Chapter 24: Reunion, Part 2
He savored this story, his eyes lowered, his lips occasionally pursed.
There seemed to be a hint of revenge in the words, a genuine hatred for a person, a naked wish for her to be worse off, to suffer more than him. He wouldn’t have to dirty his hands, and he would have his revenge.
A wave of a triumphant emotion was like a small and inconspicuous flower in the tide of his emotions, and it was annihilated, and it had turned into a mud and sand and had sunk to the bottom of the sea.
In his impression, the woman was a person who always put on airs. She was elegant, graceful, and dignified… these words were overused on her, and her every move was filled with a noble and elegant aura.
Such a person, yet she had been called a madwoman in the past. So she had always hidden her dark and obsessive side. And she was also self-conscious in her bones. She would just smile at the gossip and slander from the outside world, and she would be hysterical behind her back.
He knew very well that this was her sensitive and painful spot, a reverse scale that could not be touched, and he had also borne the consequences. The pain was at her seventh inch, and she had bared her fangs with an uncontrollable anger, and she had used the same pain to make him remember. He had sarcastically said that she was strong on the outside but weak on the inside, and that she could cover it up, but it was just a self-inflicted humiliation.
But in An Zhi’s story, Gu Zhi would always sit in her room in a daze, and she would numbly watch as the people outside were gossiping about her. From time to time, a few words like “psycho” and “madwoman” would float by.
The little girl had said with a lingering fear that the woman would really go crazy. She would smash the hospital room to pieces, and her hair would be messy, and her eyes would be wide with anger. That was not at all the Gu Zhi who was admired and respected at school. It was more like another soul had taken over her body.
“She’s not Teacher Gu, because her eyes are gray.” An Zhi had swallowed, and she had said with a little nervousness.
“Like she’s dead.”
…
Death, mixed with the most intense emotions, the result was a quiet gray, like a contradiction between water and fire. It had easily destroyed the feelings that had been integrated into thousands of days, and it had just scattered, and it had fallen into the soil, and it had turned into a nourishment.
A sweet-scented osmanthus tree was at the entrance of the orphanage. It had been planted when it was first built. It would bloom every year, and in the desolate and yellow winter, its leaves were still green, and they were rustling in the cold wind. It was very similar to the one he had seen through the window of the infirmary in elementary school.
The tree was planted on a small hillside. Gu Zhi had moved a red plastic stool and was sitting under the not-so-tall sweet-scented osmanthus tree.
She was looking down and was picking up the few scattered sweet-scented osmanthus leaves that had fallen from the branches. She didn’t have much spare money to buy green plants, so she had picked them up and had put them in the house to add some color. The sweet-scented osmanthus tree was evergreen, and its flowers would bloom in the golden autumn. This one had just withered not long ago. The sweet-scented osmanthus she had picked had been used to cook a few times of a sweet-scented osmanthus paste for the children, and there was still a lot left.
She was a little tired from bending down. She had straightened her spine and had sat up. Her back was proper, and she had gently tied up the messy hair by her ear. Her demeanor was elegant, and her gaze was on the long and dark asphalt road on her left.
In the winter, the suburbs were a shocking gray and withered. The dry and bald branches were trembling in the cold wind. The distant mountains were connected to the distant mountains, and the black of the mud and the yellow of the withered leaves were all over the desolate and low mountain range.
The wind had messed up her hair, which she had not taken care of for a long time. A head of a beautiful and dark black hair had split ends, and it was a little dry and rough. She had put on some cheap and fragrant cream from a small shop nearby. Her delicate and delicate skin could not withstand the ravages of the cold wind. A touch of a frozen red was at the corners of her long and narrow eyes, and her skin was dry, like a cruelly withered lily. The rough and black soil here could not support her naturally noble bones.
Gu Zhi was sitting in the cold wind, and the tips of her ten fingers were white. Her distinct joints had long since lost their sensation. She had rubbed her palms and had covered a small gap. She had breathed a hot breath into it, and her cheeks were red from the cold. Behind her, down the hillside was the old mansion of the Gu family, but she had not gone back.
More than ten years ago, she had returned to the Gu family from the elementary school where she had been driven away. She had asked for this long-neglected mansion and had converted it into an orphanage. Most of the children here were surnamed Gu, and almost every one of them had a dark story behind them. The Gu family was a behemoth, and the darkness behind it was vast. A group of people who could not see the light but were extremely eager were living there.
After a while, the cold wind was even stronger, and the sky had turned gray again. The clouds were thick, and it was clear that the first snow of the winter was about to fall.
The tiger’s mouth was suddenly in a wave of a pain. There was a long and thin scar that had scabbed over, and it had been cut by a knife. Auntie Jing was getting old, and her body was tired after the winter had come. She had been in the kitchen more often, and the lights were very dim. In the end, she had cut a small opening in a daze.
