The moonlight was shattered by the heavy rain between the Gothic window frames. Ye Qingliu curled up on the faded Persian tapestry in the room. The high fever made his temples throbbing, as if someone was hammering red-hot iron nails into his skull one by one.
"Click."
The sound of the copper candlestick being knocked over by him awakened the sleeping spiderwebs. The wax condensed into blood-red irises on the ground. Ye Qingliu looked at the vent in the flickering firelight. There was a half-faded blue ribbon hanging there, and a small glass bottle was tied to the end of the ribbon.
Ye Qingliu staggered to his feet. The high fever blurred his vision, but he could still clearly see the blue hydrangea petals floating in the bottle - they were all stuffed in by his sister through the gap in the iron window of the attic confinement room.
Ye Qingliu counted the embossed patterns on the gilded railings as he moved forward. Each railing was engraved with the Ye family's iris emblem, and the raised patterns rubbed his hot palms.
When he touched the seventh railing with the word "An" engraved on it, he suddenly heard the familiar sound of porcelain breaking coming from downstairs.
The stained glass windows of the flower hall reflected distorted figures. Ye Qingliu moved along the cold stone wall, hearing the crisp sound of silver forks piercing porcelain plates.
The gilded candlesticks cast fang-like shadows on the long mahogany table. Hua Jinyue was pressed on the carved chair, looking like a blue butterfly with pinned wings in a specimen museum.
"A daughter of the Ye family shouldn't have the claws of a wild cat." Yi An's red nails scraped across the dinner knife, the blade reflecting the teardrop mole at the corner of Hua Jinyue's eye. This mole, identical to Hua Yueyao's, always derailed her punishments. "Put your finger here."
Hua Jinyue's trembling fingertips had just touched the gilded candlestick when Ye Qingliu's loud bang as he knocked open the oak door shook off the dust from the crystal chandelier.
Ye Qingliu's thin figure was wrapped in the chill of the rainy night. The fever made his pupils misty, and he actually saw the table full of silverware as a cluster of twinkling stars.
The whip marks on his back were abnormally red due to the fever, just like the skin burned by his cousin Hua Yueyao when she escaped from the fire.
"Who dares to touch her?!" A hoarse child's voice was shrouded in blood. Ye Qingliu rushed to the dining table, tearing off the entire velvet tablecloth. As the silverware clattered to the ground, he protected his sister under his body.
"Little Qingliu, are you so fond of being a hero?"
Yi An's sneer was mixed with the crackling of candlelight. The gilded candlestick hung above the brother and sister's heads. "Last night, when he was feverish and talking nonsense, he grabbed my sleeve and called me mom."
Blueberry jam splashed from the overturned cake plate and formed a strange star pattern on the back of his pale neck - exactly the dream described in his mother's pregnancy diary.
Hua Jinyue suddenly grabbed her brother's burning wrist, tears falling on the whip marks on the back of his hand: "Brother, does it hurt..."
“It doesn’t hurt…”
Yi An's gilded candlestick hung in the air, and the candle tears dripped on the Bible's Proverbs: "Brothers are born for adversity."
This page of paper had been folded seven times by my cousin Hua Yueyao, and now blood stains were spreading along the folds.
The gilded candlelight in the flower hall flickered in the heavy rain. After feeling Yi An's strong gaze, Hua Jinyue took a step forward and suddenly opened her arms to block Ye Qingliu.
Hua Jinyue's lace skirt was scorched by the candle wax, and her purple knees were exposed under the hem of the skirt - those were the marks of punishment from kneeling in front of the mirror three days ago.
"You bad woman...don't touch my brother!!"
Her voice was as sharp as a broken glass cup, startling the crows that were taking shelter from the rain outside the window.
Yi An's hand suddenly hung in mid-air, the candlestick tip only half an inch away from Ye Qingliu's eyebrows. Ye Qingliu was burning with heat, but he held his sister's wrist tightly and pushed her behind him.
Hua Jinyue suddenly lowered her head and bit the back of Yi An's hand, her baby teeth sinking deeply into the crescent scar from twenty years ago - that was left when her cousin blocked the kettle for her.
"This is outrageous!"
Yi An's swing of his hand caused the sapphire necklace to break, sending the pearls tumbling across the lapis lazuli floor. Hua Jinyue seized the opportunity to pounce on Ye Qingliu's back, covering his bleeding whip marks with her small body.
"You've learned your mother's madness." Yi An suddenly sneered, and the tip of the gilded candlestick lifted Ye Qingliu's chin.
The corners of Ye Qingliu's fiery red eyes were slightly raised, and the shadow cast by his drooping eyelashes was exactly the same as the ID photo of his cousin Hua Yueyao when she was eighteen years old.
Her unconscious hand slid down his cheek, leaving a light red mark.
"Get your dirty hands off me!!!"
Hua Jinyue suddenly grabbed the silver dinner knife, the blade gleaming coldly in the candlelight. She stepped onto the carved chair back, her loose pigtails brushing against Yi An's face, the scent of blue hydrangeas mixed with the stench of blood wafting towards her.
The girl who always hid behind her brother was like a young animal with its fur standing on end, with the tip of a knife pointed directly at Yi An's heart: "Don't touch my brother with your dirty hands!"
Ye Qingliu suddenly coughed violently, blood splattering on the gilded cover of the Bible. Hua Jinyue threw the knife away and rushed over, wiping the blood from his lips with the lace cuff of her sleeve.
At the moment when the heavy rain shattered the stained glass, the high beams of the Rolls-Royce Phantom pierced the rain curtain.
Ye Chenxi's crocodile leather shoes rolled over the blue hydrangeas all over the ground, and the raindrops from the tip of the umbrella sounded a death knell-like rhythm on the ground.
The moment he pushed open the oak door, the gilded candlestick was hanging three inches between Ye Qingliu's eyebrows, and the candle tears condensed into blood amber at the corners of the boy's red eyes.
"That's enough."
The deep male voice cut through the stagnant air like a cold knife.
Ye Chenxi's gaze swept across Hua Jinyue's bleeding ankle and finally stopped at his son's back - those festering whip marks were like twisted vines, subtly overlapping with the arc of his late wife's caesarean section incision.
His Adam's apple rolled slightly, and his right ring finger unconsciously rubbed the mark on the inside of the wedding ring - where the abbreviation of his late wife's name was hidden.
Hua Jinyue stepped barefoot on the fragments of silver cutlery, and her sheepskin boots were left in the shadow of the gilded candlestick.
She stopped three steps away from the man and suddenly smelled the cedar scent on his suit cuffs - exactly the same smell as the preservative of the flowers on the coffin on the day of her mother's funeral.
My dear, there is more to this chapter. Please click on the next page to continue reading. It will be even more exciting later!
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