Chapter 149: A Dream of Past Lives – United in Shadows

Yin Chengyu woke abruptly, chilled to his core. The cold wrapped around him like the biting embrace of a midwinter frost, seeping into his very bones, freezing him from the inside out. It was an unrelenting chill he hadn’t felt since his rebirth—a numbing, bone-deep cold that brought with it an unwelcome familiarity.

His body instinctively shifted backward, searching for warmth, but the movement brought nothing but a sudden, jarring sense of emptiness. The sensation of falling jarred him awake, pulling him out of his groggy haze. Blinking against the darkness, his gaze landed on an unfamiliar, shadowed ceiling. This was not his usual bedchamber.

Heavy lids and an uncooperative body resisted his attempts to move, leaving him trapped in a disoriented state.

Surveying his surroundings, Yin Chengyu’s sharp mind raced with possibilities. The stark, crude setting—a place far beneath his usual standards—set alarm bells ringing. Pushing down the rising tide of unease, he remained outwardly composed, letting only his eyes dart about as he strained to assess the situation.

Fingers twitching, he tested his limbs. Though stiff at first, they gradually obeyed him. With effort, he sat up, the weight lifting from his movements.

Now free of the bed’s limited view, he scanned his environment. A simple room with bare necessities greeted him—far too modest for a man of his standing. The wooden beams overhead and the clustered, shabby beds hinted at quarters for low-ranking palace servants.

What was he doing here?

His last memory was of reviewing state documents, nodding off briefly at his desk. Yet, here he was, in this decrepit servant’s dwelling. Questions crowded his mind, but answers were elusive.

Steeling himself, Yin Chengyu resolved to leave. Yet when he approached the doorway, an invisible force stopped him cold. No matter how hard he pushed, his feet refused to cross the threshold. A tangible barrier—unseen but undeniable—kept him imprisoned in this forsaken room.

Frustrated but undeterred, he turned his attention to his surroundings. The bed he had awakened on was the furthest from the door, beside an old wooden cabinet likely used for storing clothes. He reached out to inspect it, hoping for clues, but his hand passed through the cabinet as if it were an illusion.

The impossibility of it stunned him. For a long moment, he stared at his hand, now halfway embedded in the ghostly cabinet, before retreating back to the bed, deep in thought.

The faint murmur of voices broke his reverie. He tensed, turning his attention toward the door. Moments later, a group of young eunuchs in plain gray uniforms entered, carrying basins and chatting among themselves. None of them so much as glanced in his direction.

Unseen and unheard, Yin Chengyu observed them carefully, his suspicions confirmed. He wasn’t surprised, but his sharp eyes tracked each movement, studying their faces and demeanor.

Then, the last figure stepped through the doorway, and his composure cracked.

“Xue Shu!” he shouted, the name tearing from his lips before he could think better of it. His voice, raw with disbelief, went unanswered. The tall, slender boy before him didn’t so much as flinch, his stoic expression unchanging.

It took a moment for Yin Chengyu to notice the differences.

The Xue Shu standing before him was younger, barely sixteen or seventeen, with a brooding, reticent air. His face still held the softness of youth, unmarked by time or hardship. Dressed in the same lowly eunuch garb as the others, he stood apart, unapproachable. The other servants avoided him, and he returned their indifference in kind.

The sight filled Yin Chengyu with a confusing mix of emotions—shock, unease, and something deeper, sharper, that he couldn’t yet name. For the first time in years, he felt as though he was grasping at smoke, the certainty of his world slipping through his fingers.

The night had fully descended by the time the copper basin, still damp from washing, was slid beneath the bed. Xue Shu climbed onto the rough wooden plank of a shared bed, its surface thinly cushioned with a worn mat. The blanket, a bit thicker for the season’s chill, was hardly sufficient. Not bothering to shed his clothes, he lay down in his full attire, the cold clinging to his skin like an unwelcome lover.

Inside, Yin Chengyu sat tucked against the inner edge of the bed, his sharp gaze tracing every detail of Xue Shu’s face—familiar yet unfamiliar. The hints of a thought began to take shape in his mind.

In this new life, he had sought Xue Shu earlier than before, finding him still untouched by the eunuch’s blade. Yet the man before him seemed entirely different from his memory. Draped in the robes of a eunuch and living in the servant quarters, it was clear Xue Shu had already endured the irreversible.

It was a sight that struck a chilling similarity to a lifetime ago, during Yin Chengyu’s imprisonment in the imperial tombs. By the time he returned to court, Xue Shu had ascended to power as the infamous, domineering Jiu Qiansui. He had never glimpsed this earlier, humbler version of him, nor gleaned much of his past through whispers in the palace.

Yin Chengyu lowered his lashes, his eyes tracing the faint bluish hue across Xue Shu’s weary face. His fingertip hovered over Xue Shu’s lips in a teasing, ghostly touch, a smirk curling silently at the corners of his mouth.

The mighty Jiu Qiansui... who would have thought you once looked so utterly wretched?

