Soul Lock

Let's Go Back to Our First Life

Wen Lan spent two days coming up with a good plan to approach Ju Xin again but to no avail. As the Ghost King didn't know how much the deity remembered or if he forgot his life all together, Wen Lan decided to take it slow and act like a common person in front of Ju Xin. As he didn't remember Wen Lan at all, he could earn his trust and BAM!

But how to approach him?

Maybe, Wen Lan was brooding on the topic way too much as he managed to have a daydream about his first encounter with Ju Xin when he was an unwanted wanderer and Ju Xin was a respected general. The images were so vivid in his mind that Wen Lan felt they were real. How nice it would be to go back to that time, before Ju Xin's betrayal...

Wait a second, THAT WAS IT!

Wen Lan started to laugh like a maniac as he finally came up with a plan. As he wanted their first life back, why not reenact it? This time it would be even better because the sole control would be in Wen Lan's hand. No more being the stupid mouse, this time he would be the cunning cat.

With excitement in his dead heart, Wen Lan finished his duties as the Ghost King of Xin and went up to the living world. He hid his majestic aura and the waves in his eyes, transformed his fancy garment into a simple blue robe, created a fake sword wound and ornamented it with some equally fake blood and leaned his back against Ju Xin's stone garden fence, pretending as if he was unconscious.

Before long, Ju Xin came back home from the village and found a rather familiar figure in his garden. He threw the wicker basket on his back to the ground and knelt before the unconscious man.

"Can you hear me?" the worried man gently patted the injured man's cheeks, but there was no response. Being a nice person, he couldn't let the man die in his garden, so he grabbed his arms, pulled him onto his back and carried him piggyback to his small house.

As he was poor, he didn't have a proper bed but two battered bamboo mattresses put together. Hoping he wouldn't mind, Ju Xin lay the man on the mattress and carefully untied the man's robe to expose the wound. Although there was an excessive amount of blood, the sword wound neither was deep nor life-threatening.

Ju Xin brought a basin of water and a few pieces of clothes to clean the wound. After that, he rushed to his garden to pick up some herbs. Using the mortar and pestle, he pestled the herbs and covered the wound with them.

Poor man did his best for someone who didn't need any of that treatment. As Wen Lan was awake all this time, his conscience was slightly bothered. But just a bit. He came to his senses quickly and convinced himself that the bastard was only pretending like he did for the first time. Still... Shh! No stills!

When Ju Xin was done with the wound, he covered Wen Lan with his only blanket and went to the small wooden table which he was using as a kitchen counter. Wen Lan watched him cutting some vegetables and washing some rice before he put everything into a pot and went out.

After a while, Ju Xin came back with two bowls in his hands. 'Coincidentally', Wen Lan opened his ocean blue eyes at that exact moment.

Ju Xin rushed to him after putting the bowls onto the small table on the corner. "How do you feel?" he asked, kneeling near the mattress.

As it had been a long time seeing him that closely, Wen Lan froze, being lost in his beauty.

"Are you okay?" Ju Xin started to panic, seeing the man looking at him with a glaze.

"Y-Yes, I am okay thanks to you," he finally mumbled an answer and Ju Xin let out a breath of relief.

"Are you hungry? I did some porridge," he said, pointing at the bowls on the table.

Of course he wasn't hungry as he was dead. "Mnn."

"Great," Ju Xin grabbed one of the bowls and handed it to Wen Lan with a spoon. But, seeing the content in the bowl, Wen Lan almost dropped it if Ju Xin wasn't fast enough to assist him.

It was a cabbage congee... the very same one which Ju Xin used to kill him.

Closing his eyes in irritation, Wen Lan cursed himself to be that weak. Come on, he was already dead, so a congee couldn't do any harm, but the moment he saw it, he felt a genuine fear in his heart. Almost one hundred years and yet he was still traumatised.

"What's wrong?" Ju Xin had to ask as Wen Lan wasn't saying anything.

"I was poisoned one time with this congee," he said, looking straight into Ju Xin's eyes intently, "so, seeing it reminded me of that time, the pain and betrayal."

Ju Xin's hands around the bowl tightened and he lowered his head with bashfulness. "I am sorry... I just don't have many ingredients to cook," he said apologetically.

Wen Lan looked at him in awe as he didn't wait for such a response from the traitor of at least two lives. He wanted to yell at him, accuse him, hit him... but in the end, he just said "it is okay."

"Do you want me to cook, hmm, plain porridge?" Ju Xin asked softly, still looking at the bowl in his hands.

"No need, as long as you didn't poison it," Wen Lan said teasingly yet seriously.

"Of course not," the offended host declared and ate a huge spoon of porridge, proving it was fine, "see?"

Seeing his cute blushed face, Wen Lan couldn't help but chuckle, "I was just kidding, why did you take it seriously?"

"Just eat it," Ju Xin pushed the bowl into his hands, but realizing he just ate from that bowl, he changed the bowls while his face went red completely.

Wen Lan took pity on the embarrassed deity and didn't comment on the topic any further. He grabbed the spoon and ate the porridge with melancholy. 

The duo ate in silence and after Ju Xin handled the dishes, they sat under the flickering light coming from the candle.

"Won't you ask what happened to me? Why was I in front of your door?"

"Would you tell me?" Ju Xin answered the question with another one.

Sharp as ever.

Wen Lan smiled allusively, "it depends, maybe not everything but you deserve to know that I was in trouble and had nowhere else to go."

Ju Xin nodded unwittingly, "how about now? Are you still in trouble?"

"Who knows?" he shrugged, "I will try to lay low for now."

"Where will you go?" the naive deity asked with concern.

"I don't know," the acting king sighed.

"If you don't mind, you can stay here for a while," Ju Xin offered without thinking that man could be dangerous. He didn't know why but he felt secure, believing the man wouldn't hurt him. Maybe it was because of his mesmerising blue eyes.

Hearing the magical words, Wen Lan smiled inwardly. From the beginning, he was trying to get Ju Xin to offer him to stay.

"I would love that," he smiled mysteriously, "can I learn your name then?"

"Yi Xin," he said smiling.

Yi Xin? So, he didn't even remember his name? But who gave him that sarcastic name? Big heart changed into reclusive heart... it was too much of a coincidence, there must have been a master behind this game. But who?

"I am Wen Lan," he thought it would be better to use his original name with Ju Xin, well it was Yi Xin now. He had to be careful with that.

The duo smiled at each other, and the first round of the reenactment was completed.