Apocalypse King: Recruiting S-Tier Beauties With My Ruler System
Chapter 64: Confession, Consequence and...

Chapter 64: Confession, Consequence and...

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March 17th, 2025 — 08:10 AM

Zone 2A-Δ – John Wang’s Apartment

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Mu Qinglan’s fingers lingered over the black mark on my chest, rubbing it gently with a furrow between her brows. She didn’t speak at first, but the silence between us had started to stretch—too full, too expectant.

I swallowed once and then placed my hand over hers, warm against her cold skin. She didn’t flinch, but I could feel how focused she became.

"I need to tell you something."

Her hand stopped moving.

She looked up at me, eyes unreadable—but not unkind. Just sharp, calculating.

"I didn’t just stay behind to rest. Roulan and Yifei... they were badly wounded. Too weak to swallow anything."

Her expression didn’t change, not yet. But her shoulders shifted slightly—her posture stiffening, as if preparing herself for what came next.

I continued. "So I gave them the potion using my mouth. I... kissed them."

Admitting it made me realise how much of an asshole I was, and that this might be the dumbest thing I could do, but if I cannot be honest, our relationship wasn’t going anywhere anyway.

[System Warning: Mu Qinglan feels conflicted. –5 Affection Points]

She stepped back just a little, enough to make the space between us feel colder. Her arms crossed beneath her chest, a faint shimmer of ice around her wrist that flickered, then disappeared.

Her voice became slow, deep, and almost monotone. "Did you like it?"

She wasn’t angry. Not openly. But the way she asked—the way her eyes didn’t blink—it made the question hit harder than if she’d screamed.

"I did," I answered.

She nodded once. Slowly.

[System Warning: Mu Qinglan does not believe your tone. –3 Affection Points]

Her lips pressed together as she asked. "Will you do it again?"

I met her eyes and didn’t look away.

"If it meant saving them, yes. Without hesitation."

For a moment, she didn’t respond. Her gaze dropped to the mark on my chest, then back up to my face. I could see it—something breaking through the ice in her expression. Not anger. Something else.

[System Alert: Mu Qinglan is upset. –2 Affection Points]

However, she didn’t walk away from me.

Mu Qinglan glared at me with her fists tightened and her lips white from how hard she pushed them together, but she remained still while breathing deeply.

I didn’t speak again and waited for her response. I had already told her the truth.

If she asked me more, I would answer. No lies. No half-measures.

She deserved that.

Mu Qinglan didn’t speak at first.

She just stared at me. Cold, composed, but not distant. Her arms remained crossed, her back straight, her lips slightly parted.

Then, quietly—

"Would you do it again... for pleasure?"

I paused for just one second.

[System Warning: Mu Qinglan’s trust is shaking. –3 Affection Points]

I saw the flicker in her eyes, fury, fear, aggression... then only a cold, dull glint remained as she tightened her shoulders and huffed cold air.

There was no reason to lie, or make up some bullshit now, since I already ripped open the can of worms I didn’t hold back.

"Yes," My voice was loud, rough, and honest. "I probably would."

Her lips twitched for a second, not quite a smile or a frown... but then she nodded and snorted hot air from her nose.

Qinglan turned from me and walked a few slow paces towards the far wall, arms wrapped around her hips, mumbling. The line of her spine arched just slightly as she leaned against the windowpane. Light filtered across her bare shoulder from the rising sun.

"You probably would..." she repeated, like she was tasting the words.

"So it’s not just survival now."

"I didn’t do it to betray you."

"I know that," she snapped, spinning back. "I know you didn’t cheat. I know they were injured. But that doesn’t make this easy."

Her voice cracked just enough to hear the girl beneath the cold, perfect woman.

"I thought I was special."

"You are."

"Then why aren’t I enough?"

The words hung in the air. No cry. No tremble. Just a single, piercing thread of truth woven through her doubt.

[System Alert: Mu Qinglan’s Affection Falling]

But she didn’t storm out.

Instead, she stepped forward.

Her hand lifted, palm glowing faintly with frost. Her breath became heavy, controlled, but mixed with a bizarre chill.

"Clench your teeth," she said, voice low.

My body didn’t move.

"Do it," she whispered. "Or I’ll break something."

I nodded once.

