Chapter 1913 (1/2)

“Tell me, Meiyin… the World Piercer is in your hands, so you are the only one who knows everything. You must tell me!”

Yun Che was mustering his full willpower to control his emotions. On the day he was crowned the great emperor of the four divine regions, he even believed that there was nothing in the world that could crack his mind anymore.

In reality, his control was already on the verge of being overwhelmed by the unending tidal wave of emotions.

“...” A bead of scarlet blood finally appeared on Shui Meiyin’s lip.

She looked down and answered in a difficult and pained voice, “If… she was the one who did everything… there’s no reason… why she wouldn’t tell you anything after you returned… So please, Big Brother Yun Che… please don’t force yourself to believe the fiction anymore…”

“You’re the one who’s forcing me and yourself to believe in it!”

Despite having lost any ability to defend herself, Shui Meiyin still stubbornly resisted admitting the truth for some reason. It made Yun Che even more frustrated as he growled out uncontrollably, “Everything was a lie! Even the flimsy theories I thought up to support your lies were lies, so why are you denying it still!? What are you hiding! Why won’t you tell me even after we’ve come this far!?!”

“...” Shui Meiyin didn’t give a reply. She simply shivered even harder, almost as if she was submerged in an icy, hellishly cold pond.

“...!” Suddenly, Yun Che realized something and pulled his hands away from Shui Meiyin’s shoulders in a hurry. His eyes trembled at what he saw.

He had lost control of his profound energy during the outburst. As a result, the fabric where he had grabbed her was shredded, and her snow white skin was covered in finger-shaped bruise marks.

For a time, Yun Che’s hands were frozen in the air. Then, light profound energy seeped out from his fingers, enveloped Shui Meiyin’s shoulders and slowly removed the bruise marks.

Drip...

Drip…

Drip…

Physically, the teardrops dripping on his knees were warm and soundless. But mentally, Yun Che felt like his heart was being gouged out with every drip.

For the past few years, Shui Meiyin had become a crybaby.

He recalled the time Shui Meiyin broke down suddenly and cried for a long time into his chest after he had informed her of Xia Qingyue’s demise.

She had told him that it was tears of joy and elation, but he should’ve realized sooner that such wouldn’t sound so broken-hearted.

During the three years they cultivated in the Eternal Heaven Divine Realm, he had occasionally woken from his meditation to find Shui Meiyin staring at nothing in particular with tear streaks on her cheeks.

She had smiled at him and explained again that she was crying out of sheer happiness. Days like those felt like a dream considering how dire the circumstances had been back then.

Even when they were enjoying moments that should be heartwarming and relaxing on the Blue Pole Star, her eyes would occasionally tear up for seemingly no reason whatsoever.

“My Meiyin is forever fifteen years old”... It was a half-joke he had cracked countless times to Shui Meiyin because she had become way too prone to crying for the past couple of years.

It was only now that he realized that it wasn’t without a reason after all.

Perhaps every drop of tears she shed was a drop of sorrow and pain she had failed to lock inside her heart.

“I’m sorry, Meiyin.” He placed his hands on her shoulders again, but this time his movements were gentle, and his voice much softer than before. “That was a most ugly outburst from me. I thought I had grown strong enough to face anything, but it looks like I was fooling myself again.”

“But the truth of this matter is just too important for me to let go of… can you please, please tell me?”

However, her head remained bowed, and her tears kept dripping like they were never-ending. Had her eyes been visible, Yun Che would’ve realized that they were fully dyed by grayish despair. For the owner of the Divine Stainless Soul, it was almost unthinkable.

“I can’t… I can’t…” She kept muttering seemingly more to herself than Yun Che. Her voice had lost its melodious quality and become wooden out of sheer pain. “I promised her… it was her… final wish…”

“So I cannot… I cannot…”

Promise...

Final wish...

Wish!?

“Meiyin, listen to me. Look me in the eye and listen to me.”

Yun Che very gently cupped her tear-stained cheeks and lifted her head. “I know you’ve made some sort of promise with her. You probably promised that you will keep all of her secrets until the end, and the fact is you’ve done very well until now. You haven’t leaked even a single word throughout these years.”

“Lying to someone close to you is a painful thing, and you had to make up lie after lie in order to keep your promise with her… You’ve already done the absolute best anyone could possibly hope to do.”

“It was a combination of pure luck and my existing suspicions that unearthed these truths. You’ve never tried to reveal them of your own accord, and you did everything in your power to keep them under wraps until the end. If you confess everything now, it is simply because it is the inevitable outcome after I found out. You are in no way breaking your promise to her or letting her down.”

Yun Che’s words unsettled the dark despair in Shui Meiyin’s eyes a little.

There was not a flicker of blame in his eyes despite all of the lies she said to him, only deep love and pain for everything she had gone through. His voice grew even softer and he said, “Not only are you shouldering all of the secrets and truths on your own, you knew everything she did but could only watch the world slight, shame, belittle and ridicule her. You were even forced to watch me hate and resent her so much that I refused to even hear her name from anyone’s mouth…”

“It must have been painful, wasn’t it?”

His words drove into the innermost depths of her soul with the strength of a hammer. The shivering in her pupils and across her body abruptly grew many times more intense than before.

“Have you forgotten?” Yun Che’s lips curled into a very soft, very gentle smile. “We are longer who we were back then. We are now husband and wife, and as husband and wife, we are supposed to shoulder the happy things, the sad things, the heavy things, and even the sinful things together, right?”