Chapter 42 - ​​Chapter 42: The Final Confrontation

​The air was thick with the scent of ozone and old dust as the first of the Wei family's scouts breached the theater's perimeter. Xuan stood in the center of the stage, the spotlight hitting him in a harsh, unforgiving circle. He held Ning close, his arm a permanent band around her waist. "You found us," he called out into the darkness of the house, his voice echoing with a chilling calmness. Wei Chen stepped into the light, a gun in his shaking hand, his face a ruin of his former self. "You've ruined everything, Xuan! She was supposed to be safe! She was supposed to be mine!" The word 'mine' triggered an explosion of extreme anger in Xuan. He didn't flinch at the weapon; he stepped forward, dragging Ning with him. "She was never yours. She was a debt you tried to collect, but you forgot that some souls are unpurchasable." The misunderstanding of the rival reached its zenith; Wei Chen truly believed he was the protagonist of a rescue story, even as he pointed a gun at the woman he claimed to love. Ning looked at the barrel of the gun and then at Xuan, her extreme level of possessiveness making her move in front of him once again. "Kill me then!" she screamed. "Kill me so I can wait for him in the next life, because you'll never have a second of my heart in this one!" The extreme level of her misery and love was a shield more powerful than any armor. As the shot rang out, the theater was swallowed by a roar of flames Xuan had prepared, a crimson curtain falling on a story of extreme devotion and deadly misunderstanding.