Time froze.
The air froze.
Those enormous eyes slowly opening within the spatial rift, formed from pure ice and eternal night, were like two mirrors reflecting the ages of existence. They clearly reflected Ling Ye's face, twisted in terror, as well as the glaringly eye-catching infant's bellyband in his arms, red with a golden "fortune" emblem.
There was no furious roar, no terrifying pressure.
There was only a kind of... absolute silence... enough to make even the soul tremble.
And from the depths of those eyes, slowly spreading like a glacier collapsing, came... unbelievable... earth-shaking sorrow... and... a cold, deathly fury that seemed about to destroy everything!
The blood seemed to drain from Ling Ye's body in an instant. His face turned as pale as translucent glass. He felt as though he had been stripped naked and thrown onto a frozen plain at absolute zero, with even his thoughts frozen stiff.
It's over.
The worst-case scenario... had happened.
She... had really... found him...
He could even clearly "see" the images madly replaying in the depths of those pupils—him frantically trying to hide the bellyband, begging for mercy in terror, and even nearly throwing the bellyband away...
Every frame was like a cold file, harshly scraping against her nerves.
The spatial rift warped slightly.
A slender, pale hand slowly reached out from the rift, seemingly containing enough power to crush the stars.
Its fingers were long and slender, its nails a cold, dusky blue. It did not attack. It merely pointed, extremely slowly and with a heartbreaking tremor, at the bellyband in Ling Ye's arms.
A voice, as though gathering billions of years of wind, snow, and deathly silence, rang directly in the deepest parts of every living being's soul. It had no tone and no emotion, yet was more frightening than any roar:
"...Explain."
Only two words.
Ling Ye's mind raced frantically. The survival instinct he had honed through billions of years of signing in, along with his instinct to shift the blame, reached its peak at that moment!
Explain? How was he supposed to explain?
Should he say he had accidentally forgotten? Forgotten for billions of years? Should he say he had stuffed his son's bellyband together with the garbage?
He would probably become an ice sculpture the next second!
He had to divert the disaster! He had to find a scapegoat!
In the blink of an eye, Ling Ye suddenly raised his hand. He pointed neither at Primordial Greedy Wolf outside the window nor at Su Wanqing on the floor, but... at the direction in which Chaos Green Lotus Basin had flown away! At the city center!
His face instantly filled with "grief," "anger," and "helplessness." Summoning all the acting skill he possessed, he shouted hoarsely and urgently:
"Madam, please see the truth! It wasn't that Ling Ye failed to safeguard it! It was... it was Primordial Greedy Wolf! Yes! That scoundrel! Somehow, he learned that the young master's... sacred treasure was here! He chased me all the way here, intending to seize it! Ling Ye fought desperately but was no match and suffered severe injuries! To ensure that the sacred treasure would not be lost, I had no choice but to hide it close to my body and flee here in disarray! Just now... just now that Greedy Wolf came again! To lure it away, I had no choice but to throw another supreme treasure elsewhere, and only then did I narrowly..."
He spoke with such feeling that he was almost convinced himself, desperately twisting "forgetting" into "risking his life to protect the treasure" and beautifying "fleeing in disarray" into a "strategic retreat."
However—
Before he could finish speaking,
the pale, cold hand extending from the rift casually... waved once.
It was like brushing away a speck of dust before its eyes.
An intangible yet absolute chill, seemingly capable of freezing space-time and annihilating every lie, instantly enveloped Ling Ye!
Ling Ye's voice cut off abruptly! He felt all his thoughts, all his words, and even all his expressions freeze completely at that moment! Not even the faintest fluctuation deep within his soul could be concealed!
Those cold eyes continued to look at him without the slightest ripple, as though they had long since seen through the entire truth.
After a brief, suffocating silence,
that cold, deathly voice sounded again. It still held no emotion, but now carried a trace of... barely perceptible... disappointment?
"Lies."
The two words were like a final judgment.
Ling Ye's heart instantly sank into an unfathomable abyss!
Immediately afterward, the voice rang out again, this time carrying an extreme fury capable of freezing the galaxies:
"You... lost... my child?"
"You lost him... for billions of years?!"
The last few words were almost a soul-rending shriek!
Boom—!!!
An indescribably terrifying chill erupted instantly! The entire room of the budget hotel, along with everything inside it, was completely frozen within one ten-thousandth of a second! This was not ice forming. All molecular motion had stopped in an instant, transforming into eternal, absolute-zero crystals of deathly silence! Even the light was frozen within them!
Su Wanqing did not even have time to feel fear before she was transformed into a glistening ice sculpture while still sitting upright, her thoughts coming to a complete halt.
Ling Ye was frozen as well, but his powerful origin allowed him to retain the last sliver of consciousness and sensation. Like an insect trapped in amber, he endured the boundless, icy killing intent of an enraged mother!
He felt that he would be utterly destroyed in body and soul the next instant!
Yet at that desperate moment—
the red-and-gold infant's bellyband he had clutched tightly against his chest, stimulated by the extreme chill, seemed to have triggered its most fundamental protective mechanism. It suddenly erupted with a warm, gentle, yet incomparably resilient golden-red radiance!
