Fall

The wind tore at their clothes, and as they stumbled into the house, they were soaked to the bone, rain dripping from their clothes.

The pungent smell of blood immediately filled the room, so strong it almost made one want to vomit.

Outside, lightning flashed and thunder roared, the blinding light briefly illuminating the interior. The wind howled like a ferocious beast, constantly battering the windows, causing the window frames to tremble and rattle.

As was customary, Blaze lit the incense. After several failed attempts, wisps of smoke finally rose from the sandalwood incense, but they could not mask the stench of blood. He knelt on one knee and vigorously cleaned away the bloodstains, leaving dark red stains on the ground.

Milo stood by the window, his eyes unfocused, gazing at the broken branches of trees destroyed in the downpour.

Half an hour earlier, Blaise had driven his shovel into the ground at an angle, knelt before the red pit, and as his rubber gloves tore open the body bag, the dark red blood droplets that splattered were quickly turned into a suspended blood mist by the rain. The stench of blood attracted swarms of flying ants, and when the body parts hit the bottom of the pit, the swarms of ants suddenly took to the air, exploding into a pale green nebula.

Milo stood aside, watching everything unfold with cold eyes.

He killed someone. Milo belatedly realized this fact. He not only killed someone, but also horribly buried the body.

There was a pack of cigarettes on the table, with a custom black and gold packaging. The pack was dented and most of it had already been smoked.

Milo's gaze shifted from the raging wind and rain outside the window to the pack of cigarettes.

Steven had started smoking in high school and had been scorned several times when he came to church. But the next time he came, he suddenly didn't smell of cigarettes anymore. When Steven asked him about it, Steven said with a hint of pride, "I had it specially made. Can't you smell it? It smells like orchids and angelica, the kind you grow in your yard."

Those trivial memories were actually from a long time ago, so long ago that he felt as if they were someone else's entire life.

Milo pulled out a black and gold cigarette and lit it. As the tobacco burned, he brought it to his lips, took a deep drag, and felt a slight choking sensation.

He didn't smoke, and when he drank, he would easily turn completely red, a fact that made him infamous among the adults at the drinking table. But nothing in this world is untrainable; in a year, two years, five years, six years, he would eventually see results. However, he always maintained a rational distance from alcohol and cigarettes, because anything that could numb his pain would diminish his determination for revenge.

The stench of blood still lingered in his nostrils, mingled with the unusual pungent smell of smoke. Yet, amidst his physical nausea and fear, Milo suddenly felt a strange and twisted pleasure. It was like a thirsty person desperately licking a dripping, old water tap, filling his parched heart with a sudden, uncontrollable, and excessive swell.

He desperately needs to find something to fill the enormous emptiness in his heart and soothe his unspeakable anxiety.

Milo slowly clenched his fist, extinguishing the burning cigarette in his palm. He slowly walked up to Blaise, stopping two steps away.

Blaze, who was kneeling and wiping away the bloodstains, suddenly stopped. He didn't look up; all he could see was Milo's shoes.

He had stomped on his ankles, broken his arms, and forced him to endure many inhuman insults.

In that instant, Blaise felt a sharp pain in his heart, as if a dull knife was cutting his flesh piece by piece.

He actually did these unforgivable things to Theo Green...

Blaze shakily raised his hand to wipe away the bloodstains that had splattered on Milo's shoes, but the bloodstains couldn't be wiped clean at all; instead, they smudged into a dirty blackish-red mess.

Milo looked down at Blaise, extending his long, slender fingers to stroke his hair. It was hard and prickly, just like the man before him—ruthless and unruly.

Blaze instinctively looked up, his eyes already red. Looking at the expressionless Milo, Blaze tried to stand up, but the moment his knees left the ground, he heard two very soft words fall.

"Kneel down."

Light as a feather, yet seemingly weighing a thousand pounds.

Blaise froze, his knees hitting the ground again, his back straight, and his head bowed.

Milo bent down and cupped Blaze's face in his hands, noticing a whip mark beneath the raincoat. Looking further down, the whip mark extended all the way down to the back of the neck, a bloody mess. The humid weather prevented it from scabbing over, leaving only a thin layer of new skin, through which blood oozed.

Milo leaned forward and placed a kiss on her lips, barely brushing against them. The kiss carried a hint of charity, and Blaise's pupils constricted, her body stiffening, feeling an intense bitterness.

"You feel a lot of pain, don't you?"

Blaise closed his eyes, unable to answer.

"What should we do?" Milo's voice was very soft and gentle. "Should we kill me? Or would it be better to cripple me and imprison me?" Milo took Blaise's hand and placed it on his neck. "Come on, aren't you very good at doing this?"

The moment the blood-stained hand touched Milo's skin, Blaze jerked back. His mind was so chaotic that even now, he couldn't think of who the person in front of him was.

Milo felt his breathing becoming unsteady. He slowly squatted down to meet Blaise's kneeling gaze.

