Chapter 248
I stepped forward resolutely, stretching out a hand. “Give it to me.”
Song Lu shook her head. “Ah Shen, you need to calm down. Have you thought about it? She might be able to control you again if you take it. Do you want to be controlled by her? You can’t do that anymore. I didn’t know that Du Yue’s drug would lead to something like this. I can’t let you do something like that again.”
I smirked. “Didn’t you hate me? Didn’t you team up with Du Yue because you couldn’t forgive me? What now? You’re not going to complete the task that Du Yue entrusted you with? She instructed you to get me to take the drug because she wants me to go through something like this. She wants to force my second personality out like this. Since you’ve already chosen her, why are you still pretending to be kind here?”
Song Lu looked at me with a complex gaze. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking.
Nor did I want to know what was on her mind.
Jiao S spoke. “Ah Shen, calm down. You’re just spitting words out of anger now. You’re too agitated, and you won’t find the truth like this. It will just push you further away from it. Don’t be anxious. Things will eventually be revealed.”
“Haha, eventually be revealed? Do you think she can really uncover everything on her own? I don’t think Li Shen has that ability yet.”
Someone was walking down the steps that led to this dungeon-like place.
I regarded her coldly.
It was Du Yue.
Giving her a slow clap, I smirked as I said, “Good going. You’re quick. I guess I’ve underestimated you. You’ve calculated everything perfectly.”
Du Yue’s sleek ponytail looked neat as she walked with those long and slender legs.
With cold arrogance on her face, she said, “It’s not that I’ve calculated everything perfectly, it’s just that a mechanism would be activated after you take the drug, which will lead to a series of events after. I would say it’s more of an intricate plan. I would rush back the very moment you took the drug, because I too have that pill which Jiao S owned.”
She showed me that red pill from her pocket.
“Also, the Gaoqin Jiuye whom you saw wasn’t an illusion. You were suspicious of it, right? Haha, Li Shen, you’re so gullible. Did you really think that Gaoqin Jiuye would have fallen in love with the childish you in the Split Zone? Gaoqin Jiuye had known you for a long time, and you shouldn’t think that it’s the current you that he had fallen in love with.”
Pain seemed to flash past her eyes as she said this.
I narrowed my eyes at her. So it’s like this.
Composing myself, I folded my arms in front of me as I responded. “You don’t sound too happy with Goaqin Jiuye’s earlier confession to me. Are you trying to emphasize that it’s the Li Shen from the past that he loves instead of the current me? I think you’re confused about something, Du Yue. No matter which version of me he loves, it’s still me. It isn’t you...”
I purposely placed extra emphasis on the last word as I dragged it out.
Fiery killing intent appeared in Du Yue’s eyes immediately.
I waved at her. “Simmer down, simmer down. I know you have much more to tell me. Go on. Since you’ve already planned all this, why not just tell me what you’re up to.”
After hearing me say this, that fire in her eyes was momentarily tamped down.
I guess I was still of some use to her.
“Fine. Since you’re asking, I’ll be frank with you.” She relaxed all of a sudden, and a smile even appeared on her face, even though it did not look the least bit genuine.
“I don’t know how much you remember, but you should know this as long as you recalled even a teeny weeny bit about Gaoqin Jiuye. Gao Qi wasn’t the one you fell in love with. Gao Qi had an incomplete personality, and he was always hurting you. But he thought that was a manifestation of his love for you.
“I don’t know his thoughts exactly, since I’m not from your world. What I know is that your consciousness and Gaoqin Jiuye’s consciousness achieved some kind of resonance somewhere. You can look at this phenomenon like brain waves, though it’s not exactly like this.
“Anyway, you were the person who appeared in Gaoqin Jiuye’s dreams. In his dreams, he was able to see your life in that world, and he began to take an interest in you. He knew that Gao Qi was hurting you, and because of that, he began to look for various ways to travel to that world to look for you.
“The interesting thing is that he was looking at things from your perspective in his dreams. This means he was able to see Gao Qi, who looked exactly like him. He then realized that Gao Qi was his doppelganger. This is a term that we use here, so you don’t have to understand it. What you need to know is that in order to help you, Gaoqin Jiuye used the body of his doppelganger so that he could protect you.”
