Chapter 5. Chapter 5. Every thread, every inch, slowly entwined and polished.
After much deliberation, Leng Cuizhu decided against having Leng Zhen attend the master's funeral.
She was afraid of frightening Zhenzhen. The old master's death was bizarre and gruesome, and Leng Zhen was still young. If she were to be haunted by the trauma, it would be a lifelong problem.
Moreover, Leng Zhen has always been at odds with her master.
After she finished tidying up her things in the front yard, she turned around and saw Leng Zhen sitting under the eaves with her back to her, her figure slender.
In a few days, he will be eighteen. He looks like a man in his early twenties. His eyes are watery and bright, with a dark and dazzling light. The small mole on his cheek is like dust stuck to the white and translucent porcelain.
"What are you looking at?"
Leng Cuizhu followed his gaze and saw a crow wrestling with a red-crested rooster. The scene was intense, with downy feathers fluttering in the air.
The two birds were evenly matched for a time.
"quack!"
"Cluck cluck, cluck cluck—"
What was just an ordinary bird call to others sounded particularly jarring to Leng Cuizhu.
It's very noisy, extremely noisy.
"What right do you have to stop me! You ugly, black bird with patches of white and black feathers, yet you're showing off in front of me. I'm much better looking than you!"
"Get out of my way! Nobody can stop me and my host! Don't you have a host yourself? Why do you have to come here and act as a mistress to break up other people's relationships?"
"Get out of the way!"
No matter how many times you argue with me, I will not give in.
"Alright, let's fight to the death then. The host only needs one system."
"I'm going to peck you to death, you stinking foreigner! You damned foreign devil, instead of working properly in your cesspool in the West District, you come running wild on my Chinese mainland! I'm going to kill you!"
"This..." She stood there, hesitant to speak.
"Zhenzhen, it's cold outside, come inside and warm up by the fire."
"Mother, who do you think will win?"
A smile appeared on his frozen face, forming small mounds under his eyes.
"...rooster/right, roosters are bigger and look more boisterous."
He picked up a stone from the ground and threw it at the fighting birds.
The pebble struck the crow squarely in the eye, splattering blood on the spot and leaving a mournful red line in the snow.
Leng Cuizhu felt a tightness in her heart.
The rooster, which had been so proud just moments before, froze, staring blankly at the bloodstains on the ground.
"Cluck cluck?"
Leng Zhen was in a good mood: "Mom, I'll cook dinner tonight."
Humming a song, I strolled back to my room to warm myself by the fire.
She snapped out of her daze and quickly picked up the crow that was dying in the snow.
"Hang in there!"
She hurried toward the bedroom, the rooster following her swaying skirt.
Fresh blood dripped all the way.
The crow had a lot of blood coming from its injured right eye and was shivering in her arms.
She put the crow on the chair, turned around to fetch the water basin, and looked for bandages and ointment in the cabinet.
After preparing everything and turning around, the crows on the rattan chair were gone, replaced by a man with cascading white hair.
"you……"
The man was naked, with only his long hair to cover his eyes. His eyes were squinting and weary, and the corners of his eyes were festering and bruised, a shocking sight.
So she turned her head away in embarrassment and took the blanket from the bedside table to cover him.
"How are you?"
The only response was a weak reply.
She placed the basin of water and bandages on the table, her back to him: "Once you've rested, try bandaging your wound yourself first. If you can't..."
"He definitely can, he's perfectly fine!"
The rooster raised its head: "Host, ignore him, let's hurry up and do the mission!"
Leng Cuizhu was completely bewildered: "You... how can you talk... who are you?"
"I am your system!"
The rooster smacked its beak, its eyes darting around: "The real system, exclusively for you! Only one, no refunds or exchanges. My mission is to guide you through all the storylines, and your mission is—"
The rooster stared wide-eyed out the window and pounced under her skirt.
Leng Zhen pushed open the door and came in: "Mother, I'm going out for a bit."
Who is the person in the chair?
"ah……"
She pursed her lips, turned to the side to block the person behind her, and smoothed the hair at her temples.
His cloak trailed on the ground, the linen cloth rustling as he moved.
Sunlight streamed onto his cold face. Leng Zhen lowered his eyes and walked towards her, stopping just before touching her fluttering sash.
He lifted his eyelids, his eyes gleaming, and smiled with furrowed brows.
"Is she a friend of your mother?"
"Ah...yes."
"The cook has steamed some shortbread and covered it with a lid. If you're hungry, Mother, you can take some to eat."
He adjusted his cloak, turned around, and went out.
The rooster popped out from under the cold green candle skirt: "You scared me to death! You scared me to death!"
Leng Cuizhu dusted off her skirt. The man on the chair had his eyes closed and looked pained. She sighed, "As expected, I still can't bandage myself..."
