What is it like when the person you love loves you in return?
Just like a minor supporting role on the stage, you silently serve as a background board, and no audience sees you. Suddenly, you are pushed to the center of the stage, all the lights and eyes are focused on you, and you become the unique protagonist.
It felt like being draped in wind, rain, stars, and the moon, trekking through thorny swamps, your body marked with scars, in search of a fluttering butterfly. When exhaustion took over, you paused and discovered it resting gently in your palm.
Cong Lin opened his mouth slightly, and it took a long time for him to digest Xu Hang’s words into his brain.
His face, resembling a lifeless tree, began to crack, as though new green shoots were on the verge of sprouting. It was a burst of joy after deep sorrow, overwhelming in its disbelief. His chest heaved with intensity, causing the wound on his shoulder to tear open once more, spilling blood.
“He… hehehaha… haha…” Cong Lin laughed while shaking his head. This should have been something worth being happy about, but at this moment it seemed like fate was mocking him. “He likes me? He actually, actually likes the person he hates the most? Haha… he…”
There was some belief and disbelief in this laugh.
“Never mind, never mind, I believe it’s possible. Even if it’s just a dog, after all these years, there must be some feelings. The love he has for me and the love I have for him… they’re always different.”
After laughing for a long time, he leaned his head against the wall and panted, “…Thank you so much for letting me know this before I die.”
Even if it’s just a little bit, it is still good, it seems that his efforts are not completely in vain.
It was just too late to realize that God was not kind to him at all. Apart from making him feel up and down, nothing seemed to have changed.
There is not much to say about people who are not blessed by fate.
After hearing all the stories, Xu Hang returned to the main topic: “I think you should’ve agreed with the deal I just proposed now.”
“What you want to ask is related to the Chief of Staff, right?”
Xu Hang did not answer, which was considered a tacit agreement.
Cong Lin licked his cracked lips and said, “I know you are planning something dangerous. Although it has nothing to do with me, I just hope you will remember my current fate and be careful. You are so smart. If you can live a stable life, why do you have to live on the edge of a knife?”
When a man is about to die, his words are kind. Xu Hang believed that Cong Lin’s words came from the bottom of his heart. He smiled bitterly: “You are also very smart and try very hard to live a stable life, but you can’t do it, right?”
The most difficult thing in the world is to have everything go as you wish. It is because of dissatisfaction that we kowtow and pray.
Seeking peace and stability in troubled times may just be an illusion.
Cong Lin nodded, “Ask whatever you want, as long as I know it.” His eyes darkened, and he said, “But I have another request, um… should I call it a request?”
“Say it.”
The corners of Cong Lin’s chapped mouth curled up, revealing a little bit of pitiful cunning: “Originally, I didn’t have this intention, I just wanted to leave quietly, but since you let me know his feelings, I became unwilling again… I want to tell Duan Zhanzhou all of this after I die… the more I think about it, the more aggrieved I feel. I never asked anything from him while I was alive—at the very least, maybe he’ll feel a little guilty for me after I’m gone… my mother used to say that when someone dies and reaches the Naihe Bridge, if there are still people in the mortal world who miss them, the Mengpo soup will taste sweet.”
This request made Xu Hang’s eyes light up: “Alright.” Even if Cong Lin didn’t ask for this, he would still tell Duan Zhanzhou.
What you owe must be repaid, tit for tat, this is the truth.
After they were free of worries, the two talked for a long time. The two figures on the wall overlapped and swayed, and the whole cell didn’t look so desolate.
One questioned, another answered, and just like that, the kerosene lamp was almost running out, and the cell slowly began to darken. No one could hear their conversation except the moths that flew into the fire.
After saying the last sentence, Cong Lin let out a long sigh of relief, his face full of relief, and he looked at Xu Hang and smiled gently: “I’ve been talking for so long, I’m so thirsty… Young Master Xu, give me the thing in your arms.”
Xu Hang halted midway as he tried to get up, his hand still hovering in the motion of brushing off the dirt. He looked at Cong Lin, and when he met those clear eyes, he realized—Cong Lin had seen right through him.
This guy is very smart.
“You guessed it…” Xu Hang took out a small bottle from his arms.
When Cong Lin saw the thing, he felt relieved as if the steel needle stuck in his shoulder was pulled out, and he looked at Xu Hang with more gratitude: “Because I know that you are a physician, and you are kind after all.”
It was a bottle of poison, the best poison made by Xu Hang. After drinking it, the limbs were paralyzed, the heart gradually stopped, there was no pain, and it looked just like a sudden death.
He believed that even if he was treated as a worthless person, Cong Lin would rather die with dignity, and it was more decent to drink poison and commit s*icide than to be shot in front of people. But he kept hesitating whether he should take it out or not.
Placing poison before someone is no different from sending them to their death—it’s still an act of cruelty.
He slowly placed the bottle in Cong Lin’s right palm. Cong Lin looked at it for a while, then slowly raised his knees and brought the bottle to his mouth. He tried to bite the lid open, but it was in vain. Finally, Xu Hang pulled out the cork for him and held it in front of him.
Cong Lin suddenly asked, “Is this sweet?”
Before life and death, this is what he cares about.
Xu Hang squeezed out a sound from between his teeth with great difficulty: “…It’s sweet.”
“It’s really good.”
He smiled like a child who had just been given candy. Gripping the bottle’s mouth, he drank it all. The sweet poison slid down his throat, settling in his stomach. His lips parted, and the bottle slipped from his hand, shattering on the ground.
He loved sweet things, but he rarely had it in his life. Looking back, he realized he had worked so hard for Duan Zhanzhou simply because he was the first person to ever give him something sweet.
After finishing the drink, Cong Lin wore only a joyful smile, looking nothing like someone on the brink of death.
After picking up the debris on the ground and the kerosene lamp, Xu Hang walked up the stairs step by step.
Behind him, Cong Lin’s tightly clenched left hand slowly loosened. The torn tendons robbed him of control over his strength, and only after a long moment did the object hidden in his palm finally come into view.
It was a small candle in the shape of a pine tree.
At that moment, his tears dripped from his smiling eyes, and he cried unrestrainedly. He probably hadn’t cried much in his life, and now it was the last time, if he didn’t vent his feelings, his life would be in vain.
He felt aggrieved, really aggrieved.
He has suffered so much, not a single spot of his skin is healthy, he has no relatives, no friends, no lover, no brothers, no sisters, no home, and even when he finally cries, no one comforts him either.
He must have done something wrong in a past life, which is why he has to endure so much in this one. But he’s also committed many sins in this life, and he fears that in the next, he still won’t find peace.
He cried until he was out of breath, until the effect of the drug took effect. His limbs began to become numb, and he gradually lost the strength to cry. What suddenly appeared before his eyes was that year, that night, that wall, and that youth holding the cake, the cause of all his disasters, the love that was engraved in his bones.
In a trance, he seemed to see Cong Wei coming to pick him up. He couldn’t wait to have a private conversation with his sister.
Sister, you were right. Cream is truly a taste I’ll never experience in my life.
Sister, I have killed too many people. I cannot enter the cycle of reincarnation, and I don’t want to be a human being again either.
Sister, I miss you so much. I’m sorry, but I still have to come down to find you.
His last teardrop hit the candle, and his hand softened. Cong Lin’s head drooped, his eyelids closed, and he fell into the longest sleep.
Xu Hang took the final step. The kerosene lamp in his hand ran out of oil and extinguished with a quiet sadness. The light faded, and darkness swept in.
Looking back with the lamp, there are no bones left to bury, the withered vines are cold, and the moss has withered away.
