Chapter 397 The Truth Behind the Murder
There was no forgiving the murder of one's wife. Pyrelion had crossed a serious line.
Zara stared at him in shock. "How could you do something that vile?"
Pyrelion looked genuinely confused. "How could you not know?"
Everyone in the Divine World was supposed to know about it.
"I already told you. I'm from Earth."
Pyrelion fell silent.
How could someone from Earth possibly wield such bizarre powers?
Zara's curiosity was thoroughly piqued. She immediately urged him on. "Come on, tell me. How exactly did you kill Valerius's wife?"
When Aurelion had said Pyrelion was hated throughout the Divine World, he had clearly been understating it. This went far beyond a bad reputation. Valerius had every reason to hate him with every fiber of his being.
If Zara were Valerius, she would have torn Pyrelion limb from limb on the spot.
Pyrelion hesitated. Perhaps because he was Aurelion's brother, he seemed to share some of the same naive honesty and confessed without much resistance.
"When I tried to escape the Upper Realm, his wife stood in my way, so I killed her. But I was under someone else's influence at the time. I wasn't in my right mind, and many of the things I did weren't truly my choice."
"Killing her is still killing her. Spare me the excuses!" Zara snapped. "Now I definitely have to take you back. At the very least, I can squeeze another settlement out of Valerius."
Pyrelion immediately panicked. "No! I can't go back to the Divine World."
Zara adopted a patient, persuasive tone. "We won't go back just yet. We'll go somewhere else first. You haven't seen your brother Aurelion in a long time, have you? Now you'll finally get to see him. He misses you too. It's about time you reunited."
Pyrelion looked as though he had just been sentenced to a funeral of his own.
He clearly did not want to go.
Unfortunately, he no longer had a say in the matter.
Now that he had revealed himself, Zara would have felt she was betraying her own principles if she let him escape.
That evening, she took Pyrelion home with her.
She stuffed him into her backpack. When she arrived, Aurelion was sprawled across the couch watching something on a tablet. The melodrama My Sister-in-Law's Third Marriage was playing, and he was completely absorbed.
The moment Zara heard someone on-screen shout "Dax," her head began to ache.
"Aurelion, I brought you a surprise," she said. "Guess what it is."
Aurelion looked up and studied her with a grave expression for three full seconds. "I have a feeling whatever you brought me isn't a surprise. It's probably a disaster."
"How can you say that?" Zara demanded. "How dare you question your importance to me? I've always treated you well and kept your best interests in mind. So tell me, what do you want most right now? Who do you want to see more than anyone?"
Aurelion fell silent for another three seconds, then pointed at the middle-aged actor playing Dax on the screen. "I heard you're going on a reality show. Take me with you. There'll probably be celebrities there, right? Maybe I'll get to meet Dax and ask him for an autograph."
Zara fell silent.
She looked at Aurelion with profound disappointment. "Are you still a dragon? You've been on Earth for barely any time, and you've already lost all ambition. One reasonably attractive middle-aged man has completely turned your head?"
Aurelion stared at her. "What do you know? Am I not allowed to be a fan?"
"Don't you want to see your brother Pyrelion?"
Aurelion paused. "Of course I do. But why bring him up out of nowhere? No one knows where he is. If he ever shows himself, the Upper Realm will capture him immediately. Talking about him only ruins the mood."
Zara fell silent.
It had not even been that long.
Had Pyrelion's place in Aurelion's heart already fallen this far?
"What a coincidence. I ran into your brother Pyrelion on my last trip, and now I've brought him home. Ta-da!"
Zara pulled Pyrelion out of her bag.
The slender, silvery-white cauliflower snake dangled from her hand and found himself staring straight at Aurelion on the couch.
Aurelion clearly had not expected his long-lost brother to appear out of nowhere. He froze, completely at a loss for words.
Pyrelion, meanwhile, seemed ashamed the moment he saw Aurelion. He lowered his head and barely dared to meet his brother's eyes.
The tension in the room was almost unbearable.
Then, three seconds later, Aurelion raised his neck and exploded. "You actually have the nerve to show your face after killing the Grand Elder?!"
Zara fell silent.
What was this?
Hadn't Aurelion seemed to miss him when he was gone?
Pyrelion replied gloomily, "She's already dead. What do you expect me to do about it now?"
Zara wondered whether the Grand Elder Pyrelion had killed was Valerius's wife.
Aurelion climbed down from the couch and craned his neck up at Pyrelion.
"You still dared to come out of hiding? Aren't you afraid the Upper Realm will catch you? Do you think you'll survive if they do? Were you out of your mind back then? How did Noctilion manage to manipulate you when he looks that hideous?"
Pyrelion fell silent.
Aurelion looked heartbroken. "Pyrelion, you could've just stopped her. Why did you have to kill her? Didn't you know that would make you an enemy of the entire Upper Realm?"
"I had my reasons," Pyrelion said quietly. "I can't explain them to you."
"You've disappointed me."
Zara fell silent again.
This felt like watching an ongoing soap opera.
She shushed them. "All right, that's enough. Will one of you explain this whole tangled family drama to me first? You said Pyrelion killed the Grand Elder. Was she Valerius's wife?"
Aurelion glanced at Zara and nodded. "Yes."
"And what was her relationship with you two?"
Aurelion and Pyrelion exchanged a look before Aurelion answered, "She raised us, more or less. The Grand Elder watched us grow up."
Zara fell silent.
That made a lot more sense than the other way around.
She frowned. "So Pyrelion killed the Grand Elder, which basically made both of you enemies of the entire Upper Realm? No wonder he can't go back. But does hiding on Earth really make him safe?"
Aurelion curled his lip. "Not necessarily.
Valerius might even owe Pyrelion a thank-you.
The Grand Elder may have been his wife, but they belonged to opposing political factions.
She surrounded herself with different young lovers all the time and humiliated Valerius over and over. What man could tolerate that?"
Zara fell silent.
So there was an even messier scandal behind all this.
Aurelion continued, "But no matter the reason, Pyrelion still killed the Grand Elder of the Upper Realm. They won't let him go, though they probably won't execute him..."
He gave Pyrelion a sympathetic look. "Honestly, falling into Zara's hands is much better than falling into the Upper Realm's. Although Zara herself is... well, it's hard to put into words."
"I'm standing right here," Zara said. "Go on. Finish that sentence."
Aurelion immediately corrected himself. "...A beautiful, kindhearted little fairy."
Pyrelion fell silent.
Then he suddenly said, "Actually, I didn't kill her for any of those reasons. She had... inappropriate intentions toward me."
Zara stared at him.
Aurelion stared at him.
Holy shit.