The lowly servants of the palace were expected to rise before dawn, and so the first stirrings woke Yin Chengyu from his light slumber. When he opened his eyes, Xue Shu had already straightened the bedding and slipped out to join the other eunuchs for his daily duties.

Without much expectation, Yin Chengyu followed him, stepping across the threshold and noticing with surprise that the once-intangible barrier blocking his path had disappeared.

Shadowing Xue Shu, he left the servant quarters. The layout soon confirmed his location—the western residential section of the inner palace. Overhearing snippets of conversation, he pieced together the truth: Xue Shu was nothing more than a low-ranking, overlooked sweeper in the Directorate of the Imperial Household.

The other eunuchs soon scattered to their assigned tasks after receiving brooms and buckets. Xue Shu’s duty for the day was to scrub the corridor pillars. Watching from a distance, Yin Chengyu frowned as Xue Shu carried a wooden bucket to the well.

Winter’s icy breath chilled the air, and the water from the well was mercilessly cold. He soaked a cloth in the freezing water, wrung it out, and methodically wiped down the pillars, his lean, calloused fingers stiff and reddened from the biting cold. The raw, swollen chilblains along his knuckles were stark against his pale skin.

Yet Xue Shu seemed oblivious to the discomfort, his movements precise and mechanical. He worked silently, detached from the scattered laughter and idling of the other servants, an outlier among his peers—isolated, like a lone beast that had long since abandoned its pack.

This iteration of Xue Shu shared that same solitary nature, yet it burned differently.

In his previous life, he had been an untamed wolf, an unbroken spirit that stood out against the docile herd. Even in his darkest days, his core had held a defiant arrogance. Yin Chengyu recalled vividly the moment Xue Shu had been dragged, bound, into the Eastern Palace.

Though he had knelt, there had been no submission in his eyes—only the feral gleam of a cornered wolf cub.

But the boy before him now was another creature entirely. Deprived of his claws, stripped of his pride, he carried the air of a wolf beaten into submission but unwilling to yield. He was somber, ostracized, but not broken.

Yin Chengyu’s chest ached with an unfamiliar sting as he watched him move—this lonely figure, burdened by a past Yin Chengyu had never witnessed or shared.

Standing beside him, Yin Chengyu extended his hand, his palm brushing over the back of Xue Shu’s frostbitten hand. The chill of the touch sent a shock up his spine, but he did not pull away. His fingertips lingered, almost daring the frost to bite them too.

*

For two unsettling months, this strange, otherworldly state persisted. During this time, Yin Chengyu pieced together the rough timeline of events from the words of others.

It was now the eighteenth year of Longfeng. When he first awoke, it was the lunar winter month, several months after the Yin family had been implicated in a corruption scandal. Their downfall had shaken the empire.

The Empress, startled during childbirth, had tragically died, and Yin himself had been stripped of his status, cast aside, and confined to the imperial mausoleum.

By now, it had also been a year since Xue Shu was forcibly castrated and entered the palace.

Yin Chengyu didn’t know why fate had dragged him back to this lifetime, nor why he found himself in such a peculiar state of existence. After attempting every conceivable way to break free from his limitations—only to discover he could not stray more than ten steps from Xue Shu—he abandoned futile resistance. Instead, he settled into quiet observation, staying by Xue Shu’s side.

In this life, Xue Shu had grown even more withdrawn, his temper darker than ever. He was a shadow in the palace, friendless and out of favor with the powerful chief eunuchs, who assigned him the dirtiest, most grueling tasks. He endured for a pittance.

But Xue Shu seemed unbothered. He didn’t drink, gamble, or curry favor. Even during the recent New Year’s festivities, he refused to spend a single extra coin. Every copper he earned was meticulously saved, hidden in the inner pocket of his robe.

Late at night, when the world fell silent and everyone else drifted into sleep, he would sit by the window. Under the pale moonlight that leaked through the lattice, he counted his coins one by one, as though calculating some meticulous plan.

It wasn’t until the following February that he finally took leave from the palace and ventured outside.

Yin Chengyu, as always, followed. He watched as Xue Shu, uncharacteristically, spent money to hire a donkey cart that rocked and swayed along the path out of the city.

The road ahead stirred unease in Yin Chengyu. It was far too familiar—he had traveled this same path years ago, shackled, on his way to exile at the imperial mausoleum.

Xue Shu’s destination was indeed the mausoleum.

The cart stopped at a side gate, a neglected entrance guarded by only a few aging soldiers. Xue Shu rapped hard on the door three times. A middle-aged guard with a ruddy, pockmarked face peered out, showing no surprise at his visitor.

He simply stepped aside. “Back again? You’re loyal, I’ll give you that.”

Xue Shu offered no reply. He handed over a small pouch of silver fragments and walked in.

Yin Chengyu’s eyes darkened as he watched. That meager bag of silver was half of Xue Shu’s entire savings, meticulously hoarded over months of suffering.

Taking a deep breath to steady the turmoil in his chest, Yin Chengyu followed.

Xue Shu made his way to the courtyard where Yin Chengyu had once lived. He didn’t enter but stood at a distance, staring at the gate as though trying to see through time.

