Read Novel Full Chapter 1858: He Said... Yet It Cost Him Nothing.
Chapter 1858: He Said… Yet It Cost Him Nothing.
“Oh, everyone’s back,” Maiuri greeted warmly as she arranged the plates across the dining table.
“Dad!”
Lily immediately sprang from her chair, nearly knocking it over in her excitement.
“How did it go? I saw on TipTop that you three basically closed Hell’s Gate without any backup! The entire platform is exploding with videos! People are saying the military barely had time to arrive before it was already over. Seriously… how did you do it?”
She stared at the trio with pure admiration, practically vibrating with excitement as she waited for an answer.
“What else?”
Jonathan smirked, clearly enjoying her curiosity, and casually reached out to place a hand on Lily’s should—
“It was the power of friendship.”
Young Aether interrupted without hesitation. He placed his hand over Lily’s shoulder and gently pulled her away from Jonathan, his expression remaining completely devoid of emotion.
“…”
Jonathan’s hand froze in mid-air. He stared blankly at Young Aether for a moment before slowly lowering it. The corner of his lips twitched, as though something inside him had just cracked.
Lily, though surprised by Young Aether’s sudden closeness, looked up at him and smiled awkwardly.
“You… expect me to believe that, Unc?”
“No…” Young Aether replied, his eyes remaining lifeless.
“…” Lily’s expression became slightly confused and awkward. “I-Is that so…”
Young Aether simply nodded and softly patted her head. The gentle motion only made Lily more uncomfortable, and her shoulders stiffened slightly beneath his hand.
Jonathan stared at Young Aether and Lily, his eyes narrowing as a thought quietly surfaced.
‘He knew something…’
His gaze then travelled toward Allen, who was equally taken aback by the sudden closeness between Young Aether and Lily.
“Come on, everyone. Let’s have lunch,” Emily called as she carefully carried several steaming dishes toward the table.
Young Aether looked at her, then nodded.
“Let’s eat your mommy’s cooking.”
Lily nodded, though the confusion on her face remained.
The two of them walked ahead while Jonathan and Allen stayed behind. Jonathan glanced sideways at Allen before lowering his voice.
“We need to talk.”
“…” Allen silently nodded.
Then everyone gathered around the table.
Just like before, Young Aether, Allen, and Jonathan took one side of the table while Emily, Maiuri, and Sasha sat opposite them. Noah and Lily occupied both ends.
Allen looked around the table with a satisfied smile.
“Alright.”
He clapped once.
“Let’s eat.”
Everyone nodded and began digging into the meal.
Emily quietly sat beside Noah, patiently feeding him one spoonful after another while the little boy remained completely absorbed in whatever cartoon was playing on his tablet, occasionally opening his mouth on instinct without even looking away from the screen.
Jonathan suddenly paused halfway through taking a bite.
He slowly lowered his fork, his eyes drifting toward Young Aether, who was rubbing his hand beneath the table.
“Yo…”
Young Aether looked up.
“Hmm?”
Jonathan pointed directly at his face.
“Why are you still covering your face?”
Every pair of eyes immediately turned toward Young Aether.
Since everyone else already knew the reason, except for Jonathan and his family, the atmosphere around the table stiffened almost imperceptibly.
Allen and Emily exchanged a quick glance.
Both silently wondered the same thing.
‘Please… don’t say—’
“My face attracts older women to seduce me.”
!!!
‘HE SAID IT!’
Emily and Allen screamed inwardly, their expressions turning horrified as they stared at Young Aether.
He remained completely unfazed, as though he had just stated the most ordinary fact in the world.
Jonathan, however, was left staring at him in stunned silence, his mouth slightly parted as his brain struggled to process what he had just heard.
His expression slowly shifted from amusement to confusion before he awkwardly asked,
“Attracts women? This is the first time I’ve heard that…” He blinked again, then glanced at his wives, who were wearing the same bewildered expressions as him.
Jonathan looked back at Young Aether, a nervous laugh escaping his lips.
“You’re joking, right? Hahaha… Aether, since when did you start making jokes like thi—”
“Ever since your wives have tried to fuck me several times…” Young Aether said in a blunt, emotionless tone.
Puff!!
Both Maiuri and Sasha spat the food from their mouths at the same time, immediately breaking into violent coughing fits. Their faces were frozen in utter shock, as though the words had struck them hard.
