After the rebirth, I became the darling of the tyrant

The candle went out.

Gu Chen lay down on Xiao Tingshen's side. The two were covered with two quilts, each with a pillow, and they were not close to each other.But even so, Gu Chen felt his face was burning hot, so he could only turn his back to Xiao Tingshen, and hardly dared to look back at him.

The two of them lay silent for a while, Xiao Tingshen suddenly said behind him: "Otherwise I'll go to the study to sleep."

As he was about to get up, Gu Chen quickly reached out to stop him: "Your Majesty, don't..."

Can't see anything clearly in the darkness, Gu Chen only felt a warmth in his palm, it turned out that he accidentally touched Xiao Tingshen's face.He withdrew his hand like an electric shock, only to feel that his ears were burning.

"Your Majesty, you don't have to..." Gu Chen paused for a while and couldn't find a word. Finally, he could only change his words, "...I just hope that Your Majesty's nightmare can be alleviated."

Xiao Tingshen was silent for a while behind him, then lay back rustlingly.Maybe it was because he couldn't sleep, he tossed and turned several times, and suddenly said: "I can't sleep."

"...so does the minister."

It was only at this moment that Gu Chen realized that he had oversimplified the problem.At first, he only thought of being quiet as a mascot to help sleep, but he ignored that he himself could not be as peaceful as a mascot—he is a human being, and his relationship with Xiao Tingshen is so ambiguous and close, how could he be indifferent?

He sighed, turned over and sat up, thankfully the room was dark enough now, Xiao Ting couldn't see the blush on his face.He leaned back on the head of the bed, tried to calm down, and looked sideways.

Facing Xiao Ting's dark eyes.

"If Your Majesty can't sleep, I..." Gu Chen thought for a while, "...Does Your Majesty want to listen to the song?"

"think."

Gu Chen took out a Xun from his clothes—it was one of the two relics that he made for his elder brother when he died in battle. Gu Chen always carried it with him.

He thought for a while, and gave Xiao Ting a deep blow of the song "Autumn Moon in Guanshan".

The tune is very simple, he composed it himself when he was guarding the border in Yanbei. It is long and distant, and it sounds with a bit of Yanbei's unique wind and snow atmosphere.The whistling of the wind and the neighing of the horse are intertwined, blended into the distant green hills and the desolate sunset in the song, and echo faintly in the quiet night.

Xiao Tingshen did not speak during the process of listening to the music.When the song was over, Gu Chen turned his head to look, but there was only the sound of steady and quiet breathing in his ears. It was obvious that Xiao Tingshen had fallen asleep.

He smiled involuntarily, put the Xun aside, lay down himself, and closed his eyes.After a while, he felt Xiao Tingshen, who was sleeping soundly, turned over, put a hand on his waist, and hugged him very affectionately and tenderly.

For some reason, Gu Chen's heart calmed down in an instant, as if after a long wandering, he finally found his destination.

He closed his eyes and fell asleep.

He was awakened by an inexplicable feeling.

Gu Chen opened his eyes and subconsciously looked behind him.Sure enough, Xiao Tingshen woke up at some point, and was sitting there quietly, watching him with gentle eyes.Gu Chen couldn't help frowning: "Your Majesty is having nightmares again?"

"……Um."

It was beyond Gu Chen's expectation that he admitted so readily.If it were in the past, Xiao Tingshen didn't know what excuses he would use to perfunctory the past, or he would not answer his question at all.

Gu Chen sat up and stared at him for a moment: "What nightmare did Your Majesty have?"

Xiao Ting's deep eyes drooped, covering a shadow.The moonlight came in from the window, covering half of his face and his handsome features in the shadows.He was silent and did not speak for a long while.

Just when Gu Chen thought he couldn't speak, he suddenly said, "I dreamed that my mother and I both died."

He paused and added, "Six years ago."

Six years ago——when his mother and concubine were almost killed, it was Zhang Fufeng from his mother's concubine's palace who informed Xiao Tingshen that he had the chance to save his mother's concubine's life.

Gu Chen didn't expect that the content of his nightmare would be like this, so he stretched out his hand involuntarily, and gently held his hand.

"The empress dowager is safe in the palace in Ningcheng." He said, "I am by Your Majesty's side, and will do my best to protect His Majesty."

Xiao Ting held his hand back and smiled at him lightly.This smile is different from the past, with a weak taste.His long hair was loose, and he took off the dragon robe. Under the cold moonlight, it seemed that a layer of hard shell had been shed, revealing his ordinary side.

"I know," he said, "I understand, it's just..."

"I can't control myself." He said, holding Gu Chen's hand with a little strength, "I know that no one will hurt my mother now, and no one will hurt me... But I can't control it." , just like when I was a child..."

He stopped and did not continue, so Gu Chen said softly: "How was your majesty when you were young?"

Xiao Ting smiled bitterly: "I once raised a puppy, it was very cute, I don't know which palace person secretly raised it, maybe it couldn't be kept and was abandoned, so it ran to the palace of me and my mother."

At that time Xiao Tingshen was still young, only a child of five or six years old.He was a child at heart and liked that puppy very much, so he begged his mother to keep the dog.

