Chapter 52
Zhuohua was shielded behind Lu Xiao, her gaze passing over his taut shoulders and landing on the face of the fervent girl so close to her.
The girl's eyes burned with a mad fervor that seemed to ignite, but deep within this raging inferno, Zhuohua keenly detected an extremely subtle, almost completely obscured anomaly—a chilling, grayish-black aura, unlike anything in the human psyche, clinging to her mind like a leech, forcefully fueling her excitement and distorting her reason.
"It's alright." Zhuohua's voice was calm and undisturbed, yet it clearly reached Lu Xiao's ears amidst the surrounding chaos.
She didn't even raise her hand. Under Lu Xiao's strong back, and unnoticed by anyone, the index finger of her right hand, hanging at her side, flicked upwards very slightly. The movement was as subtle as brushing away a speck of dust.
A wisp of pure, almost ethereal golden light, as thin as a spider's thread, carrying an unparalleled gentle and soothing power, instantly pierced through the distance of space and silently entered the mad girl's brow.
Time seemed to have been paused.
The girl, who was screaming hysterically "give birth to monkeys" and lunging forward recklessly just a second ago, suddenly stopped moving, as if an invisible hand had pressed a switch.
The ferocious excitement on her face receded rapidly like a tide, the surging blood vessels quickly disappeared, and her dilated pupils returned to their normal size. In its place was a bottomless bewilderment and exhaustion, as if all her strength had been exhausted, even the strength to stand had been instantly drained away.
She swayed, staring blankly ahead, then her legs gave way and she collapsed onto the scorching ground with a thud, gasping for breath as if she had just woken from a nightmare that had drained her life.
The scene fell into a deathly silence for a moment.
The security personnel, as if waking from a dream, quickly rushed forward and restrained the girl who had collapsed to the ground, their movements rough and trembling with fear. The assistants, still shaken, gathered around, bombarding her with questions about Zhuohua's condition.
Zhuohua simply brushed aside Lu Xiao's arm, which was still in a highly vigilant state and blocking her way, and stepped out from behind him. Her gaze calmly swept over the girl being carried away, lingering for a moment on the forehead where a trace of chaotic yin energy remained, before she calmly looked away.
"Let's go," she said to Lu Xiao, her voice still devoid of any emotion, and walked towards the van first.
Lu Xiao's tense nerves finally relaxed. He looked at Zhuo Hua's spotless back, then glanced back at the direction where the girl was being dragged away, his thick eyebrows furrowing deeply.
In that brief moment, when he stood in front of her, he clearly felt an extremely faint yet incredibly unsettling chill emanating from him, which vanished in an instant. It wasn't an illusion.
He quickly caught up with Zhuohua, got into the car, and the car door shut out the noise from the outside world. He turned his head and lowered his voice: "That girl just now... something's not right?"
Zhuohua, who was resting with her eyes closed, opened them upon hearing this. The light and shadow outside the car window flickered on her cool profile. "Hmm," she responded succinctly, "She has something on her. We'll talk about it when we get back."
The van smoothly merged into the evening traffic of the city. The interior was quiet, with only the low hum of the air conditioning system.
Lu Xiao's gaze kept falling on Zhuo Hua's calm profile. The doubts and worries in his heart were like ripples spreading outwards from a stone thrown into a lake. The pure madness in the girl's eyes and the fleeting chilling aura just now were far beyond that of an ordinary fan.
The car drove into the underground parking garage of their upscale residential complex, an apartment provided by the company. The elevator ascended smoothly, the numbers ticking away. When the elevator doors opened with a "ding," the warm air of home, mixed with the scent of faint fragrance and sun-dried fabrics, rushed out, and Lu Xiao finally felt his tense nerves completely relax.
"Are you hungry? I'll go cook, it'll be ready soon."
As he changed his shoes, he spoke habitually, his tone carrying a natural sense of belonging. He took off his coat, casually draped it over the coat rack in the entryway, and expertly rolled up his shirt sleeves, revealing his well-defined forearms, before heading straight for the kitchen.
Zhuohua walked to the center of the spacious and bright living room, where the city lights twinkled outside the huge floor-to-ceiling windows. She didn't sit down, but stood there quietly, gazing out the window as if sensing something.
With a slight twitch of his fingertips, a wisp of pale golden divine thought, a hundred times finer than a strand of hair and almost invisible to the naked eye, silently followed the trail of the chilling aura he had captured on the crazy girl during the day, piercing through the barriers of reinforced concrete, and rapidly extending and tracking towards a corner of the city.
