Chapter 45: The Greatest Pain of This Lifetime Part 2

But sometimes he would try to recall whether Yan Xinfeng was someone who liked children, whether he had ever looked forward to a new life.

“Yan Xinfeng, don’t blame me,” Wei Tingxia said word by word. “Even if you do, there’s no helping it. It wasn’t going to be born anyway.”

Before the words finished, Wei Tingxia felt a sudden heat on the back of his hand.

It was Yan Xinfeng’s hand, hot and wet, pressing down hard, his fingertips trembling faintly and uncontrollably.

The choking sobs suddenly rose sharply, then were bitten to pieces deep in his throat, turning into even more anguished whimpers.

“No…… That’s not……”

Yan Xinfeng denied it intermittently: “It’s not for it. It’s for you……”

He seemed startled by his own hoarse voice, sucking in a hard breath, his chest heaving violently. But the hand covering Wei Tingxia’s tightened instinctively, as if grasping the only lifeline.

“Sorry, Xiao Xia. Sorry……”

The final veil was torn away by hand, revealing a bloody truth. Alpha, adult, modification, miscarriage—countless ominous words strung together by Lin Tao smashed Yan Xinfeng’s head bloody.

He learned a mutilated truth and began to hate himself for not knowing sooner.

Lin Tao attributed the miscarriage to low progesterone, but Yan Xinfeng knew full well in his heart that Wei Tingxia had miscarried precisely because he shouldn’t have been pregnant at all. He was supposed to differentiate as an alpha; someone had modified him into an omega.

His Xiao Xia had suffered so much, and he himself was one of the perpetrators.

Tears fell silently, soaking dark round spots into the fabric beneath him. Yan Xinfeng tentatively reached out, his fingertips trembling imperceptibly, and gently placed his hand on Wei Tingxia’s flat abdomen.

That soft, warm skin instinctively shrank back the moment he touched it. Wei Tingxia wanted to dodge, but in the end, he forcibly held himself still and allowed Yan Xinfeng to pull him even deeper into his embrace.

The crushing pain almost shattered his sanity. His throat choked with sobs as surging regret mixed with tears burst forth like a dam breaking. Yan Xinfeng pressed his forehead heavily against Wei Tingxia’s slender shoulder, his scalding tears soaking through the fabric.

“I’m sorry…”

The hoarse voice broke again, carrying a heartbreaking weight. “It’s my fault… you suffered so much. I’m sorry…”

He cried so miserably. From the moment they met until now, Wei Tingxia had never seen so many tears from him. It was as if they would drown everything.

“If you say that again, I’m really going to hit you,” Wei Tingxia’s voice tried to maintain its calm, but it betrayed a faint exhaustion. “This has nothing to do with you.”

“Is that so?”

Yan Xinfeng let out an extremely wretched laugh. “If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have gotten pregnant at all.”

If he hadn’t gotten pregnant, many of those pains could have been avoided. The outcome might not change, but at least Wei Tingxia would have suffered less.

“Ah, right, it’s all your fault,” Wei Tingxia followed his words. “So what are you going to do about it?”

It was just a casual jab, but unexpectedly, Yan Xinfeng actually said, “I’ve thought about it. I’ll go get snipped tomorrow.”

He couldn’t bear to ask what Wei Tingxia had gone through. All he could do was cut it off at his end.

“…” Wei Tingxia fell silent for a moment, his voice lowering. “You don’t want kids anymore?”

“I don’t particularly want any,” Yan Xinfeng’s voice was muffled against his neck, carrying a near-desperate seriousness. “If you have to go through that hell again, I’ll jump off a building.”

Right, jump off a building and smash a big hole in the floor.

Wei Tingxia couldn’t hold back and the corner of his mouth hooked up.

The two couldn’t see each other’s expressions. Yan Xinfeng paused for two seconds, then said solemnly again, “I’m sorry.”

How could he have the face to blame Wei Tingxia for leaving? It was all his own fault—he had brought this suffering on himself.

Yan Xinfeng couldn’t help but think: if three years ago, before Wei Tingxia’s Differentiation, he had come to Capital Star and snatched away the Second Prince, what would have happened? Alpha or not, once he had Wei Tingxia, he would use every means to claim this alpha for himself.

Differentiation by gender was still better than Wei Tingxia enduring that skin-flaying, bone-grinding agony.

“Could you tell me a name?” Yan Xinfeng asked softly. “Wei Heng or Wei Shu? Tell me, and I’ll gouge his head off.”

Beyond the endless, spreading cold sorrow burned a fire-like rage and hatred. Yan Xinfeng wished he could stab himself again—how could he forgive the true culprits?

“You really want to know?”

“Yes.”

Wei Tingxia half-turned in his arms at those words, reached out to touch Yan Xinfeng’s forehead, and came away with a handful of tears.

“Poor thing,” he sighed, then deigned to lean in and plant a kiss on Yan Xinfeng’s lip corner. “Crying so miserably, Princess Highness.”

Yan Xinfeng, eyes red-rimmed, looked baffled. “Why do you always call me princess?”

Wei Tingxia’s fingertips were still wet with tears—irrefutable evidence. “Because you’re delicate, and you cry.”

The tears hadn’t even dried yet; he couldn’t refute the crying part, but where had “delicate” come from?

A moment ago, Yan Xinfeng had felt his heart carved open and bleeding, the pain so intense he couldn’t breathe. Now, stirred by Wei Tingxia’s offhand, even teasing attitude, the taut string in his heart inexplicably loosened a fraction, allowing him to finally catch his breath.

He silently lowered his head, waiting for Wei Tingxia to speak.

