Chapter 114: Kill x Love, Part 8
Why would Xue Qing obey my commands without question?
Without asking why, she stepped forward.
The moment the dagger pierced Ling’s chest, no blood splattered. Instead, a wave of energy spread outward.
Ling narrowed her eyes and asked in a deeper voice than usual.
Standing up from her seat, with the dagger in her chest, Ling pointed at the handle with her index finger and smiled.
“This level isn’t enough to kill me, you know.”
Ling didn’t even pull the dagger out, her expression indifferent.
Undoubtedly, the dagger’s length had reached her heart. For any ordinary person, this would be a fatal blow.
But she was not an ordinary person.
“I truly didn’t expect you to have Juncheng order her to attack me. Have you given up on sacrificing yourself?”
“I am willing to sacrifice myself, but I can only sacrifice myself.”
The only life I can decide is my own.
If it were just me, I could offer my life…
But if my choice would cost my women their lives, I cannot tread this path.
So, how should I choose?
It’s merely a mathematical problem.
Majority or minority. The answer was already determined the moment the question was posed.
“I can understand this as ‘you’ve already made your decision,’ right?”
“The correct choice. After all, it’s more enjoyable to embrace different women every night than to embrace just one.”
“You’re still telling dirty jokes at a time like this. I wonder who you’re influenced by.”
“Near vermilion, one is dyed red; near ink, one is dyed black. There’s a saying, ‘birds of a feather flock together.’ You should know very well what kind of person you are.”
“Alright, it’s my fault. So, I’ve made my stance clear. What will you do now?”
“What will I do? Heh.”
Ling retorted, then let out a disdainful laugh.
The situation did not escalate into a fierce battle where both sides drew their weapons and clashed.
Ling gracefully sat back in her seat, crossed her long legs encased in black nylon stockings, and tapped the table twice with ease.
Immediately, someone brought two cups of coffee.
Immediately, someone arrived.
An old man with a face full of scars, wearing a shopkeeper’s uniform.
Despite his intimidating appearance, the shopkeeper was trembling uncontrollably. The tremor even transferred to the coffee cups.
Brown coffee liquid swirled within the cups, threatening to spill out. The beautiful young shopkeeper’s eyes, however, looked at him as if he were a monster, filled with fear.
He was forced to obey; he likely couldn’t control his own body.
“As for me, I just need to ‘leisurely enjoy my afternoon tea.’”
“What?”
“The one who should be anxious now isn’t me, but you. Unlike you, I have the option to choose ‘wait.’”
I understood even without her saying it.
The ‘final junction’ was not far off.
This meant that this world was about to reach its end.
If the matter of ‘compensating for deficiency by taking from what is in excess’ was not resolved before the end of the First Playthrough, the merged worlds would separate, and everything would fall into a state of loss of control.
Ling elegantly lifted her coffee cup and took a small sip.
“Your time is running out. If ‘today ends,’ ‘tomorrow’ will not come as usual. This moment is truly the ‘end of the world.’”
The world, the end of the world.
For the first time, the words felt so real.
I saw the shopkeeper’s appearance gradually change.
First, his white hair turned dark and thick again. Then, the scars and wrinkles on his face became fewer and fewer. His height slowly increased, and his back straightened.
In the blink of an eye, he was getting younger!
He didn’t even need a reversal drug anymore?
She was using the entire world’s causality. Since the end was coming anyway, she wasn’t considering any consequences?
It was like Thanos snapping his fingers, no, perhaps even easier, and more severe.
Snapping his fingers only made half the life disappear, but Ling was now rewinding everything to ‘non-existence.’
“Time is running out, Juncheng. If you want to kill me, hurry up. I can’t wait anymore~”
Like a seasoned prostitute teasing a young virgin, Ling taunted me with a completely different tone.
But I couldn’t even muster anger; my hands and feet felt cold.
I have to kill her.
“Juncheng, calm down.”
My hands were enclosed by Xue Qing’s clean, spotless ones.
It felt as if my hands had been plunged into a pool of blood.
I felt as if my hands were instantly stained with blood, sticky as if I had dipped them into a blood bath, and then I quickly recoiled.
“I’m sorry, Xue Qing. I didn’t mean to…”
Xue Qing withdrew her hands and said, looking down.
“These hands are indeed ‘dirty.’”
Xue Qing had been using these hands to commit slaughter all along…
Although they looked clean and fair, they were stained with unimaginable ‘sin’—
“Xue Qing, I’m going to kill this woman in front of me.”
“What a cruel man. Is this even more excessive than before?”
“Will you resist?”
“Heh, if you can’t finish me off cleanly, I might resist?”
“I will send you off properly.”
I turned my head to smile at Xue Qing and opened my arms to her.
“Xue Qing, can you help me?”
Xue Qing nodded and sat into my embrace.
She extended her hands to me again, but this time, they didn’t cover my hands but grasped my wrists.
Sin, gathered in my palms.
“Killing requires no emotion.”
