Chapter 16 Broken Mirror "How is he better than me?"

The snow light is very stingy, only a little bit can penetrate.

Place it on the sofa fabric.

The warm yellow light in the room created a warm yet fake cocoon that enveloped her hair, her eyes, and every inch of her body.

Yu Peizhi sat opposite her, his eyes slightly lowered, his face still handsome and gentle.

It does look a lot like Xunli.

But it was this ubiquitous image that wove the web that initially led to her downfall.

It has also become the rope that is now tightening around her neck.

It's too quiet inside.

Ever since she mentioned those two words in the car on the way back, Yu Peizhi became unusually quiet.

He didn't say it was good, nor did he say it was bad.

He didn't question or go crazy, he just drove forward, very steadily.

Zhui Lian's voice seemed a little abrupt in the overly quiet living room.

She called him: "Pei Zhi."

Yu Peizhi raised his head, his eyes gentle but confused.

"us……"

Zhui Lian felt like there was air in her throat that she couldn't breathe in or out.

"After returning to S City, let's go to the Civil Affairs Bureau to complete the formalities." She finally said the prepared words, and her throat suddenly relaxed.

"It's my fault for using you as a substitute."

Her throat felt looser and looser, and her whole body felt more relaxed.

"It's unfair to both you and Xunli."

Zhui Lian spoke faster and faster, one sentence after another, "Let each other go. It will be better for everyone."

There was a long silence.

It was so long that Zhui Lian almost thought time had stopped.

Only the hum of the heating pipes became unusually clear.

Then she heard a very soft response, like a sigh.

"good."

Zhui Lian suddenly raised her eyes.

She saw a hint of snow on Yu Peizhi's face, which made his lips look bright red.

But there was no surprise or anger, nor was there even a trace of laughter.

There was only a calmness that was almost compassionate.

This unexpected compliance is more frightening than fierce opposition.

"You must be tired today. Go to bed early." Yu Peizhi stood up, walked over, and habitually wanted to rub the top of her head.

Zhui Lian suddenly turned his head to avoid it.

Yu Peizhi's hand was suspended in the air, paused, and finally slowly withdrew.

His eyes dimmed, but he didn't say anything more. He just whispered, "Good night, Lianlian."

Yu Peizhi stood up and walked towards the guest room. His back blended into the darkness of the corridor without looking back.

The door lock fell with a slight "click", as if to put a pause on this short conversation.

Zhui Lian returned to the master bedroom and closed the door gently.

She lay in bed, motionless, and the world was very quiet.

There was no movement in the guest room next door, only the occasional sound of wind passing by outside the window.

Belatedly, Zhui Lian's heart suddenly twitched.

It hurts a little.

But it was also easier than ever before.

＊

Until the second half of the night, Zhui Lian actually slept very lightly.

Ever since the warehouse incident, her dreams have been shattered and she is always disturbed by an invisible sense of being watched.

Now, she woke up again.

Not by a nightmare, but by a rustling sound.

It was a very subtle sound, but it continued.

The sound came from the other end of the living room.

——The direction of the bathroom.

Should I pretend I didn't hear it? She reached for her bedside phone and saw the time: three in the morning.

Just hold on for another three hours until dawn.

There seemed to be another "bang—crash—!"

Zhui Lian pulled the quilt up to the level of her chest, and forced herself to close her eyes to avoid listening to the voice.

But then, these sounds continued to ring every night.

This made Zhui Lian's already thin sleep even more restless.

Yu Peizhi passed by her, carrying his drawing board on his back and going out to collect folk songs again.

"Yu Peizhi!" Zhui Lian called him and asked, "Did you... hear any noise in the middle of the night?"

Yu Peizhi was tying his shoelaces with his head down. He turned around and looked at her and said, "No."

Zhui Lian looked at him, seemingly unconvinced.

"If you suspect that I'm doing something, I don't have to come back tonight." Yu Peizhi's tone was very calm, and he spoke plainly without any waves.

Zhui Lian opened her mouth, the words of promise turning to her lips, then turned into: "...That's not what I meant."

"Is there anything else?" Yu Peizhi said politely, "If not, I'll leave first."

As he pushed open the door, he suddenly turned around and said, "There's some old duck soup warming up in the rice cooker. It's ready to drink."

“Of course,” he added, “you don’t have to drink it.”

The door was closed, and Zhui Lian stood there, his eyes fixed on the door.

Since the day after she filed for divorce, Yu Peizhi became like this, polite and keeping his distance.

This should have been the result she wanted most.

The easiest ending.

But why did her heart still skip a beat at this moment?

At the gate of the residential complex where Zhui Lian's heartbeat could no longer be heard, Yu Peizhi turned into the pharmacy at the end of the alley and bought a pack of Band-Aids.

The Band-Aid was applied to the knuckles where there were no wounds.

Of course he saw Zhui Lian's pale cheeks, bloodless lips, and eyes that seemed to be covered with a layer of mist from a long period of restless sleep.

Before going out in the morning, she wanted to hold my hand... but then she withdrew her hand.

The figure under the white cotton nightgown was so thin that it seemed to be shaky, and the wrists were so slender that they seemed to be broken at any moment.

It doesn't matter.

Yu Peizhi grinned.

Very soon, very soon, very soon.

His Lianlian can sleep well.

*

Black, bottomless black, enveloped the living room.

Zhui Lian just turned the doorknob of the master bedroom and came out of the room.

She needed to go to the bathroom because she drank too much water during the day.

The old duck soup was stewed in a rich and fragrant way. Yu Peizhi's cooking skills were indeed very good.

These days, Zhui Lian has been ordering takeout.

