CH 57

Recalling the things that happened all those years ago, Zhou Rin lowered his head and fell into an indescribable emotion. When he finally regained awareness of his surroundings, the water in the bathtub had grown cold and the intelligent system had just started to reheat it.

He slicked back his wet hair from his face and got out of the bath. Briefly pausing to dry himself, he put on a bathrobe and walked out of his room to knock on the door of the adjacent bedroom. 

A moment later, the door opened, revealing the Omega inside. After seeing the Alpha, the Omega asked with an indifferent expression, “What’s the matter?”

“I wanted to ask about your friend’s condition.” Zhou Rin tried to curve his lips up, “How is he, do you need me to call a doctor for him?”

Ji Ning shook his head, as if he had no desire to speak with him at all. Seeing this, Zhou Rin stopped disturbing him and said gently, “You should go to bed early, don’t take care of him too late. Most of the bedrooms are empty, you can choose whichever one you want. Good night.”

“En.” Ji Ning responded and shut the door. The rush of air caused the Omega’s scent to waft over him. As it lingered, Zhou Rin’s eyes turned dark. 

With a gloomy expression, he stood silently outside the door for a moment before returning to his own bedroom.

After his brief exchange with Zhou Rin, Ji Ning returned to Ark’s room and sat down beside the bed. He softly called the angel, “Ark, are you alright?”

Ark lay on his side, his body slightly curled up on himself. When Ji Ning sat down, he immediately gripped Ji Ning’s hands as tightly as before and replied in a low voice, “Yes.”

His fingers were cold to the touch and his face looked pale. Ji Ning wiped away the cold sweat on his forehead and gently soothed him.

“Fu Ji told me you might be trying to remember things from the past. It’s hurting you, so don’t think about it anymore. I’ll tell you anything you want to know, okay?”

The angel listened to his words, his eyelashes trembling. When he finally spoke, his voice sounded hoarse, “Then I want to know…when you and I parted, what happened? Did you…” He abruptly lowered his voice before spitting out a word, “Die…have you ever died?”

“…” Ji Ning thought about his question for a while, then asked him, “Do you really want to know?”

Ark nodded vigorously. The hand holding Ji Ning’s tightened slightly, his fingertips twitching. 

“I could say yes, or I could say no.” Ji Ning said, “I did die in front of you, but I wasn’t really dead and afterwards I came back to life.”

Hearing this explanation, Ark knew that the events in his dream had actually happened. He’d held the bloodied mermaid in his arms and watched as his body gradually turned ice cold.

He suddenly wrenched himself up from the bed and hugged Ji Ning tightly in his arms. The two of them toppled over onto the bed as Ark clutched at Ji Ning. His body trembled, tears dripping from his silver eyes as if he’d lost Ji Ning all over again. Inside his chest, the pain in his heart hurt so badly he could barely breathe.

For a while he was inconsolable. It was only under Ji Ning’s gentle comfort that he eventually closed his eyes, falling into a dark dreamland. This time, his dream showed him more. 

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“Although you can’t see it, it should be around there. There’s an asteroid up there which is where I was born.” The mermaid stared into the darkness, the corner of his lips raised in a faint smile. 

“Wasn’t your home planet Noah?” Ark asked.

“Yes.” The mermaid nodded, and his teal fishtail swayed slightly in the water, “That is my secret. I have half Titan blood and lived there for a long time with my people. I consider it my home planet.”

He smiled and looked at the angel beside him affectionately, “You don’t mind that I’m not of pure Noah blood, right?”

Ark shook his head and stroked the mermaid’s hair, “I don’t care.” 

“Thank you for understanding.” The mermaid whispered, “You’re the only person I could tell this to. Please can you keep my secret for me?”

Ark nodded to say he would keep this promise. The mermaid hooked his arms around the back of the angel’s neck and gave him a long kiss, whispering in a sultry voice.

“If you someday meet the Titan army on the battlefield, I hope you could be merciful. They’re my people, I don’t want to see them all die.”

Inside the dream, Ark had always been obedient to the mermaid and would happily agree to any of his requests, but this time he remained silent. It was his duty to eliminate any enemy he faced on the battlefield, he couldn’t betray his motherland. 

Faced with his silence, the mermaid simply smiled and didn’t say anything more. Yet not long after, the mermaid’s fears became a reality. Noah star country declared war on Titan, and the star field between the two colonies soon became a sea of death.

Titan didn’t stand a chance against Noah’s overwhelming army. The front line advanced rapidly and Titan’s territory was lost piece by piece. Before long, the army stormed Titan’s main palace.

Inside the palace, Ark saw many mermaids. It was traditional for Titan royalty to partner with mermaids, and even the Queen of the palace was a mermaid. The moment he saw the Queen, Ark was stunned by how similar the Queen looked to his own mermaid.

