Chapter 163: Dream
The sun was scorching hot, like fine needles piercing the pupils. The watery eyes seemed to be about to be burned out by the light, incinerated into dry eye sockets. She was a stranded fish, unable to open her eyes.
The waves rose in a turbulent tide, washing over her dying body, dragging her into a boundless deep sea. Her fishtail turned into a pair of graceful and slender legs, but she couldn’t breathe. The salty seawater poured in through her mouth and ears. She was almost suffocating. The huge water pressure was tightly gripping her throat. Her cries for help were low and hoarse, and her hand, which was reaching for the sea surface, began to fall weakly.
Warmth… her hand was held.
It was a pair of very beautiful hands, like a perfect work of art carved by an ancient Greek sculptor with all his heart and soul. They were fair, slender, and the bamboo-like joints were not yet obvious, with a small protrusion at the wrist. A pair of familiar hands, she couldn’t remember.
A few rays of light fell, and they became brighter and brighter in her dark eyes.
She held on to those hands tightly. It was the mercy of the gods to the world, the redemption of her broken soul.
The ocean instantly evaporated, turning into a rising water vapor, creating a hazy and illusory dream. She opened her eyes, and the dream was over.
The weather was gloomy. Large, dark clouds were piled up in the sky, blocking all the sunlight in the scorching summer. A sense of anxiety was surging in the crowd on the street. The thick and lush tree crowns on the roadside rose to the sky, and dense branches hung down.
Su Xi stood on the side of the road. She looked at her hands. They seemed a little small. She rubbed her eyes and looked at her face in the transparent glass of a shop on the side of the road.
At first glance, she almost didn’t recognize that it was her. She was so scared that she wanted to turn and run. But the painful memories that appeared in her mind were written in bloody handwriting on her irises, telling Su Xi that this was her, her childhood body.
She was really ugly when she was a child. No wonder no one liked her. Her cheeks were thin, her eyes were big, and her features were squeezed together and hadn’t grown yet, which looked a little scary.
Her hair, which had never been cared for, was dry and stiff, and it was also greasy. Her hair had been cut badly, and the long bangs hung down unevenly, dangling in front of her eyes. If she didn’t part her hair, she couldn’t even see the road.
Su Xi looked down at her body. Her clothes were patched. But even if they were new, the style was already outdated, and they didn’t fit well. The little girl’s undeveloped body was as thin as a reed in a river, as if it would break with a gust of wind. The only bright spot was her very white skin, but it also showed a twisted and morbid look, which was extremely disharmonious.
So ugly… like an ugly monster. No wonder no one wanted to play with her. No wonder her own mother had taken her out of the house and then thrown her on the side of the road. No wonder no one liked her. Su Xi made a frank evaluation.
She was still in a dream. She was clearly aware of this fact.
Su Xi suddenly remembered that she often had this dream. She was very familiar with everything in front of her. Even with her eyes closed, she couldn’t get lost here.
She put her hands in her old pockets and walked around aimlessly. The streets along the way were very old, all the kind of old and low-rise buildings from the 80s and 90s. She raised her head and looked at the cloudy sky. It was about to rain. The content of the dream seemed to have never changed.
Before she had finished walking down the short old street, the rain began to fall, drop by drop. Su Xi continued to walk with a blank expression. She found a shop with a wide eave and stood under it. The rain outside was heavy, and the dense raindrops poured down, hitting the ground hard, and then vaporizing into a water mist that rose up, creating a misty flower.
The rainwater here was boiling hot.
The dense and lively crowd on the street all disappeared as soon as the raindrops fell. Only she, the intruder who had entered the dream, was still here.
The rain was getting heavier and heavier, and the drizzling rain hit the ground and vaporized into a water mist. The temperature was getting higher and higher. Her pores contracted, and her skin began to turn red. The sweat had just oozed from her forehead, and before it could drip, it had vaporized into a water mist. The temperature was terrifyingly high, as if it would evaporate all the water in her body.
Su Xi was not too flustered. She looked in a certain direction. It was also a vast expanse of mist. The scenery on the other side of the street became blurry. Only the silk woven from these water mists stretched from the dark clouds in the sky to her feet.
“One… two… three.”
She silently counted to three. A small black figure broke through the rain and appeared in the hazy mist. He was holding a wide black umbrella and was running towards her with some difficulty.
Su Xi stared blankly at the increasingly clear figure. Actually, the other party was not very tall, and it was a bit difficult for him to hold the big umbrella. But he was still running towards her with all his might.
But Su Xi was about to give up. Her body was already a bloody mess. The water vapor hit her body, and her delicate skin was scalded. Then it continued to hit her wounds, and blood oozed out… the blood then vaporized into a red mist, and she was trapped in a vicious cycle.
Su Xi would die once in her dream every time. She had long since gotten used to this pain. When the boy ran to her with a black umbrella, Su Xi was already lying on the ground, her body covered in a layer of blood mist, her breathing weak.
The boy finally walked up to her with an umbrella. The large black umbrella was like an invisible barrier, and the rising water vapor was all bounced away. She didn’t have to endure that pain for the time being.
Su Xi, regardless of her bloody body, desperately raised her neck, wanting to see the boy’s face clearly. She would do this every time, but she had never seen the boy’s face clearly. The hot water vapor would accumulate around the boy after it was bounced away, and the thick water vapor mercilessly blocked her vision, and the boy’s voice in her ear also became blurry.
If it had been a previous dream, she would have usually fallen down here. But this time, she seemed to feel that the outline of the boy, which was covered by the water vapor, was a little clearer. The looming distance gave her hope. Su Xi dug her fingers into the ground and crawled towards the boy’s feet. A large patch of bright red blood spread on the ground.
The blood continued to gush out, and the organs in her body let out a wail of overload. The surging, hot darkness was eroding her consciousness. She couldn’t help but cry out in pain.
She raised her head again. The boy’s outline seemed to be a little clearer, and it gradually began to overlap with that person’s appearance. She was just a few inches away.
Su Xi gritted her teeth, and a roar was squeezed out from between her teeth. The wound from the burn broke open, and blood gushed out. She was almost a blood man.
“Xiao Xi…”
Her name sounded in her ear. She was in a daze for a moment, and her consciousness instantly went black… she fainted.
When Su Xi woke up again, she was lying on the concrete on the side of the road. The old street was still in front of her. She had failed again… she hadn’t been able to see the boy’s face clearly.
She had a blank expression. She slowly got up and patted the dust off her body. The street was crowded again. The hot and heavy rain just now seemed to be just her illusion. Su Xi skillfully looked at the crowd. A figure with a black umbrella was gradually disappearing into the crowd.
Her nails dug into her flesh, bringing a sharp pain. But she still couldn’t wake up from the dream. She frantically grabbed a passerby, her eyes wide with anger, and pointed to the figure with the black umbrella in the crowd, shouting, “Who is that person?”
“Everyone on the street knows him. His name is…” The passerby was very scared. He also pointed to the figure and answered with a trembling voice.
“Su… Zhiyan”