She had lightly bitten her teeth, and her hand had torn open the scab a little, and then she had slowly torn it open. Her eyes were struggling, and it was not very comfortable. A small piece of a scar had been torn off, and the pink and not-yet-healed flesh underneath was exposed.
This pain was like deliberately pressing on an inflamed wisdom tooth, and it was revealing the blood scab on the wound. She was looking for a kind of a almost-morbid comfort in the pain, as if she would be forgiven if she was in pain.
Gu Zhi had gently blown on the wound. She had heard a childlike and childish voice calling her from behind. She had turned her head and had seen a little girl with pigtails. She was standing at the bottom of the hillside and was waving at her, and she was thoughtfully asking her to go back, as it was cold outside.
She had smiled and had said okay, but she had sat there without moving. She had watched as the little girl had run into the house with her short legs, and a few other children were on the window and were all looking at her.
She had been amused by this scene and had laughed out loud. Only then had she lowered her head and had patted the mud on her trouser legs, and she was about to stand up.
But in the next second, a black shadow had completely enveloped her.
Gu Zhi had slowly raised her head.
He was in a black shirt and black pants, and his features were beautiful. But his eyebrows were slightly furrowed, and his collar was neat. His hair was messy, and it was full of contradictions, just like the struggling vortex in his eyes.
“Why are you sitting outside in this cold weather?”
Su Yu had glanced at the thin and flowery, thin cotton coat on her. A few colorful puddings were on her shoulders, and her pants were also long and bulky and were made of cotton. Her body was light and plain and white, and it was in line with her elegance, but it did not match her noble and elegant demeanor.
When had she become so dejected?
Gu Chuan had told him that all her money had been given away, in the big order he had received. Gu Chuan had also told him where she was. The orphanage here was a somewhat sensitive place. He had run away from here back then. This was the starting point of the two of them having their identities swapped.
“You… how did you get here?”
The surprise in her eyes was fleeting, and the concealment of her emotions was flawless.
“Someone asked me to come. Don’t ask too many questions.” He had added, “I know everything.”
Actually, Gu Chuan had not asked him to come. On the contrary, he had advised him.
Gu Zhi was not a person who would be willing to be unarmed and put herself in a desperate situation. You couldn’t tell which of her words were true and which were false. She seemed to have stepped into a trap and was covered in wounds, and she was frail and helpless. But no one knew when she would show her fangs and bite your neck.
If you don’t get in touch, at least you won’t get hurt.
“Alright then. I won’t ask.”
She had smiled awkwardly, and she was a little thin. The flesh on her cheeks was less, and her cheekbones were high, which made her features look even more deep and three-dimensional. There was a kind of an exotic and charming beauty, and it was a broken, and a fragmented and destructive beauty.
She had fallen into a silence. After being with the children for a long time, she, who had always enjoyed solitude, had also become a little talkative, and she could not be quiet. She had held his sleeve, and when she had seen that he had not rejected her, she had held his wrist. “It’s cold. Let’s go back. I’ve cooked some sweet-scented osmanthus paste. I remember… you used to like it very much?”
Su Yu had not answered her. He had coughed and had raised his head. He didn’t know if he should think deeply, but the more he thought, the more his heart was cramping. He had been so vicious at that time, and he had never thought that she would stand in front of him so completely.
“I’m so happy that you’ve come.”
The corners of her lips were still curved into a faint smile, and the red of her eye tails was even wetter from the wind.
If he hadn’t come, what could she have done? The conspiracy and the tricks had been used to their wit’s end. But time was passing. Her youth was gone, and her appearance, and her health, these could not be remade.
She could no longer feel the gentleness of him holding her clothes and following behind her, calling her “sister.” She could not see his happy and smiling eyebrows and eyes. She could not touch, and she could not snuggle. She could not even look at him. Even looking at his back had become a luxury.
In a few more years, she would not be so beautiful. If the flowers that had bloomed and had withered in the winter had fallen to the ground and had been mercilessly eroded by the mud. She had slowly moved away from his life, and he would even gradually forget her death, and he would let the erosion of time become a tacit and natural rule.
Thinking about it, there were really too many things in this world that were more painful than death.
He had casually chosen one, and it could be used as the sharpest knife in his revenge. It had stabbed into her heart, and it had easily made her in so much pain that she was on the verge of death.
Su Yu’s gaze had turned away from her face, and he was looking at the villa that was on the hillside. The rusty iron gate was hung with a bright red and large lantern, and the children’s naïve paintings were crookedly pasted on the wall. Her hand, which was in his palm, was so cold that it had no sensation.
“On New Year’s Eve, do you want to be together?”
“But there are still children here…”.
She was stunned for a moment, and she had quickly understood his meaning.
“I’ll prepare. They should be very happy.”
“Let’s go back. It’s cold.”
“Xiao Yu…”, she had said in a low voice, and she had repeated his name, once… and again.
“Hmm?”
“Nothing. It’s just… so good.”
