Capturing My Demon King Costar

Immediately, the two of them split apart and get up to their feet. Xin Hulei steps forward, shielding Yao Shen behind his body.

Si Wang tsks, and tilts his head to the side to meet Yao Shen's eyes. "How does it make you feel? To know he'd rather forget you?"

Yao Shen stares blankly up at him.

What answer is he expecting to that?

Si Wang grins when he sees the blank look in Yao Shen's face. He clasps his hands behind his back and squares his shoulders. 

"Here you are, always throwing yourself in the fire for him. Always suffering great indignities, tossed and turned in the wheel of reincarnation like a leaf blowing in the wind, and yet him," he points at Xin Hulei, his thin lips peeled back in maniac hatred, "would rather forget all about you. While you suffered, his life just went on."

Yao Shen can see the tension in Xin Hulei's back, the veins standing in stark relief across his forearms and hands.

Si Wang's words are getting to him.

Yao Shen touches his back and moves to stand at his side. He looks Si Wang in the eye.

"I'm glad."

Si Wang goes very still, his grin disappears.

"I would give up everything to spare him a single moment of pain."

He feels Xin Hulei tense at his side, and then his hand descend down his arm until he takes Yao Shen's fingers in his. He whispers something under his breath that might have been Yao Shen's name.

"You don't understand that because you're selfish," Yao Shen says, looking Si Wang in the eyes. "All you've ever cared about is yourself."

"No, that's a lie!" he groans. "All these centuries I never forgot about you, not for a moment." He taps the side of his head. "I carry you with me every waking moment of the day. When I dream, it's your face I see."

"That doesn't mean anything."

Xin Hulei moves closer to Yao Shen, his grip on his hand grows tighter.

Si Wang looks more crazed than ever, his lips can't decide whether to grin or grimace.

"You never thought about me, not when we were just mortals, brothers," he laughs bitterly. "I was never your first priority, but you were my whole world." His dark eyes fill up with tears, and Yao Shen finally sees the resemblance between the two of them.

They both have sad eyes, angry eyes.

He knows Si Wang means his words. The Crown Prince was his everything, but he should never have been. He let his devotion and admiration for his elder brother grow into something else, something festering that eventually took over him.

Maybe the Crown Prince could have done more, maybe he could have taken his fourth brother away from the imperial palace. Maybe he could have taken him to a martial arts sect -- maybe that would have made him better, maybe it would have made everything worse, and his path of destruction even more gruesome.

None of them will ever know.

"The person I love is Xin Hulei," Yao Shen says, returning Xin Hulei's grip. "It has always been him."

He narrows his eyes at Si Wang. "But you knew that."

Si Wang lets out a crazed laugh, clutching his stomach as tremors shake his body. "Did I?" Eventually his laughter subsides, and all the fake mirth is wiped off his face. "You have no idea what I've had to do. The other ghost kings, those fucking idiots, I had to work so hard to convince them that Xin Hulei was a threat, that he was going to come back and seek revenge."

He chuckles. "And even then the only ones who believed me were the stupidest of the bunch." He shakes his head. "You called me selfish? They are the selfish ones, you have no idea of the depths of their disregard for anyone who isn't themselves."

He smiles at Yao Shen, moving one step closer. "They make me look like a monk."

Yao Shen steps away from Si Wang, pulling Xin Hulei with him. "Except they're locked underneath Youdu, and you're here, annoying the shit out of me."

Xin Hulei chuckles.

The sound makes Si Wang's frown deepen. He doesn't like the feeling of being left out. It's how he has always felt his entire life, and now he thinks Yao Shen and Xin Hulei are in on a joke he's not a part of -- a joke at his expense.

"You won't be laughing for much longer," he says, his face darkening. "You know, every time you come back there's something different about you." He narrows his eyes at Yao Shen. "Every reincarnation, you get further and further away from him."

