hotmtlnovel Chapter 73
Chapter 73
Unable to properly react to content he never imagined would be revealed so easily, he just stared with wide eyes. Choi Gang-hu lightly pressed their shoulders together.
“Since I unintentionally peeked at Ryu Seo-ha’s secret, I’m sharing one of mine too.”
A large palm covering the back of his hand on the bouquet conveyed a warm feeling.
“Actually, I knew.”
Once again, as always, his lips moved on their own.
“That Choi Gang-hu had been to the Abyss.”
The man who had unknowingly read his years of pain didn’t ask how.
“What else do you know about me?”
“...That you dislike showing bare skin to others?”
“And?”
Surprisingly, he just smiled pleasantly and demanded more explanations about himself, as if urging.
“That you don’t sleep lying down in bed.”
“What else?”
“That you’re the world’s richest person even without inheritance.”
With each moment of confessing what he knew, starting from trivial things, the anxiety heavily weighing on his chest faded.
“Don’t tell me you approached me aiming for the magic stones and items piled up in my subspace.”
Choi Gang-hu pretended to make a stern voice. But his eyes were still sweet like melted honey. His crescent-shaped eyes and deliberately pulled-down corners of his mouth held his gaze like a magnet.
“I think your face was more important than money.”
Choi Gang-hu burst out laughing at the exaggerated confession.
“Come to think of it, I was more captivated by Ryu Seo-ha’s face than abilities too.”
His voice, carrying a gentle laughter, caressed his ears kindly.
“Aren’t you uncomfortable?”
“Not at all. However you collected that information, it means you were interested in me, doesn’t it?”
Could it be interpreted that way? Well, as a reader, he did focus attention on the protagonist’s actions while reading the original novel. In a sense, it was an act of looking with a more secretive and persistent gaze than stalking.
“Ryu Seo-ha.”
“...?”
“Aren’t you disgusted by me? A monster hundreds of years old.”
The words referring to himself as a monster were painful to hear. Because he knew how much anguish he had endured through those years. He quietly looked up at the night-black eyes and shook his head.
“You’re stronger than anyone.”@@@@
It didn’t just mean physical strength.
“How many people crumbled unable to bear even 5 years?”
He could have worn away without a trace in that suffocatingly long time. It was an environment impossible to endure with a sane mind.
“I admire you.”
But even if he was a little twisted, he didn’t lose himself. When reading it as a novel, he just accepted it as the setting, but realistically it was a toughness hard to even imagine.
“Me too.”
Choi Gang-hu lifted their now-intertwined hands and kissed each white fingertip with a smack.
“...”
“My offer to find them and take revenge wasn’t a joke.”
Perhaps he had gauged the wounds received in the past life from his affection for his current family. His eyes became particularly fierce whenever mentioning the parents from the past life.
Ryu Seo-ha quietly shook his head. He didn’t have the leisure to worry about that now. Whether revenge or forgiveness, one had to be alive first to do it.
Status: Remaining lifespan 6 days 6 hours 6 minutes
The numbers tightening their pressure with each passing day brought on a feeling of depression. Facing the sorrowful gaze at breath’s distance, Choi Gang-hu suddenly snapped his fingers.
The numerous candles softly illuminating the surroundings all went out at once. As he turned his head in confusion, he saw Choi Gang-hu fiddling with his phone.
Down.
He caught a glimpse of the text sent to someone presumed to be Secretary Jang. Just as he wondered what was to be brought down, the night view below the railing changed its appearance.
“Huh?”
The brilliant lights began to turn off one by one. Like doing the wave, from nearby to as far as the eye could see, sequentially.
Offices where employees were working overtime, apartments and villas emitting TV sounds, even the lights from cars on the roads.
In the blink of an eye, the whole world was plunged into darkness. Only faint moonlight dimly illuminated traces of scientific civilization. Suddenly he worried about hospital facilities.
Even if a blackout occurred there, emergency power should operate, so why couldn’t he see even a single point of light? His heart sank, fearing something might have happened to the patients.
“Where are you looking?”
The man who had completely extinguished the lights on the ground with a single order cupped his cheek with his large hand, making him lift his eyes. To the sky above.
“You should look at the stars.”
Ryu Seo-ha’s eyes widened like the full moon. It was because the sky brilliantly embroidered with starlight as if about to pour down on their heads was unfamiliar.
He unconsciously looked around, wondering if this really was the middle of Seoul. Thanks to the rain that had swept through the atmosphere earlier, the clearer sky was reminiscent of a desert.
“You like it.”
He snapped back to his senses after staring at the night sky unable to take his eyes off it. He could vividly imagine the expressions of people thrown into chaos by the large-scale blackout following the flood.
“The blackout, on purpose...”
“Why do you think I bothered to give instructions by text?”
As he quietly tried to argue, Choi Gang-hu preempted him as if he had expected it.
“When it could have been done with one EMP bomb.”
Thinking about it calmly, that was true. It was strange that he, who hated wasting energy, had manually instructed the timing instead of using a more efficient method. Even setting aside law-abiding spirit or aftermath cleanup.
“No humans will be injured or die due to this blackout, so don’t worry.”
Could it be that he had sent people in advance to take measures at facilities like roads and hospitals? For this brief sky-viewing? He couldn’t even laugh hollowly at the scale that was impossible to handle.
“Why on earth...”
“At first I thought about renting a dungeon, but you’d probably refuse to enter.”
“No, what did you go to such lengths for?”
He couldn’t understand at all the action of making unreasonable efforts just to see the stars clearly. Especially knowing his tendencies in dealing with goals and means.
“Because I wanted to see Ryu Seo-ha’s expression smiling happily while looking up at the stars again.”
For a moment, Choi Gang-hu’s eyes looked more beautiful than starlight.
“Do I need any other reason than that?”
It felt like a meteorite had fallen right in the middle of his heart.