Chapter 263 - Breaking Up?

"Then what happened?" Zhihao couldn't believe Li Ling's words so he asked, "How come you suddenly decided to fall in love with me? No... Are you even in love with me or is it all in my head?" 

Li Ling gulped as he immediately shook his head and denied it, "It's not in your head! I really did fall in love with you!" 

"When?! When did you fall in love with me?" Zhihao questioned in a demanding manner. 

"I don't know when," Li Ling simply answered as he honestly spoke, "At first, I thought we were finally restoring our friendship, but then I realized that I might have started to feel something more for you. Being friends was enough for me in the beginning but I eventually started getting greedier." 

Zhihao opened his mouth to say something but immediately closed it as his mind went blank. 

For the first time in his life, he didn't know what he was supposed to do. He had no idea how he was supposed to react to that. 

Huang Zhen looked at his brother and the boy immediately understood that his brother was having a hard time at this moment so he coughed as he spoke up, "Li Ling Gege, what are you thinking right now?" 

"Eh?" Li Ling tilted his head in confusion as he heard this question that he could not understand. 

"You must have planned something, didn't you?" Huang Zhen asked, "When you originally thought about coming clean with everything to Brother Zhi, what did you expect his reaction to be?" 

Li Ling gulped and was silent for a minute as he seriously thought about the answer to that question. 

"You were scared of his reaction, isn't that why you kept on lying to him for such a long time?" Huang Zhen questioned as his eyes narrowed down on the man, almost making it look as if he was glaring at Li Ling. 

"I... Was scared that he would leave me," Li Ling replied in a low volume, sounding vulnerable. 

"So you thought that just because I found out you're the gamemaster, I would break up with you?" Zhihao scoffed softly as he questioned. 

Li Ling nodded his head reluctantly as he honestly replied, "That's what I thought..." 

"Then I'm afraid you don't know me," Zhihao sighed as he stated and Li Ling blinked in confusion as he tried to understand what Zhihao meant to say with this. 

Huang Zhen was a lot quicker as he immediately understood his brother's intentions and snapped his head towards Zhihao in shock as he muttered, "Big bro...?!" 

The ground below them began shaking and Zhihao mentally cursed the system for having such bad timing. 

The players were together and except for Huang Zhen, both Zhihao and Li Ling no longer had any headstart which meant they were prone to be caught up in a trap. 

The LHA's maze of death had a special characteristic to it and Zhihao who had played it before was perhaps one of the only ones who knew about it. 

This maze was supposed to be played alone by the players so if two or more players grouped up in a certain area, the maze would force a trap upon them and it wouldn't matter if they had triggered the trap or not. 

What was worse was perhaps the fact that the trap would be more difficult to solve since it would become a mini competition of survival and most of the time, only one of the players would be able to survive while the other would simply be killed while trying. 

"Huang Zhen, get out of here," Zhihao let go of the boy's hand as he instructed, "You still have your headstart so don't get yourself caught up in this. 

Huang Zhen gulped as he cautiously glanced over at Li Ling with a bit of worry. 

"Don't worry about him," Zhihao informed as he reassured, "I'm here." 

"..." 

That's exactly what I'm worried about: Huang Zhen thought in his mind but he naturally didn't say anything out loud as he simply nodded his head and ran away from the place but only after putting the gun back in his pocket. 

"We are about to be sent into a trap," Zhihao informed. 

Li Ling sighed as he nodded his head and responded with his head still hung low with no confidence to face the man directly, "I know." 

Zhihao sighed as he stepped forward and cupped the man's face before pulling him in and kissing him in the angriest way possible, making sure that Li Ling could understand exactly what his feelings and intentions at the moment were. 

Li Ling was certainly taken by surprise as he blinked in confusion and couldn't even react fast enough. 

"I'm not breaking up with you," Zhihao pulled away from the kiss and forced Li Ling to meet his eyes as he firmly stated, "No matter what you planned to do in the beginning. No matter what you thought would happen to us. I don't care if things didn't go your way." 

Li Ling gulped as he slowly took in Zhihao's words and let the man continue. 

"If you planned for us to be strangers then I'm glad that there was something wrong with the system. I'm happy to know that things didn't go your way and even if I was given another chance to redo everything, I would still choose to take you in as my teammate. I would still choose to make you my friend and I would choose to fall in love with you as well." 

"..." 

"I would choose to do everything again because you're important to me and I'm really angry at you right now. Can you guess why?" 

Li Ling gulped as he responded, "Because I lied?" 

Zhihao shook his head as he denied it, "That's not why I'm angry. Take another guess." 

Li Ling was silent as he pondered over the answer for a bit longer before asking, "Because I planned on us going our separate ways?" 

Zhihao chuckled as he shook his head and once again informed that Li Ling had guessed it wrong for the second time, "Now you're just making me angry because you don't even know why I am angry." 

"..." 

"I'm angry because you underestimated my feelings," Zhihao sighed as he firmly gave the answer, "You thought I would break up with you over something so trivial. You thought I wouldn't understand and I'm really hurt to know that even after everything we have been through together, you still don't understand me. Am I really such a man in your eyes? A man who doesn't even love you enough to forgive you?" 

Li Ling gulped as tears almost started brimming in his eyes as he heard Zhihao continue. 

"I'm have been telling you this for such a long time," Zhihao scoffed as he spoke, "I'm deeply and madly in love with you! At this point, I wouldn't even care if you were an alien! Even if you were not human, I would still be just as in love with you as I am right now!" 

Tears started falling down Li Ling's eyes as he hugged the man and started regretting all the times when he had hesitated to reveal the truth. 

"But this doesn't mean I'm forgiving you," Zhihao didn't hug the man back as he coldly stated and Li Ling's muscles went tense. 

"Since you made me so angry, it's only natural that I expect you to make it up to me," Zhihao pouted as he spoke and Li Ling smiled brightly as he nodded his head. 

"I'll do whatever you want me to do! I'll try my best to make it up to you!" Li Ling beamed happily and he felt as if a huge burden had been finally lifted off his shoulders. 

As if he could finally be as honest as he wanted with Zhihao. 

"That's good. I like your determination," Zhihao closed his eyes and nodded as he approved this positive behavior, "But for the time being, I'm afraid you'll need to give me some time to think." 

Li Ling's smile faltered as he heard this and Zhihao sighed as he noticed it. 

"This does not mean we are breaking up," Zhihao informed clearly, "I just want some time to think about some things."

Li Ling frowned and it looked like he wanted to ask what Zhihao wanted to think about but he was hesitant and Zhihao could clearly notice all this. 

"I just want to think about how we are going to explain everything to my father," Zhihao sighed as he spoke, "And I don't think I can think about anything if you're next to me." 

Li Ling gulped as he suddenly realized that although Zhihao's mother had already given her blessings, Zhihao's father still hated Li Ling. 

[Forced trap has been activated!] 

The system announced and Zhihao cursed in his mind as he had already expected something like this to happen. 

"You know what that means, right?" Zhihao questioned as he looked at Li Ling and Li Ling shook his head as he responded.

"I don't know but I can guess."