The sound of running water from the faucet being turned on came from the kitchen, followed by the rhythmic, steady chopping of vegetables by Lu Xiao. He put on the dark blue apron with a cartoon cat paw print—a piece Zhuo Hua had casually picked up during a supermarket trip, creating a strangely endearing contrast with his tall, composed figure and demeanor.
Lu Xiao skillfully heated the pan and poured in the oil. He added minced garlic, and with a sizzling sound, a rich aroma instantly filled the small kitchen. He was about to add the chopped greens when his peripheral vision habitually glanced towards the living room.
The living room was empty.
Zhuohua, who had been standing there quietly just a moment ago, vanished. Completely, without a trace, as if she had never existed.
“Bang—!”
Lu Xiao felt as if he had been struck by lightning, his mind going completely blank. The spatula slipped from his hand and slammed heavily onto the smooth tile floor with a piercing and abrupt crash.
Hot oil splattered onto the back of his hand, leaving a few red marks, but he was completely unaware. His heart felt as if it had been gripped tightly by an icy hand, stopping abruptly for a moment before pounding wildly against his chest, making his eardrums buzz.
"Zhuohua?!"
He screamed, his voice trembling with panic he himself was unaware of. He rushed out of the kitchen, his eyes frantically scanning the empty living room, the balcony, the closed bedroom door… there was no sign of her anywhere. A wave of overwhelming fear washed over him like an icy tide.
The distorted face of the crazed fan and the chilling aura he felt during the day resurfaced in his mind, overlapping with Zhuohua's sudden disappearance, leaving him feeling cold in the hands and feet.
He stood frozen in the middle of the living room, breathing rapidly, his mind a complete blank. Just as this suffocating panic reached its peak—
Without warning, a very slight ripple, like waves on water, spread through the air in the center of the living room. At the center of that ripple, a slender figure quickly solidified from a faint outline.
Zhuohua has reappeared.
She stood in the same spot, as if she had never left. However, her right hand, hanging by her side, was now holding the scruff of the neck of a small, entirely black cat.
The cat was very small, looking no more than a few months old. It was thin and bony, covered in dirt and grass clippings.
The most eerie thing was its eyes, wide open, the pupils narrowed to thin slits under the bright living room lights, yet empty and lifeless, devoid of any living creature's vitality, only a solidified, deathly darkness. It was being held by Zhuohua, like a lifeless object, its limbs limp and motionless.
"Zhuohua!" Lu Xiao practically lunged forward, grabbing her arm with astonishing force, as if afraid she would disappear again at any moment. His palm was icy cold, even trembling slightly, his eyes filled with the shock and lingering fear of surviving a close call. "Where...where did you go just now? You scared me to death!"
Zhuohua's arm ached from his grip, but she didn't break free. She looked up and clearly saw the lingering fear and ecstatic joy of regaining what she had lost in his eyes. The intense worry, almost overflowing, was like a pebble thrown into a still lake, creating subtle yet unfamiliar ripples in the depths of her divine heart, which had been dormant for millennia.
"It's alright." Her voice was softer than usual, carrying a reassuring tone. She raised her right hand, which was holding the black cat, and gently shook it. "I went to find it. The chaos during the day was caused by this little thing."
Still shaken, Lu Xiao's gaze finally focused on the eerie black cat, his brows furrowing deeply: "It?" A lifeless cat? How could this be? He couldn't reconcile the frantic, out-of-control scene from earlier that day with this lifeless kitten before him.
"Hmm." Zhuohua gently placed the black cat on the smooth, off-white floor tiles. The cat remained limp and listless, its empty eyes staring blankly at the ceiling.
She extended her pale index finger, and a tiny, firefly-like golden halo gathered at its tip. The light, carrying an indescribable warmth and allure, gently touched the black cat's brow.
"Meow..."
A faint sob, filled with endless grievance and pain, escaped from that small, cold body.
Immediately afterwards, a fragmented and chaotic scene, like a dusty box of memories forcibly opened, filled with intense emotional fragments, flooded into Zhuohua's divine sense and was vaguely transmitted to Lu Xiao, who was standing nearby, through the divine power at her fingertips—
On a bitterly cold winter night, the wind swirled withered leaves through the filthy alley. A small, thin black cat huddled beside a stinking garbage can, shivering with cold, its fur filthy and matted.
A girl wearing a T-shirt with a Zhuohua poster appeared. She carefully placed a carton of milk on the trash can lid, then added a small handful of cat food, before quickly retreating and peeking around the corner. The little black cat watched warily for a long time before staggering over and greedily licking the life-saving warm milk…
The scene suddenly turned bloody and dark. Several blurry, distorted, and malevolent figures roughly grabbed it. Sneer, the cat's shrill and desperate screams, the cold glint of metal tools... Pain and fear overwhelmed all senses like a black tide.
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