Chapter 69 p2: Snake’s Tongue
The phone, with its low battery, lay quietly in his palm. The model was a bit old, but at least it could connect to the internet, and the screen was in a language he could understand. He held it tightly, as if it would suddenly disappear from his sight in the next second.
This period of imprisonment had completely separated him from his past. Looking back, the memories of the past had already begun to blur, covered with a layer of shadow, deeply buried under the cold and thick ice and snow of the North Country.
He had tried his best to avoid recalling the past, but he would still suddenly recall some dusty scenes on a certain quiet night.
The appearance of those scenes was abrupt and fragmented, like a grain of glass slag falling into his heart, slowly accumulating, and piercing into his flesh and blood with the beating of his heart, causing a heart-wrenching pain. He would hide in the heavy bedding, sweating profusely in pain, and he would be sleepless all night.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to, but those memories had neither color nor sound, as if they were silently telling him a bloody reality. The current Su Yu was just a handful of yellow earth buried in front of a tombstone, a dead person, a lonely ghost that could not be recognized by people.
Su Yu’s trembling fingertips slid on the screen. It was as if this were a ferry ticket connecting the past and the present, taking his day and night thoughts back to the days after his death.
The phone could connect to the network over there, but he didn’t have the slightest desire to escape in his heart. He was so desperate that he couldn’t even muster the desire to resist. He was already in a quagmire that he couldn’t escape from. No matter how he struggled, in the end, he would only drag the rescuer into the abyss with him.
Things couldn’t be hidden for too long. The woman would probably soon realize that something was wrong. Perhaps at that time, he would have to suffer a lot of pain and torment. But so what? What made him desperate was never the short-term pain, but the fact that when he looked into the distance, his future was only this endless gloomy wind and snow.
There were too many things he cared about that were piled up in his heart, so chaotic that it made him feel a little confused. He was in a daze and had almost forgotten how long he had been here. Perhaps many things had already changed, and he couldn’t find their original appearance anymore.
He suddenly remembered the summer when he was about to take the gaokao.
The girl should have already gone to college. She was probably a sophomore. If he could go back to school, he would definitely be pestered by that girl to call her “senior sister.”
Su Yu suddenly had an idea. He searched for the official website of Yangming High School online. He remembered that the school would post the graduation photos of the graduating students every year. The internet was a bit slow, but it couldn’t stop the fire in his heart. The progress bar slowly reached the end, and the headline that popped up on the official website came into his view. His pupils contracted uncontrollably, and he almost thought he had seen it wrong.
He Mu Qing’s name was high on the red list, the first place among the graduating students of Yangming High School. Below was the girl’s graduation photo. He suppressed the wetness in his eyes and enlarged the photo in his blurry vision. He saw the girl in the crowd at a glance.
The girl was always so dazzling in the crowd. She was wearing a very simple plain dress and was leaning against the large camphor tree in front of the teaching building. Two playful pigtails were on her fair and slender neck and shoulders. Even the gesture she often made when taking pictures was familiar to him, as if the girl were standing in front of him, alive and well.
So good… so good. It’s good that she’s okay.
The corners of his lips couldn’t help but curl up, and the stiff muscles that had not been raised for a long time were pulled. He reached out and gently caressed the girl’s face in the photo. His fingertips trembled slightly, as if he were afraid of hurting this beautiful thing that he had been dreaming of.
“Hey, you lost. I’m coming to Qingchuan. You have to treat me to milk tea every day. You dare to go back on your word!”
He suddenly had the urge to hear the girl’s voice. Once the thought arose, it couldn’t be stopped. But his fingers were hovering over the number pad and he didn’t make a move for a long time.
He could only lower his eyes in dejection and continue to stare at the girl in the photo in a daze. The mottled color blocks on his retina slowly peeled off, and the photo became a black and white background, like the dark mountains covered with white snow outside the window, without a single bit of color.
“I’m sorry…”
Too many words to say, but only these three words were filtered out. They were so thin and weak that even he himself couldn’t hear them clearly. They disappeared into the cold air before they could even spread.
All his old social media accounts had been canceled. He could only search around in a daze, looking for traces of the past on various public forums or websites that he could access. He saw many people he missed, and many people had suddenly disappeared.
He hugged his legs and leaned against the door of the bedroom. The fabric on his knees was a little wet, and it was a little prickly in the cold air. He said goodbye repeatedly in a muffled voice. Actually, he also knew that if he couldn’t find them now, then it might be a permanent farewell. He would never see them again.
He was still a little unwilling. Besides a few graduation photos they had taken a few years ago, he couldn’t find a single trace of Xia Qiange in the end.
In the photo, the blue and white striped school uniform was a little loose on her thin body. The girl always had a frail and weak appearance that made people feel sorry for her, as if a gust of wind could blow her over.
Su Yu remembered that her personality was a little timid at that time, and her voice was also small. Every time he talked to the girl from the back of the desk, he had to lean down a little to hear her clearly.
The soft and gentle voice seeped into his eardrums, and the warm and fragrant hot wind blew on his cheeks. He could smell the pleasant gardenia fragrance on the girl’s body with a light sniff, which aroused his naive and innocent desire like at that time.
The painstaking effort to stay away was just his own self-righteous fantasy in the end. He always thought that since he could live another life, why wouldn’t Xia Qiange have some changes? Was he too stubborn, so much so that he had made some wrong choices?
He was happy that Xia Qiange in this life would not be too sad because of the not-so-close relationship between them. But he couldn’t help but feel regretful. He wished he could do it all over again, and then he sarcastically felt that this kind of craving was a little ridiculous.
The phone popped up a message that it was about to run out of battery. He took a last deep look at Xia Qiange, as if he wanted to carve her in the photo in his mind and never forget her.
“Goodbye.”
Although the hard and cold ice slag in his heart was so painful that he could barely speak, he still said the last goodbye with a smile. Su Yu put the phone in the inner pocket of his clothes and wiped the clear water marks that had condensed on his cheeks from his tears. He stood up and opened the door behind him without any warning. He lowered his head and walked forward, but he almost bumped into the figure standing outside the door.
He looked up in a daze. The phone was quietly pressed against his suddenly and violently heaving chest. The coldness of the screen pierced his skin and pores, and it stung his fragile heart. The woman, who had been expressionless the second before he had met her gaze, instantly squeezed out a brilliant and concerned smile and smiled at him. But it made a chill run down his spine, and a creepy fear suddenly arose in his heart.
He subconsciously followed his instinct and took a few steps back. But the woman was pressing on him step by step. She grabbed his wrist, and her long and powerful fingers held his slender wrist bone and fiercely rubbed his flesh and blood. The force was surprisingly great, and it almost broke the bone in his palm.
Gu Zhi curved her long, narrow eyes, and a smile was in the end of her dark eyeshadow. She stared at the fear on Su Yu’s face, and her eyeballs were rolling quickly in her eye sockets, scanning every detail on his body. She stuck out her bright red tongue and licked the corners of her lips, like a cold and sinister poisonous snake that was subconsciously flicking its tongue before preying.
“Xiao Yu, my patience has really been used up by you. You’re still so disobedient. Tell me… how should we continue to play this house game?”
