Book Synopsis
Book Tags
Donation Rankings
Comment
0 Comments
You May Also Like
墨書 Inktalez
I froze, my heart nearly stopping.
This was bad. I had been so focused on the Girl's Corpse that I hadn't noticed Zhao Lifeng standing behind me at some point!
I slowly turned around to meet his deep-set eyes, his expression unreadable as he looked down at me. The firelight cast shadows on his face, making his features even more difficult to discern.
Zhao Lifeng’s gaze shifted from the corpse to the photo in my hand, and I could clearly see the malice and murderous intent rising in his eyes.
This kind of look, along with the violence that followed, was not unfamiliar to me; I had faced it almost every day over the past decade.
I fought to suppress my inner fear and glanced at the tightly bound wooden door. The howling wind outside made it clear that even if I managed to escape before Zhao Lifeng could catch me, my chances of surviving in this snow-laden wilderness were slim to none.
Given that…
I might as well confront him head-on, just like last time.
Taking a deep breath, I asked him, "Is this dead girl... your fiancée?"
Zhao Lifeng didn’t confirm or deny it. He clenched his jaw tightly throughout our exchange, and I could even see the muscles in his cheeks bulging from the strain.
"You killed her, didn’t you?"
Zhao Lifeng trembled slightly as he stared at me, and then he suddenly transformed into someone else entirely—his eyes wide and bloodshot, he coldly laughed and said, "I did kill her. Because she deserved it! She betrayed me! She betrayed our love!"
"Hmph… From the very beginning, her parents looked down on me. They despised that I came from the countryside, looked down on my job as a prison guard, believing that neither I nor my family were worthy of their daughter!"
His gaze began to grow unfocused as he paced back and forth in the cramped corner, the wooden floor creaking beneath him. "To be worthy of her, to earn a little more money, I specifically applied to work in this most remote prison! I didn’t fear hardship or the long journey; all for an extra two thousand yuan a month!"
"And what did I get in return? What did my eight years of sincerity and effort yield? Damn it, all I got was her betrayal! Her parents forced us to break up and even shamelessly introduced her to new suitors! And she? She actually went to meet another man! What does that make me? What do I mean to her?"
As I watched Zhao Lifeng ranting nervously, it felt all too familiar. He was just like that ex-husband I had killed; they were both selfish in their own ways.
They spoke of love but only saw their own sacrifices, believing only in the "truth" they wanted to accept. Their wives smiled at others or exchanged a few words with other men, and they twisted every detail into evidence of betrayal. They sought to hold onto their so-called love not through communication or trust but through endless suspicion and relentless violence.
"Enough!" I interrupted his ramblings loudly. "You say your fiancée betrayed you—do you have any evidence? Just because she met a man her parents wanted her to see? You assume you’ve been cheated on? Have you ever considered that she was trying to appease her parents for the sake of your relationship?"
Zhao Lifeng was taken aback by my sudden interruption and even more so by my words. After a few seconds of stunned silence, he shouted at me, "What do you know?! She just doesn’t look at me anymore; she betrayed me!"
With red-rimmed eyes, I scoffed coldly. "If she didn’t love you anymore, why would she cut your photos into heart shapes and keep them in her pocket close to her heart? If she didn’t love you anymore, why would she trust you enough to come camping with you in such a desolate place? And you? You never even bothered to verify this with her, did you? Just because of your suspicions, you killed this girl who loved you deeply! Can you imagine what she felt when you took her life...?"
"It’s impossible…" Zhao Lifeng looked at me in disbelief, then at the Girl's Corpse, his face turning pale. "You’re lying! I can’t be mistaken! You dare to deceive me!"
As he spoke, he lunged at me, a glint of madness flashing in his eyes that I knew all too well. He knocked me heavily to the ground, my back slamming against the hard floor. Ignoring the pain, I used all my strength to push him off and ran towards the pile of firewood.
