Listening to this man claim he had integrity while blatantly lying stirred a genuine sense of amusement in Su Mingyao.
What? He knows I’m lying? Shen Changqing panicked even more.
He twisted Su Mingyao’s meaning in his mind: My parents know about Su Shang too—they’re accomplices. Once they silence you here, they’ll handle the cleanup!
It’s all over!
How had he not realized it sooner? As Su Shang’s parents, having raised him from childhood, they must have known for years that he was a monster. The entire Su Family was in on it!
It all made sense now. No wonder Su Shang had survived a fall off a cliff. No wonder he’d only spent a few days in the ICU before being discharged to attend the birthday banquet. He wasn’t human to begin with, so those injuries were trivial to him—perhaps not even a scrape.
With the ability to fix anyone’s state at will and ignore any attacks, Su Shang could simply apply it to himself. Even leaping from Mount Everest would leave him utterly unscathed!
Shen Changqing’s vision darkened. Was he truly going to die here today?
He regretted coming to the Su Family’s back garden to find Su Mingyao. Why had he come at all?
Who could have known he’d stumble upon something so explosive? Why couldn’t you discuss important matters in a private room? Why out here in the garden? Now it was out in the open.
Fine, it was overheard—but silencing the witness? That was on them!
“However, I’m not asking you to keep quiet about this. You need to tell everyone,” Su Mingyao said.
Su Shang was on his way to follow the plot, and the next beat involved Shen Changqing switching projections, which would force Su Shang to fake a collapse.
Su Mingyao wasn’t sure exactly how far Su Shang wanted to take the plot, but repeating the events from his previous life was a safe bet.
So Shen Changqing not only had to speak up—he had to spread it far and wide, ensuring every guest at the banquet knew Su Shang wasn’t their blood relative. Only then would Su Shang be satisfied.
“I swear I won’t say a word. Please, let me go,” Shen Changqing begged. “If you do, I’ll give you fifty million! I’ll even sign a contract promising never to breathe a word of it. You can have shares from my holdings too, if you want!”
“No. You must tell,” Su Mingyao said, raising his voice.
Money meant nothing. He was doing this for the good of the world! If Shen Changqing deviated from the path of his previous life, they were all doomed!
“If I say it out loud, everyone will think I’ve lost my mind!” Shen Changqing shouted back, his voice rising to match.
Was the other man testing him, or did he genuinely want to expose Su Shang and needed a witness?
Shen Changqing eyed Su Mingyao with deep suspicion, his thoughts in turmoil. In the end, he gave a firm denial.
If it was a test, refusal was the right answer. And if Su Mingyao truly intended to unmask Su Shang and wanted him as corroboration, Shen Changqing still wouldn’t dare speak out against Su Shang.
With a mere thought, Su Shang could pin him in place and end him. Facing that monster was like hurling an egg at a boulder. How could he possibly muster the courage?
But… this Su Mingyao had undone Su Shang’s hold on him. Maybe he really could go toe-to-toe with Su Shang?
“Can you stand against him?” Shen Changqing asked.
“No,” Su Mingyao replied, baffled by the question. Did he look like someone capable of taking on Su Shang?
Then why even ask! Shen Changqing lost the will to continue the conversation.
“If you’re worried people will dismiss you as insane, I have proof,” Su Mingyao said once more.
From his previous life, he knew exactly where the No Blood Relation Certificate—generated by the projection—was kept. Shen Changqing himself had told him.
Looking at Shen Changqing’s terrified expression now that Su Shang had scared him witless, Su Mingyao figured the man probably wouldn’t dare provoke him again for the rest of his life—or go digging for evidence with anyone else. This wouldn’t do. He had to repeat what he’d done in his previous life, or disaster would follow. Su Mingyao thought grimly.
It was exactly because he couldn’t stand against Su Shang himself that he’d asked Shen Changqing to expose the truth!
But Shen Changqing had interpreted it differently:
Evidence? You mean photos of Su Shang’s monstrous form? You’re no match for him, and you still want to expose him? Are you out of your mind?
Shen Changqing stared at Su Mingyao in astonishment.
“Want to see it? I can send it to you in ten minutes,” Su Mingyao said.
“I’m not looking. I’m not listening. And don’t talk to me anymore!” Shen Changqing’s tone was resolute.
“But you can’t just walk away,” Su Mingyao pressed.
“You have to blow this wide open!”
“Why me? If you’re so eager, go tell them yourself that Su Shang’s a monster. You’ve got the evidence!”
Shen Changqing couldn’t fathom it. The guy clearly had proof—why drag him in as a witness?
“Wait—what did you say? Su Shang’s a monster?” Su Mingyao asked.
Shen Changqing: ?
What was with that baffled look? You don’t know?
“What I wanted you to expose is that Su Shang isn’t a blood relative of the Su Family,” Su Mingyao said, exasperated.
No wonder Shen Changqing had assumed Su Shang was some kind of monster and thought he was asking to reveal that. It explained the fierce resistance—and the question about whether he could even take on Su Shang.
“I’m not doing it,” Shen Changqing said firmly.
