Chapter 133: Cemetery
The two of them had huddled together and had survived the howling cold wind all night. When they woke up the next day, it was just dawning. The mist on the ground had not yet had time to dissipate. The dark sun had broken through the dawn, and the sunlight was sparsely scattered through the clouds. The world was immersed in a dark green color.
After they had finished their breakfast at the only breakfast shop downstairs, they had taken a car to the cemetery in the suburbs.
Su Yu’s father was an only son, and his family had no relatives here. He had almost never been to this cemetery on the edge of the county. Everything along the way was very strange.
Parting the damp morning mist, the stone path leading to the mountainside was wet. The dark black mud was turned over, and the cold mountain wind was blowing from the sky above his head. He followed Xia Qiange up the steps, and he was breathing out a white water vapor. A thin layer of white frost was on his eyebrows.
Xia Qiange suddenly stopped. She held Su Yu’s hand, which was behind her, with her cold hand to confirm his existence. Her voice was almost without any warmth. “We’re here.”
Su Yu answered and carefully followed behind.
What came into view was an endless graveyard. The gray and black tombstones were neatly arranged in a formation. The grass and trees were yellow and withered. The sky in the distance was gray and white and transparent. A thin halo of light was around the clouds. The dark and distant mountains were overlapping with the farther mountains, and a small path that had been trodden by people was extending from the weeds.
“I’m going to see my mother…”
Xia Qiange took the plastic bag from Su Yu’s hand. Inside were the paper money they had bought from a vendor on the side of the suburban road. They had rushed back from the capital just because today was the anniversary of Xia Qiange’s mother’s death.
She spread a stack of paper money in front of the grave and then lit one of them with a lighter and threw it in. A half-finger-high flame soon rose in the pile of paper money and was swaying in the cold wind. The dark yellow paper quickly scattered into dark black ashes. With a gust of wind, the dark green and black smoke was scattered with the wind. The momentum of the flame was stagnant for a moment, and it soon turned into a few scattered sparks.
She threw another stack of paper money in, and the sparks soon came back from the remaining ashes. The fire suddenly flared up, and a pungent smoke was spreading. The fire snake was spitting, and it had distorted the flowing air above the ashes. The scene was instantly bizarre and motley.
Reunion night, gushing fresh blood, apples scattered all over the floor…
The dark green and black smoke was spreading in the raging fire. The long-forgotten scenes were suddenly revived, like a strange and bizarre sacrifice. She was entangled by a curse, and she was struggling in the quagmire of love and being loved.
But now she had won…
Completely, thoroughly won.
In the hazy and dark green and black smoke, her originally gentle and well-behaved profile was now as solemn as a cold wind, and it was carved with an almost undisguised coldness.
Her face was beautiful and unparalleled, but the clothes that were clinging to her back in the wind were faintly outlining her thin and almost-without-thickness spine. She was like a piece of porcelain. Her appearance was stunning, but before she could even be touched, a crack had appeared from the bottom, and she had become fragmented.
The flame was swaying in her dark eyes. She curled her thin, red lips, and her full and soft lips were as bright red as blood. She had deliberately put on makeup before she had come. That appearance did not look like she was mourning, but more like she was showing something.
God had pitied her. She had finally gotten what she had been thinking about day and night.
“Mom, do you know?”.
Her slender knuckles were pale, and her pounding heart had fallen into an endless climax. She added the last handful of paper money and reached out to caress the rough and cold stone tablet. Her low and hoarse voice was carried away by the wind and was drifting to a very, very distant and unknown place.
“I’ve finally found happiness.”
…
Su Yu was walking along the rows of stone tablets. His trouser legs were soaked by the dewy weeds on both sides of the path, and a deep black was seeping out. He had passed by rows of old tombstones and had gone up the steps again. In a daze, his gaze was fixed on a stone tablet that was completely different from the surroundings. It was a new grave, and the color was still a light gray like the sky.
He swallowed. He ignored the cold and damp morning dew and stepped on a path of wild grass. His steps were messing up his breathing, and he had finally reached the stone tablet.
The tablet was new. On the empty space in front of the stone tablet, one could vaguely see the traces of a fire. A pile of gray and black ashes was stagnant in place, as if it were waiting for him.
Su Yu stood in front of the tablet in a daze. His lips were parted and were pale from the cold in the wind. The deep and clear concave marks were outlining the inscription with a single stroke. He reached out and touched the two cold and single characters. It was his name.
“I’m back.”
He pulled at the corners of his mouth, which had been stiff for too long, and squeezed out a smile that was hard to tell if it was sad or happy.
His trembling fingertips picked up a little bit of ash and rubbed it between his fingertips. He could still feel the warmth that had not yet completely faded. He imagined that someone had been standing here just like him before he had come, and had burned the paper money into ashes in the raging fire.
They had even stepped on the same stone step, and the same path to get here… the firm idea that he had gotten after a sleepless night was suddenly shaken.
He had always had family and friends. There were actually so many people in this world who had not hurt him. He had let down their sadness and pain, but at least he should go and see them again…
He had to go back.
Su Yu suddenly stood up. His movements were rushed, and he didn’t even have time to brush off the dirty mud on his trouser legs. He was about to turn and leave, but he bumped into the person behind him.
He looked up in a daze and only then did he realize that Xia Qiange was holding the bag of unburned paper money and had been standing behind him for who knows how long. She was just looking at her, and her features were on her face, and they were as deliberate and stiff as a clay sculpture.
Then… in the next second, her expressionless face suddenly squeezed out a smile. He didn’t know if his heart was in a mess, or if he was too flustered. He just felt that the smile that had once made him feel gentle and at ease now looked inexplicably creepy.
Xia Qiange was pushed back a few steps, and the plastic bag in her hand fell down. Half a bag of paper money had all broken free, and it was flying in the sky with the wind, and a barrier of life and death was between them.
He trembled and subconsciously took a step back. A baseless fear was seeping into his pores from the surface of his skin and was tightening his scalp. His wrist was held by a hand. The force was not great, but it was as if it had a shackle that he could not escape from.
The girl squinted her cat-like eyes and saw everything. She licked her lips imperceptibly, and they were as alluring as if they had been directly smeared with fresh blood. A hint of a mischievous and triumphant look flashed in her dark eyes.
But when Su Yu wanted to investigate, she immediately furrowed her eyebrows. Her cold hand was on his forehead and she was testing it for a while. She was half-biting her lower lip and asked with some difficulty, “Did you catch a cold last night? You don’t look very well.”
“I’m fine…”, Su Yu shook his head and subconsciously wanted to avoid direct contact with Xia Qiange.
“Then let’s go…”
“Where to?”, he asked in confusion.
“To see the people you want to see. I want to make you feel a little better.”
Xia Qiange pointed to the remaining ashes in front of the grave and looked at him with her bright and hot eyes.
The illusion was suddenly shattered, like the paper money that had exposed the black at the bottom after it had been burned. It had all slipped away from his hand. It was all an illusion.
Her eyebrows and eyes had become familiar again, and they were gentler than water. Everything about her looked harmless, and her appearance was also the same. She was still the Xia Qiange he knew.
