Chapter 90 Soulbound Lamp …

William Sherman didn’t say a word. Logan Sullivan slowly lowered his head, lifted William Sherman’s chin with his hand, the smile fading from his face. His gaze wasn’t cold, but seemed tinged with helplessness and melancholy—as if he simply couldn’t put on that businesslike, interrogation-room face in front of William Sherman.

“Look at me,” Logan Sullivan said. “I want you to tell me everything you’ve done, one by one, in your own words. I don’t want to waste my brain cells guessing anymore—William Sherman, I care about you, I don’t want to doubt you. Overthinking some things just hurts our relationship, but even more, I don’t want to hear the truth from someone else. I’ve already lowered my standards for you countless times, debased myself more times than I can count, but if you keep this up…”

He paused slightly, then said, not too harshly or softly, “Then I really will turn against you.”

Logan Sullivan’s expression was calm, and his tone was nothing like when he usually lost his temper. He didn’t seem aggressive at all; his lowered brows and eyes lacked their usual liveliness. For a split second, he miraculously overlapped perfectly with the image of the lofty Hermit of the Wildlands in William Sherman’s memory, as if reborn, not a hair out of place.

A sudden, intense fear rose in William Sherman’s heart. All his life, he had looked down on the world, never knowing what it meant to be “afraid,” yet at this moment, he was so terrified that his whole body began to tremble.

He knows, William Sherman thought. Even after all my scheming, he still knows.

The fear peaked. For a moment, the millennia-old Wraith King almost wanted to follow his instincts, leap forward and kill this man outright, to deal with the problem as simply and brutally as his kin would—devour the other’s flesh and blood bit by bit, so that from then on, nothing in the world could threaten him like this again, and even the slightest possibility of loss would make him shudder.

But William Sherman was no longer the naive young Wraith King of a thousand years ago. He had, in a way bordering on harshness, suppressed his instincts and nature, forcing himself to become the kind of… gentle and upright person that Warden of Highspire had once described.

Restraint had almost become a habit engraved in his very bones.

William Sherman’s breath stopped. His already pale face looked even more like a pile of snow, not a trace of color to be seen.

An indescribable chill seeped from his heart, like a silent spring, not violent but instantly permeating his limbs and bones. When William Sherman came back to himself, he realized his arms and legs were numb.

Logan Sullivan, however, just waited for him with infinite patience—as if he’d used up all the patience of his life on William Sherman.

Logan Sullivan gently threaded his fingers through William Sherman’s hair, stroking it carefully, not even sure what he was feeling. His fingers unconsciously twined in William Sherman’s soft hair, and he suddenly remembered that day when long hair had covered the bed.

Unparalleled grace, as if from another lifetime.

Logan Sullivan spaced out for a while, unable to say whether what he felt was bitter, spicy, sour, or sweet. Rationally, he knew he was dealing with something very serious, but emotionally, he couldn’t bring himself to care about anything.

Maybe sometimes, when a person reaches a dead end, they just wish time would stop at that moment, so they wouldn’t have to move forward or look back, just deceive themselves and stay there.

But all the clocks in the world keep ticking forward; time won’t stop for anyone.

Logan Sullivan’s movements paused. He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again, moved the chair from behind the desk to sit across from William Sherman, dragged the coffee table between them, then went into the kitchen. From a cupboard that hadn’t been opened in who knows how long, he took out a tea set already covered in dust.

This man, who usually ate instant noodles from the cup just to avoid washing a bowl, actually spent twenty minutes, a bit clumsily, carefully washing every piece of that whole mismatched set of teapots and cups.

It was as if he wanted to find something to do to calm himself down.

Then he set the solid wood tea tray on the coffee table, silently turned on the stove, boiled water in a small kettle, dug out a tea canister from under the table, and looked up to ask William Sherman, “Is Tieguanyin okay?”

William Sherman didn’t care if it was Tieguanyin or a clay Bodhisattva; he just kept staring fixedly at Logan Sullivan.

When Logan Sullivan went to the kitchen, William Sherman’s gaze followed him there. When Logan Sullivan washed the cups, William Sherman’s eyes shifted to the sink, as if the moment he looked away, Logan Sullivan would disappear.

