Chapter 115: You Clearly Love Me Too

Chapter 115: Chapter 115: You Clearly Love Me Too

The filming process on planet Cygnus went much more smoothly than expected thanks to the unexpected chemistry between Elijah and the actor Ray.

Half a month later, just as Liam’s postpartum confinement entered its third week, the film crew completed all the scenes in the Cygnus wasteland and moved on to the second setting: the humid primeval forest in the Northern Hemisphere of planet Sirius.

This time, the entire extended family trailed back to Sirius one after another.

Although Liam still maintained a cold attitude and drew a clear line with Noah, when it came to matters concerning his own health and his son’s, he was not so stubborn as to refuse the support of Noah’s grade-3S mental power. Throughout the journey by spaceship to Sirius, Noah sat in the opposite seat, maintaining a stable membrane of mental power around the baby’s cradle and Liam’s seat so that neither father nor son suffered the slightest jolt.

From mixing milk at the exact temperature of forty degrees Celsius, changing diapers, and bathing the baby to massaging Liam’s calves every night once Liam was fast asleep, the Crown Prince who had once known only how to wield a gun and command tens of thousands of troops learned to do it all with his own hands as skillfully as any professional nanny.

However, Liam’s smart watches remained confiscated by Benjamin and Theodore as before because the full month of confinement was not yet up.

That evening, in the primeval forest zone beside the artificial waterfall on Sirius, the lighting technical team had strung thousands of glowing optical silk threads shimmering among the canopies of the ancient trees, creating a fantastical and haunting night forest scene.

Liam had barely finished feeding the little one a bottle of formula mixed with Spiritual Dew before he unceremoniously pushed the yawning little dumpling over to the "unpaid nanny" Noah to burp, while he himself draped on a fur cloak and sat in the director’s chair beside Benjamin to watch the most climactic scene of the first half of the film.

In the earlier sequences filmed during the day, the character Major General Marcus, after having his life saved by Sylas and being brought back to the lair deep in the forest, had fallen head over heels in love. He hunted game and grilled meat for Sylas to eat, picked wildflowers to pin in Sylas’s hair, using all the utmost tenderness and earnestness of an Alpha to pursue the strange "Beta youth" living in solitude in the forest.

Although Sylas always kept an icy expression, never spoke more than three sentences, and always stepped back whenever Marcus drew near, through every small detail—such as Sylas silently stringing venomous silk around the cave to keep wild beasts away so Marcus could sleep soundly, or secretly keeping the dried flower Marcus had given him beneath a layer of cold stone—the audience could see that the cold-blooded heart of the Insectoid King had truly been moved by the warmth of the human man.

However, the racial barrier and the terrifying biological instincts of the Black Widow Spider kept Sylas from daring to step forward. Because he had come to this desolate planet near human territory to flee the deadly post-mating fate of the Black Widow Spider. He was afraid that if he took one more step forward, either he himself or the one he loved would lose their life.

"Artificial rain team, get ready! Camera 1, camera 2, focus on capturing close-ups of the facial expressions and the water droplets on the eyelashes! Scene 18, sequence 09 - Action!"

Benjamin had barely waved his hand when the misting system in the treetops immediately created a torrential forest downpour pouring onto the clearing by the stream, leaving dry only the area beneath the rock overhang where the two actors stood.

Beneath the gloomy blue light of the glowing silk threads in the rainy night, Elijah, clad in a thin black garment soaked through with rainwater, had his back turned, striding quickly toward the darkness of the deep forest as though trying to flee.

Suddenly, from behind, Ray lunged forward; regardless of the wound on his shoulder bleeding through to stain the bandages red, he wrapped his arms tightly around Elijah’s waist to yank Elijah back, pressing the youth hard against the damp rock face!

"Let go!" Elijah snapped coldly under his breath, his pale white hands bracing against the man’s chest to push with all his strength, his jet-black eyes flashing with a rare spark of panic: "Your wounds have healed, and your Legion’s rescue spaceship is about to lock onto this planet’s coordinates. Get back to your own world at once, never appear in front of me again!"

Ray gripped Elijah’s slender wrists tightly, pinning them to the rock face above his head, his handsome rain-drenched face leaning down close, his scorching breath blowing straight against the youth’s ice-cold face.