Emily instantly covered Noah’s ears, her eyes widening in panic.
“Noah, don’t listen to this.”
Yet Noah stared at Young Aether with a slightly curious expression, his small head tilting to one side. Something about his uncle felt different now.
Jonathan’s face gradually turned ugly.
“Aether.”
His voice had lost its earlier amusement.
“This isn’t funny.”
He stood straighter, his eyes hardening.
“How dare you slander my wives in front of everyone? You think you can throw disg—”
“Sasha flashed herself many times… and Maiuri… used my hand to masturbate herself during the nights.”
Young Aether said it without hesitation.
“I thought they told you…”
The room fell silent.
“H-How dare you reduce us to something so filthy!” Maiuri shouted, her face burning with embarrassment and anger.
“Is this how you repay us after everything we’ve done for you?”
Her hands trembled slightly as she pointed toward him.
“We fed you, gave you a place to stay, treated you like family, and this is how you repay us? By dragging our names through the mud with filthy lies?”
She turned toward Jonathan, her expression becoming increasingly aggrieved.
“See! This is exactly why I told you we shouldn’t trust the otherworlder! I warned you from the beginning!”
Young Aether quietly stared at Maiuri.
He watched her accusations pile upon accusations, his expression remaining so empty that it almost made her anger look louder than it should have been.
After several seconds, he finally spoke.
“Then why did you put an aphrodisiac in our food after Jonathan left the house?”
“!!”
Maiuri, Sasha, and… even Jonathan visibly flinched.
Their eyes widened simultaneously.
For one brief moment, nobody spoke.
The same thought passed through all three of their minds.
‘How did he know that?’
Maiuri immediately forced herself to recover.
“How dare you slander me!” she snapped, her voice trembling with rage.
“Aphrodisiac? You’re accusing me of drugging you now?”
She turned toward Jonathan.
“You hear this? This is your so-called friendship? You told us to take care of him, and now he’s standing here accusing us of things we never did!”
Her voice cracked with indignation.
“I’ve had enough of this!”
She turned back toward Aether.
“Look, I don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish with these disgusting accusations, but don’t flatter yourself. I’m not interested in you, and I certainly haven’t fallen for your face!”
Young Aether stared at her.
“Care to explain why you were using my hand like a dildo?”
“!!”
Maiuri’s face turned an even deeper shade of red.
For a moment, she seemed completely incapable of forming a response.
Then her embarrassment transformed into fury.
“JOHN!!”
Her voice echoed through the room.
“ARE YOU SERIOUSLY GOING TO LET THAT BASTARD STAND THERE AND SLANDER YOUR WIVES LIKE THIS?!!”
Jonathan finally snapped.
He grabbed Young Aether by the collar and violently pulled him forward. His face was only inches away from Aether’s, his eyes burning with anger.
“AETHER!! HOW DARE YOU SLANDER MY WIVES!!”
His grip tightened.
“You think you can stand there and accuse them of whatever filth comes into your head? They’re my wives! Do you understand that?”
Jonathan’s voice trembled with fury.
“…”
Young Aether blankly stared at Jonathan’s furious face.
Jonathan’s expression twitched slightly.
There was something strange in that anger.
Something almost… forced.
As if he wasn’t entirely sure what he was supposed to feel, yet had decided that anger was the only acceptable answer.
And still… he continued.
He repeated the same accusation and the same outrage…
Young Aether’s eyes became even more dull.
‘How naïve of me… It was always right in front of my eyes, and yet… I refused to see it.’
His lips pursed inwardly, as though he were desperately holding something painful inside his chest.
The realisation wasn’t painful because Jonathan was angry.
It was painful because Jonathan was pretending.
Young Aether, with a lifeless tone,
“Don’t you have any other dialogue? Was the script not supposed to tell you how to react to this?”
!!!!!!
Jonathan’s face instantly turned pale.
“W-W-What are you talking about?”
His grip on Aether’s collar loosened slightly.
“S-Script?”
Young Aether didn’t answer immediately.
He simply stared at Jonathan’s frightened expression.
Did he really get tricked by this fake acting?
Him?
The Master of Acting?
The man who could read a person’s hesitation from a single breath, detect deception from the smallest movement of the eyes, and construct an entire lie before another person had even finished speaking…
Had he truly been fooled by something this pathetic?
