"I am indeed just an ordinary person." Mr. Zhang's face was expressionless. "If you are looking for Slade's murderer, you are obviously looking for the wrong person."
"Relax, I'm not here to punish you." The old man watched as the two colored balls entered the hole, changed his direction, and crouched down again. "And I know that you weren't the one behind the incident at Copenhagen International Airport, because you haven't left Ireland during this period, right?"
"Are you spying on me?" Mr. Zhang's face sank. "When we separated, we had an agreement. You promised not to disturb us again."
"I remember my original words were … If the child is not in danger, I will not appear again." The old man swung again, and a black ball fell into the pocket. "I kept my promise. I have not disturbed you and your wife for the past eighteen years. But as I said before, maybe I underestimated you from the beginning. If I knew you better, I probably wouldn't have made that promise.
"You shouldn't have come back," Mr. Zhang said solemnly.
"No, on the contrary, it's a good thing I came back. Otherwise, you would be in big trouble." The old man put away the cue, looked at Mr. Zhang, and sighed. "To be honest, I didn't expect you to go down this path. I thought you were one of the few people who really understood us. You would neither worship us too much, nor would you completely disregard us. You and your wife are like two bystanders. You know our history, understand where we come from … So why didn't you continue to watch? Why did you get yourself involved? No one knows better than you how dangerous it is."
"I don't understand what you are talking about."
"This kind of bullet … You invented it, right?" The old man finally stopped talking in riddles. He pointed to the bullet casings on the table and said, "I have to apologize here. My people started watching you and your wife four months ago. I originally wanted to know if your attitude toward Zhang Heng had changed. After all, we haven't seen each other for a long time, and humans are a species that changes their minds easily. I accidentally found out that you were secretly contacting a group of people behind your wife's back."
"You are very careful. You never make phone calls, only send emails. So, you don't leave your voice mail, and you don't use your computer, tablet, or mobile phone. You go to the internet cafe every time, and you often change places. You even drive an hour to the next city, and you use a temporary mailbox that can only be used for 24 hours. So, my people can't find out who you are contacting. And this matter has aroused my curiosity."
"I am bisexual, and I have a same-sex lover. However, as a husband, I have to hide this taboo relationship," Zhang Heng's father said solemnly.
The old man was amused. "It's useless for you to talk bad about yourself. Don't forget who I am. I can't change the past, but I can go back half an hour after you left the internet cafe and take a peek. Also, do you want to make a bet?"
"What bet?"
"I bet the gun behind you is loaded with this kind of bullet." The old man propped the pool cue on the ground. "It's a pity. We had such a good chat before, and I thought we would become friends."
"Friends? I won't forget that you forced us to enter the city under the ice. "
"And then you saved the world, didn't you? You know very well how bad things will get if the owner of the city under the ice comes out. If I hadn't organized that expedition, the whole world might have been shrouded in fear now. After that, you proposed to adopt the child, and I agreed. I even gave him a talisman to shield him from contact with the owner of the city under the ice. I almost did everything I could. "The old man spread his hands.
"That's the problem. Based on my understanding of you, Kronos would never be so kind for no reason."
"So, ten years ago, you started looking for people who hated God for various reasons. You gathered them together and guided them, helping them to find a way to fight God with their mortal bodies. Then, you created this God Slayer Bullet for these extremists?" The old man said as he picked up the bullet casings on the edge of the table again. "So, that's why you created this God Slayer Bullet for them?
"They were not extremists. They just had relatives or friends who died in the hands of the gods. Most of them were not even the gods' targets. For example, there was a captain who went fishing with his brother and son. He met Poseidon, who was in a bad mood that day. He set off a forty-meter-high wave on the sea, and both his son and brother died in the shipwreck. For so many years, he lived in despair and pain because no one believed him. They only thought that he was hallucinating because of his grief. He also thought that he would never be able to take revenge."
"Then you gave them hope. Hatred is the best motivation. I admit that some of us do things very crudely, but these bad habits are also given to us by you humans, because you think that our image will be more fleshy, more similar to you, and more conducive to the spread of those stories. " The old man rested his palm on the cue. "Dramatic. Most of us hate this word. It's like a curse to us."
"And don't pretend to be so righteous. Others may not know, but I know very well why you did this. It's not to help the extremists take revenge. You must have figured it out a long time ago. Sooner or later, Zhang Heng's true identity would be exposed. It's not hard to guess how the gods would react when that day comes. Killing him is the easiest way to solve the problem. You knew that this child would become the enemy of all the gods one day, so you started thinking about it ten years ago.
"If the Gods want to kill him, then they should kill all the Gods. If I hadn't read your mail, I wouldn't have believed that such an easy-going, good-tempered, ordinary person would have such a crazy and arrogant idea." "That's right. That's right.
"I'm just doing what a father should do," Mr. Zhang said calmly.
"Even if this decision will destroy the whole world? Not only us gods, but other humans as well. You should understand that letting Zhang Heng live means that the master of the city under the ice might be able to escape … Interesting. Although some of your blood flows in his body, he is not the child of you and your wife. Is it necessary to do this? "the old man asked curiously.
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