Gaoqin Jiuye...
Du Yue looked pleased as she saw that sorrowful expression that appeared on my face. “This means that you’ve been loving the wrong person all this while. You’ve forgotten everything related to Gaoqin Jiuye. Your second personality appeared during that very last time he attempted to help you out, scrambling your memories. You even took off the ring that he gave you. He lost the ability to protect you since that ring was no longer with you. Gaoqin Jiuye wasn’t able to pass through the dimensional boundaries to save you then, and in his haste, he captured you as an heir and brought you over to the Split Zone.
“It was all to save you. But you? Li Shen, you’re really something. You actually stabbed Gao Qi in all that chaos. Do you know that if Gao Qi dies, you can forget about meeting Gaoqin Jiuye ever again?
“It’s lucky that I’ve planted a seed in this process. When I found out that Gaoqin Jiuye was passing through the dimensional borders to go to your world, I had him retrieve something for me once. That item was an opportunity I created in his dreams earlier on. Put simply, it’s something that didn’t exist. I made use of Gaoqin’s memories to create an empty space, and that space can then be filled with something else in future, which is Jiao S’s eyes. By triggering your desire to save her, we can return to that space once again.”
So it was an opening that Du Yue had left in Gaoqin Jiuye’s memories. She’s making use of this opening to make me return under the guise of looking for Jiao S’s eyes.
But how did she do all that?
“How did you do that?”
Du Yue smirked. “I can’t do it. Do you think I have abilities like your Grandpa Fan? Spatial transference? If it has to do with space, Huai Du is the only one who can do that in the Split Zone.”
My eyes widened in shock. “Huai Du? Him again? What do you mean?”
Du Yue walked over to Song Lu. Song Lu glanced at her, before looking back at me.
Though Du Yue walked over to her, she ignored Song Lu. She simply stood by Song Lu’s side as she addressed me. “This means that everything is a conspiracy by Huai Du. He made use of the interest that Gaoqin Jiuye had in you, and he helped Gaoqin Jiuye go to your world, leading to him falling in love with you. He even created some disagreements between the both of you. His eventual aim was for Gaoqin Jiuye to bring you over to this world.”
“Why did he do that? We have nothing against each other. I don’t even know him.”
Du Yue lost her smile as shook her head. “I don’t know why he did that, since I’m a soul splitter from the Gate of Heaven, and he’s the ruler in the Gate of Ghost. I wouldn’t know what he’s thinking. However, I know one thing. There’s some secret behind that second personality of yours. They’re all aiming for your second personality.”
They? Who else?
Why was my second personality so popular? Haha, everyone is fighting for her. She caused me to become a freak in my own world, and now a series of gears have been set off because of my second personality? What’s going on here?
It’s not like I’m the only one who has double identity disorder in my world. Why did I have to be chosen like this...
“I want to find out the secret too, so I wanted to bring you here to the Palace of Cold Blood. You can see for yourself. I haven’t really done anything to your good friend. Li Wen handed her over when she made a deal with me, and I’ve been nice to her since. I’ve even given her important tasks.
“I wouldn’t have had to waste that pill if you had come here with me willingly. But things change, and I was prepared for accidents to happen. I have this pill with me so that I can return here the very moment you meet Song Lu, or when you entered the Palace of Cold Blood.
“Talking about this, aren’t you really something huh? You didn’t even bother to say anything before you left. Is the Western District Commander such an unreliable person?”
I stared at her. “You make yourself sound the most innocent. Who was the one who destroyed the Western District? It’s those experimental subjects of yours, isn’t it? Have you already anticipated that I would be able to survive and escape to the Northern District? Haha, sorry but I don’t think so. If you, Du Yue, can anticipate things like that, I don’t think there’s a need for you to go to such lengths to do me in, is there?”
Du Yue’s face dropped. “The Eastern, Western and Southern Districts were destroyed because I do not have the ability to anticipate everything. Things aren’t as simple as you think they are.”