"Fuck..."
Black Star's sudden movement startled Lu Li so badly that he shuddered.
He nearly strengthened the slap meant to gently awaken the slumbering mind into a killing blow that would put him to sleep forever.
Fortunately, the youth merely raised his head and stared fixedly ahead, making no further movements.
Lu Li reacted quickly enough as well, withdrawing the black mist hand hovering beside Black Star's face.
The two stared at each other for a long while, until Lu Li finally thought of an opening line:
"Ahem, are you alright?"
Black Star maintained his raised-head glare without reacting. Even his pupils did not shift in the slightest.
Just as Lu Li decided to say something else, layered voices reached his ears:
"Of course he's fine. He's merely been temporarily frozen by my authority over time."
"The one in trouble is you..."
The voice came from the gauzy veils around them, carrying an inescapable despair and sorrow.
Lu Li frowned slightly, seeming to sort out some of the logic in his mind before cautiously asking:
"I fell into your trap?"
At those words, the voice from the veils noticeably stalled.
That seemingly simple rhetorical question had actually skipped over a great deal of information.
Most obviously, it contained a subtle attempt to confirm the other party's identity, as well as a probe into their position.
However, the thing hiding within the veils clearly lacked the patience to ponder it carefully.
A moment later, it replied at a rapid pace:
"You've been in the fucking trap this whole time! You never got out!"
In the trap this whole time?
A shadow flickered in Lu Li's eyes.
If that seemingly flippant curse was the truth, then it confirmed the worst possibility he had once considered.
That was, from the moment he died