Lin Lei landed on the lake shore, looking at Dilia, whose eyes sparkled with excited tears. A surge of impulse rose in his heart—an urge to pull her into his arms. Though he felt this impulse, he just stood there in front of Dilia, his mouth open but unable to find the words.
A thousand words filled his mind, yet not a single one could be spoken upon meeting.
«Lin Lei is still the same,» Dilia smiled, proactively extending her left hand.
Looking at that fair little hand, Lin Lei was stunned for a moment. Dilia pouted and glared. «You dummy, do you expect me to cast Levitation just to reach the middle of the lake?» The distance to the center was dozens of meters; without Levitation, she couldn’t cross it.
Seeing the look in Dilia’s eyes and that ivory-like hand still extended, Lin Lei finally reached out his right hand, interlacing his fingers with hers.
«Ah, Lin Lei, I’ll be leaving you two to it then,» Cesler spoke up at that moment.
Lin Lei and Dilia’s faces flushed red almost simultaneously. Lin Lei turned to give Cesler a wordless look, but Cesler simply winked at him before swiftly flying off on his own.
«That’s just Cesler,» Lin Lei said, holding Dilia’s hand. With a light tap of his foot, a gentle whirlwind enveloped them both. Lightly, effortlessly… Lin Lei and Dilia drifted to the center of the lake. They walked to the steps at the edge of the central rock and sat down side by side.
They still held hands. Feeling Dilia’s soft hand in his, Lin Lei felt as if he were standing on a cloud. Dilia’s cheeks were faintly pink, and the atmosphere between them instantly became charged with something unspoken.
Suddenly— Lin Lei spotted a small head popping out of the lake not far away. It was
«Ah, Boss! You two carry on! I, Bei Bei, am going to play. Keep going!» Once he realized he’d been spotted, Bei Bei immediately ducked back under the water. However, neither Lin Lei nor Dilia noticed that on a distant tree branch on Black Wushan, a Gale Thunderhawk was secretly watching them.
«Hehe.» Dilia laughed right away. «Lin Lei, Bei Bei really is adorable.»
Lin Lei nodded with a smile. «Bei Bei’s always like that. By the way, Dilia, since you went back to the O’Brien Empire last time, why have you only come today? Did something happen?» He still remembered that when Dilia had left, she’d said she would come to find him soon.
«Mm.» Dilia nodded, but then fell silent.
The series of events in the imperial capital had truly sadden Dilia and made her deeply disappointed in her parents. When Lin Lei brought it up… her mood sank again.
«Did something happen? Tell me about it,» Lin Lei said, squeezing her hand gently.
«Do you really want to hear?» Dilia gazed at him from close range.
Lin Lei nodded.
«If you hear it, you’ll have to marry me,» Dilia said suddenly.
«Uh…» Lin Lei was caught off guard, feeling a bit flustered. Dilia was indeed the only woman he currently loved, but asking him to marry her immediately… there was still a knot of hesitation in his heart. His first romance had left a defensive barrier within him.
When it came to women, he didn’t dare give his whole heart anymore.
He was afraid of being utterly shattered again.
«I’m just kidding,» Dilia laughed, then gave a soft humph. «Lin Lei, you’re hopeless. Can’t you at least try to cheer me up?» Her words helped ease Lin Lei’s embarrassment.
Dilia took a deep breath. «Now I’m really going to start talking. Do you still want to listen?»
Lin Lei nodded immediately.
Dilia calmed herself, holding Lin Lei’s hand and looking at the peaceful lake before them. She began slowly, «Lin Lei, that time when I received the letter from my family, I went back right away. But when I got there, I discovered… my grandmother was perfectly fine. There was nothing wrong with her at all.»
Lin Lei’s brows furrowed.
Dilia’s letter had told him her grandmother was in good health. He had already sensed that something was off.
«Later I found out that my parents learned from my teacher that I stayed in the O’Brien Empire to be with you. So they used this trick to make me leave you,» Dilia said with a bitter smile, looking at Lin Lei. «It was a clumsy scheme, wasn’t it? But I still fell for it.»
Lin Lei was puzzled. «Your parents did this…?»
«For the sake of the family,» Dilia sighed.
«At that time, you hadn’t yet made a name for yourself in the Land of Chaos, and almost everyone on the Yulan Continent thought you belonged to the O’Brien Empire. And the O’Brien Empire and my
Lin Lei understood. The two most powerful empires on the Yulan Continent were exactly these.
«In my parents’ eyes, if I married you, it would mean forming a significant tie with a Saint-level powerhouse from a rival empire. The Yulan Emperor’s trust in our family would definitely diminish. So… my parents didn’t want me to be with you.»
Dilia glanced at Lin Lei. «Of course, this was only what my parents thought. They didn’t know… we weren’t even discussing marriage yet.»
Lin Lei could only touch his nose awkwardly.
Dilia’s voice turned bitter. «In the imperial capital, many people were courting me. My parents urged me to marry someone else. I refused! I truly detested all of it! Lin Lei… at that moment, I really wanted to come find you immediately. But I didn’t want to break off my relationship with my parents. I love them!»
«I understand,» Lin Lei comforted her.
He knew exactly how Dilia felt, because he too cherished his home and his parents.
«I wanted so much to come find you, but I didn’t want to lose my parents,» Dilia said, biting her lip, her voice dropping. Lin Lei could clearly feel her hand tightening around his.
«But I also told my parents that if you established a duchy in the Chaos Borderlands and no longer belonged to the O’Brien Empire, then they would stop preventing me from being with you,» Dilia continued. «So… I held on.»
Lin Lei placed Dilia’s hand on his knee.
Dilia looked at him, a faint smile on her face. «I was waiting… waiting for you to build that duchy. But then my parents suddenly told me to marry the Yulan Emperor—to become the Empress.»
«Hm?» A flash of anger stirred in Lin Lei’s heart.
Dilia’s parents were really going too far.
«I refused. That time, I argued with them,» Dilia shook her head, her tone helpless. «I’ve always been a dutiful daughter in front of my parents, but that time I truly lost my temper. I told them plainly—even if I died, I would never marry any of those men.»
A wave of emotion swept through Lin Lei. For a woman to go this far… it was truly touching.