But after thinking for a bit, Wei Tingxia shook his head. “No.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re too worked up right now—your brain isn’t working,” Wei Tingxia said. “All you’re thinking about is avenging me, but if even one of those two dies, the situation on Capital Star will shift immediately, and the aftermath will be hard to handle.”

So if they really had to kill them, it had to wait until everything was firmly in hand.

“…Then how long do we wait?”

Wei Tingxia looked at his expression, a faint flicker of amusement passing through his eyes—so quick it seemed like an illusion. He pressed the man back into his neck hollow, his palm soothingly patting Yan Xinfeng’s tense back.

“What’s the rush?” Wei Tingxia’s voice returned to its usual casual tone, as if they hadn’t just been talking about gouging heads. “Wait until the water in your brain dries up, until I’ve arranged everything, until…”

He deliberately dragged out the tone, feeling the person in his arms clearly hold his breath, before slowly adding, “…until you’ve booked that snip appointment.”

Yan Xinfeng: “…”

All his grief and murderous intent were caught off guard by that last lighthearted remark.

He choked, then grumbled as he let go and stubbornly lay down beside Wei Tingxia. After a long moment, he mumbled grudgingly, “…I’ll book it tomorrow.”

Wei Tingxia gave a soft “mm,” his fingers idly twining the fine hairs at the nape of Yan Xinfeng’s neck. The room held only their intermingled breaths, the heavy, oppressive atmosphere quietly dispelled a bit by the warmth of their closeness.

Tonight was one of Yan Xinfeng’s rare vulnerable moments. The doubts of the past days finally unraveled, revealing a truth sharper than a longsword. The heart-piercing agony forced the warrior to cast off his armor.

But Wei Tingxia hadn’t expected that he himself would be the one to make Yan Xinfeng shed tears.

Listening to the steady, drawn-out breaths by his ear, he couldn’t quite name what he felt—like standing in an unprecedentedly vast fog of bewilderment. After groping through it several times, he finally glimpsed a faint light amid the hazy uncertainty.

Wei Tingxia hazily closed his eyes, wanting to sleep a bit more before true dawn.

“…Is there anything else you’re hiding from me?” Yan Xinfeng’s voice rose quietly in the silence. “Tell me all at once, okay?”

He feared Wei Tingxia still hid some devastating bomb, ready to detonate when he least expected it, blowing him to pieces.

Wei Tingxia pondered his question for a moment and vaguely recalled there was indeed one more thing he hadn’t told Yan Xinfeng.

So he answered truthfully, “Yes.”

Yan Xinfeng: “…”

He took a deep breath. “You can’t do this to me. A husband’s life matters too—my heart isn’t a ball for you to kick around.”

Wei Tingxia laughed but ignored him.

Yan Xinfeng probed further. “Worse than this?”

His mind raced, and he suddenly thought blowing up the Imperial Palace tonight was a great idea. He had stockpiled plenty of explosives and communication-jamming gear near Capital Star. As long as he sealed off external comms in time, blasting the emperor’s head off the planet in two hours wasn’t impossible.

The cleanup afterward would be tricky, but worst case, kill all the troublemakers. The scene might just be bloodier than planned…

Yan Xinfeng quickly calculated in his mind, forming a risky but feasible plan. Sleep fled him; he threw off the covers to get up and act.

But as soon as he sat up, Wei Tingxia yanked him back hard.

It was worthy of an omega with top-tier alpha potential—Wei Tingxia’s pull was shockingly strong. Yan Xinfeng tumbled back onto the bed with a thud, his head smacking the headboard hard enough to crack it deeply.

“What?” Yan Xinfeng’s eyes widened. “They did this to you— what’s wrong with me blowing them up?”

“What did they do to me?” Wei Tingxia almost laughed in exasperation. “No, it’s not like that.”

Yan Xinfeng shot back, “Like what?”

Right now, his mind was full of slicing all those Wei-surnamed people into thin, tender slices for hotpot.

Wei Tingxia rolled his eyes. “How should I know what you’re thinking? Probably something like how pitiful and helpless I am, blah blah…”

Yan Xinfeng knew admitting it now would get him hit, so he schooled his face. “You’re the best. I’d never think that.”

“Good,” Wei Tingxia reached out to touch the crack in the headboard, soothing. “It’s bad for me, but good for you.”

“…”

Yan Xinfeng lay back down, facing him. “Does that even happen in this world?”

He was only happy when Wei Tingxia was happy. If Wei Tingxia saw something as bad, then Yan Xinfeng shouldn’t derive any pleasure from it.

“It does,” Wei Tingxia gazed into his eyes, tone serious, repeating, “It does.”

“…”

As a traverser, falling for the protagonist was deeply shameful—it meant he’d grown timid on his endless journey, that he could be defeated.

Wei Tingxia refused to admit it. He felt he should always be strong, always charging forward without hesitation. He couldn’t return to his origin world, so he had to grip everything possible even harder, shuttling through countless worlds, seizing that faint hope like an indestructible blade.

But he also clearly sensed that when this string of data called Yan Xinfeng looked at him, he truly faltered in that gaze of loving sorrow.

Perhaps others hadn’t noticed, but Wei Tingxia knew full well: he was no longer unstoppable. Each time he felt betrayal and hurt, he held back for Yan Xinfeng’s sake.

That was truly awful for him.

…

In the early hours of the second night, a massive explosion rocked another corner of Capital Star, affecting a wide area. Rescue teams worked frantically, eventually unearthing eight bodies with remains intact, plus dozens injured and rushed to hospitals under confidentiality.

At the same time, the Old Emperor summoned Wei Heng to the palace overnight.

Eighteen hours later, Wei Heng was enfeoffed as a prince, the first among all the princes and princesses.