To Love You Again

As if a machine left unoiled for a long time, the man's empty eyes slowly looked up.

Standing in front of him was a woman who looked so much like his brother.

The man did not show surprise at the sudden appearance of the woman, because he had seen long ago the ghosts of the people that he had killed over time. They were haunting him even in his dreams. He never consulted a psychiatrist about it and let himself be tormented by his hallucinations.

But this illusion in front of him was different from the other images he had seen. 

The little brother in his dreams were always covered in blood, crying in pain and grievance. But the image in front of him was not bloody, rather, she looked at him with sorrow and pity.

This was the first time that the face of his brother showed him such a pair of eyes. 

"Do you want to turn back time?" the illusion in front of him asked.

The sound of rain seemed to slowly fade away.

The man's empty eyes finally showed a hint of deep sorrow. "...Yes..."

Yes, he longed to. He wanted to ask them for forgiveness, although he knew he did not deserve it. His longing must have been truly strong, resulting to this delusion.

The woman who has his brother's face slowly glowed with a warm light. Amidst the thunder and rain, none of it touched her. She held out a hand and touched the man's face. Her silver-blue eyes were full of pity.

"You've suffered."

"...I made them suffer," the man corrected absently.

"I can give you a wish. Make a wish. To turn back time," the woman said. Her eyes flashed with sadness and desperation.

"..." The man was silent. A wish to turn back time? How nice was that?

But then...

"And then? If I turn back time, so what? What if I fail?" he hoarsely asked. He was really losing his sanity, even entertaining this hallucination of his.

"I am a coward. I can never beat the demons that the devil has created within me. Once he is in front of me, my body moves on its own, following everything he say. It's been embedded in my bones. I wish I could just disappear. I am not strong enough to face them again..."

Everybody thought that he was a talented genius, but he was actually just a cowardly slave cultivated by the devil. He had no confidence that if he turned back time, he would be strong enough to overthrow the devil. 

He raised his head and looked at the dark sky for a long time.

"If you truly can grant someone a wish, then give it to someone worthy, who had more courage than me. Someone who is strong enough to face his inner demons and fight for his fate."

The illusory woman was quiet for a long time.

The empty burial ground seemed to weep as the air of desolation filled its corners. The ancestral souls inside seemed unwilling. 

The man could not hear them. He was drowning in his own guilt and despair.

After a long time, the woman's silver-blue eyes trembled. She looked behind him. To a certain soul who was haunting this man because of her grievances. 

"Then her," the woman said as her eyes were fixated on his back.

The man followed her gaze and looked back. He saw no one. But he saw a certain tombstone that did not belong to the Lu family.

It was an innocent person that had suffered because of their schemes.

Long ago, around the time when the Xiong family fell and lost their title as a legendary family, the body of the girl was found on the streets with a dead man on her lap. A certain Xiong member retrieved the dead man's body's remains while hers was supposed to be left to the hungry dogs.

The man knew of his sins, and on an impulse, perhaps brought by a sudden surge of guilt, he secretly told his people to retrieve the corpse and gave her a proper burial in the Lu family burial ground. Her remains were now lying beside the innocent people that he had killed. 

Of course, the girl probably hate him to the bones, and would rather die eaten by the hungry dogs than be buried by him.

He remembered her clearly. When he shot that man, the girl looked at his direction with boundless hatred. 

He knew of her circ.u.mstances, as she was once their prisoner and a pawn for the destruction of the two families.

He glanced at the tomb blankly. 

"If you choose her, then please do." 

The man turned back to look at the woman. If all of these happened to be real, if she was truly a ghost who could grant wishes...

"And if you can really turn back time, please do not let me remember anything. I won't be able to handle it."

The woman was silent for a moment. This descendant of hers wanted to give this precious 'wish' to a stranger. 

How could he leave it to an unrelated girl to change his fate?

The man seemed to see the question in her eyes. He answered the question in her mind.

"I don't care about my fate. If I need to suffer, then let me be. But please, make sure that my brother lives on. Even if I have to die."

"This...would depend on her. Are you really sure you want to give this wish to her?"

"…"

The man looked up at the dark sky and laughed hoarsely.

"At that time, when the man in front of her died, she looked at me with such animosity that even I who was far away felt it. I watched them from afar. She did not leave him... and chose to die with him. Isn't she praiseworthy? How I wish I could do that too, when the only person that was keeping me sane disappeared from the world. I should have also jumped down and followed him, or maybe do what he wished, to stand against the devil. But I did not do any of those. I just tormented myself every day.

"People like her deserved the second chance more than I do. So, just choose her.

"Only... If there truly was a second chance, let my bother live," he did not forget to say it again.

The woman looked at him quietly. Her eyes seemed to understand his pain and her grief overflowed.

Her silver-blue eyes looked behind him once more. She willed the spiritual force from her soul and the precipitated energy left behind by the ancestral souls.

She mouthed,

"It's now on you, strong soul."

Lightning flashed once again and the resounding thunder boomed loudly.

Standing behind the man, a pale figure of a drenched woman in her white, bloody wedding gown was illuminated. 

It was none other than Xiong Zhi.