amazing stories

Chapter 26 Ashes of Shadows (4)

The loan matter was settled quickly.After that, I gave the middle-aged female care worker a sum of money, enough to surprise her with a meager salary.I said I would go out for a while, told her to take good care of my father, and promised to pick him up in half a year at most.The nurse, a rude but kind-hearted person, readily obliged.

That night, I suddenly woke up in a dream, the content of the dream was vague, but I somehow remembered the two words my father said to Su Ya that day.

pity.

The day of elopement was set on a weekend, but it was still late at night.Su Ya was a little surprised by the meeting place I proposed, but I insisted on it, and she could only agree.

Although it is a rebuilt warehouse, after 20 years, it is still as dilapidated as I remember.Under the dim light, everything around me is like a faded oil painting.I walked slowly in the warehouse, brushing my fingers over the dusty and broken tables and chairs. The roughness of my fingertips felt like a file, polishing off the hard crust on the memories.

Su Ya stayed by my side, but she didn't intend to stay longer, looking at her watch constantly.After she couldn't bear it anymore, she asked in a low voice, "Are you okay? Can we go?"

I turned around slowly.Maybe it was the tears in my eyes that frightened Su Ya, she stopped urging and just looked at me fixedly.

I grinned at her, a horrible smile from the look on her face.

Sorry, I have to start here.Because, his end point is my starting point.

"Cheng Yu, here I come." I looked around the dilapidated warehouse, and the random objects left mottled shadows on the wooden walls, as if there were countless secrets hidden.

I know that he has always been here, with unfulfilled wishes and unsolved mysteries until death.

"What are you doing?" Su Ya took a step forward, grabbed my arm tightly, but kept looking out the window, "Don't scare me."

I hugged her in my arms, looked at the void in front of me and said, "Sorry, I came here to see you so late..."

The sudden tears made me choked up so that I could not speak, but my heart was relieved.

"...I will take her away, I will give her hope, happiness, joy, and support—just like you did 20 years ago."

Su Ya in her arms suddenly stopped struggling.

"You have to bless us, you and I have always been good friends, haven't you?" I hugged Su Ya tightly, "Forgive me for my selfishness and cowardice back then. I am afraid of losing you, and I am even more afraid of losing Su Ya. Forgive me Okay? All these years, I've been..."

"It turned out that you were the one who informed."

Suddenly, a broken voice sounded from the corner of the room.

I froze as if struck by lightning, until the figure slowly emerged from the darkness.

I thought that everything has a cause and effect, I thought that good and evil will be rewarded, and I thought that a entangled soul can really stay together for a long time.

However, that was just Su Kai.

But, doesn't he remember it too?

Su Ya in her arms broke free with a scream, stepped back a few steps, leaned back against a pile of old tables and chairs, and asked tremblingly, "How do you know we're here?"

Su Kai didn't answer, but approached me step by step.

"So you're leaving?"

His voice was like two rusty saws cutting each other, and I smelled danger, more fate.

Everything is reversed in time, but this time the protagonist is me.

"Su Kai," I moved slowly, trying to stand in front of Su Ya, "I'm sorry, I know..."

"Why did you betray me?" Su Kai didn't seem to understand what I said, his eyes without eyelids were wide open, and his wrinkled face like orange peel twitched non-stop.

"Whether it was 20 years ago or now, I have to apologize to you." I seemed to be facing an unspeakable monster, "It is my fault that I ruined your life. But there is one thing you must understand ——I love your sister, I can give her what you can't, let us go, okay?"

This seemed to be a ridiculous sentence, Su Kai stopped and looked at me in surprise, and then burst out laughing.

In the narrow warehouse, his laughter was deafening, and the terrible sounds erupting from the depths of his chest hit the dusty rags, making everything crumble.

"Love?" Su Kai's face was terrified because of that big laugh, and there was even a trace of unspeakable sorrow, "Do you love her? What can you give her? Can you give her 20 years? Can you give her a stranger?" Can you give her an unrecognizable mother—"

Suddenly, he violently pulled a piece of orange peel on his face, and his voice suddenly increased: "——Can you give her such a face?"

I was so shocked that I couldn't be more shocked. After a long time, I murmured: "Su Kai, you..."

"Stop talking, he's not Su Kai."

Su Ya's weak voice suddenly came from behind.

"He is Cheng Yu."

20 years ago.

Su Kai shook for a while, half turned around, as if he wanted to know who the heavy blow came from, but he only made half of this action, and he fell down with a "plop".

Cheng Yu, who was bleeding from the corner of his mouth, collapsed on the ground, looked at Su Kai who was still twitching from time to time, and then looked at Su Ya who was trembling all over holding a table leg.

She was panting heavily, her loose hair stuck to her sweaty face, but she couldn't hide the sharp cold light in her eyes at all.There is both fear and relief.

The frequency of Su Kai's convulsions became lower and lower, and finally he didn't move at all.

Cheng Yu came back to his senses first, crawled over with difficulty, stretched out his hand under Su Kai's nose, and then trembled.

"Su Kai..." Cheng Yu turned his head to Su Ya, his face was pale, "Dead...dead."

Su Ya didn't seem to hear this sentence, she was still tense all over, maintaining the posture just now, staring at Su Kai motionlessly.

Suddenly, the cold light in Su Ya's eyes disappeared, replaced by boundless despair.The table leg in his hand fell to the ground slumped, and his whole body went limp.

