FW (Eng)

Chapter 38: Deadlock

Gradually, the waxy yellowish-green colour of his skin was washed off. His lower jaw looked as though a layer of meat had been shorn away as he peeled off something that Wen Kexing had never seen before, and the bony, sharp-cut profile as if it had been chiselled by a knife was revealed.

Wen Kexing held his breath unconsciously, watching his deft fingers remove the disguise on his face--

Unlike the young master in Luoyang City who had a smiling face as pretty as a flower, or the popular, powdered beauty of the brothel upstairs in Dongting, this was a man's face, where there was no colour but black and white--pale and gaunt cheeks, lips as thin as a line and bloodless, the hollows beneath his brow very deep, his thick eyelashes half-covering his weighty, startling eyes, eyes like thick, rich ink.

Yes, in that instant, Wen Kexing could only think of such a description--thick, rich ink. In those eyes there seemed to be a coalesced black that would not diffuse; only when the angle changed, did a barely-there, reserved lustre flow over them.

He suddenly discovered that even if the other person had kept his disguise on for a lifetime, in his own mind, he was always envisioning that Zhou Zishu should look like this. Seeing now that he was indeed identical to what he had imagined, it was like...he had known him for a very, very long time.

Wen Kexing swallowed involuntarily, opening his mouth to say, "A-Xu..."

Zhou Zishu made a distracted "mn" of acknowledgement, wiping away the last remaining bit of the disguise on his face. After wearing this thing for so long, he had almost thought of it as his own face, and wiping it all off so suddenly threw him off a little instead. Originally, he had intended to live with this face, but who would have known that this thing called trouble would follow him like a shadow? Did this mean that he would have to change masks every two to three days from now on?

He was instantly in a bad mood again.

Wetting his lips, Wen Kexing murmured, "Have...I ever mentioned that I actually like men?"

Zhou Zishu looked at him briefly with an expression that conveyed "bullshit, do you really think I don't know that", then, as if he had thought of something, fished a human skin mask out of his robes and lobbed it at Wen Kexing, instructing, "If you don't want to keep running into trouble, put it on."

That human skin mask was of great craftsmanship, and if this had been any other time, Wen Kexing would still have examined it with great interest. Now, however, he didn't even glance at it, only stared insistently at Zhou Zishu, his tone severe and serious as he said, "Is this your attempt at seducing me?"

Having lived for so long, Zhou Zishu perceived himself as a man through and through, from head to toe, and had never experienced another man flirting with him with such a lecherous gaze and serious tone. He was of the constant opinion that if Wen Kexing had no problem with his eyesight, then it must be a problem with his heart[22]--either it was missing a couple holes, or that it was far too open. Otherwise, why would he forgo pestering those pretty lasses and lads milling about on the streets, in favour of badgering him specifically to disgust him for his own entertainment?

Thus he ignored him, extracting another human skin mask to put on as he kept walking.

Witnessing the transformation of a handsome man into a shifty-looking, slant-eyed middle-aged man like the great shift of heaven and earth[23], Wen Kexing felt his innards somersault with it, and desperately yearned to dunk his face in water and rinse his eyes clean. The sight in front of him was catastrophically tragic, and he cried, "It hurts the eyes too much, swap it for another!"

As he spoke, he reached a hand out to do it for him, helping him to tear it off.

Thinking that he was making a fuss on purpose, Zhou Zishu tilted his face to the side and avoided his hand. But Wen Kexing, stubborn, chased after him persistently—and so under the condition of the external threat temporarily removed, the two who had just been united against external forces resumed their internal strife, and began to trade blows there and then.