Chapter 337 - Vol. 2 Prologue (II)
As if a machine left unoiled for a long ti, the man's empty eyes slowly looked up.
Standing in front of him was a woman who looked so much like his brother.
The man did not show surprise at the sudden appearance of the woman, because he had seen long ago the ghosts of the people that he had killed over ti. They were haunting him even in his dreams. He never consulted a psychiatrist about it and let himself be tornted by his hallucinations.
But this illusion in front of him was different from the other images he had seen.
The little brother in his dreams were always covered in blood, crying in pain and grievance. But the image in front of him was not bloody, rather, she looked at him with sorrow and pity.
This was the first ti that the face of his brother showed him such a pair of eyes.
"Do you want to turn back ti?" the illusion in front of him asked.
The sound of rain seed to slowly fade away.
The man's empty eyes finally showed a hint of deep sorrow. "...Yes..."
Yes, he longed to. He wanted to ask them for forgiveness, although he knew he did not deserve it. His longing must have been truly strong, resulting to this delusion.
The woman who has his brother's face slowly glowed with a warm light. Amidst the thunder and rain, none of it touched her. She held out a hand and touched the man's face. Her silver-blue eyes were full of pity.
"You've suffered."
"...I made them suffer," the man corrected absently.
"I can give you a wish. Make a wish. To turn back ti," the woman said. Her eyes flashed with sadness and desperation.
"..." The man was silent. A wish to turn back ti? How nice was that?
But then...
"And then? If I turn back ti, so what? What if I fail?" he hoarsely asked. He was really losing his sanity, even entertaining this hallucination of his.
"I am a coward. I can never beat the demons that the devil has created within . Once he is in front of , my body moves on its own, following everything he say. It's been embedded in my bones. I wish I could just disappear. I am not strong enough to face them again..."
Everybody thought that he was a talented genius, but he was actually just a cowardly slave cultivated by the devil. He had no confidence that if he turned back ti, he would be strong enough to overthrow the devil.
He raised his head and looked at the dark sky for a long ti.
"If you truly can grant soone a wish, then give it to soone worthy, who had more courage than . Soone who is strong enough to face his inner demons and fight for his fate."
The illusory woman was quiet for a long ti.
The empty burial ground seed to weep as the air of desolation filled its corners. The ancestral souls inside seed unwilling.
The man could not hear them. He was drowning in his own guilt and despair.
After a long ti, the woman's silver-blue eyes trembled. She looked behind him. To a certain soul who was haunting this man because of her grievances.
"Then her," the woman said as her eyes were fixated on his back.
The man followed her gaze and looked back. He saw no one. But he saw a certain tombstone that did not belong to the Lu family.
It was an innocent person that had suffered because of their sches.
Long ago, around the ti when the Xiong family fell and lost their title as a legendary family, the body of the girl was found on the streets with a dead man on her lap. A certain Xiong mber retrieved the dead man's body's remains while hers was supposed to be left to the hungry dogs.
The man knew of his sins, and on an impulse, perhaps brought by a sudden surge of guilt, he secretly told his people to retrieve the corpse and gave her a proper burial in the Lu family burial ground. Her remains were now lying beside the innocent people that he had killed.
Of course, the girl probably hate him to the bones, and would rather die eaten by the hungry dogs than be buried by him.
He rembered her clearly. When he shot that man, the girl looked at his direction with boundless hatred.
He knew of her circ.u.mstances, as she was once their prisoner and a pawn for the destruction of the two families.
He glanced at the tomb blankly.
"If you choose her, then please do."
The man turned back to look at the woman. If all of these happened to be real, if she was truly a ghost who could grant wishes...
"And if you can really turn back ti, please do not let rember anything. I won't be able to handle it."
The woman was silent for a mont. This descendant of hers wanted to give this precious 'wish' to a stranger.
How could he leave it to an unrelated girl to change his fate?
The man seed to see the question in her eyes. He answered the question in her mind.
"I don't care about my fate. If I need to suffer, then let be. But please, make sure that my brother lives on. Even if I have to die."
"This...would depend on her. Are you really sure you want to give this wish to her?"
"…"
The man looked up at the dark sky and laughed hoarsely.
"At that ti, when the man in front of her died, she looked at with such animosity that even I who was far away felt it. I watched them from afar. She did not leave him... and chose to die with him. Isn't she praiseworthy? How I wish I could do that too, when the only person that was keeping sane disappeared from the world. I should have also jumped down and followed him, or maybe do what he wished, to stand against the devil. But I did not do any of those. I just tornted myself every day.
"People like her deserved the second chance more than I do. So, just choose her.
"Only... If there truly was a second chance, let my bother live," he did not forget to say it again.
The woman looked at him quietly. Her eyes seed to understand his pain and her grief overflowed.
Her silver-blue eyes looked behind him once more. She willed the spiritual force from her soul and the precipitated energy left behind by the ancestral souls.
She mouthed,
"It's now on you, strong soul."
Lightning flashed once again and the resounding thunder bood loudly.
Standing behind the man, a pale figure of a drenched woman in her white, bloody wedding gown was illuminated.
It was none other than Xiong Zhi.
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