generation after generation
"What's so strange about that? Flowers are edible." Kim Hee-ro thought he was still half asleep and that there was nothing to be surprised about.
“It’s different.” Jiang Yilin was very dissatisfied with her reaction. In his haste, he grabbed her hand, trying to get Jin Xilu to focus her attention back on him. He lowered his voice, swallowed, and continued, “I saw him swallow that gardenia with my own eyes, and then a new one grew from his palm. When he ate it, his teeth made a crunching sound, like he was sucking his fingers.”
When she got to this point, Kim Hee-ro wasn't scared, she just felt a little nauseous. She thought that maybe Chiang Yi-lin had a nightmare and was trying to scare him with this story.
At that time, Jiang Lianyin, the clan chief, maintained a good image and was loved by men, women, and children in the town, including Jin Xilu, who had not yet seen Jiang Lianyin's true face.
So Jin Xilu didn't believe him at the time. Seeing Jin Xilu's nonchalant attitude towards his words, Jiang Yilin was very angry. He couldn't let her guess the reason for his anger, so he sulked alone for an entire afternoon. It wasn't until after school the next day that he managed to calm himself down and convince himself not to forget to wait for Jin Xilu to go home together.
Later, Jiang Yilin would occasionally tell her about some strange things that happened in his family, including Jiang Yilin asking her if she knew about the mountain god.
"Of course I know, all the kids in town know this legend. How old are you? Why did Jiang Yilin think of asking this today?" She still remembers Jiang Yilin's confident answer at the time.
"No, this is true."
As the recollection ended, Jin Xilu felt a headache coming on from her past slowness. Why hadn't she taken Jiang Yilin's words seriously at all? He wouldn't use this to tease her; what he said was true. It was very likely that Jiang Lianyin was the holder of the mountain god's spiritual power, and the fact that she could just attach herself to the plant and talk to her was the best proof.
Jin Xilu looked around, searching for any flowers that she hadn't yet smashed.
"Little Xilu, Little Xilu, I can feel your urgency. What are you looking for?" Jiang Lianyin's voice appeared again. This time, she couldn't find where the voice came from. He arrived faster than she expected.
Jiang Lianyin's excited voice entered her ears from all directions, accompanied by the dripping sound of water wasting from a tap that wasn't turned off, drip, drip...
"You, you, are you looking for me?!"
"I've got you." As he said this, his eyes were fixed on Kim Hee-ro, his pupils dilated and his eyes filled with red and white blood vessels. A ferocious and excited face flashed in front of Kim Hee-ro, and he grabbed Kim Hee-ro's neck.
She could still breathe and hear his voice. Unlike their previous conversations where he spoke incoherently, sometimes sad and sometimes coquettish, Jiang Lianyin was now calm. He was no longer pretending to be crazy; he had started to be serious.
"I originally wanted to keep you here to see my lucky son go crazy, but I can't now." He only held Jiang Xilu by the neck with one hand, without chopping off her hands and feet. Looking at the girl in his hand who showed no fear, his eyes suddenly lit up with excitement. His long nails dug into her flesh little by little, and the girl did not try to resist except to furrow her brows.
"Don't you want to guess why?" Jiang Lianyin loosened his grip a bit. He could strangle her as easily as strangle a beautiful baby bird, but now he wanted to hear what kind of song this homeless little bird would sing.
"Will you kill me here?" Kim Hee-ro suddenly smiled. She hadn't suffocated; she would find the most suitable opportunity to surface.
Jiang Lianyin hadn't pulled his hand away from the girl's, and he didn't hear the painful, suppressed gasps from the woman that would make him feel good. Suddenly, he stopped expecting Jin Xilu's answer. No one is He Min, and no one will be like He Min. Just as he decided to grab her by the neck, lift her up, and lock her in the secret room of the ancestral hall, he heard He Min's song.
"Oh no!" Jin Xilu tried to take out the scissors, but accidentally pressed the wrong button on the recorder in her pocket. The recording stopped, and then a soothing and beautiful humming came out. It was the song Jiang Yilin had sung to her a few nights ago when he comforted her. She had secretly recorded this song.
As soon as the song started playing, both of them were startled. Kim Hee-ro didn't miss the look of shock on Jiang Lian-yin's face. He felt as if he had been hit hard on the back of the head, and he forgot that he was still choking her.
A perfect opportunity! Taking advantage of his distraction, Kim Hee-ro pulled the scissors from her pocket, leaned back to dodge, briefly escaping his grasp, then squatted down, raised the scissors above her head, and with all her might, plunged the blade into his neck.
She also noticed that although the Jiang family members did not have high body temperatures, they did not seem to be afraid of the cold at all, and wore thin clothes all year round.
The sharp blade sliced through the fabric and pierced his flesh. Kim Hee-ro hadn't been afraid until just as the knife drew blood, her hand began to tremble. She watched as crimson blood seeped out from the blade, and she could no longer hold the scissors.
Why isn't Jiang Lianyin reacting? Why isn't he moving away? Why am I standing here holding these scissors?
No scissors can be left behind, etc.
Am I killing someone right now?
The events that night in the ancestral hall were too chaotic. Jin Xilu couldn't remember how she finally escaped from Jiang Lianyin's clutches. She only remembered pulling out the scissors and running and running without direction until she was about to suffocate from running, at which point she remembered the way home.
