Chapter 698 - Untitled

Translator: Atlas Studios  Editor: Atlas Studios

Time seemed to come to a standstill.

Separated by a few meters, they quietly looked at each other. He was an extremely stunning man whose profile was almost the same as the person in her memories save the shorter hair. Still domineering and decisive, he had the presence of a king who was no longer as arrogant and unrestrained as he was in his younger days. The introspection that came with age replaced the arrogance and unrestrained streak in him, but it did not make him look any older. If it weren’t for the twenty-over years that had passed, she almost imagined that only a few years had passed as he did not look particularly different save the sadness and loneliness in his eyes.

Mo Shitian!

Her face was pale as she looked at him walking toward her extremely slowly in a daze. Every slow step he took seemed to be a step on her heart. Pain surged across her entirety. She expected him to become agitated, enraged…

But he kept walking toward her, his eyes exceptionally calm.

It had been twenty-six years. Would they be able to return to how it was like before? She wondered.

It should be unlikely!

She looked at him in a daze as she greedily looked for the youthful him that resided in her memory. He, whom she once deeply loved, stood before her with heartache.

He looked steely at her without the slightest movement. Sunlight shone through the windows and covered him in a sheen of light that seemed to illuminate him like a statue of old.

She wanted to say, ‘how are you’, but could not do so as the words seemed to be lodged in her throat. Without saying a word, he quietly stood before her, not moving for a very long time.

“Ruyu…” His lips moved a little, coughing out the name he had called out from deep within until he became despondent these past twenty-over years.

Italy, twenty-over years ago.

She broke into his turf and stole a famous piece of artwork from it. As they tussled, he asked her, “What’s your name?”

“Su Ruyu,” she said.

He laughed at how common her name was.

Back then, he did not expect this very name that he mocked to become the very name that drove him mad; and this very same name would be so deeply etched in his heart to become a wound that he would never recover from.

Mo Shitian suddenly hugged Su Ruyu tightly in his embrace. There was a pleasant surprise and consolation in his eyes as he hugged Su Ruyu so tightly until she had hurt. Despite all that, he could not say a word.

“Ruyu, if you want to leave, tell me, please,” Mo Shitian gently whispered into her ears. Despite how steel-willed he was, his voice slightly trembled and he did not speak too loudly lest he startle her.

“Ruyu, after you died, I had illusions of you walking on the road and how your laughter rang around my ears. Every corner of this house is filled with your shadow, and I am about to go mad…”

“Talk to me! Hate me or scold me if it works for you! Don’t watch on quietly, please. It’s been over twenty years, so could you just talk to me, please? Ruyu…”

“Ruhua told me that you didn’t die, and I really want to believe that you didn’t die. I’ve been searching for you for over twenty years, and I would go over to check out any information about you whether they are true or not… But it all ended in disappointment. I knew that you were dead and would never return. All these have been my wishful thinking in these years…”

He told her how much he missed her, and his hoarse voice rang around her ears over and over. To her, every word he said was like a sharp knife that jabbed her heart, leaving a deep impression.

‘Mo Shitian, I am not dead!’ She wanted to really scream what was lodged in her throat out but to no avail.

Did he really think that she had died?

Having spent over twenty years on the seas in seclusion under a cover of fake information and without kin… She was indeed dead.

Her eyes, for some reason, reddened. Her tears left a wet patch on his white shirt.

If only…

If only she knew that there was somebody who missed her so much in these past twenty years, she would not have avoided…

“Ruyu, talk to me, will you? I feel very lonely when you don’t talk to me.” He gently spoke into her ears, sounding as though he was laughing and crying. She felt her body stiffen.

His chest had a wet patch.

He knew that he was suffering from an ailment, delusional or psychological, that did not faze him. He would see Su Ruyu in every corner of the house every night, and Su Ruyu would sometimes join him for tea, tend to the flowers in the yard, or simply smile at a corner whilst looking at him gently…

He lived in such a fantasy for the past twenty-over years. If it weren’t for that illusion of Su Ruyu accompanying him, it was afraid he would have been long dead from the loneliness and yearning for her.

To the point he could not bear to live in a world without Su Ruyu.

She quietly accompanied him without saying a word. There were times he hugged her and felt satisfaction and comfort from her in his embrace. However, he had never felt…

That warmth!

And the tears!

This warm body in his embrace was crying!

Mo Shitian, who was as stiff as a rock, suddenly squinted dangerously. He put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her away. He stared at her.

There was a hidden elation in his eyes.

He tightly held her shoulders, feeling the warmth under his palms. Although the trails of tears on her face felt cold, her cheeks were so warm and tender. This was something that he had never felt for over twenty years.

He cupped her face and kneaded her face to the point it almost felt as rough. There was neither a mask nor makeup. He heaved a sigh of relief. He could not believe what he was actually seeing.

Mo Shitian suddenly closed his eyes. This illusion seemed so much more real than before.

This had to be it. If not…

How could it be?

The silent room was only filled with their erratic heartbeats. Mo Shitian opened his eyes again to see Su Ruyu looking at him with her mouth open. Her words were lodged in her throat and she could not say a thing.

Mo Shitian suddenly felt his breathing pick up. He cupped her face with both hands for his dear life. “Ruyu?”

Although Su Ruyu wanted to reply and smile at him, she had forgotten how to smile all these years. She sighed in her heart, suppressing all the pain in her heart and could only eventually nod.

Mo Shitian’s hurried breathing suddenly stopped. His stunning face suddenly turned white, and his tall figure collapsed limply into Su Ruyu’s embrace.

“Mo Shitian? Mo Shitian? Shitian…”