"You killed me." Jiang Yue accused bitterly, as he launched himself at Yu Nianzhen but his opponent reacted quickly and kicked him in the stomach, causing him to fall on the cove's hard floor.
"Didn't you also kill me?!" Yu Nianzhen countered, and there was a cold sneer on his grime-covered face.
He had barely managed to dodge the rock that Jiang Yue had thrown at him, but before either could react, they had both fainted from a sudden headache.
By the time they regained consciousness, the evening had already faded to night, and the only light in the cove was a faint moonlight that stole in from a gap in the cove's roof.
"Maniac."
Jiang Yue was filled with resentment as he got up from the ground.
"Aren't you also?" Yu Nianzhen argued, but then shook his head in exasperation.
This stubbornness and unwillingness to give in to each other was the reason why they had died so stupidly in their previous life and it was the height of folly to continue making the same mistakes.
After fainting from the sudden headache, Yu Nianzhen had remembered everything that had happened to lead to their current situation and the more he thought about it, the more stupid he felt.
On that day, he had been driving up a mountain road that led to the Yu family's ancestral house and as luck would have it, Jiang Yue was driving down from the old Jiang residence.
The two hadn't seen or spoken to each other for almost three years and the moment they saw each other, everything seemed to go out of control and the chain reaction was like opening a coke bottle after shaking it.
Jiang Yue swerved onto Yu Nianzhen's lane; as if to challenge him to a game of chicken, and for the first time in his life, Yu Nianzhen didn't do the smart thing.
Call it temporary insanity, or stubbornness, but the two fearlessly drove towards each and the result was instant death.
Maybe they had expected the other to take action to avoid the collision, but that hadn't happened and they could only regret their stupidity when they found themselves in line to drink grandma Meng's soup.
However, things didn't go as per course because as they approached the Naihe bridge, a sudden force had grabbed their souls. When they next came to, their souls had already inhabited the bodies of two thirteen-year-old boys who had the same names.
Yu Nianzhen was willing to believe that he had been momentarily overcome with emotion which led to his nonsensical actions that caused the accident, but when he considered other things, he couldn't believe that everything was a coincidence.
What are the odds that he would suddenly follow Jiang Yue to act crazy; leading to their deaths, and coincidentally, there were two suitable bodies for them to transmigrate into?
Yu Nianzhen didn't believe in this evil, but for the moment, there was nothing to be done because there were more urgent matters to take care of.
As it turned out, the original Yu Nianzhen and Jiang Yue had been good friends for all thirteen years of their lives and when war broke out at the border, they had escaped together.
Unfortunately, they must have used up all their life's luck on escaping because Jiang Yue had been captured and by the time Yu Nianzhen found him, the other had already been sold to the Pleasure Palace brothel.
At the time, both boys were barely ten years old and Yu Nianzhen didn't have enough to feed himself, let alone the one hundred gold coins required to redeem Jiang Yue from the brothel.
However, he didn't give up on Jiang Yue and for the next three years, he did everything he could to earn gold coins, but people make plans, and the heavens always have the final say.
As soon as Jiang Yue turned thirteen, Lady Chu had decided to auction his virginity and no amount of Yu Nianzhen's begging was going to change that decision.
In the end, Yu Nianzhen had been beaten and dumped in an alley across the brothel which catapulted both boys into despair.
Jiang Yue did not want to become a prostitute and without other options, he had committed suicide using some stolen pills while Yu Nianzhen had died from his injuries and hypothermia.
These coincidental circumstances were all very suspicious, but rather than dwelling on that, the priority was to run as far away from Han city as possible.
Yu Nianzhen had nothing to do with Jiang Yue's escape from the brothel, but the brothel's people already knew his connection with the escapee and they would definitely find him to cause trouble.
Even if that wasn't the case, Yu Nianzhen couldn't bring himself to abandon Jiang Yue.
His feelings towards Jiang Yue were very complicated, but they had already been friends for more than twenty years before things fell apart. That kind of attachment was hard to ignore and Yu Nianzhen was very unwilling to watch Jiang Yue suffer.
"I will take a bath first." Yu Nianzhen said in a very calm voice as he removed several sets of clothing from the sack he carried on his back.
He threw a set to Jiang Yue and then walked out without saying another word.
Yu Nianzhen found a good spot where the river's current wasn't very strong and after removing his filthy clothes, he sunk into the river and allowed the water to not only cleanse his body but also cool his mind.
Yu Nianzhen and Jiang Yue had been born on the same day, in the same hospital, and because their families were very close, the two boys had grown up together.
One was an unapproachable cool beauty while the other was a sunny but hot-tempered beauty; however, they got along surprisingly well.
It was rare to see one without the other and as they grew older, the people around them couldn't help making jokes about their relationship.
You two are like a married couple…
Wouldn't it be great if one of you was a woman?
Your girlfriend/wife will definitely be jealous of the way you treat each other…
The concerned two were used to such comments and they didn't mind them until what was supposed to be a joke during a king's game forced them to acknowledge some things that they weren't prepared to handle.
As he thought about it now, Yu Nianzhen couldn't help but sigh in frustration and helplessness.
He still couldn't decide whether he had made the right choice back then, but now was not the time to dwell on it.
He washed as best as he could and when he was sure that he was as clean as he was ever going to be after washing without soap, Yu Nianzhen got out of the river and allowed the night wind to dry his body.
Afterwards, he wore his new robe and then re-entered the cove to find that Jiang Yue had also changed out of his female robe.
"You looked like a flower in your red dress." Yu Nianzhen teased as he sat across from Jiang Yue.
"You are the flower." The other retorted and a small smile appeared on Yu Nianzhen's lips when he saw Jiang Yue roll his eyes in exasperation.
He knew that Jiang Yue was sensitive about his looks and in all honesty, he was just making fun of the other. Now that Jiang Yue had washed off all his makeup, he was still very beautiful but not in a feminine way.
After the short exchange, the two fell into a long silence until Jiang Yue decided to break it.
"I estimate that the city gates have already been closed and if we leave now, we can put some distance between ourselves and the brothel's pursuers." He said and Yu Nianzhen didn't fail to grasp the implications.
Although the owners of their original bodies had been close, those owners were already dead and the new owners were not obligated to remain friends.
At this moment, they had the choice to go their separate ways and never have anything to do with each other, but Jiang Yue was making a choice to remain a grasshopper on the same rope as Yu Nianzhen.
He still had very complicated feelings about their relationship in the previous life, but he was choosing to ignore it for the time being.
After all, they had been friends before enemies and even though they were loath to admit it, they missed each other.
They had walked together for so many years that they had almost become like each other's shadow and their few years of estrangement had caused a nagging discomfort that could not be alleviated by anything.
"Okay." Yu Nianzhen simply agreed as he removed the previously bought map from his sack bag.
'Luckily, tonight is a full moon.' Yu Nianzhen thought as they began mapping the first path towards an indeterminate future.