Cheng Yu rushed over to help her, but was pushed away by Su Ya, and when he passed by, there was a table leg handed over in front of him.

"Kill me, kill me!" Su Ya looked almost crazy, "Please, kill me!"

Cheng Yu was so frightened that he waved his hands again and again: "No... no, how can I..."

"Kill me! Otherwise, my mother and I will be finished." Su Ya knelt on the ground, hugging Cheng Yu's leg, pleading, "I killed someone, I pay for my life, I can't hurt my mother...Keep on... …please!"

Cheng Yu looked at the messy black hair and let Su Ya keep shaking her body, but the expression on her face gradually returned to calm.

After a long time, he stretched out a hand, touched Su Ya's head, and asked in a low voice, "Do you love me?"

Su Ya stopped her movements, raised her head, and looked at Cheng Yu in bewilderment, who was looking back at her with a firm gaze that she had never seen before.This look made her strange, and made her feel more at ease.

Su Ya nodded.

A few minutes later, Cheng Yu and Su Kai had exchanged clothes.Immediately afterwards, he pushed a pile of dilapidated tables and chairs onto Su Kai's body, and the sound of skull cracking was clearly audible.Then, he picked up the gasoline barrel that Su Kai brought, and poured all the liquid in the barrel on it.

"What are you going to do?"

Cheng Yu had already found Su Kai's lighter from his pocket, he turned around and smiled at Su Ya, calm and gentle.

"If there is a fire, we cannot be condemned."

The fire burned quickly.Cheng Yu and Su Ya stood side by side in front of the fire, silently watching Su Kai's body being enveloped in flames.The pungent burnt smell spread in the warehouse.Cheng Yu turned around and looked at Su Ya steadfastly. Against the backdrop of the fire, his face was sharp and angular, as perfect as a sculpture.

"Remember my face, remember." After saying that, he turned and threw himself into the fire.

Su Ya screamed and reached out to grab him, but only had time to touch the corner of his clothes.

After a burst of screaming and rolling, Cheng Yu, who was covered in smoke, stood up from the fire.His hair had been burned off, and all that remained of his once handsome face was a bloody mass.

He staggered over, held Su Ya's hand, and squeezed out a smile from the scorched flesh.

"That way, we can be together forever."

"...and you are leaving me now."

Su Kai, no, Cheng Yu stood in front of me and Su Ya, staring at Su Ya with eyes that could never be closed.

Su Ya struggled to stand up straight, took my arm and said loudly, "Yes!"

Cheng Yu's body trembled, and he seemed to be a little unsteady.

"Haven't I paid enough? These 20 years..."

“我也付出了20年！”苏雅已经变得歇斯底里，“20年！一个女人最好的20年！每天都要陪伴一个魔鬼的20年！每天都要对魔鬼感恩戴德的20年！每天都要忍受无休止的虐待和奸污的20年！”

Cheng Yu's body was slowly shrinking, he seemed to be half a head shorter, and his tone was begging.

"What do you want? I'll give you..."

"A person! A man!" Su Ya interrupted him mercilessly, "A man who can be my husband with dignity!"

Cheng Yu stopped talking, but his stooped body was slowly straightening.His face twitched, and he seemed to be laughing.

"Okay then." He whispered, "Okay."

Cheng Yu took out his hand from behind, holding a plastic bucket in his hand, the liquid inside was faintly red.

"Let us be together forever." Cheng Yu slowly unscrewed the bottle cap, muttering to himself dreamily, "We will be together forever."

"No, don't do that." I broke free from Su Ya, and tried to grab him, "Cheng Yu, calm down..."

Suddenly, Cheng Yu punched me in the face, this blow made me stare, and I took a few steps back before stopping.

When he came back to his senses, Cheng Yu had an extra table leg in his hand, the plastic bucket had been overturned on the ground, and gasoline was gurgling on the ground.

He approached me step by step, his distorted face was extremely ferocious.My heart was cold, and I could only wave my hands in vain.

"Cheng Yu, don't..."

"This, everything, has nothing to do with you!"

In the furious roar of each word, he had already waved the table legs and hit him head-on and face-to-face.

In the severe pain and dizziness, I could only hear Su Ya's scream.As consciousness faded away, my last memory was of a flickering flame and two entangled figures.

But whose hands are those that drag me?
When I woke up in the hospital, it was already a day later.

The police told me that the warehouse was once again a charred ruin after 20 years.Firefighters found two charred bodies in the fire.The male corpse hugged the female corpse tightly, making it difficult to separate.Even if they were removed, two black human figures remained on the ground, like shadows turned into ashes.

Cheng Yu and Su Ya are really together forever.

My father saved me.I didn't expect that in his little sanity, he still retained the instinct to distinguish evil.Therefore, when he saw Cheng Yu for the first time, he realized that he was dangerous.On the evening when Su Ya and I planned to leave, Cheng Yu came to the nursing home to find the missing Su Ya.In Cheng Yu's mother's vague words and fierce gestures, he guessed our relationship and whereabouts.

My father miraculously became conscious that day. He witnessed everything and followed Cheng Yu quietly until the warehouse.

When I knew this, my father still stayed with me in the hospital.Unfortunately, he fell into unpredictable chaos again.So, with his scorched hair on his head, he stubbornly sat cross-legged on the bedside table, staring at me with piercing eyes, and refused to get down.The afternoon sun shone through the window into the ward, and his shadow was projected onto the wall, like a huge sickle, slowly cutting off the rest of my time.

(End of this chapter)