That's to be expected, Yao Shen is the sum of all his experiences, he's not just the vessel who holds the Crown Prince's soul.

Maybe it would do Si Wang some good to be reminded of that.

"You killed your brother," he says, sharpening the words like blades. "He's never coming back, no matter how many times I reincarnate, you'll always get a different version. Variations on a soul. The Crown Prince is dead."

Si Wang's hands shake at his sides. His lips are bloodless with the rage coursing through him. Yao Shen almost pities him.

Because Si Wang knows what Yao Shen is saying is the truth.

Yao Shen is the latest in a long line of failed attempts. 

No matter how much he tried, he hasn't been able to keep the promise he made. His brother never returned to him, nor more loyal, nor more loving, just less each time. Less like the person he wanted, more like a stranger.

And the only constant drove him mad.

"But no matter what, I always love him," Yao Shen says, lowering his head against Xin Hulei's shoulder, "isn't that right? He's the only thing I remember."

Si Wang's lips curl in disdain. He doesn't want to admit it, but it's the truth. That's why his plan always fails.

"That's why you always fail," Yao Shen says.

Suddenly, Si Wang breaks into a grin. "Not this time."

Yao Shen tenses. "What does that mean?"

Beside him, Xin Hulei squares his shoulders, and raises his chin in open defiance. 

"It means that he finally got me here," he says, his tone even, betraying no emotion. "Finally within his reach."

Yao Shen's eyes widen in delayed realisation. He's right.

He brought Xin Hulei here, he removed the seal. That was Si Wang's plan all along. 

While trying to avoid his other strategies, Yao Shen still managed to fall right into his trap. He was so preoccupied with the injustice of Xin Hulei not being allowed to return to Youdu, that he never stopped to think what they were risking by bringing him here.

Xin Hulei voiced his desire to help him get rid of Si Wang once and for all, but they failed to consider that Si Wang might want that.

"Good, I see you got there in the end," he smiles, his gaze hardens. "It wasn't easy to get that ghoul to feed you the gu worm that allowed me into your head, but after that, you played right into my hands."

He twists his fingers and a sword appears in his hands. Yao Shen recognises it at once. It's the same sword the Crown Prince killed himself with. The sword Si Wang was going to execute him with.

"Take it," he says, holding out the sword towards Yao Shen.

Yao Shen remains where he is, his heart beating frantically inside his chest. He doesn't want to move, and yet he feels a compulsion to do it.

"Host should do as I say," Si Wang says with a smile.

That familiar unctuous voice sends shivers down Yao Shen's spine, but he's powerless to stop himself.

He reaches forward for the sword, closing his fingers around the hilt.

"Run, take Liansi with you!" he shouts at Xin Hulei, trying to pry his own fingers off the sword's hilt with his free hand.

Si Wang laughs, observing them with almost childish glee shining in his dark eyes. "He's not going to do that, he can't leave you alone."

When Yao Shen looks back at Xin Hulei from behind his shoulder, he sees the panic in his eyes, his usual stoic features are distorted in a mask of terror. His hand is frozen midway towards Yao Shen. He's scared, but not for himself.

Perhaps he should.

That's why Yao Shen wants him to run.

"Host should kill him," Si Wang says, pointing at Xin Hulei.

"No!" Yao Shen tries to pull back on the hand around the sword, but no matter how hard he tries his body keeps moving forward towards Xin Hulei. "RUN!"

Xin Hulei is frozen in place, his eyes scan the room in every direction. He's trying to come up with an idea to stop Yao Shen without hurting him.

Yao Shen isn't sure he can. This is what Si Wang wants. He wants Yao Shen to kill Xin Hulei and live with that pain. Or maybe die in the wake of it.

Either way -- this is his revenge.

Just as Yao Shen is holding the sword over his head, something in him shifts violently. Like the movement of the ground during an earthquake.

He can feel two forces battling around inside himself.

Finally, one of them wins.

Slowly, he turns the sword towards his own neck.