Just a few steps out, I was shoved down hard from behind by Zhao Lifeng. He pinned me down, his hands gripping my throat tightly as he muttered, "You’re lying! I won’t let you deceive me again!"
In a daze, my ex-husband's twisted face overlapped with Zhao Lifeng's. On that rainy night, he had done the same thing, choking me as I seemed to hear my own desperate cries echoing in my mind…
I struggled fiercely, my nails digging into his arms and leaving bloody scratches. The sensation of suffocation washed over me like a tidal wave.
At that moment, my fingertips brushed against something cold and hard on the ground. Without thinking, I grabbed it—it was the Little Iron Pot!
"Bang!"
The iron pot struck Zhao Lifeng’s head with a heavy thud. His grip loosened instantly as he let out a shout and fell to the side. I struggled to get up, kneeling on the ground and gasping for breath.
But Zhao Lifeng quickly stood up again, swaying as he approached me. I backed away step by step until I was almost against the wall.
Just then, a violent rumble erupted from outside the house, shaking the entire small structure.
Zhao Lifeng and I exchanged glances before he rushed over to open the small window for a look.
Outside, a blizzard had triggered a massive Landslide. In the swirling snow, enormous Snow Blocks mixed with debris and dirt surged toward the cabin like a tidal wave.
"Run!" Zhao Lifeng and I shouted almost simultaneously.
We dashed toward the door together. Zhao Lifeng tore off the bindings and flung open the wooden door. The biting cold wind mixed with snowflakes hit us in the face, making it hard to keep our eyes open.
Without time to think, I instinctively sprinted after Zhao Lifeng in the opposite direction. The deafening roar behind us sounded like an army charging forward, causing my eardrums to ache. I could even feel Snow Wave nearly brushing against my heels.
I glanced back and saw a massive white wave rapidly consuming everything in its path—trees, rocks, snow—all swept away.
The little cabin collapsed with a loud crash behind us; splintered wood and dust flew into the air before being engulfed by the rushing Snow Wave.
We were running through knee-deep snow, which made it incredibly difficult. I gasped for breath in the icy air that felt like fire burning my lungs.
As we distanced ourselves from the chaos and entered a dense thicket of trees, the momentum of the Landslide began to wane. However, we dared not stop; fallen trees posed new dangers ahead.
Surrounding trees buckled under immense pressure and fell one after another. The sound of snapping branches mingled with distant roars. The air was thick with the scent of Pine Resin and earth, mixed with a biting chill that stung my nostrils.
Suddenly, a sharp cracking sound echoed above us.
I instinctively looked up and saw a towering tree not far away, swaying precariously. The heavy snow accumulated on its crown began to fall in flurries, and the trunk slowly tilted, coming down towards us!
"Watch out!" My shout was drowned out by the thunderous crash of the tree hitting the ground.
In that split second before the crown struck us, I used all my strength to push Zhao Lifeng away. He stumbled out of the danger zone just in time.
The next moment, I felt a sharp pain in my right leg. A thick branch had fallen heavily on it, and the excruciating pain nearly made me faint, a metallic taste of blood filling my mouth.
After I pushed him away, Zhao Lifeng fell hard into the snow ahead, sending up a cloud of white powder. He turned his head, looking at me in disbelief. It had been less than five minutes since he had tried to kill me to silence me, yet here I was saving him for the second time.
The force of the landslide finally ceased behind us, and an eerie silence enveloped the surroundings. In the cold wind, only my rapid breaths could be heard clearly.
I struggled to lift my head and looked at Zhao Lifeng just a few meters away. He was still sitting on the ground, his chest heaving violently, his face smeared with snow and mud.
"Zhao Lifeng..." I managed to speak, my voice trembling from the pain. "Help me."
Zhao Lifeng slowly stood up, his gaze shifting between my face and my pinned right leg as if weighing something. Then, his eyes turned towards the direction of a small house that had been crushed by an avalanche of snow. It had become a massive pile of white debris, burying all secrets beneath its pure surface.
Comment 0 Comment Count