[BL] Accidentally Becoming the Healer of the Deranged Archduke-Chapter 166: A Fool’s Guide to Teasing the Devil

The archduke could no longer suppress his curiosity and finally asked, "So, how do you think I am perceived, exactly?"

The lazy Xion took a relaxing breath while pushing all his weight on Darius’ legs.

After listening to the sudden question, he tilted his head, his blue eyes gleaming with mischief as he stared at the handsome face from an entirely different angle.

And... Damn! Why is he still so pretty?

Xion shook his wandering thoughts away before rising his brow playfully, "You really wanna know?"

Darius didn’t respond. He just waited, calmly staring back at the messy head. His steady gaze was response enough.

Xion used his arms as his makeshift pillow on Darius’ lap.

Then, he retracted all his smile, and with absolute seriousness, he said,

"You... are like an ancient artifact."

Darius blinked once. "...Come again?"

Xion nodded solemnly. "Oh, you heard me. You know those ancient, ridiculously valuable artifacts that people inherit?"

While resting his head on the comfy lap, he closed his eyes and muttered lazily, "The ones covered in ominous inscriptions, rumored to have been owned by a long-dead warlord or someone like that, and definitely responsible for at least a few if not many disappearances?"

Darius’ eyes narrowed slightly at the description. His hand which was casually rubbing against the soft strands also halted.

"Am I so ominous?"

"Pffftt..." Despite trying hard to stifle his laughter, a few strangled noises still escaped his pursed lips.

"Yeah, you are. Everyone’s terrified of you, but at the same time, they can’t get rid of you. You’re too important. Too legendary. People don’t want to be near you, but they also don’t wanna be the idiot who disrespects the scary artifact and gets cursed."

Xion rested his cheek against his arm and turned his face to the other side, showing his back to the archduke who was still as silent as before.

"So they just tiptoe around, whispering about your terrifying past and praying you don’t suddenly come to life and doom their entire bloodline."

The fingers fell on his head and a certain lazy kitten who was a wee bit away from stretching and exposing his belly for a rub, groaned in comfort. Then, he stopped talking altogether.

Darius exhaled slowly as if searching for more patience to deal with his healer. "...And you?"

Me?

In his eyes, Darius was really like those mysterious artifacts. They were far too powerful and could doom the entire earth if not handled with care.

Nonetheless, there was always some sort of restraint, a cage, that would not let the artifact reach its full potential before strangling it until there was nothing left.

Xion wanted to destroy that restraint and bring the cursed artifact to life.

However, when he realized that the big hand was now pressing his neck, a scaredy-cat Xion instantly changed his words.

"To me, you are more like a night. Dark, mysterious, and more than anything... scary."

Xion almost slapped himself when the grip on his neck tightened.

What was "Scary"? This was!

"I mean," his voice almost cracked as he rubbed his forehead against the archduke’s clothes like a desperate cat before finally turning his head back to Darius’ side.

"I like nights. They are nice. No one bothers me, and I can sleep as much as I want."

A long silence followed.

Xion, being the intelligent man he was, decided that the best course of action was immediate retreat.

In this condition, where he was sprawled all over Archduke’s legs with his neck still in his grasp, the best retreat was, of course, to stay silent.

It was definitely not because the fingers now pinching his ears felt so soothing that he did not want to move even an inch.

So, before Darius could decide whether to strangle or tolerate him, Xion let out a soft mumble of some unintelligent words and promptly fell asleep right there on his lap.

The archduke was... perplexed.

He wasn’t that old. So why was he being called ancient? It wasn’t logical at all.

It was not like he had a very big gap with Xion. It was only like what? Ten years?

The archduke stared at Xion’s small hand curled up near his sleeping face. He silently placed his own hand near Xion’s only to realize that he was really big compared to his healer.

10 years...

The gap was indeed there, but it was not that much either. Even the current king and his consort have an age difference of more than fifty years.

And honestly, the moment they turned thirteen no one would bother with the age that much. After all, there were other matters to focus on.

Like inheriting the legacy of their families, like killing his parents, like strengthening his army so others would not come to harass him, like burning those useless churches, like... staring at his silly Xion.

"Old, huh?" Darius could not resist another temptation creeping up and clouding his senses.

So, without further ado, he poked Xion’s cheek, relishing the way the soft, warm skin indented under his whims.

Everything should be under his command. Always.

And that included his silly Xion.

However, this time, he did not stop at just poking.

He had ’evil intentions’, and being the cursed, ancient artifact who could doom someone’s entire bloodline, of course, he was allowed to be willful!

Hence, in the next second, the poking changed to pinching.

But Xion, the bumbling fool, only made a small noise in his sleep. A whiny little sigh escaped his slightly parted cherry lips before he nuzzled further into Darius’ lap as if instinctively looking for the human temperature around him.

But Darius was still not satisfied, so he went further.

The dignified archduke who was feared across the land, capable of making his enemies tremble with a single glance, narrowed his eyes.

There was a strange glint dancing in his otherwise dull eyes, making them so ominously bright that if Xion were awake, he would have chosen to hide in his lab directly.

It was a pity that even after being pinched, Xion was still fast asleep.

Then, the devil who was famous for never yielding to anyone slowly bowed his back and leaned down.

His lips ghosted near the skin that had turned red from his pinching, all the while the culprit of his anger was still peacefully snoring.

A smirk crept on the corner of his lips.

"A subject who talks bad about his lord should be punished. Right, ’sweetheart’ ?"