She gently touched the scar at the corner of the man's eye, while a rooster beneath her pecked at her leg.
"Oh, he's fine, he's just out of energy. He'll turn back into a bird in a bit, so don't worry about him."
"Host, host, let me explain the mission to you first!"
"……Task?"
"You are actually a very... important character in a book."
"Cough, cough..."
The man in the chair was weak and coughing incessantly.
"Wait a minute." She kicked the rooster into a corner, then turned and handed Eun a damp cloth.
Being ignored time and again is unbearable for both humans and chickens.
"Hey! Host, listen to me..." The rooster flapped its wings, flying and hopping: "Why are you like this! So what if you can turn into a human? Why are you pretending to gain sympathy!"
Seeing that no one paid attention to it, even the most energetic chicken got tired of its antics, folded its wings, tucked its tail between its legs, and went out dejectedly.
Leng Cuizhu searched for a long time but couldn't find the wound. Apart from the bruise at the corner of his eye, the man's skin was completely intact.
But he looks so weak...
“You are…” She covered her mouth with one hand and lifted a corner of the blanket with the other, looking at the man’s back, completely confused. “There’s nothing on his back either.”
She blinked and met the man's gaze.
The lamp is half-dim, the snow half-bright, my tender heart is entangled, my emotions are so intense.
He stopped coughing, his silver eyes were heavy with worry, and his brows remained furrowed.
Leng Cuizhu: "Where are you injured?"
"Okay, let me apply medicine to your bruises first. It won't look good if you leave marks."
Her hand, which was holding the medicine jar, was suddenly gripped by her wrist.
Every thread, every inch, slowly intertwined and polished.
Such an action was intimate with Leng Cuizhu, an invitation to a tryst. She already had a husband, and she should never have allowed another man to hold her wrist.
This is too much. If she really gives in to his wishes, she will be lustful and greedy.
But... she felt a pang of pity and let him pull her further in, her knees hitting the armrest of the wicker chair, a ticklish, heart-wrenching pain.
The medicine jar slipped from her hand and rolled to the ground. She almost fell onto him, enveloped by his soft, silvery hair.
"Don't believe him."
"You are not his host; he is lying to you."
"You two know each other?"
Leng Cuizhu was filled with doubt: "What exactly is going on?"
"You've been by my side for so long, aren't you going to tell me the truth... Am I too unfamiliar with you?"
"No."
The man abruptly withdrew his hand, his brow furrowing even deeper.
He knows some of it.
The master is perhaps the most unfortunate host, with each identity presented a hellish challenge.
This time was no exception.
She is resolute, tenacious, and free-spirited; she can overcome any difficulty.
Perhaps the hurt she suffers will make her stronger, and no injury will be enough to break her.
This selfish man, however, tried to prevent her from suffering and to trap her in the same place forever. He knelt in front of her, hugged her legs, and clung to them tightly.
He's being too presumptuous.
The master used to prefer suffering to him.
She was destined to keep going.
"You do exist in a book."
"Everything you've experienced is..."
Was it fate?
She said, "Because everything in the book was preordained? No matter how much I struggle, I can't change the ending?"
Leng Cuizhu smiled with relief.
"If that's the case, I don't seem to resent it as much anymore."
"And what about Christine? What is she anyway? I thought I still had a glimmer of hope. Turns out Christine was just my fantasy too. How stupid of me."
“Christine isn’t an illusion. She is…” The man swallowed the words back.
"Things are not beyond repair."
"It can be avoided."
Leng Cuizhu asked calmly, "What kind of book is it?"
"Where are my family members? Are they in the book too?"
"What will Zhenzhen's fate be?" She was most worried about Leng Zhen.
He is her child, the child she carried for ten months before giving birth to him.
Even if bones are broken and flesh is torn apart, the umbilical cord remains connected.
He was like a malevolent spirit, clinging tightly to her, frantically drawing nourishment from her, devouring her heart and lungs, chewing them with crunching sounds, and growing stronger.
Tragically, because of the dark and relentless feeding, she couldn't help but love him; he carried her blood, her burning blood.
Despite her listlessness, she gave birth to a vibrant and passionate life.
Eun: "...I don't know."
"Perhaps that person knows."
Leng Cuizhu went out and circled around to the backyard with the crow on her shoulder. Leng Zhen sat on the stone steps, holding a kitchen knife in her hand.
"Zhenzhen, did you see the roosters fighting in the yard just now? That belongs to Granny Wang next door. I'll return it to her."
“I saw it.” Leng Zhen smiled broadly.
The north wind was biting, chilling him to the bone. With his hands, red from the cold, he reached into the bucket and took out a white chicken whose feathers had been scalded, and placed it on the cutting board.