No emotion…
“Pure immersion.”
Immersion.
Deep within.
For some reason, I remembered this sentence again.
My whole body felt as if it were submerged in water—I felt an unprecedented sense of peace.
My whole body felt as if it were submerged…
Coalesce the killing intent.
“Look at the target.”
I obediently looked up at Lou Ling, at the woman I loved, who loved me, and who I was now about to kill.
I see.
Killing and loving might be connected in some way.
Both require complete focus.
Both require pouring in everything.
Equally profound.
Guided by Xue Qing, I grabbed the handle of the dagger stuck in Ling’s chest.
I felt Ling’s heart still beating powerfully, a bit heavy.
That was the ‘weight of life’…
If I were to continue this…
“Do you feel it?”
I suddenly jolted awake.
…What am I trying to do?
“You intend to kill me, don’t you?”
“No, no, I…”
“There’s nothing wrong. You were about to kill me just now, and you had indeed reached that state.”
…Do I truly want to kill Ling?
Absolutely! Absolutely not!
If there were any other way, I would never choose this path…
Never…
“But this isn’t enough, not yet.”
Ling wrapped her hands around mine, which were holding the dagger handle.
“To kill me, to kill an entire world, merely reaching the state of killing is not enough. You need more, much… much stronger… emotion…”
Stronger emotion?
“You need deeper hatred, deeper resentment, stronger…”
I don’t have those emotions.
Besides, I only have ‘gratitude’ and ‘familial affection.’
That is the emotion of mutual support that has settled over our time together.
What you have, what is on you, even if it’s not your own, is ‘the world’s intense curse.’
It’s a great curse separated from Yu Hui.
That ominous curse poured out without my consent.
A black, impure aura emanated from my palms, swirling around.
“The ‘weapon’ and ‘motive’ are both present. Only ‘execution’ is left.”
Ling’s hands tightened, pushing the dagger deeper.
“Come on, kill me.”
My hands were immobilized. I could only watch as the dagger continued to plunge into Ling’s chest.
Unlike the feeling of hitting cotton felt earlier, this time it felt like piercing flesh and blood.
Twisting the blade, completely destroying the ‘heart.’
The heart gradually stopped beating. Blood flowed from Ling’s lips, staining her clothes.
With the sound of ‘something’ shattering.
“Now it’s all over.”
Everything, is over.
“…This is your world.”
Noon has arrived.
The end that should have come did not.
The end of the world has passed, and we will welcome tomorrow.
This world has returned to unity. I have become the master of the world. Fate will continue. The First Playthrough of the world has not yet truly ended.
According to the original progression, the world should have ended at this moment, leading to the cycle of the Second Playthrough.
Ten billion years of waiting yielded only a fleeting moment of togetherness…
But now, it’s different.
Ling chose to let me kill her so that ‘I could gain more time.’
“In the end… you knew all along that I would choose to kill you, didn’t you?”
I can understand her feelings, and I can understand her thoughts.
So, I must respond.
“Yes, this situation is within your acceptance, isn’t it? You haven’t lost everything—only ‘half.’ Lou Yi is still here. She will continue to accompany you.”
I have left behind the ‘emotions.’
You have lost them too, haven’t you? You’ve experienced the same thing several times…
“What’s there to say? Lin Ai, as well as…”
I didn’t want to gain this… by sacrificing someone.
“Juncheng, you once said you wanted everything… are you satisfied now?”
“Wanting to have everything is just a delusion.”
“I know, I know… but…”
If it were to happen again, I couldn’t…
“I’m tired… I can’t accompany you through another ten billion years. That’s too long. If it happens again, I can’t… I’ll lose myself… I don’t want to become a madwoman. You don’t want a hysterical woman at home either.”
“No matter what you become, I will accept you.”
“I don’t want to. I am the world, but I am also a woman. I only want to show you my best, most beautiful side.”
The strength in Ling’s hands gradually weakened.
“Because I love you, please kill me.”
Sorrow welled up, but tears wouldn’t fall.
I only felt sadness.
“I wasn’t the first to leave you, nor will I be the last. After this, people will leave you, people will betray you. What you need to do isn’t to ‘recover,’ but to ‘accept.’ Being able to accept everything is your strength, An Juncheng, isn’t it?”
I lifted my head, gazed into Ling’s eyes, and desperately tried to curl my lips into a smile.
But in the reflection of Ling’s pupils, I only saw my own expression, which looked like I was about to cry.
“Ling… are you cursing me?”
“…Ah, I will curse you even in death. I curse you to never forget me, to forever live under my shadow.”
For this life and the next, forever… Her hand slipped.
Beginning with Ling, ending with Ling, do you know?
To be together forever, to be separated by death, do you know?
A life of eternal curse, do you know?
I do not wish to know.
No tears, but blood flows.
How much blood flows?
Drinking blood like intoxication.
Intoxicated into emptiness.
Heart in disarray.
Only then do I sigh for the past to return to zero.