Marcus’s eyes were bloodshot with pain, bewilderment, and an infatuation bordering on despair:

"Leave? Where are you telling me to go when my heart has already been left behind on this damned planet, Sylas?!"

Ray’s voice was hoarse, roaring loud enough to drown out the pouring forest rain:

"For the past two months, I have said I like you a hundred times, and you have stepped back a hundred paces! I take your hand, and you fling it away as though touching something filthy! Sylas, tell me, what on earth are you afraid of?! If you truly detest me, truly regard me as a damnable intruder, then why did you save me?! Why, when I was burning up with a delirious fever for three days and three nights, did you soak yourself in an icy lake to turn your body freezing cold, then hold me all night long to bring my fever down?!"

Elijah pressed his pale lips tight together, whipping his face to one side to avoid the other man’s burning gaze, his voice trembling:

"I was merely bored, picking you up to serve as a toy..."

"You are lying!"

Ray used one hand to hold both of Elijah’s wrists, while his other hand firmly pinched Elijah’s chin, forcing Elijah to turn back and look straight into his eyes.

Amidst the blinding night rain, four eyes met. Inside Elijah’s fathomless black eyes, which had always been emotionless, a violent storm of emotion was churning at this moment—there was a reluctant attachment, a longing for warmth, and deeper than anything else, an utter terror from knowing clearly the tragic outcome if he crossed the line.

A clear teardrop mingled with the rainwater silently slid down from the corner of Elijah’s eye painted with the bright red hourglass pattern, falling straight onto the back of Ray’s trembling hand.

Ray looked at that warm teardrop, his chest heaving violently, his low voice shattering into a sorrowful demand:

"Look into my eyes, Sylas... Your heart is beating so fast it is about to burst right beneath my palm! You clearly love me too... Why do you not even dare give me a single touch of your lips? What terrible secret are you hiding in your heart that you would rather torture yourself to tears just to drive me away no matter what?!"

Beneath the dark rock overhang, the youth in his arms slowly stopped struggling.

Elijah’s plump red lips curled slightly into a smile that was at once desolate, cruel, and so seductive it sent a shiver down the spine.

The light from the silk threads behind his back suddenly shifted from blue to a dark blood red...

"Cut!!! Phenomenal! So brilliant there is nothing left to fault!"

Benjamin slammed his hand hard onto the control console, springing straight up out of the director’s chair. All the film crew staff standing around broke into thunderous applause as well; several female staff members from the makeup team watching from the sidelines had even pulled out tissues to dab at their tears at some point.

Liam, sitting beside him, had to nod in praise as well. In the closing frame of the sequence just now, Elijah’s conflicted gaze combined with the shadow effect of the eight spider legs on the rock face truly delivered a suffocatingly tense and tragic beauty.

Even a certain someone standing in a dark corner over a hundred meters from the set, hidden beneath the canopy of a large pine tree with his coat covered in night dew—Julian Vance—was staring fixedly toward the youth being wrapped in a warm towel by the staff beneath the studio lights, the hand inside his coat pocket clenched tight.

Today Julian had used the excuse of bringing a batch of Cryomollis Silk quality-testing equipment from the Vance Group over to deliver to Isabella, when in truth it was only to stand from afar outside the one-hundred-meter alert perimeter to watch Elijah shine on the film set once before quietly leaving that very night.

Meanwhile, at the director’s rest chair, Liam let out a yawn, stretching his shoulders as he stood up from the chair:

"The night scene is done, Brother Benjamin, you stay behind to wrap up the set, I am heading back to the villa to sleep first."

Noah, who was holding the baby standing right behind him, immediately stepped forward a pace, extending an arm with the intention of supporting Liam along the night path lest he trip.

Liam glanced at the arm held out in front of him, then looked at the handsome face of the man who always watched him with a gentle, cautious gaze. For some reason, Marcus’s desperate line of questioning on the set just now flashed through his mind, making his heartbeat skip half a beat.

He hurriedly withdrew his gaze, pretending not to see Noah’s arm, stuffing both hands into his fur cloak pockets himself before striding straight toward the electric cart:

"Hurry up, hold the baby carefully, do not let the wind blow into his face. If you are one minute late getting back, tomorrow I am cutting your food rations!"

Noah looked at his hand left hanging in mid-air, showing no disappointment at all as he merely smiled faintly, holding the small child tightly in his arms before quietly striding quickly after Liam’s back.