The white chicken struggled desperately in his hands: "Cluck-cluck-host, help!"
With one slash, the rooster's head and body were severed, and blood splattered all over his hands.
Blood gushed out, flowing from between the fingers to the wrist bone, like pomegranate flowers blooming.
“Mother, it’s alright if we don’t return it. Granny Wang doesn’t know. She raises so many chickens, losing one won’t make a difference. But Mother, you haven’t eaten meat in a long time.”
Leng Zhen cut open the chicken's belly, pulled out the internal organs, and threw them onto the snow.
Its internal organs were wriggling, and it was emitting heat.
"Once the chicken is stewed, I'll take a bowl to Granny Wang."
Leng Cuizhu simply couldn't stomach that bowl of chicken.
Under Leng Zhen's watchful gaze, she reluctantly ate a piece, then turned around and spat it out.
"Are you feeling unwell?" A crow landed on the hem of her skirt.
"That thing is just parasitic on the chicken; it will come back again."
Leng Cuizhu raised her hand to wipe the water stains from her lips.
"No, I just think...it's too cruel."
"To him, he was just killing a beast."
"I know."
She frowned: "But..."
"He's just a child. The way he kills chickens is so unfamiliar to me. His hands shouldn't be used for these things."
"It's all my fault."
"He is not a child."
The crow tilted its head slightly in surprise, then flew to the high rooftop.
Unaware, Leng Cuizhu knelt on the soft cushion under the eaves, talking to herself as a cold wind blew in her face, corroding her breath.
Her nose felt raw.
"mother."
Leng Cuizhu suddenly turned her head.
Leng Zhen was right behind him.
Leaning against the wall, withered vines cast a blurry shadow on his face.
"I delivered the chicken soup, and Granny Wang liked it very much."
He hesitated for a moment: "You think I killed the chicken to do something malicious?"
Her lips and teeth were frozen by the cold wind, making it impossible for her to speak.
"What is a bad child, and what is a good child?"
"Mother, I'm doing this for your own good," he said reproachfully. "Is that how you see me?"
"No... Zhenzhen, you've misunderstood."
"Mother is blaming herself. Children from wealthy families don't need to do these things. If our family were rich, you wouldn't have to do such vulgar work."
Leng Cuizhu felt very uncomfortable being stared at.
As Leng Zhen grows older, she looks more and more like she did when she was young.
Looking at that face, she always had bad thoughts.
If she had known that life would be this hard, she should have strangled her past self who sold her body, adorned in fine silks and gold and silver.
Therefore, she had the urge to destroy him.
Leng Zhen covered her face and laughed.
"Mother, it's alright."
"As long as my mother is still willing to talk to me, I'll do anything she asks."
At this moment, Leng Cuizhu still did not understand the meaning behind Leng Zhen's words. It wasn't until later that night, after Yin Yuan had fallen asleep, that she got up to get a drink of water and bumped into Leng Zhen sharpening a knife in the courtyard.
"Zhenzhen," she subconsciously pulled her outer robe closer to her chest, "it's so late, why aren't you asleep yet?"
The outer robe she wore was the same one Yin Yuan wore during the day; the pale green cloud patterns on the fabric shimmered faintly in the moonlight.
Leng Zhen wiped the blade dry with a handkerchief and put it into the wooden box.
"Did I disturb you?"
"I'm sorry."
He picked up the wooden box and walked to Leng Cuizhu.
"Mother, do you remember me when I was little?"
“When I was little, I was afraid of the dark, and you would always comfort me when I went to sleep.”
"Oh? It's dark in your room? I'll go get you a kerosene lamp."
Just as Leng Cuizhu was about to leave, her sleeve was tugged.
"Need not."
“Mother, I just miss the past.” He pursed his lips slightly. “In the past, I was always there for you. The year I started studying medicine, it was also winter. You sat by the window crying, it was snowing outside, and we hugged each other. You cried because Yin Yuan was heartless to you, and you cried because you had to give birth to me.”
"I know you don't really like me, at least not before." He lowered his eyes, gently touching the scar on his side. "I often think, would your life be better without me?"
“The old master craftsmen at Jishetang often said that I was an illegitimate child.” His eyes were full of hardship. “My mother was a prostitute and slept with many men.”
"At that time, I didn't understand what he meant. I had slept with my mother too, so what was the big deal?"
Leng Cuizhu pursed her lips, unsure of what to say.
The outer robe slipped off her shoulders and fell to the ground with a soft rustle.
By the time she noticed, Leng Zhen had already bent down to pick up the outer robe and carefully folded it.
He didn't hand it to her; he held it tightly in his hand, the tendons on the back of his hand cracking.
"Later, all I wanted to do was kill him."
His gaunt face was edged with silver by the moonlight.
And he did just that.
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