Chapter 36
Shen Huaixin had a wooden face, holding the knife, and walked towards Shen Chumo step by step, slowly and firmly.
At this moment, he seemed to have lost his soul, his eyes were empty, and apart from maintaining his ability to restrain Mother Shen, he seemed to have no interest in any stimulation from the outside world. This was the first time Shen Huaixin saw him like this, and guessed that Mother Shen's alienation had dealt a great blow to him.
[System: Host, good opportunity! You can just stab him and complete the mission!]
Shen Huaixin was silent and walked in front of Shen Chumo. He stared at her blankly, the grief in his eyes so strong that it almost turned into substance, piercing Shen Huaixin's heart and making the aura around them more unstable, and it was possible to explode at any time.
Around him were flying scraps of paper and Shen's mother's wails, but the deepest danger came from the pollution of the young man before him. The pollution around him solidified, a black and foreign substance spreading throughout the space, but he stood at the center, like a lotus, spotless.
Everything should be over. Shen Huaixin thought that she would finally put an end to the entanglement between Shen's mother and Chu Mo.
She didn't stop, but passed by Shen Chumo, her eyes looking somewhere behind him.
[System: Host, what are you going to do? Warning, you only have 3 minutes left!]
Under the powerful pressure, blood flowed from the corner of Shen Huaixin's mouth, soaking her torn school uniform. She dragged her heavy body, feeling that her internal organs were twisted and deformed invisibly.
Her strength was fading, her consciousness was blurring, and she bent down and picked up an inconspicuous piece of paper on the ground. Unlike the other pieces of paper, it was larger and neater, covered with Shen Huaixin's familiar handwriting.
She was right. She spent every night with the calligraphy, watching it become more and more neat and vigorous.
“Mom,” she held the paper in her arms, with a daughter-like coquettish smile on her face, and walked towards Shen’s mother, leaving a trail of bloody footprints where she passed, “Take a look.”
Shen Huaixin's call and expression awakened a trace of maternal love deep in Shen's mother's subconscious. Her attack stopped, and she even frowned, showing a struggling expression on her face, and took two steps back.
Shen Huaixin felt a pang of sadness, unfolded the paper, and pushed it in front of her.
On the square grid, the title on the first line is "Anchor Point".
Mother Shen opened her mouth, her eyes blankly scanning the rows of densely packed words. She usually read novels at a speed of ten lines at a glance, but at this moment, her chaotic mind looked blankly at each word, as if she was reading a heavenly book, which was extremely difficult.
[System: Character design is ooc, giving an electric shock warning.]
[Chen Huaixin: Have you forgotten? The pain has been blocked.]
【system:……】
“Mom, this is Shen Chumo’s composition.”
"Uh - uh -" Mother Shen uttered meaningless monosyllables, and her fingers scratched at the test paper randomly, making a rustling sound.
Seeing this, Shen Huaixin read slowly, word by word: "My mother is the best mother in the world."
“…”
Mother Shen became strangely quiet.
"Are people made up of memories? But I seem to have lost a lot of my childhood memories, and gained a lot of unreal and terrifying dreams. They say it's traumatic stress."
"Every time this happens, I wonder, who am I? Where will I go? But every time I am at a loss, I see my mother."
Her voice choked up. "I know my anchor is here. I'm not nothing."
Mother Shen's fingers trembled as she clutched the test paper tightly. Her vacant eyes scanned the composition, but she had completely lost the ability to read and could not understand anything. She cried "wuwu", her face covered with a foreign substance, unable to control her expression, and tears flowed from her eyes.
"Chu Mo..." she murmured.
As Shen's mother called out, the flying pieces of paper fell to the ground one after another, like frost. She opened her arms and hugged Shen Chumo. Shen Chumo's eyes moved before he had some reaction.
He slowly stretched out his hand and put his arm around Shen's mother's thin shoulders. At this time, Shen's mother's shoulders had already extended a branch-like substance, which was extremely sharp and cut Shen Chumo's hand.
"I...I am..." He looked at his hands, the wrinkles between his brows deepening.
Some vague fragments flashed back into his mind.
He saw himself floating in the air, doing nothing, yet being everywhere, watching all the evil in the world with cold eyes. After an unknown amount of time, he saw a young man who looked somewhat similar to himself now.
I couldn't understand what the boy was doing day and night. Whenever an adult walked by, his body would be covered with purple marks. He would curl up in his bed late at night, covering his mouth, and his pillow would become wet.
After that, for three consecutive days, the boy's temperature rose and he was left in a dirty and broken thatched house.
This temperature made him feel warm, so he moved closer and closer until the boy reached out and touched him. The boy's voice was too hoarse, and it took him a long time to understand the meaning of his words.
"I can't do it anymore."
"Please, don't make my mother sad. Tell her that I'm safe and sound. I'm still... cough cough..." The long sentence increased the boy's burden. He coughed violently, and blood foam splashed on his palms.
Shen Chumo instinctively felt that the boy was in pain, and floated to the table, but he couldn't pick up the water cup after touching it several times.
He needed... a pair of hands. No, a person, he realized. With a thought, he transformed into the appearance of a young boy, dropping to the ground from the air on tiptoe. His fingertips passed through the handle of the cup, and then he swung the cup over, spilling the water all over the floor.