Logan Sullivan silently scalded the cups, rinsed the tea leaves, and finally placed the first cup of tea in front of William Sherman.

The delicate fragrance and steam spread together, but unfortunately, no one was in the mood to appreciate it.

William Sherman took it unconsciously, his hand shaking so much that half the tea spilled from the already small cup.

Feeling the heat, William Sherman finally lowered his eyes, steadied his hand, held that stiff posture for a long time, then finally brought the cup to his lips, took a small sip, and asked hoarsely, “How did you know?”

“The memories in High Warden were crafted with incredible precision… incredibly precise.” Logan Sullivan tilted his head slightly, as if listening to the sound of boiling water. “So precise that they connected almost everything I knew at the time, yet it was a completely different story. It could stir my emotions to the point of losing control in an instant, but also left enough flaws for me to realize something was wrong as soon as I calmed down.”

William Sherman’s face was expressionless. When he was expressionless, his calm, beautiful features were almost unnaturally striking, enough to captivate the soul.

“Actually, I should have known earlier. If the false memories in Primewood were created by someone else to mislead me, that would be foolish. Because you were right by my side then—if I had any doubts, wouldn’t I have asked you in detail? If anything you said contradicted those memories, who would I believe?” Logan Sullivan lowered his eyes, not looking at him. After a while, he asked, “So you deduced what I knew from those few words I said to Spirit Mask on the summit of Summit of Highspire, right?”

William Sherman was silent for a moment, then admitted frankly, “Yes.”

Things had come to this point; to keep arguing or desperately covering up would only be undignified. He simply chose to face it openly.

Logan Sullivan stared at him without blinking. “You managed to make up such a complete story in such a short time—how are you so amazing? Spirit Mask still has the nerve to call himself your The Twins; your DNA can’t possibly be the same. Other than looking alike, I don’t see any resemblance at all. Your intelligence isn’t even on the same level.”

William Sherman remained silent, sitting upright as if in meditation.

“At the time, everything was being directed toward Embergrower. In your story, you put Embergrower in a special role, and then deliberately used Embergrower’s image to say that line about eternity and life and death. Was it because you guessed that the meddlesome Embergrower’s Cauldron, if it sensed anything amiss, would definitely come out and remind me in this way?” Logan Sullivan gave a bitter smile. “You even gambled on that. Not only are you amazing, you’re pretty lucky too.”

William Sherman was silent for even longer, then admitted again, “Yes.”

“I really like you, truly… In my whole life, I’ve never liked anyone else this much.” When Logan Sullivan said this, for a split second, his face twisted with an uncontrollable sadness, but it was gone in a flash, as if it had all been someone else’s illusion. He paused, then continued in a hoarse voice, “I didn’t want to doubt you. When I tried to analyze that awkwardly clever memory, wondering who was deliberately misleading me, I never even considered you.”

William Sherman still sat there with a serene, almost immortal expression, but suddenly, bulging veins appeared on the back of his hand.

“The second time I felt something was wrong was in front of the Sealstone sealed by Nuwa and Houtu.” Logan Sullivan lowered his voice. “Most of what was inside was about the two of us together. Nuwa only appeared for a fleeting moment, leaving behind two ambiguous sentences. Those two sentences were very cleverly crafted—every word hinted that what happened back then was a tragedy, and the source of the tragedy was Embergrower.”

Logan Sullivan paused and let out a breath. “But this time, your luck wasn’t so good. Afterward, I met Spirit Mask, and he accidentally said something to me—he said, ‘All of Nuwa’s memories are inside.’ All of Nuwa’s memories—could that really be just two sentences? I was confused at the time and didn’t react, even asked about the connection between the soul fire on my left shoulder and Embergrower. Spirit Mask’s reaction then… it was as if I was supposed to know something.”

“Later, he burst out laughing, wanting to tell me something, but you forcibly interrupted him. Thinking back now, he probably realized then that even the memories in the Sealstone had been tampered with by you… Only, I guess this time you didn’t make things up, but deleted some parts and deliberately left others.”