His orders were to kill all members of the royal family, but he hesitated when facing the Queen, terrified she could be related to his mermaid. Finally he decided to bring her back to Noah star, but this decision led to a terrible disaster. 

The Queen had a hidden microscopic photon device on her body. When the mothership that captured her had taken off, she activated the device, destroying half of Noah’s fleet and damaging the other half to the point where they’d lost most of their combat effectiveness.

The only reason Ark hadn’t boarded the same mothership as her was because the very sight of him sent the Queen into violent fits. In the end, he only suffered minor injuries, whilst the fleet endured a devastating loss. He returned to Noah anticipating severe punishment.

Since this tragedy was his responsibility, he was ready to face whatever punishment he was given. However, when he returned to the institute and saw his mermaid soaked in blood, he lost his mind.

The mermaid was a prince of Titan and had been sent as a spy to Noah star. He deliberately seduced the angel and instilled various ideas in him, resulting in the angel making a fatal mistake in the war between Noah and Titan. Although in the end, he didn’t prevent the destruction of Titan, he still caused Noah to suffer losses which would have repercussions on their military strength for decades. 

With his identity as a spy exposed, the mermaid was poisoned, his originally unblemished skin dripping with blood. He looked miserable, the water around him dyed red and his eyes clenched shut with pain. He struggled to climb ashore, but the moment he saw the angel, he smiled wide and reached out towards him.

“If only my death could make your heart ache…”

“I hope you love me, and I hope your heart aches for me.” 

From beginning to end he’d been deceived by the mermaid, caught within the palm of his hand. Ark should have hated the mermaid more than anyone, but when he saw he was about to die, he couldn’t stop crying. 

“It seems your heart does ache for me.”

The mermaid laughed, blood dripping past his lips as he stroked the angel’s face with blood stained hands.

“If any part of you can still love me in the future, then please remember me and live well.”

“It was worth telling my mother to pretend to hate you, to drive you to another ship. No matter what, I couldn’t bear to see you die.” 

“My honourable Archangel”

“My dear Ark.”

Ark’s actions resulted in the destruction of more than half of Noah’s army and he was suspected of colluding with imperial spies. The Supreme Court declared him guilty of treason and sentenced him to death.

As an ‘Archangel’, he was the most powerful fighting force inside the Noah star and shouldn’t have been discarded so easily. However, neither he nor the mermaid had predicted that Noah had developed a second generation of Archangel. Although eliminating the variable of free will meant the second generation were not as powerful as Ark, since all their movements had to be programmed, Noah’s weapons executives still chose to abandon the angel. 

But instead of accepting his execution, Ark escaped from Noah. The moment he fled, he was hunted by the second generation Archangels. Severely injured, he crashed onto a small asteroid, destroying most of his body and losing his former memories, until he was rescued by his current partner, Fu Ji, leading him to where he was now.

The angel woke up from the dream with tears in his eyes, and sat on the bed in a daze for a long time.

He touched his hand to his chest. The skin felt smooth and unblemished, but he felt as if there was a great chasm in his body. His falling tears mixed with the phantom image of gushing blood until he felt like his whole body was soaked in the crimson liquid.

The room was empty, Ji Ning had already left. He pushed the quilt off the bed and stumbled out of the bedroom, to see Ji Ning with his back to him, standing at the end of the corridor. Watching the sky outside, he didn’t seem to notice the movements behind him. 

“Ji…”

Ark tried to speak but his voice was dry and the single syllable crumbled on his tongue, tears still falling from his eyes.

His body ached and felt unbelievably heavy. There was only a short length between them, but it felt like the longest distance he’d ever walked. Every step he took was agonising, until he eventually reached Ji Ning and pulled him into his arms. It was as if the crack in his heart had finally been sealed.

“…Ark?” 

Feeling the side of his neck wet with tears, Ji Ning turned around in a panic. He hugged the snowy haired angel tightly and slowly calmed him down, stroking his hair.

He didn’t know what was wrong as Ark hadn’t said anything and Ji Ning hadn’t asked. Instead, he looked anxiously out the window again.

In the sky, a huge space carrier slowly passed by, almost blocking out the sun. Smaller spacecrafts were released from its hull one by one, landing on the planet’s surface. Each spacecraft released hundreds of armed soldiers, who quickly dispersed to control the panicked crowds.

The aircraft carrier and every spacecraft were engraved with the same pattern. Ji Ning recognised it as the emblem of the Mo Ling royal family. 

An area was soon cleared to allow for the largest spacecraft to land, its hatch slowly opening to reveal the figure of Ozer.

Ji Ning why were you emotionally traumatising all the sensitive protagonists!! Ozer needed you to die wretchedly in his arms to fall in love with you, Ark just needed a bubble bath. How could you do that to my sweet little angel!

Warning for next chapter: Ark is so precious he might kill you