of the various powers frowned at this but were secretly shocked in their hearts.
Xi Shen’s voice contained a hypnotic property that caused a few who weren’t on guard to slip into an illusion.
As Xi Shen continue to sing, more and more people started to realize this fact, but they could see that the illusion didn’t have any ill will.
In fact, most of the crowd lowered their defenses slightly to get drawn into the illusion.
It was a surreal experience for those people, they could actually feel and experience the emotion of longing depicted in the music.
Lu Yue looked over to Xi Shen at this time and listening to his voice a hint of surprise and curiousness appeared in her sapphire red and blue pupils. But Xi Shen had his head down, focusing on singing the song, that he missed it.
The sound of the zither and Xi Shen’s voice was the only thing that could be heard in the hall.
At first, Xi Shen was casually singing but somewhere along the way the emotions he had suppressed before began to rose from his heart.
Since coming to this era Xi Shen had been dealing with a lot of suppressed feelings.
Anger, regret, hatred, helplessness.
He was overwhelmed by them most of the time, and he would find himself trying to find ways to distract himself from them. So he started drinking, perhaps the alcohol could make him not have to think about things that caused him pain.
He had gotten good at it.
At suppressing the emotions he was truly feeling.
If the Spirit Wine didn’t work on those “special occasions,” he would distract himself by trying to focus on the present, not thinking about the past.
Maybe he would focus on his Qi Cultivation, or think about improving his Faction. And maybe think about his future in this new life in general.
But even with that, he was still drawn to the past, with him wanting to know what happen to the world for it to become like it is now. That would inevitably lead to him thinking about the past, which started to cycle all over again.
It was good for him like this, it was fine how it was. He could handle it.
However, today he met someone that had an uncanny appearance to her. To that person who was the root cause of his suffering in his past life.
Lu Yue was a catalyst that completely and ruthlessly ripped off the flimsy cover he had placed over those feelings he had been trying to suppress.
He wanted to run, but he stayed for his mother since he didn’t want to disappoint her.
So he sucked it up and suppressed his emotions, barely flipping back over the cover.
But now she was right next to him, playing a song with him.
He felt her hands brushing against his a few times.
He told himself it was someone else.
It wasn’t her.
But while singing this song, Xi Shen got lost in the lyrics of the lonely maiden. It was so uncanny that it was similar to his current situation.
The cover he barely flipped over was torn apart and his suppressed emotions flooded out uncontrollably.
The people in the illusion saw a sudden shift.
The lyrics Xi Shen was singing changed to something completely different.
The song he was playing on the guqin was inverted.
Lu Yue paused as she had no way to continue playing.
The illusions and lyrics instead of depicting a lonely maiden waiting for her lover. If completely flipped.
Now it depicted a maiden waiting for her lover, unwilling to leave the shackles of her home to seek him out.
She was a coward, a fraud.
Her lover didn’t abandon her, she was the one that abandon him by not seeking him out when he was lost and unable to return home.
Xi Shen’s fingers moved across the zither rapidly and the people in the illusions were so overwhelmed by the raw emotions of hatred and pain that a few youths cough out a mouth full of blood and fainting on the spot.
A buzz occurred within the hall upon seeing this scene.
But Xi Shen continued to play with his head down, seeming to not be concerned about what was transpiring due to his actions.
Lu Yue from next to him saw his calm expression, but she could tell his heart was anything but.
It was going out of control.
He was going out of control.
Li Shu frowned at this, while the Empress shot a furious glare at him.
His mother quickly stood up and called out to him.
“Shen’er, stop!”
Her words fell on deaf ears as a few more youths that had completely lowered their defenses spat out a mouth full of blood before falling over.
“This is preposterous!!”
An Elder from an academy bellowed out while his anger-filled eyes moved from his incapacitated disciples onto Xi Shen.
Seeing Xi Shen had no intentions to stop, Lady Ying immediately teleported next to him and wrenched his hand away from the guqin.
*Twang!!*
As if he had come out of a trance, Xi Shen looked up at his mother who was still holding his arm.
“Shen’er why did you do that?”
Xi Shen looked at her confused before he turned to look at the crowd of people who were now all staring at him angrily.
“I-”
Xi Shen was slightly dazed as he started to speak, but he had to stop.
He reached up to touch his cheeks and felt water. No, it was tears.
He had begun crying sometime ago.
“Shen’er, why are you crying?”
Lady Ying asked confused.
Xi Shen to her was behaving extremely strangely, he had never blatantly disobeyed her before. And even though he goes against some of the things she said not to do, he would always do it secretly so she wouldn’t find out.
This wasn’t her son she knew.
Xi Shen turned back to look at his mother and he saw the look in her eyes.
His heart shook.
One of his worst fears for him was that maybe she would find out about his reincarnation. Would she not treat him as her son anymore? Would she despise and shun him?
Xi Shen didn’t want that, he missed having familial love so much he would have done anything he could to keep it.
But in his mother’s eyes, it was neither disappointment nor anger like he thought she would feel. There in her eyes was her questioning his behavior, questioning why he was acting so different from the son she knew.
Xi Shen felt overwhelmed.
He stood up and turned to leave.
Lady Ying let go of his hand and watched as he entered a side entrance of the hall going deeper into the North Wing.
‘Just give him some space, there’s no need to pamper him, he’ll be alright eventually.’
Lady Ying heard her husband's voice in her head reassuring her.
Though that did little since her heart was stilled fill with worry because this was the first time she saw Xi Shen cry. He had never cried while growing up, but he was crying just now.
That meant whatever just happened to him, that pushed him that far to shed tears unknowingly, was something extremely serious.
Lady Ying let out a sigh in her heart before returning to he seat.
As she took her seat, she realized the Empress had suddenly disappeared from her's, but she paid it no mind and instead turned to try and calm down the raging crowd in the hall.
The most vocal about this sudden incident was of course the Ming Clan. The Elder of that group had taken out a jade slip, seemingly contacting some one from his clan.
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