When the boy saw his appearance clearly, his bloodshot eyes lit up. He pulled out a strand of hair, his fingers pale to the point of being transparent, twisting the hair with his fingertips, and stuffed it into Shen Chumo's hand without saying anything.
"Take this hair, it's my... ahem... proof..."
“Remember, your name is…Chen Chumo.”
"Please... be filial on my behalf. Make Mom happy."
Shen Chumo looked at the boy expressionlessly, recalling the usual movements humans make when making promises, lowered his head, and then slowly raised it again.
A faint smile appeared on the boy's pale face, he closed his eyes and slept peacefully.
Shen Chumo pursed his lips and rubbed the pollution that was constantly surging in Shen's mother's body from behind, making it spread less violently and trying to make Shen's mother pass away without pain.
“Mom, don’t be sad,” Shen Chumo stared and said slowly, “Otherwise, Shen Chumo will also be sad.”
Mother Shen hugged Shen Chumo and squeezed out a smile with all her strength. Before she completely turned into a source of pollution, Shen Chumo blocked her breath and closed her eyes forever.
The knife in Shen Huaixin's hand fell, and she felt dizzy and slowly collapsed to the ground, unable to tell where she was. Because of different obsessions, everyone's alienation was different. For Shen's mother, it was the growth of a different substance, using the Shen house as flesh and blood and the calendar as a blade. But for Shen Huaixin, her alienation was more silent, just like her quiet arrival.
Shen Chumo hugged her, his palms cold, and he stroked her face tremblingly. Seeing her starting from her heavily contaminated fingers and deconstructing it like a puzzle, he choked and couldn't utter a word.
【Chen Huaixin: The mission failed, right?】
[System: I'm afraid we need to re-evaluate your performance.]
Shen Huaixin sighed, closed his eyes slightly, and waited for death to come. After working hard for so long, with the tens of millions of bonus within reach, he finally gave up because he couldn't bear to see his mother die with hatred.
Fortunately, the result was good.
“Don’t go…”
She faintly heard someone calling, and hot tears fell on her face. For Shen Chumo, he had lost enough in one day. Anyway, she was dead, so she didn't make him sad anymore.
She didn't know whether she managed to force a smile to comfort him as she imagined. She could only feel his increasingly tight embrace and his painful cries.
Suddenly, she felt herself freed from some inexplicable predicament. Looking down, she saw that Shen Huaixin's body was dissipating, and a pollution source dominated by her own subconscious began to form around her.
【Chen Huaixin: It’s over…? 】
[System: Although you are not dead yet, you are almost dead.]
【Chen Huaixin: Then I leave?】
【System: Okay, I'll take you back.】
The two were talking to each other when Shen Huaixin looked down from the air and saw Shen Chumo with red eyes, kneeling on the ground holding his own remains, as silent as a statue, and the surroundings were quiet.
Don't be sad, there's one less person in the world who abuses you, isn't that good? Shen Huaixin wanted to smile and comfort him.
He leaned over, leaned close to her ear as it was dissipating into a point of light, and whispered, "Wait for me."
“…”
[System: Host? It's time to get going.]
[Chen Huaixin: Wait a little longer. I'll stay here and see what happens.]
[System: Although you have already left your body, the source of the pollution is you, and it will continue to attract you. It is not advisable to stay here for long.]
【Chen Huaixin: It’s okay, let’s wait and see.】
Shen Huaixin saw Shen Chumo lay her flat on his bed and tucked in the quilt, as if he hadn't noticed that most of her body had disappeared. He turned around, without stopping, pushed open the broken door, and strode away.
Behind him, the original owner's body turned into light spots and scattered.
Shen Huaixin looked at his back for a long time without saying a word.
Three days, she waited for him for three days.
In the classroom, the students were whispering.
"It was sunny and windy just now, how could this massive storm and even a red alert appear?"
"But it's a good thing to have a holiday, hehe."
"We'll connect at home then."
As the teacher dismissed the class, the students scattered like birds and beasts. Fang Xiaozheng packed her schoolbag while looking at the sky. The sky seemed to have become much darker. The biting wind blew a few leaves onto the window, making a sound of hitting the glass, which scared her absent-minded girl.
Shen Huaixin asked for leave in a hurry before, and I don’t know how he is doing now.
She just took out her cell phone and wanted to contact Shen Huaixin, but she found that the signal was cut off. She stuffed it back into her schoolbag dissatisfiedly and muttered: "What a crappy phone, it became a brick so quickly."
As the boss, Shen Huaixin should give each of them a mobile phone to show the team spirit.
"Xiao Zheng, would you like to go back with me?" Xiong Chentao came over skipping and jumping with a shoulder bag.
Fang Xiaozheng nodded: "Lend me your phone, I'll call Sister Xin."
Xiong Chentao dug into his pocket, entered the password, and handed it to her. Fang Xiaozheng took it and was shocked to find that there was no signal in the upper right corner of the screen. She frowned and dialed several numbers desperately, but couldn't get through.
"The storm has affected the signal, right?" Xiong Chentao touched his head.
"Where is Tianyu?" Fang Xiaozheng asked again.
"Just left. What? We're not going the same way as her."
Fang Xiaozheng returned the phone to her and sighed.
"I don't know why, but I'm feeling a bit uneasy... Anyway, stay home and don't come out unless necessary."
Xiong Chentao just said "hmm" twice, quite perfunctorily.
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