Chapter 140: Your Lie

Chapter 140 Your Lie

I don't know him.

I. Don't. Know. Him.

He actually said he didn't know him!

If you don't know him, why did you cause so much trouble?

Those three words hit Lake like a sledgehammer, making his head spin and his facial muscles twitch. It took him a long moment before he said, "You really don't know him?"

Ling Qingjue couldn't be bothered to answer his question. "I told you to get lost."

"You stopped time on this day just for him, didn't you?"

With a door between them, Lake felt bolder and stiffened his neck defiantly. "You've just forgotten his name. Right now, you're probably confused, but I know him. I know everything. As long as you promise me to restore Moon Bay to its original state."

There was a long silence inside.

It felt like an entire century had passed before the door creaked open a narrow crack.

Lake met Ling Qingjue's gaze once again.

Ling Qingjue's black hair half-covered his brows and eyes, his skin pale as cold jade. He lifted his eyelids to glance at Lake, his expression was extremely fierce. "What do you know?"

Lake was about to speak but was first drawn to Ling Qingjue's hand.

On his left wrist hung a silver chain with a pendant—that glass bead.

Lake fell silent for a moment.

Ling Qingjue didn't open the door all the way, resting his hand on the doorframe and revealing only half his face. "Speak up?"

Lake snapped back to reality and quickly nodded. "I know. That person's name is Meng Shu. You two were together before."

Ling Qingjue's face was expressionless. "Oh. So what? Where the hell did he go?"

"You don't seem surprised?"

Ling Qingjue looked down at the glass bead on his wrist.

"This thing is called a Moonstone. Once it's been recognized by the laws, it won't disappear no matter what happens."

He shook the bead and smiled sarcastically. "When I woke up, this was already on my wrist. I figured I must have a lover."

Lake inwardly regretted it. He had been so focused on studying space magic that he knew too little about the Moonstone. When Meng Shu first brought the glass bead to this world, he should have stopped him.

He thought that with Meng Shu's star removed from the Astrolabe, this glass bead would disappear too.

But it turned out this thing wasn't controlled by the Astrolabe.

Lake sighed, feeling helpless. "This is what he gave you."

Ling Qingjue said, "Oh. And then? I can't remember who he is."

"Meng Shu." Lake repeated the name. "He was a very good person."

"Oh? A very good person?" Ling Qingjue let out a snort. He opened the door wider, bent down slightly to look Lake in the eye, "A very good person would abandon a cat?"

His smile twisted little by little, his pupils cold and deep. "I waited for him a full four hundred and eighty days, and he never came back."

"No!" Lake waved his hands frantically. "It wasn't that he didn't want to come back. He already…"

Lake's voice choked up as he held back tears. "He's dead. He can't come back. He didn't mean to abandon you…"

"Dead?" Ling Qingjue didn't even bother to raise an eyebrow. "Can't he be resurrected?"

"He's not from this world. In his world, resurrection isn't allowed."

"Oh." Ling Qingjue nodded, looking very calm. "Not allowed to resurrect, huh?"

His eyes moved slowly, and then he suddenly smiled—bright and dazzling. "So what? Is that his excuse for abandoning me?"

The smile was too eerie. A chill ran down Lake's spine. This wasn't what he had expected!

Upon learning that Meng Shu was dead, shouldn't Ling Qingjue be crying and rolling on the ground, heart-wrenching and even blowing snot bubbles?

Why was Ling Qingjue reacting like this?

Ling Qingjue's features were sharp, and his brows slightly furrowed, a mix of confusion and irritation. He repeated the question: "So what? Is dying his reason for abandoning me? Just because of that, he made me wait four hundred and eighty days?"

"He's dead! He can't be resurrected!" Lake suspected he hadn't understood what he said at all and stressed it again. "It's not that he didn't want you. He really had no choice."

"Oh."

Ling Qingjue nodded lightly again and continued to press the issue: "So he just abandoned me?"

"He…"

Ling Qingjue lazily stood up straight, crossed his arms, and spoke with a cold tone, his gaze dark. "So, if I find him, what do you think I should do to him?"

He raised a finger, a bright smile on his face. "First option: lock him up, seal away all his magic, make him stare at me forever."

"Second option: make him wait four hundred and eighty days like I did, trapped forever in the rain, giving him no response, letting him feel the same despair."

"Third option: kill him with my own hands, grind his bones to dust, so that I can finally forgive his abandonment."

His smile grew brighter, like an innocent child asking in the most naive tone, "Which one do you think I should choose?"

"How can you treat him like that? He was just afraid you'd be sad! If he hadn't been at his wit's end, why would he abandon you?" Lake's eyes turned red from this argument. He felt Meng Shu was completely blind.

How could he have fallen for such a selfish cat?

On the verge of death, he still worried about Ling Qingjue, even erasing his own traces.

But in Ling Qingjue's eyes, it only amounted to betrayal and abandonment.

Even the legendary Dou E wasn't as wronged as Meng Shu.

Ling Qingjue raised an eyebrow. "What does that have to do with me? All I know is that he made me wait a long time. I'm really pissed off. I don't care about his excuses."

There was a hint of confusion in his eyes. "Strange, isn't it? He abandoned me, so why should I forgive him? If he really loved me that much, why did he hide everything from me?"

Lake was momentarily at a loss for words.

"If he really loved me, why did he hide even his death from me?"

Ling Qingjue asked, "Did he think I wasn't capable of handling it?"

He smiled faintly. "Oh, so it's because he's not confident in me, huh."

Seeing him spiraling into increasingly strange thoughts, Lake quickly interrupted, "Don't think like that. He was just afraid you'd be upset. That world doesn't allow resurrection—the laws forbid it. He was scared you'd do something terrible for his sake."

"Terrible, huh? Oh—"

Ling Qingjue dragged out the last syllable, speaking nonchalantly. "Well, that's just terrible. Terrible things are exactly what I do."

His smile turned even more malicious. "Since he's my lover, he should know my true identity, right?"

"I'm the 28th generation Demon King. Born to do terrible things. Did he expect me to be a good cat?"

He chuckled darkly, as if amused, before his tone suddenly turned savage and vicious. "What was he dreaming of?"

Before Lake could speak, Ling Qingjue cut him off again.

"I was never a good person. If he doesn't come back, I'll make everyone wait with me!"

"See you tomorrow! See you tomorrow! He clearly said see you tomorrow! He lied! He trapped me with that one sentence for 480 days!"

Ling Qingjue's words came faster and faster, frantic and impatient. "After all those tomorrows, why doesn't he come back?"

"See you tomorrow" was Meng Shu's greatest lie.