What good would come from crossing Su Shang? Nothing. He’d done nothing to offend the man today—just passed by—and still ended up pinned in place for half the day!
“You’ll do it whether you like it or not,” Su Mingyao said.
Thinks Su Shang’s a monster? Knows the immobilization was his handiwork?
Heh. How do you know it was him? Shen Changqing, you can hear Su Shang’s heart voice too. You can’t escape!
“You can hear Su Shang’s heart voice,” Su Mingyao said.
Shen Changqing shook his head.
“Don’t play dumb. I know you can—because I can too.”
Shen Changqing fixed him with a steady gaze, waiting for what came next.
“Since you can hear it too, you know what he really is…”
“I do know. Better than you, even. Su Shang isn’t a monster,” Su Mingyao snorted, the memory of the world Su Shang had destroyed flashing through his mind. He sighed.
“He’s a god.”
“That makes me even less likely to cross him. What good could come from offending a god?”
Shen Changqing knew there was something anomalous about Su Shang, but he hadn’t gone so far as to call him divine. Su Mingyao’s words only deepened the impression.
“If you don’t do this, we’re both done for,” Su Mingyao said.
“Here’s another secret: not only is Su Shang a god, but I’m reborn.”
“…” Shen Changqing stared at him like he’d spotted some extraterrestrial oddity.
Why did the Su Family have so many anomalies? Gods and reborn souls?
“Your bank card PIN comes from Pi, starting at the 267th digit—eighteen digits long. You like sour and spicy flavors, a strong cup of coffee before bed or you can’t sleep, and when it comes to intimacy, you start from the ears and work your way down…” Su Mingyao recited Shen Changqing’s secrets in a flat voice.
“Stop! Stop! I believe you— you’re reborn!” Shen Changqing blurted out.
“We spent over a decade together in my last life. I know you inside out. No need to pretend,” Su Mingyao said.
“Right now, I’m engaged to Su Shang. But in the future, I’ll marry you. So what happens to Su Shang?”
Shen Changqing had no desire to marry a monster—or a god, for that matter. But nominally, he was still Su Shang’s fiancé. If he ended up with Su Mingyao down the line, that meant he’d successfully broken off the engagement?
Excellent! Shen Changqing thought.
“Dead,” Su Mingyao said.
Shen Changqing: ?
“Killed by you,” Su Mingyao added.
Shen Changqing: ???!
“Me? How could I manage that?” he wondered, mind racing.
“Maybe later I find some super powerful Daoist priest or monk who subdues him outright?”
“Or perhaps I’ve got some rare cultivation talent—learn a little and surpass him?”
“Stop fantasizing. I said he’s a god, not a monster!” Su Mingyao cut in, patience frayed.
“We can’t touch him this lifetime. Get that through your head. You killed him last time because he was just an ordinary guy back then.”
“Not anymore,” Shen Changqing replied. “He’s changed, so I’ll change too. I’m not crossing him.”
“You know me well enough to realize I’m not the type to charge headlong into obvious danger.”
“But you have no choice,” Su Mingyao stressed once more.
“Because you did it in your previous life, you must do it again in this one.”
“Su Shang is dead set on repeating the events of his past life. He has to complete what he wants, or he’ll destroy the world!” Before Shen Changqing could get a word in, Su Mingyao barreled ahead and laid it all out in one breathless rush.
Then, as Shen Changqing gaped at him in shock, he pressed on. “Do you know why the sky looked ready to pour earlier? That didn’t happen last time around. It cropped up because our mother, Li Qingshu, could hear his heart voice too. She panicked and tried to flee, but Su Shang whipped up a thunder cloud to block her flight. There was no escaping it!”
“And over this exact issue, he’s already wiped out the world twice. You just couldn’t sense what was happening back in that doomed world of yours.”
“But now, heh, you can hear Su Shang’s heart voice as well. When he destroys the world, you won’t get away either. You’ll drift through the ruins for a thousand years, ten thousand years, waiting for him to remake it—or worse yet, if he skips the remaking altogether, you’ll float in the Black Void for eternity, until your mind erodes away completely!”
Su Mingyao laid it on thick, hoping to frighten Shen Changqing into compliance.
Shen Changqing said, “I’m still not entirely convinced.”
Su Shang being a monster? Su Shang freezing him in place? Conjuring thunder clouds to ground a plane? Those were weird, but he could swallow them.
Su Shang destroying the world? …Now that felt like a stretch.
If he hadn’t been frozen solid himself, if the sudden weather shift hadn’t been real, Shen Changqing never would have bought into such outlandish notions.
“Why go through his past life again? Your tone makes it sound like Su Shang had a rotten time of it back then,” Shen Changqing said.
“Does he have some masochistic kink?”
“Maybe think of it like a deity facing tribulation,” Su Mingyao offered.
It was the only explanation he’d come up with for Su Shang’s bizarre behavior.
“Only by enduring his fated ordeal can he return to the heavens. That’s the deal.”
The System had said Su Shang would head to the Reincarnation Space once he finished his progress bar. The comparison was spot-on.
Su Mingyao went on, “And we’re that tribulation for him.”