I just wanted to drink one bowl and then stop, but I didn't expect to drink the whole pot.

In the afternoon, Zhui Lian discovered that there was a problem with the flush function of the toilet in the master bedroom. When she called the repairman, he said he could not come until tomorrow.

When Yu Peizhi came back, she was still a little embarrassed, afraid that he would say something like "Baby, what will I do if you leave me?"

But the other party still said nothing, and just went to wash the pot calmly.

While washing the pot, Zhui Lian noticed a Band-Aid on the knuckle of his middle finger.

"Bang—crash—!"

The sound in the middle of the night inexplicably flashed back to me.

Could it be... the sound of a mirror being smashed?

Zhui Lian was shocked by his own thoughts.

The edges are smooth but full of cracks.

That was indeed the situation that often occurred with the mirror in my home some time ago.

She hesitated to ask Yu Peizhi, but he seemed to be able to read her mind and suddenly replied, "It was scratched by the reeds."

After this, he never spoke to her again.

At this moment, Zhui Lian moved towards the bathroom in her memory.

There was no light and no sound.

The bathroom door was tightly closed, and the darkness beneath the crack was dark and complete.

Indicating that there is nothing inside.

The rustling sounds, the breaking sounds, and even the human voices might just be hallucinations caused by her being too nervous.

That Band-Aid might really be because Yu Peizhi accidentally scratched his hand.

Zhui Lian finally took out his hands from his coat pockets, and relaxed slightly.

Eager to satisfy her physiological needs, she no longer hesitated, reached out and grasped the cold metal door handle of the bathroom, gently pressing down.

“Click.”

The door opened a crack.

But it wasn't as dark as expected.

Like a candle flame, swaying little by little.

Swaying without warning.

Flash, flash, the dim light swayed into the mirror above the washbasin and lit up faintly.

It was a tiny brass candlestick, resting in the hands of the figure before the mirror.

The candlelight barely outlined the tall and thin figure in front of the camera, and the green of his home clothes, but the color was strangely warm.

In the light and shadow, like a ghost.

Beyond the light and shadow, it is gloomy and cold.

In the mirror, the face of Zhui Lian's most familiar husband was reflected. His face was very pale, which made his lips look very red. The hair on his forehead was very black, and several strands of hair were wet by water vapor and stuck to his smooth forehead.

Then, she heard it.

Very soft and slow whispers emerged intermittently from the mirror.

"...smile like this... No... a little more like..."

"...Lianlian... likes this... I want to compensate her... compensate her..."

Talking in dreams, praying to God, and the stickiness that can’t be shaken off.

With a kind of obsession that makes your scalp tingle.

Then, she saw it.

Yu Peizhi raised his hands, pressed his left and right index fingers against the corners of his mouth, and pushed them upwards very slowly, bit by bit.

The portrait in the mirror then outlined a smile with a precise arc.

A smile that looked very much like Qiao Xunli's, exactly the same as the other person's.

Freeze. Scrutinize.

He seemed dissatisfied, and the curve of his mouth suddenly drooped.

That warm smile evaporated in an instant, leaving only a bottomless coldness.

"Why...why...is it still wrong?"

He muttered, anxiety flickering in his eyes.

"But--"

The eyes reflected in the mirror were filled with harsh resentment.

Yu Peizhi's face was distorted, and the jealousy and hatred in his body was so strong that it seemed to fill the mirror in front of him.

But the mirror could not withstand this malice that seemed to come from hell.

He then condensed the malice into substance bit by bit and spat it back into his clenched fist.

"How is he better than me?"

Next second.

"Bang—crash—!"

An extremely suppressed growl came out of his throat, and his clenched fist suddenly slammed down on the mirror.

The mirror surface cracked like spider web silk, and pieces fell off.

Fragments flew, cutting the skin, and blood gushed out in an instant.

The back of the hand, the palm, the knuckles, the fingertips... blood was all over the hand, all over the hand, dripping all over the sink, all over the sink.

"Why...why...why do you only love him...what's so good about him? How is he better than me?"

"Why...why...why did I try so hard to imitate him, but you still want to leave me?"

"Why...why...I just revealed a little bit of my true self, and you don't want to love me anymore?"

Yu Peizhi seemed to have no sense of pain.

He was crying and laughing, his chest heaving violently, his fist still pressed against the cracked mirror, staring at the shattered reflection in the mirror.

A few seconds of frozen silence.

Yu Peizhi seemed to have noticed something.

Slowly, slowly.

He turned his head.

His gaze penetrated the flickering candlelight and the cold air.

Their eyes met.

He looked at Zhui Lian.

Yu Peizhi's bleeding hand fell naturally, with a sharp piece of broken lens still pinched on his fingertips.

A little candlelight reflected and danced on the edge of the lens.

It illuminated half of his face.

Black hair, white skin, bright red lips.

Clammy, cold, eerie, like a ghost crawling out of hell.

Yu Peizhi suddenly raised the corners of his mouth, revealing a smile that was completely different from the one he had just practiced.

The resentment in his eyes had not completely faded, but there was no surprise or panic.

There is only one kind... a strange excitement after the secret is revealed.

The smile gradually faded, carrying with it a childlike innocence and extreme weirdness.

"ah……"

The beautiful ghost turned into an evil ghost.

The evil ghost tilted his head, and breathed out bit by bit: "I've been discovered."

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The author has something to say: [Chin resting] Due to industry reasons, my working hours are not fixed every day. Sometimes I can only get off work in the early morning. After I finish my internship in September and return to school, I should be able to update at a more fixed time. Now I can only say that I will try to update every day qwq