Yin Chengyu followed his gaze. The years blurred his memory, but something about the scene teased at recognition. It wasn’t until he saw his past self step out of the house, carrying a woodcutting axe, that it all clicked.

It had been a brutal winter. Zheng Duobao had fallen ill and was bedridden. Yin Chengyu, his health already weakened from poison and punishment, had dragged his battered body out into the cold to gather branches—both for medicine and for firewood to ward off the freezing nights.

Hiding in the shadows, Xue Shu waited until his past self wandered out of sight before trailing at a careful distance.

Ahead, Yin Chengyu’s gaunt, overworked figure began chopping branches with deliberate effort. The mausoleum’s trees, bare from the harsh winter, offered no resistance. For a younger, healthier man, the task would have been effortless. But Yin Chengyu, even then, had been a shell of his former self, his body worn down by endless torment.

Even for something as straightforward and brute-force as chopping wood, he struggled pitifully.

From a distance, Xue Shu observed him for a while, but he didn’t step forward. Instead, he circled around to the other side of the woods.

Borrowing a hatchet from a nearby guard, Xue Shu silently got to work. His strength was unmatched, his movements swift and efficient. Before long, he’d cut down enough branches to tie up a thick, hefty bundle.

Wrapping it tightly with a coarse grass rope, he hoisted it onto his back and carried it to the courtyard gate, leaving it there before retreating into a shadowed corner to watch.

After a brief wait, the frail figure emerged, dragging two oversized, unwieldy branches behind him. His eyes caught the neatly bundled firewood by the gate, and he froze, glancing around in obvious confusion.

But Xue Shu’s hiding spot was impeccable. Seeing no one, the man hesitated before bowing in silent gratitude and hauling the firewood into the courtyard.

Xue Shu didn’t leave immediately. His gaze lingered, sharp and unyielding, fixed on the courtyard and its struggling occupant. The man inside worked painstakingly to start a fire, his efforts hampered by damp wood that smoldered with thick, choking smoke. Crouched by the stove, he fanned the flames with a woven fan, his thin shoulders trembling with each muffled cough.

The sight was pitiful.

Something flickered in Xue Shu’s eyes—an emotion too turbulent and raw to decipher, though Yin Chengyu couldn’t quite grasp its depth.

Yin Chengyu’s thoughts turned inward. It had been half a year since his confinement to the imperial mausoleum. He’d tasted the full spectrum of human indifference, yet with Zheng Duobao by his side, these laborious tasks had rarely fallen to him.

It wasn’t until Zheng Duobao succumbed to illness that he was forced to fend for himself, fumbling awkwardly through the motions. That day, seeing the bundle of neatly stacked firewood at the gate, he’d felt an unspoken solace.

Though the world had turned against him—mocking him, casting him aside like discarded refuse—there were still a precious few who seemed to remember the man he once was. That bundle of firewood didn’t change his desolate reality, but in the cold, merciless winter, it had offered a fleeting warmth, a reason to endure.

He never imagined that the quiet kindness within this desolate mausoleum had been Xue Shu’s doing. Not in his past life, nor in this one, had Xue Shu ever mentioned it.

Yin Chengyu turned his gaze to Xue Shu and sighed deeply. “Just how many secrets are you keeping from me?”

Xue Shu, unable to hear him, offered no reply. After lingering for a moment, he turned and walked away, hitching his mule cart back toward the capital.

Upon returning to the palace, he didn’t head straight for his quarters. Instead, he went to the West Bureau's guardroom.

The West Bureau had long since fallen into decline. Inside, an elderly eunuch dozed off in the dim room. Hearing movement, the old man squinted over and immediately broke into a grin upon recognizing Xue Shu. “Changed your mind, have you?”

Xue Shu nodded and handed over another pouch of silver. “I’ll trouble you to make an introduction.”

The eunuch weighed the pouch in his palm, his smile widening as he circled Xue Shu, appraising him with a calculating gaze. He gave a satisfied nod after patting Xue Shu’s solid frame.

“Good, sturdy build,” he remarked, his tone softening slightly, likely thanks to the bribe. “The Thousand-Household Officer Qin is a ruthless master, but if you’re clever and can survive his lashings while doing your job well, your future won’t be bleak.”

Yin Chengyu’s chest tightened, an uneasy foreboding gnawing at him.

But Xue Shu seemed utterly unperturbed, as if he’d known all along. There wasn’t a trace of surprise in his expression.

He simply asked, “When do I start?”

The eunuch replied, “I’ll put in a word with the Directorate tomorrow. You can report to the West Bureau the day after.”

Once everything was settled, Xue Shu left without hesitation. Yin Chengyu followed silently by his side, his thoughts tangled. He wanted to speak, to demand answers, but the realization that Xue Shu couldn’t hear him rendered his words futile.

Pressing his lips together, he held his tongue.

He remembered Xue Shu once mentioning the scars crisscrossing his back. At the time, he hadn’t dwelled on their origin. But now, the truth was glaringly obvious.

Those scars, those marks of torment—Xue Shu had borne them willingly. And all of it had been for him.