Chapter 67: You’ve Saved Me Again

Chapter 67: You Saved Me Again

The icy lake water was heavy, viscous, wrapping around him in an endless embrace.

Water.

Water again.

No pain, no sharp sting of water in his throat.

The system had activated Xiao Yan's physical defense mechanism, insulating all bodily suffering behind an invisible membrane.

But precisely because of that, the purely psychological terror was amplified to its extreme.

Visual input triggered the shadows buried deep in his memory faster than any physical sensation.

The nightmares of his past and present lives collided in that moment.

Xiao Yan's past life had been born into—

a top-tier prestigious family, outwardly glamorous but long rotten at its core.

In his childhood memories, there was no childish pampering or being doted on.

At first, he thought his parents were merely indifferent to him.

Until he turned seven.

Xiao Yan and his same-age cousin were playing by a pond, and they both accidentally fell in.

He struggled to the surface, gasping and choking, instinctively turning to his father who had rushed over at the sound.

But he could only watch helplessly as his biological father—that man who shared his blood—without hesitation, saved his cousin. As he held his cousin, his face showed the panic and desperation Xiao Yan had never witnessed.

Meanwhile, Xiao Yan floated just a few feet away in the water, choking, reaching out his hand.

Back then, he thought that although his father hadn't chosen him first, he would still come to save him eventually.

But through the rippling water, he saw the man staring down at him, cold and emotionless.

Just staring coldly.

That gaze was bone-chilling, as if he wished Xiao Yan would drown before his very eyes.

The young Xiao Yan couldn't understand the deeper meaning of that gaze. He only knew that it was colder than the pond water, robbing him of even the strength to struggle.

In the end, others who had heard the commotion fished his unconscious body out of the water, barely saving his life.

Xiao Yan couldn't wrap his head around it—how could anyone be so cruel to their own child?

He only learned the truth later.

His parents were a typical arranged marriage of convenience in a wealthy family, forced together by their elders. After marriage, they had him through IVF, just to fulfill their obligation.

If that were all, his father might not have hated him so much.

The hatred stemmed from someone else already occupying his father's heart.

He coveted his elder brother's wife, transgressing all boundaries—a twisted, dark love that could never be fulfilled.

He could never speak of it, never act on it, so he poured all his frustrated obsession onto his nephew, lavishing his love on him as a substitute.

And Xiao Yan was the stain on that pure love for his idealized woman.

He hated him, wished Xiao Yan had never been born.

Xiao Yan kept sinking into the lake.

His mind was scattered, fragments from his past life flashing through his consciousness.

This time, what surfaced was that truly boundless ocean.

International waters, late at night, on a luxury cruise liner.

Champagne towers shimmered with brilliant light; elegant figures and laughter filled the air.

This was the treacherous banquet that his dear cousin had specially arranged to send him to a watery grave.

Cold, salty water.

An endless darkness.

The ship's massive shadow moved slowly overhead, the deck lights blazing like the brightness and clamor of another world.

But the ship was moving away.

That light was receding.

Darkness closed in from all sides, icy cold seeping into marrow and soul.

What was most terrifying wasn't the sea's cold or the depths' darkness—it was the realization of being utterly abandoned by the world.

No one had reached out a hand.

The lake water was too deep, too oppressive.

Xiao Yan could no longer see anything.

His consciousness flickered like a candle in the wind, on the brink of extinguishing.

All that remained was the dead sound of flowing water, and a boundless emptiness.

At the edge of his vision, within that thick, impenetrable dark green murk, something else suddenly intruded.

It was neither the deep green of water plants nor the heavy black of lakebed silt.

It was a glimmer of pale blue.

Like the purest shaft of light after a snowfall.

Or like the color of Liu Qingci's moon-white robes, waterlogged, as he so often wore them.

Xiao Yan's unfocused pupils, jolted by this sudden splash of color, began to refocus.

His vision was still blurred, distorted by the ripples.

He couldn't make out the person's face; only a hazy, slender silhouette outlined by the currents.

Closer and closer.

The greenish-white robes spread out in the water, like a flower suddenly blooming in the abyss of despair.

That hand, with its cold, pale knuckles, reached out to him.

This time.

Liu Qingci grasped him.

...

Splash—!!

The deafening sound of them breaking the surface, as freezing air flooded their lungs.

Xiao Yan, half-dragged and half-carried by Liu Qingci, stumbled and crashed onto the slick mud and rocks by the shore.

The moment they reached the shore, the system deactivated his physical defense mechanism.

All the suppressed physiological sensations came flooding back like a tsunami.

The piercing cold seeped through every pore, the soaked clothes clinging tightly to the skin like a suit of ice armor.

Xiao Yan shifted his gaze with difficulty toward Liu Qingci, who had surfaced almost at the same time and was now half-kneeling beside him, equally drenched and disheveled.

His eyes were frighteningly bloodshot.

And at this moment, those red eyes were staring at him without blinking.

One of Liu Qingci's hands was still tightly gripping his wrist, and his whole body was trembling uncontrollably, whether from the cold or from the lingering fear.

Xiao Yan extended his arms and without a second thought pulled him into his embrace.

"Liu Qingci, you've saved me once again," he said into his ear.

Xiao Yan held Liu Qingci tightly, pressing his own equally wet and cold chest against the other's thin, trembling back.

His arms closed in with such force that it seemed he would crush him into his very bones, as if only this could confirm each other's existence.

The wet, cold fabric pressed together, sharing each other's racing heartbeats and uncontrollable shivers.

"What?" Liu Qingci seemed to squirm slightly, his tone filled with concern. "Your Highness, how do you feel?"

"I'm fine."

Xiao Yan rested his chin on Liu Qingci's wet hair, his cold breath fanning over the other's equally cold ear.

Liu Qingci did not understand.

But he had indeed saved him twice.

The first time was when he had fallen into the sea in his previous life.

If he had to die, Xiao Yan would rather have his ashes scattered over mountains or buried in the earth than to drift in the sea.

But fortunately, it didn't happen.

the system had brought him to this world with Liu Qingci...