The Heir is Here: Quiet Down, School Prince!

An Xiaxia was surprised. “You’re going to say those lines to me?”

“Of course.”

There was no way he could say those sappy lines to a guy!

An Xiaxia hesitantly stood in position opposite him.

Director Yue changed the angle of the camera so that it would only take close-up shots of Sheng Yize. Qian Ming would do this scene again all by himself later, and the two takes would be edited together in post-production.

With an “Action!”, Sheng Yize concentrated on acting right away.

Looking into An Xiaxia’s eyes, he suddenly smiled.

An Xiaxia had seen his different smiles: happy, indifferent, disdainful, scheming, mischievous… but this smile reminded her of all the sadness that was possible in the world.

“Lu Shang… how I wish I never met you. That way, we’d still be living our separate lives and become entirely different people to what we are now. You can pursue your ultimate justice and I can live as unrestrained as I want. While you cultivate toward becoming an Immortal on Cloud Peak, I’ll be enjoying my drink at Burial Land; you’ll get to play ‘Mourning for Wine’ on any mountain you like, and I can walk among the equinox flowers at Endless Abyss… It was supposed to be this way. That was supposed to be our lives…”

An Xiaxia was crying before she realized it.

She had no idea why she was in tears, but the others could tell that she had been drawn in by the emotions.

“You told me that I deserve to die, and you’re right! I do!” Sheng Yize stressed each word. “Why should I care if this world is destroyed? All I ever wanted was you!

“You asked me once why I planted all those equinox flowers where you used to live. Women in the human world attach a wonderful meaning to them: even if death separates us, I still hope that we can meet again in another life. I see now that you’ve never realized how I feel about you.”

The man smiled sadly. “Lu Shang, I hope we never meet again in another life.”

Because he would never have another one.

Picking up his long sword, Sheng Yize said, “In the name of the lord of all demons, I hereby curse you! I curse you to find a soulmate in every lifetime, with whom you will always live happily until the end!”

–

A hush fell over the site.

No one wanted to be the first to speak.

Sheng Yize, on the other hand, put the sword back in its sheath, tossed it to the props man, and roused Director Yue from his dazed state. “I think it’s time to say ‘cut!’”

“Right, cut —” Director Yue came back to himself and said to Sheng Yize, “You did a great job there.”

“Thanks to my great partner.” Sheng Yize raised his eyebrows. Seeing that An Xiaxia was still standing there in a trance, he went up to her and waved his hand in front of her face. “What’s wrong?”

An Xiaxia threw herself in his arms, her voice dispirited. “I want to give Jiye a different ending now…”

“Women are so fickle.” Sheng Yize chuckled. “As much as we love a happy ending, tragedies are usually the ones that are remembered.”

Holding her little face in his hands, Sheng Yize said, “But we’re not your characters. You’re not Lu Shang and I’m not Jiye. It’ll never come to that between us.”

An Xiaxia nodded, then realized that everyone’s eyes were on them. She pulled herself out of his arms immediately and tried to hide in a corner with her face in her hands.

Yin Qinghan went up to Sheng Yize. “Now you know why she created that character.”

He was the inspiration for the image of that character, but the lines were what she wanted to tell him after they broke up back then.

Even when they couldn’t be together, she still wanted him to live a happy life — even happier than hers.

“Dummy,” said Sheng Yize in a low voice. Yin Qinghan chuckled. “Is that what you really think?”

Sheng Yize smiled. “What more should I want in life when I have a wife like her?”