The light was like a warm swaddling cloth, forcibly opening a small patch of space untouched by the ice and shielding Ling Ye's heart!
The embroidered character "Ye" blazed like a flame, releasing a faint yet incomparably familiar pulse carrying the scent of milk and dependence. It gently rippled outward, like an infant's unconscious murmur and... call to its mother.
The pulse was like the gentlest fingertip, lightly touching the pervasive, all-destroying icy fury.
Behind the rift, those enormous icy eyes suddenly trembled!
The earth-shaking fury and killing intent abruptly stalled, as though someone had pressed a pause button.
That cold, deathly gaze instantly focused entirely on the bellyband radiating warm light and a familiar pulse.
The fury and killing intent in that gaze began slowly melting like snow beneath the blazing sun, replaced by something... more complicated, filled with endless sorrow, longing, and... a trace of soft bewilderment?
"...Son?"
For the first time, the cold voice carried a trembling, uncertain tone.
The pale hand seemed to want to touch him yet feared disturbing something. It trembled faintly as it stopped in midair.
Ling Ye seized this once-in-a-thousand-years chance to survive. Using the last strand of his frozen will, he frantically transmitted a message: "He isn't lost! He isn't lost! The young master is fine! He's perfectly safe! He's just... just temporarily unable to come see Madam! Ling Ye swears on his life! Every word is true!"
He did not dare say that the child was lost, much less that he had forgotten him. He could only brace himself and continue spinning his tale, stabilizing this enraged mother first!
The existence behind the rift fell silent.
The endless chill still enveloped the room, but the destructive killing intent had indeed withdrawn considerably. Those icy eyes stared fixedly at the bellyband, as though they wanted to see the child behind it.
After a long while,
the cold voice sounded again. It still carried a chill, but no longer brimmed with killing intent. Instead, it became an unquestionable command:
"Take... me... to... him."
Every word fell like an ice bead, carrying endless longing and an irresistible will.
Ling Ye was distraught! Where was he supposed to find a child for her to see?! Even giving birth to one himself would be too late!
But could he dare say "no" now? Of course not!
He could only grit his teeth and continue making things up: "Madam, please calm down! It isn't that Ling Ye is unwilling! It's just... the place where the young master is located is extremely special, protected by supreme restrictions. Outsiders simply cannot enter! Especially... especially an existence as powerful as Madam—if you approach, the restrictions may rebound and injure the young master!"
As he spouted nonsense, he frantically racked his brain for a solution.
The existence behind the rift fell silent again, seemingly weighing the truth of his words.
The chill in those icy eyes flowed before gradually receding. The pale hand also withdrew into the rift.
"Fine." The cold voice rang out. "I... won't go."
Ling Ye had just relaxed by half a breath.
The voice immediately continued, carrying a mercilessness that froze the soul:
"You... go."
"Bring him... out... to see me."
"I'll give you... three days."
"If I don't see him..."
The voice did not finish, but the killing intent spreading out once more, even colder than before, explained everything.
Without waiting for Ling Ye's response, the spatial rift slowly began to close.
Those enormous icy eyes took one last, deep look at the bellyband radiating warm light. A difficult-to-describe complex emotion flashed through them, and then... they slowly closed and vanished along with the rift.
The absolute-zero freeze in the room instantly dissipated.
Ling Ye collapsed to the floor with a thump. He was like someone just hauled out of an icy sea, his entire body cold and his teeth chattering, with only the violent panting of someone who had survived a disaster remaining.
Su Wanqing also regained consciousness. She shuddered violently and looked around in terror, completely unaware of what had just happened.
Ling Ye struggled to sit up. Looking at the bellyband still emitting a faint, warm glow in his arms, he showed no joy whatsoever—only boundless despair and... an urge to die.
Three days...
Where was he supposed to find a child?!
And it had to be a "qualified" child capable of withstanding that mother's scrutiny?!
This was ten thousand times harder than dealing with Primordial Greedy Wolf and that lousy pebble!
Just then—
"Waaah—!!! Waaah—!!!"
A deafening, vigorous infant's cry suddenly came from the room next door, clearly passing through the wall's less-than-adequate soundproofing!
Ling Ye: "!!!"
Su Wanqing: "???"
The two of them froze simultaneously.
A nearly crazed light suddenly ignited in Ling Ye's eyes!
As if he had seized the last straw keeping him alive, he abruptly turned his head and stared fixedly at the wall from which the crying came!
An absurd, audacious, yet at that moment only feasible plan instantly took shape in his mind!
No child?
Then he would... "make" one!
Or... "borrow" one!
His gaze slowly, extremely dangerously, turned toward Su Wanqing, who had just awakened and was still wearing a bewildered expression.
The corner of his mouth curled into an extremely "kind" smile that made Su Wanqing's hair stand on end.
"Miss Su..." Ling Ye's voice became unusually "gentle," carrying a coaxing tone. "Do you... like... children?"
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