A bitter realisation settled inside him.
His friendship had blinded him.
He had spent so long believing that Jonathan would never betray him that he had unconsciously rejected every piece of evidence standing in front of him.
‘How fake can someone be?…’
His gaze lowered slightly.
‘Or perhaps… how desperate was I to believe that he was real?’
Young Aether’s dead eyes glanced toward the child, who was staring at Jonathan with a painful expression. Tears welled in the child’s eyes and slowly rolled down his cheeks as though he were drowning in a pain he couldn’t understand.
“…”
Young Aether’s eyes became even duller as he lowered his head.
“Answer me! What do you mean, script?!” Jonathan shouted, his face filled with hurried confusion and… growing worry?
Young Aether slowly looked up.
“Jonathan… I am not hungry anymore.”
“Huh?”
Young Aether gently swatted Jonathan’s hand away and stepped back.
“Allen… let’s go.”
Allen flinched and blinked several times.
Go where?
He was still struggling to process what the fuck had just happened. More importantly, he couldn’t understand why Young Aether had been acting so strangely ever since he had become separated from them inside the Hell’s Gate.
Jonathan frowned as he watched Aether turn away.
“Go? We haven’t finished talking, Aether!”
Young Aether stopped and looked toward the puzzled Allen.
“To the hotel you booked for me.”
Allen raised his eyebrows.
“Oh, right…”
He then glanced toward Jonathan, whose expression had become increasingly confused.
“…Hotel? What the… what the fuck is going on here? Aether! First, answer me, fuck—!!”
Jonathan’s words abruptly died in his throat.
His eyes widened.
The visor covering Young Aether’s face instantly deactivated.
For the first time, Jonathan saw his eyes clearly.
There was nothing in them.
No anger!
No hatred!
No sadness!
Just… EMPTY!!
Young Aether simply looked at him, his empty eyes reflecting nothing at all.
Yet that emptiness carried something far more frightening than rage.
For a single second, Jonathan felt as though he were staring directly into death itself!
His body unconsciously stepped backwards.
He had never seen Young Aether like this.
Jonathan swallowed hard, his throat suddenly dry.
Young Aether quietly spoke.
“If you want answers… ask your wives.”
He turned around and began walking toward the door.
But just before leaving, his gaze shifted toward Noah, who had been staring at him strangely from Emily’s arms.
Young Aether stopped.
He walked back toward them, reached out, and gently picked Noah up from Emily’s arms before pulling the child into a tight embrace.
“He’s going to cry—”
Emily’s words stopped when she realised Noah hadn’t cried.
Instead, Noah simply stared at Young Aether.
His small head tilted slightly to the side, his expression filled with innocent curiosity. He reached up and touched Aether’s face, his tiny fingers pressing against his cheek before gently pulling at it.
“Wa…”
He mumbled something.
“…”
Young Aether’s lips curled into a faint, gentle smile.
He lowered his head and softly kissed Noah’s forehead.
For a brief moment, his eyes trembled.
Something almost resembling tears threatened to escape them, but he quickly forced them back.
He held Noah against his chest for another second before gently returning him to Emily’s arms.
He didn’t say goodbye.
He didn’t say another word.
Young Aether simply turned around and walked out of the house.
Allen blinked before finally standing up.
“Aether! Wait a second!”
He hurried after him.
Meanwhile, Jonathan remained standing where he was, completely stunned.
He blankly stared at the closing door.
What just happened?
He couldn’t understand it.
None of them could.
Aether had brought everything into the open almost out of nowhere, shattered the entire atmosphere of the room, and then simply walked away as if none of it had anything to do with him.
Jonathan slowly raised his ring toward his face.
His expression hardened.
“Contact the President.”
The deep-black ring fluttered with blue particles as glowing symbols emerged across its surface, forming a sequence resembling a phone dial.
Emily immediately picked up her children and hurried toward their room.
“Lily, take care of your brother.”
She spoke with a seriousness that made Lily’s earlier confusion deepen.
“What’s going on, Mom?”
Emily forced a smile, though the tension in her face betrayed her.
“Nothing… I hope.”
She ushered her children inside, closed the door behind them, and tightly locked it.
For several seconds, Emily remained with her hand on the lock.
Her forced smile disappeared.