This continued the side story from Chapter 290.
This was an alternate course of events branching from Chapter 274: an IF Timeline where Aha had not blown up the Astral Express, Xianyu had not deleted his account, and he had lived on into the era of the High-Cloud Quintet.
Most of Akivili's drowsiness vanished in an instant.
His best friend had a strong sense of personal boundaries. Unless something urgent had happened, why would he call so abruptly in the middle of the night?
Akivili had no intention of exposing his best friend's lie. He asked good-naturedly, "What sort of problem has this friend of yours run into?"
Xianyu fell silent on the other end of the Long-Distance Remote.
Akivili waited patiently. After a while, the Xianzhou Marshal, ruthless and decisive toward his enemies and unquestioned among his own, stammered, "My friend... how should I put this..."
After a long pause, Xianyu seemed to make up his mind, and his tone grew firm.
"Akivili, let me give you an admittedly poor example. Say-"
"You found out Pom-Pom had feelings for you-"
Akivili said, "...Huh?!"
The Aeon could not believe his ears. He asked uncertainly, "Pom-Pom... has feelings for me?"
Akivili's mouth twitched. "That really is... a poor example... I think I can understand this friend of yours now..."
Xianyu could not help sighing. "Exactly, you understand how I-"
He paused almost imperceptibly, then added a painfully obvious cover-up. "How my friend feels, right?"
Akivili nodded vigorously on the other end of the Long-Distance Remote.
By that analogy, didn't it mean that Hua-the heir his best friend had so carefully chosen-had fallen for him?
Who wouldn't have a breakdown over that? Never mind his best friend; even that Chief Strategist named Guan Liang would probably lose his mind along with