“You promised Sigon, so you should let me leave this place. That means that whatever crazy things I do from now on, whether I live or die, is none of your business.” Milo’s voice grew softer. “Of course, it also means that even after I leave here, I’ll still be Miles’s plaything. If he goes too far one day, he’ll most likely kill me… So, is that something you can accept?”

Blaze looked up, and the thought of the years when Theo was stolen by Miles made him feel a burning rage that made his eyes ache. When he met Milo's calm eyes, his rationality was on the verge of collapse.

Blaze couldn't resist. He turned his head and carefully pressed his wrist against Milo's, inhaling his scent. It wasn't the same smell, the same feeling. How could six years possibly change a person so completely, inside and out? He was in unbearable agony, wanting nothing more than to continue smelling every trace of Milo's scent, desperately searching, like a humble dog licking its paw.

"They all say you like me, you long for me, is that true? How long have you been thinking about it? Six years, or longer?"

"Now, you can have your wish." A kiss as light as a snowflake landed on Blaise's Adam's apple, lips icy cold yet burning like a raging fire. "Do you want it?"

The voice sounded like a divine oracle or a devil's whisper to Blaise, and he suddenly understood what Milo wanted from him.

By accurately understanding his obsession with Theo Green and accumulating his guilt that had erupted due to past violence, he repeatedly tried and eventually masterfully manipulated his emotions, layer upon layer, like a python coiling around his neck, until he was completely consumed.

What Milo wanted was his absolute loyalty stripped of his dignity.

But sometimes, isn't being used the same as being needed?

Milo needs him.

Theo Green needs him.

He is needed; he is valuable.

A frenzied sexual act unfolded uncontrollably amidst a sky filled with blood, disregarding reason.

Milo was placed on a low platform, a position that gave him a high vantage point, allowing him to see every expression on Blaise's face.

A furrowed brow of forbearance, suppressed breathing, pupils dilating and contracting in response to stimulation.

Bloodstains from the tattoo on his neck mingled with sweat as they dripped down. Milo felt that Blaise was like the pythons he kept—essentially uncivilized, and his deafness and muteness, unable to communicate, only amplified his savage nature. Therefore, the moment the door was kicked open, pain outweighed pleasure, and Milo, gripping Blaise's back, uncontrollably scratched bloody welts.

Blaise couldn't resist this almost inviting response, and the string in his mind snapped completely.

It is charity, admonition, and even more so, bondage—an extremely morbid practice.

He was consciously sinking into despair.

Outside, a fierce wind and torrential rain raged, and the steel ball on Blaise's tongue piercing rolled all the way past Milo's Adam's apple, deep inside.

The second and third waves of attacks came quickly.

Amidst the relentless destruction, Milo suddenly felt that perhaps this tropical cyclone was the end of the world.

*

Outside the window, a fierce wind and torrential rain raged like an angry beast, with large raindrops pounding against the window frame, making a loud, pattering sound.

A figure knelt by the window, staring intently at the scene inside, his hands gripping the windowsill so tightly that his knuckles had turned white.

Yu-chan's body trembled violently, her wet hair clung to her forehead in strands, and rainwater streamed down her cheeks.

What I saw before me seemed to be a horrific scene from hell.

Milo's face was so white it was almost transparent, like a piece of jade that had been tempered by high temperatures. The places where the thugs had gripped him were marked with deep red marks, and Milo looked like he would die almost immediately.

Beneath their feet flowed a river of blood.

Yu-chan's thoughts drifted uncontrollably away, and amidst the howling wind and rain, the floodgates of memory were suddenly opened.

On the windswept bend of the road, he crouched low and cautiously followed behind, witnessing a murder firsthand.

He recognized the sacred dove tattoo on the corpse; it belonged to Steven.

Yuzhen shuddered violently, and in a daze, he felt that Milo had seen him, the sinister voyeur, for a moment.

Fear vines coiled around his limbs, rendering Yuzhen unable to move.

From Wudong Port to Gangu, from the cruise ship massacre to the rainforest dismemberment, a Milo who seemed utterly unfamiliar to Youzhen suddenly appeared in his mind, incredibly blurry, covered in blood.

Who exactly is Milo?

Or, to put it another way, does Milo really exist in this world?

She didn't know how much time had passed, but perhaps it was only a moment. Yuzhen suddenly woke up as if from a dream, and hurriedly clutched the luggage she had prepared.

The next second, as if being chased by a demon, he suddenly turned around, staggered, and plunged into the wind and rain, only to be swallowed by darkness in an instant.

Far outside the liveaboard cabins in the rainforest, flash floods tore through the camouflage layers of soil.

The capuchin monkey sniffed the scent and dug into the soil. A pale hand was stuck between the roots of a wild banana plant. The sacred dove tattoo on its wrist became clearer as the water flowed, and the diamond on its pinky ring sparkled.

The scream startled the night herons into flight, and as the water flowed, a corpse gradually came into view, drifting downstream with the surging river.