IPC Chapter 26: Confession
Translator: Lala
Chapter 26: Confession
Lei Jue's brain short-circuited on the spot, and even went completely blank for two or three seconds. He had only wanted to distract himself a little so that the pain he felt in his heart wouldn't be so noticeable, and tease Xiao Lingyu a little while he was at it. Who would've thought that this guy, who was usually only all bark and no bite, would act so out-of-character?!
This kiss wasn't an act, nor was it a casual joke done in order to see how the other would react. This time, there were too many indecipherable emotions in it.
Xiao Lingyu was just as clumsy as before. When his tongue probed into Lei Jue's mouth and explored, it would bump into Lei Jue's teeth from time to time, but he didn't stop. His hand reached into Lei Jue's shirt and held his waist, madly emanating an ever-so-obvious possessive desire.
Lei Ju was wrapped in Xiao Lingyu's domineering aura in an instant. It felt a little exciting, as well as a little bewitching, prompting his hands, that had been pinned to his sides, to move.
Xiao Lingyu felt Lei Jue's hands on his back, and like he had received encouragement, deepened the kiss. It was as if it were the only way to ensure Lei Jue's body wouldn't be so cold again.
But just as Lei Jue thought he might be able to use some bedroom exercising to forget about the pain coming from his heart, Xiao Lingyu suddenly stopped. He was panting hard, desire blazing in his eyes as he stared unblinking at Lei Jue.
Lei Jue's hand was still resting on Xiao Lingyu's back. He could almost clearly feel the emotions that Xiao Lingyu had kept repressed.
Conflict, affection, sadness, and even pain…
Xiao Lingyu was just like a young and reckless lion who had leapt onto a meal that he liked, but when he actually came to the realisation that he held it in his grasp, he became afraid that he would have nothing left if he ate it. And so he didn't dare eat it—the only thing he did was carefully hold it in his hands and give it a lick from time to time.
Lei Jue felt that it wasn't very sensible of him to compare himself to food, but in that moment he couldn't think of a better allegory to describe Xiao Lingyu's current state of mind.
Right now, his state of mind seemed even worse than before.
"Sorry," Xiao Lingyu said half a beat later, massaging his temples.
"I don't want to hear an apology. Tell me the reason. The reason… why you don't dare to truly fall in love with someone." Lei Jue walked to the couch and sat down, gripping the armrest tightly.
"Are you sure you're alright?" Xiao Lingyu clearly saw how Lei Jue was sweating more than he was when Xiao Lingyu had first come.
"Let's talk about you, first." Lei Jue's fingers were lightly trembling. He wasn't cold this d*mn time, he was simply in agony. The throbbing that spread from his heart from time to time felt incredibly sharp, such that every few minutes he'd have difficulty breathing.
"I…" A little hesitation swirled in Xiao Lingyu's eyes, like there was something he was incredibly embarrassed to say. But just when Lei Jue thought he wouldn't say it, he suddenly blurted, "I can't act like a normal lover, with anybody." Xiao Lingyu paused, then emphasised, "Anybody."
"Is it because of that elemental power that you don't dare reveal, like a normal person would?" Lei Jue recalled the scene at the bathroom and asked half-jokingly, "Surely it's not because your metal abilities would electrocute your partner to death, right? Don't pull my leg."
Surely not, because how tragic would that be?!
But then Lei Jue realised that Xiao Lingyu hadn't replied to his question.
He. Hadn't. Replied.
Xiao Lingyu's face looked like a color wheel, and one that had spun through many colours already at that—green one moment and white the next. In the end, whether from suppressing his emotions or from anger, his face turned red.
Lei Jue theorized that it was from overwhelming embarrassment or rage, so he held in his laughter and said, "Surely not? Don't you have the reputation of being a fickle playboy with more lovers than there are monkeys in the world?"
However, Xiao Lingyu just ground his teeth like a dog whose tail had been stepped on. "What about you, then? You're supposed to be a weakling with hemophobia who can't even truss up a chicken, but the next minute you're more accurate than anyone else when it comes to shooting people. You think that makes any sense?"
It was only virtual reality, but after the sensitivity had been calibrated to be 100% true to life, everything was realistic. Someone who was playing it for the first time couldn't possibly shoot someone else without hesitation, nor with such accuracy.
A sentence flashed through both of their minds simultaneously: Motherf*cker, what a liar!
Xiao Lingyu grumpily sat down across from Lei Jue.
A moment passed, then Lei Jue said, "So you really are a virgin. No wonder you were so inexperienced, even when just sharing a kiss. No wonder you get hard just from the slightest touch." Then he thought that something didn't seem quite right, so he supplemented, "Hey, could it be that you… can't even do it with a fake?"
He remembered seeing those realistic s*x dolls for sale when shopping around. They were made super realistically—there were both male and female ones, each with perfect proportions. If he could use something like those, he probably wouldn't look like a starving wolf from holding it in.
"What fun is there in playing with a fake?" Xiao Lingyu said curtly.
"Is it because it's no fun, or because you're scared of electrocuting the thing to a crisp?" Lei Jue abruptly shut his legs tightly. "But if that happened, and the material all burnt and got stuck on your member, you would die from the agony, wouldn't you?" Lei Jue suddenly felt that, when compared to that kind of pain, the pain in his heart wasn't much at all. "F*ck, just thinking about it scares me."
"Lei Little Jue!" Xiao Lingyu grit his teeth, and his next words were squeezed out from the gaps between them. "If you say one more word, believe it or not I'll beat you up! And it's not like I'm scared of a little heat!"