The Qi gathered through her body, faint wisps of blue gathering in her hands, travelling down her arms like solitary fish. Ice bloomed across her knuckles with frosty trails of air. Her muscles and body tensed, the air around her humming with pressure as her blue eyes narrowed.

"If it was me, kissing another man... no matter what the reason, how would you feel?"

Instant rage overflowed from my calm core, the Titan’s Marrow bubbling like a pool of lava as I growled back with an anger that made me tremble with fury.

Her words landed harder than any blow could’ve.

I didn’t answer right away. I didn’t breathe.

Mu Qinglan stood barely a step from me—her bare feet silent against the floor, her arms loose at her sides now, trembling just slightly. Her pupils had narrowed, but the rest of her expression stayed composed, as if letting a single crack show would break the entire surface.

My eyes opened.

The air was thick and silent.

I could feel it move through the room like fog before a storm.

Then she said it again. Lower this time.

"Can you imagine how I feel?"

I didn’t mean to. I didn’t plan to. But the words were already out of my mouth before I could stop myself.

"If it was you kissing another man—" I paused. My heart thudded once, hard.

"Even if you said it was to save him... I’d kill him."

Mu Qinglan’s eyes widened—just slightly. It wasn’t fear in her gaze. It was sharper. Darker.

"And I might kill you, too."

The silence that followed wasn’t empty.

It throbbed.

She didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Just stared at me with a strange tightness in her mouth, a shimmer in her eyes like her thoughts had folded in on themselves as if she had waited her whole life to hear those words from someone.

[System Alert: Mu Qinglan feels overwhelmed and excited by your sudden outburst!]

[+8 Affection Points]

A flicker of red tinted her pupils. Not a glow—just the faintest hint of colour, gone as fast as it appeared.

But I saw it.

She exhaled—slowly—her breath visible now, even in the morning light.

The frost around her fingers intensified.

Her voice came with a hoarse growl, yet left with a soft hum like a knife held under silk.

"So you do understand."

Her words weren’t a relief. They were a verdict, but they didn’t feel cold like before, but laced with something different and a little eerie.

She didn’t blink or look away.

Just stepped closer until I could feel the frost from her breath hitting my collarbone.

Her hand lifted slowly, fingers half-curled as a pale shimmer of Qi collected around her knuckles. I felt the shift before I saw it—the air thinning, the temperature dipping, like snow was about to fall inside the room.

"Close your eyes," she said, not looking away.

The moment everything became dark, the air changed and I could ’see’ better.

A swirling ice-blue core the size of a marble in Qinglan’s stomach looked pale, almost white and empty as it balled at her fist. Heavy pressure wrapped around me as various colours and shades of Qi flew through the air like streamers.

I could feel her cold breath, hear the movement of her muscles, and sweat dripping onto the floor from her brow.

And then it hit me.

Not her fist.

Her palm.

Flat and sharp, driven into the centre of my chest.

CRACK.

The sound wasn’t skin on skin. It was something deeper. Bone? No—inside the bone.

I gasped, teeth grinding as my knees collapsed half a step, the whole left side of my body seizing.

A shock of ice punched into my core. Cold Qi poured straight into my bloodstream like it belonged there, drilling itself down through skin, tissue, and nerves.

No warning.

No control.

She didn’t do it on purpose.

But her rage, her jealousy, her possessiveness—all of it surged through her arm and carved itself into me like a second heartbeat.

My eyes stayed shut. My teeth clenched.

But I groaned. Low. Raw.

"Fffffuck—!"

I dropped to one knee, arm braced on the floor, gasping for air that felt too thick to swallow.

When the burn eased, I finally looked up.

Mu Qinglan stood there, chest rising and falling, arms limp at her sides, breath uneven.

She hadn’t even meant to mark me.

But she had.

Her Qi was inside me now—cold, coiled, dormant—but alive.

"You didn’t hold back..." I breathed.

She didn’t answer at first.

Then—

"Well, can you blame me?" she whispered. "But you’ll remember when seeing that..."

She pointed to my chest.

The mark on my chest was no longer black.

It was electric blue, the same colour as Mu Qinglan’s eyes.

When I looked up, she curled her lips into a faint smile... then threw herself into my arms and hugged me tight enough to make me choke.

"Hey..." she nuzzled my chest, gazing up with wet, worried eyes.

"That bath...

Shall we take it together?"