Lord Seventh( QI YE) by Preist

Chapter 3. Remained Old Friends

He would never mishear that voice anywhere, not even when he turned into ashes.

Back then, the sudden mention of He Lianyi from Bai Wuchang when they were beside the river did not manage to stir him emotionally. The passing years, coupled with his effort to forget, had buried that name in the deepest part of his memory and digging it up would be an almost impossible feat. But now, he would still remember it clearly as before. He remembered the many tricks that person had under his sleeves; he remembered his habits, like how when he touched Jing Qi’s forehead, he could not help but use his fingers to part his hair.

Those things seemed to have taken roots deep in his bones. Sometimes, Jing Qi would think about whether a Lord Seventh who waited beside the Stone of Three Lives for over sixty years would even exist, had he not been entangled with He Lianyi in a seemingly never-ending cycle.

Receiving bad karma was like being greeted with bird’s shit the moment you stepped out of the house. You could have had a hundred plans prepared to avoid it, but sooner or later there would always be a bird that came out of nowhere and dropped a piece of shit on your head, making you feel like bad luck would haunt you like a ghost from then on.

Jing Qi sighed internally. He knew his breathing pattern had changed the moment Ping An startled him awake, so there was no use feigning sleep. He opened his eyes.

In front of him was a young man who was only ten years old but had already possessed a noble-like aura.

Jing Qi thought, This He Lianyi is… still too green.

Seeing that he was awake, the young man’s angry expression faded. He quickly bent down and asked in a gentle voice. “Are you alright, do you feel unwell anywhere?”

In this human lifetime, it should have been natural for him to experience an onslaught of emotions when faced with the person he was once madly in love with and was deeply hurt by; but hundreds of years had passed.

At that moment, upon seeing him Jing Qi only felt a little out of his depth. He thought, This is He Lianyi? Why… why does he feel so unfamiliar?

He Lianyi thought his speechless daze was caused by the fever, so he put a palm on his forehead to check again. He then frowned and turned to the servants, “Is the medicine done brewing? We can’t let this fever draw out, it will mess with his head.”

My head is already messed up, Jing Qi thought. This fever should just burn me harder, so that I don’t have to deal with old things anymore.

When he finally came to his senses, he realized that he was lying down while his superior was still standing. Feeling unwell again, he tried to prop himself up, throat bobbing. “Your Highness…”

He Lianyi pressed him back down, laughing, “You seem to have learned some manners after this bout of illness. Just lie there, don’t move.”

Their current Emperor had some fairly bad habits, such as the moment he thought of something, he would execute it no matter what; or sometimes he would do silly, unimaginable things. Once he persisted to crown one of the Empress’s children and not his first child, and newborn He Lianyi was immediately given the title of Crown Prince when he had yet to be one month old. A few decades later, he would ignore his own heir without fail.

To put it bluntly, the Crown Prince’s importance to his father could not even compete with the latter’s pet starling which was raised in the study.

Furthermore, before He Lianyi there were his two vicious brothers – the Second Prince He Lianqi being ten years older and the First Prince He Lianzhao whose power and influence had already been well established. No one paid any mind to the “puppet” Crown Prince and only treated him as a joke, equating his existence to the likes of comedic tales such as “The Parrot General”, “The Imperial Tutor’s Wife”, or “The Story of the Prime Minister’s Advisor”.