"Oh, but it would still feel pretty bad, right."
"When you rip it off after it's stuck on, it's pretty… you shut up!" Xiao Lingyu stood up with a whoosh, as volatile as a fire-breathing dragon as he paced around the room unceasingly.
Lei Jue really hadn't wanted to laugh, but out of the blue, he started imagining the image of Xiao Lingyu tragically holding his member that still had yet to successfully let it all out, gritting his teeth while peeling the utterly fried doll's material off bit by bit…
He mustn't laugh!
He absolutely mustn't laugh!
It'd be too mean if he laughed right now!
Oh f*ck it.
Lei Jue couldn't hold it in anymore and turned his head around with a snort. "S-sorry, hahahahahahaha…"
If eyes could set things on fire, then Lei Jue would've long since been surrounded by an inferno.
Xiao Lingyu felt an intense urge to press Lei Jue onto the bed, peel his pants off, and screw him with everything he had, screw him so hard that he wouldn't be able to get out of bed for the next three days!
But in the end, all he did was give a dejected sigh and say, his voice a little hoarse, "Is it really that funny?"
Lei Jue's laughter disappeared abruptly, like a flame that was suddenly pinched out. He gently pounded at his slight chest, which felt mildly uncomfortable, and sat up straight. "Why were you so honest?"
In truth, back then he hadn't poked any holes in the story he'd been told, so even if Xiao Lingyu denied it, he couldn't do anything. Moreover, he wouldn't be able to guess all of this in any short period of time anyway, nor have his thoughts take such a strange direction.
Xiao Lingyu gave a helpless laugh. "How would I ever dare to be dishonest? I only told a little lie to you back at the mountains behind the house, and you held a grudge against me for the rest of the time. Even the silhouette of your back seemed angry, and you were emanating an 'I'm very displeased' aura from every pore of your being."
Recalling Lei Jue's "I don't dare take a guy as handsome as you to be my teacher either", and the flash of disappointment that had appeared in his eyes, Xiao Lingyu still felt suffocated even now.
Anyway, since Lei Jue could still figure out the truth on his own, even if he lied, there was no reason to continue faking it anymore.
"Indeed, I really don't like being lied to." Lei Jue fell silent for a moment. "But since you were honest with me, I will likewise be honest with you." Lei Jue thought about what he was going to say next, and only hesitated for a split second before saying, "Xiao Lingyu, I am not Lei Jue." [1]
"You meant to say that you aren't the original Lei Jue, right?"
More surprisingly, there actually wasn't much shock on Xiao Lingyu's face.
"Yes. This body is his, but…" Lei Jue pointed to his head. "This isn't."
"Heh, no wonder you started looking up information like you'd gone mad the moment you got your hands on my photon computer." Xiao Lingyu smiled. "How did you do it?" He'd felt that something was off a very long time ago, but despite how powerful Casweir's technology was, it still had yet to ever successfully transfer someone's soul, so he couldn't find a reasonable explanation for it. Hence, he was convinced that the one in Lei Jue's body was the one he had known.
"It was when 'Plan A3' was being implanted. Lei Jue had already died by then. I came here after dying in another galaxy. Over there, we usually call this 'transmigration'. I have another reason for telling you this, however," Lei Jue said. "I suspect that Plan A3 can't fully affect me. That is to say that, even if we can't find the stimulus, I can self-regenerate all the same, because this plan was made targeting the original Lei Jue. It targeted his fears and his weaknesses, not mine. I think you understand what I'm trying to say here."
"But you will still be affected."
"Correct. After all, I have his memories. But it isn't something unconquerable." Lei Jue knew that what he saw in the dream earlier was the pain that had been buried in the bottommost parts of Lei Jue's heart. This pain now existed in his memories, too, but he wasn't the same Lei Jue, after all, so even if he empathised, what he felt was merely a small fraction of it.
"Even if what you said makes sense, we're still going to search for the stimuli. It's the best way to completely get rid of this, after all." Seeing that Lei Jue didn't object, Xiao Lingyu asked again, "Oh right, why do you dislike being lied to so much?"
If it had been the Lei Jue from before, it could be explained as him having been lied to by Feng Gu before. But what about now?"
"When I was two, my father left us. My mother… when she dropped me off at kindergarten, she told me that she would pick me up as soon as she got off work, then never came back." Lei Jue gave a self-deprecating laugh, shrugging. "Then I stayed for a period of time in the orphanage. My adoptive parents took me in, telling me that they would definitely treat me very well. But when my adoptive mother fell pregnant, I was sent back to the orphanage again. That's about it, really, so I dislike those who make promises they won't keep."
"Speaking of… there's something that I want to hear your thoughts on." Xiao Lingyu did his best to make his tone a bit more casual, and said, "Dad spoke to me today, saying that, if you agree, he will adopt you into the family."
"You call him 'Uncle Xiao' at home, but when you're with people outside, you need to change it to 'Dad'. It's quite troublesome, so he thought he might as well adopt you. Then you could call him the same thing both in the house and outside of it."
"Oh, then there's no need for that." Lei Jue shot a glance over, a light smile gracing his lips. "We are legally married, do I need some other reason to call him 'Dad'?"
Xiao Lingyu paused, then a trace of joy dyed his gaze. "Mm."
[1] "Xiao Lingyu, I am not Lei Jue." The Jue used here is the original Lei Jue's 'Jue', as is the other 'Jue' when used to refer to the original.
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