Jinde couldn't help but chuckle. His husband really was a sweet-talker. He stayed in his arms and sighed. He knew that sooner or later he would have to return into the lake and continue healing. But for the time being, he just wanted to spend a bit more time with his husband. That was not asking too much, was it?
He interlaced his fingers with Leng Jin Yu's, enjoying the warmth of his skin and the steady heartbeat at his back. "After I'm healed … Let's spend every day like this."
Leng Jin Yu brushed through Jinde's golden hair with the fingers of his free hand and smiled. "Exactly like this? I would've thought you'd be up for some adventures instead. After all, you've been cooked up in here for so long. I bet you're dying to be able to do something else again."
Jinde sighed. "You just had to remind me, didn't you? I was very happy not thinking about it for just a moment. First, it was that the dimension the Yun Zou Sect originally had, then it was a palace in the Liu He Alliance, now it's here. It makes me feel as if I'm always imprisoned. Well, I do have to say that your taste is obviously the best. The dimension is lovely."
Leng Jin Yu looked around the courtyard and nodded. "Well, Qiu Ling helped me. He filled in some details about this place."
Jinde nodded. "Mn, I guess he did a good job. You know, back when we were young, it looked different though. The palace or, well, part of it was destroyed in one of the wars. That included where we lived before. It's a bit strange thinking that those places are a thing of the past now."
Leng Jin Yu kept quiet. The place where they had grown up … Obviously, that was the place where Jinde and Chun Yin had grown up. It had nothing to do with him. "I don't remember any of that."
Jinde looked up and gently brushed his index finger with his thumb. "You wouldn't be jealous of your self now, would you?"
"How could that be?"
"Well, that's good then. You know, after I've healed completely, I thought that maybe it would be a good idea to give you back a part of his soul."
Leng Jin Yu raised his brows. "Give it back? Isn't that dangerous? I thought that the curse of the dragons was precisely that they could only fall in love once and if they did join their soul, it was something that couldn't be taken back anymore."
Jinde nodded. "That's true. But a dragon's soul is meant to be split. How you do it is completely up to yourself. So as long as I don't try to separate all of your soul from mine and just split a bit of your soul, then it can be given back. But … that was just a thought I had. What do you think?"
Leng Jin Yu furrowed his brows. "That soul fragment … It's a part of Chun Yin's soul, not mine, isn't it?"
"Well, you are his reincarnation so you do share the same soul. But, yes, looking at it from your perspective, there really is a difference. The soul you're currently using has gone through reincarnation once. You've lost your memories. Or, well, it's not that they're not they're gone completely. In fact, they are still there. That is why you've been remembering some things.
"The memories from a past life are just inaccessible for the most part. Some people are able to get access to them on their own because they have some special ability that they were born with. Others will be able to unearth some of them with the help of herbs, pills, artifacts or special techniques. So there are ways to access these memories."
Leng Jin Yu nodded. "I knew about that. Back when … Well, before we met again, I was thinking of doing exactly that. I had researched which things could help me access the memories from past lives because I was sure that that courtyard I always saw had to be a memory. Unfortunately, even though I searched, I wasn't lucky enough to find anything."
Jinde nodded. Leng Jin Yu had told him about how Jing Yi found that plant instead of him. He hadn't even been looking for it but had just stumbled upon it. And with that, he had ruined Jin Yu's chance to retrieve his own memories. "Well, in a sense, it might not be too bad. The memories you can get back by using that kind of thing aren't too stable. You might not remember everything. It also could've fallen into the same predicament as the Son of Heaven's reincarnation and remember everything in the wrong sequence, making you believe things that never happened just because it seemed that way when you tried to figure out what was going on. Anyway, if I gave you a part of Chun Yin's soul back, it would be different."
"It still has all the memories from his past life, doesn't it? So if I got that part, I would be able to remember everything. From the very beginning to the very end."
Jinde hesitated and then shook his head. "Not quite. From the beginning … Yes. But as for the end …" He shook his head again and sighed. "To be honest, I'm not sure. That fragment of Chun Yin's soul was with me when he died. It had been for a long time. I'm not quite sure if the memories after that point would still be there.
"So it could be that you might only retrieve memories up to the point where he bound that fragment to my soul. I can't say for sure but that is a possibility."
Leng Jin Yu nodded. The possibility seemed quite high. And even if that wasn't the case and he would be able to remember everything … He wasn't quite sure if he wanted that. After all, the consequences were hard to predict.
On the other hand, he knew that Jinde wanted answers. He wanted to know why the man that had courageously joined his soul with his had left him like that. He wanted these answers, he needed them.
So even if it might be painful for him to remember, how could he not give in to that? He had to fulfill this wish of Jinde's. He had to answer the questions that he had asked himself all these millennia.
He owed him that much.
Chun Yin owed him that much.