The life between him and his mother is not easy, but because he likes it, he still feeds some of his own meals to the puppy, and some of the pastries he finally got will also be fed to the puppy.Until one day, a box of chestnut cakes was sent from the palace of a concubine of the first emperor, only a small box. Xiao Tingshen originally wanted to eat it for his mother and concubine, but when the puppy rubbed against his legs and spun around, he gritted his teeth and left behind. He took a piece for the mother concubine, and gave his own piece to the puppy.

The puppy foamed at the mouth after eating, his limbs twitched, and he died not long after.

That was the first time Xiao Tingshen witnessed death, and it was also the first time he realized that even though he had fallen to this point, there were still people who wanted to kill him.

That night, he was so frightened that he developed a high fever and kept having nightmares. Since then, he has never been able to escape the shadow of the puppy being poisoned to death in front of his eyes.

Gu Chen listened silently, feeling that Xiao Tingshen's palm gradually became cold, so cold that there was no trace of heat.From Xiao Tingshen's calm narration, he heard a trace of abnormally suppressed trembling. Obviously, he did not overcome this fear, but suppressed it deeply in his heart. He usually put on a cruel and cruel mask, and did not show the slightest bit. .

"I can't have anything I like." Xiao Ting said in a low voice, "Even if it's just a dish, I can't show that I like it."

He revealed that he liked to eat chestnut cakes, so someone poisoned the chestnut cakes.He once expressed his preference for moon white, so someone specially sent moon white clothes soaked in poisonous water.He once showed that he cared about his concubine mother, and then someone put his mind on his concubine mother...

So when he met Gu Chen, he didn't even dare to show the slightest bit of his love and emotion, he was afraid that someone would hurt Gu Chen because of this, he was afraid that someone would use Gu Chen to blackmail him.

He can only put these emotions away, forcing himself to become more and more indifferent, more cruel, and more and more fearsome... Only in this way, his enemies will be afraid of him, will be afraid of him, will have scruples.

Gu Chen remembered that when the two of them were classmates, Xiao Tingshen acted as if they were just ordinary friends. He fulfilled all his obligations as a friend, and never exceeded the rules in the slightest.Afterwards, he acted so indifferent again that even when Gu Chen left Beijing for Yanbei, he never sent another letter of greeting.

In his previous life, Gu Chen had misunderstood him because of this, thinking that he had easily abandoned the friendship between the two, and that he was nothing in his heart, not even comparable to the shining golden dragon chair in the hall.It was only at this moment, in the dark bedroom of Ganquan Palace, that he realized that Xiao Tingshen didn't care...

He didn't dare, he was afraid, and there was a deep fear hidden in his heart.

He is afraid of losing.

Gu Chen couldn't control his distress for a while—what kind of self-control did Xiao Tingshen use to suppress himself to such an extent?

"I'm actually afraid too." Xiao Tingshen's voice was very calm, "I'm afraid of losing my mother and concubine, I'm afraid of losing the people around me, I'm afraid that I will die, and I'm also afraid that I will kill you."

This was the first time he had admitted his fear so bluntly in front of Gu Chen.

"Your Majesty used to...why didn't you say it?" Gu Chen's voice trembled, "If Your Majesty said it, I..."

I will never misunderstand you for so many years.

However, Xiao Tingshen turned his head, looked at Gu Chen and smiled slightly: "This is my own business."

"But……!"

"If I tell you, what will you think of me?" Xiao Tingshen said, "I'm afraid you will think I'm weak and incompetent, like a child who can't even control his own fear."

"I'm even more afraid... With your temperament, you must not leave me alone no matter what. Then you will be drawn into a deeper vortex. Your elder brother has already died because of taking the throne. How can I let you go the same way?" Follow in the footsteps of your elder brother?"

He was more afraid that Gu Chen would be implicated by him than that he himself died in the struggle for succession.So he can't show the slightest bit of love for Gu Chen, even if there is only a little bit, he will kill Gu Chen.

Like everything and everyone he had liked as a child.

Gu Chen couldn't speak for a while, he just felt sore and sore in his heart, and it was so soft.He clenched Xiao Tingshen's hand silently, and suddenly thought that Xiao Tingshen's nightmare would recur again, probably because of the empress dowager incident - he witnessed his mother almost dying in front of his own eyes .

The child who hugged him and shrank in the corner when he was young has never disappeared, he was just locked in a cage by his adult self, suppressed in the deepest part of his heart.And once the same scene reappears, he will remember the deepest fear, waking him up again and again from the nightmare.

Gu Chen has never been so glad that he chose to stay - Xiao Tingshen is not invulnerable, in a sense, he is actually an ordinary person, who can laugh in pain, cry and be afraid, has weaknesses and nightmares.

And he didn't leave him alone.

He turned his head to look at him, the two looked at each other for a moment, Gu Chen suddenly moved closer to Xiao Tingshen, and gently touched his lips.

Xiao Ting opened his eyes wide in shock, and suddenly tightened the hand holding Gu Chen, as if he wanted to forcibly pull him over, but also as if he was restraining himself not to hurt him.The moment the lips touch and leave, there is only a short moment.

But he miraculously calmed down.