In the end, she ran back to her empty home, filled with fear and regret, like a complete loser.
As soon as she entered the house, she saw the person she least wanted to see right now: Jiang Yilin.
"You're back!" Jiang Yilin, who was mopping the floor, heard footsteps, held the mop, and waved to her with a smile.
He soon noticed that something was wrong with Jin Xilu. The lights in the old house had been working intermittently for the past few days. Today, he bought light bulbs to wait for her to come back so he could fix them. In the flickering light, he did see the red blood on her clothes, but he thought it probably wasn't her who was injured.
Because when she got close to him, the next second a pair of scissors, which seemed to be the "murder weapon," were also pointed at his abdomen. With that speed and strength, he was relieved that Kim Hee-ro hadn't hurt herself.
Before he could say anything, Kim Hee-ro spoke first. She had calmed down now, and her voice was like taut glass, ready to shatter at the extreme.
"Jiang Yilin, don't speak yet, listen to me."
"Okay." He remained calm, simply looking at her without urging her, and never doubted her.
“I just used scissors, this very pair of scissors, to stab Jiang Lianyin in the neck. He bled a lot. I don’t know if he’s dead or alive, and I don’t want to know.”
Recalling the moment the scissors pierced her flesh, Kim Hee-ro couldn't stop her hands from trembling. Her reddened eyes were so dry that she couldn't shed a tear. She stared at him blankly, and the suffocating feeling of being choked surged up again, leaving her unable to make a sound.
As she spoke, her trembling hand had already plunged the knife halfway into her little finger. Jiang Yilin endured the pain, not wanting to frighten her or touch or push her away. She simply took a slight breath, continued looking into her eyes, and promptly asked, "What do you want to do?"
He didn't have many desires or concerns; the only thing Jiang Yilin cared about was whether Jin Xilu was happy.
"I want to leave this place, get away from this town, and never come back." Jin Xilu woke up as if from a dream. She frantically reached for something, but unexpectedly met the firm eyes that had been staring at her. She didn't know why, and it was probably all in her imagination, but she felt that Jiang Yilin's eyes contained loneliness and sadness, yet they were still encouraging her to continue.
"I need your help. I hate Jiang Lianyin, I hate the Jiang family, I...I..." But I think I've fallen in love with you.
"Enough!" Jiang Yilin interrupted her for the first time. He didn't want to listen anymore, and he was afraid that his name would be among the next people she would despise.
But Jin Xilu misunderstood his meaning. They were two independent individuals, their hearts sometimes close to each other, enveloping one another, but sometimes separated by vast distances. If only there were a kind of insect in the world that could burrow into their hearts, and then tie their hearts together with a thin rope for nine days and nine nights, so that they could taste the pure pleasure brought by the love poison that was exclusive to each other.
"I want to leave here."
Jin Xilu stared at him, and what she said was completely different from what she was thinking. She still couldn't let go of the pride in her heart towards Jiang Yilin. She couldn't lower her head to admit defeat to anyone. Even when facing him, she clearly felt an inescapable sense of guilt, but she couldn't say sorry.
I am selfish and despicable, and I may even have killed your father. I had no choice and deserve my punishment. Should I kneel down and beg for your forgiveness now?
You will forgive me, I know you will.
But what happens after you forgive me? I continue to drag you down with me, rotting and decaying. I don't know how to face myself, or how to face you, who did nothing wrong.
So I chose to exile myself, to let myself be trapped in this nightmare alone day and night from now on, never to be able to climb out again.
"So you're going to give up on me, right?" Jiang Yilin was still standing in the light. For the first time, he felt that the old light bulb was an eyesore. It was about to break, so why didn't it just break all the lights in the room that night, letting all his resentment and morbid, opaque thoughts ferment in the darkness, instead of letting him see the ruthlessness and resolute intention to leave in Jin Xilu's eyes?
"No, I'm not discussing this with you." Jin Xilu was afraid that there wouldn't be enough time, and that she wouldn't be able to leave once someone found out, so she gripped the scissors tightly again but hesitated to make the cut. "You have to let me go, or you'll be the next one to have your abdomen pierced by these scissors, Jiang Yilin."
Ha, so you had already thought it through. If he hadn't come looking for her and stumbled upon her disheveled state, Jin Xilu probably wouldn't have bothered to look at him again. The soreness and grief in Jiang Yilin's body gradually corroded his heart, and he asked the question he least wanted to ask.
"Kim Hee-ro, have you never believed me?"
He didn't even dare to look her in the eye when he asked. His voice sounded like it was being sliced into pieces by a knife, then pieced back together by brute force. He carefully considered every word, and as soon as he finished speaking, he regretted it. He shouldn't have asked.
Kim Hee-ro felt a jolt from those words, tears welling up in her eyes as she instinctively berated herself for being stupid. What was she doing? Why was she pushing them both to become unlike themselves?
She quickly realized what was happening and tried to pull the knife back, but when she looked down, she found that the blade was already stained with his blood. She had already plunged it in anyway. How had things come to this?
Stimulated by the blood from the knife wound, she turned to run away. She felt ashamed and dared not face Jiang Yilin again, forgetting to answer his most important question: "I have always believed in you."
Jiang Yilin instinctively caught up with her, covering his injured abdomen with one hand while using the other to block Jin Xilu from behind. She was too thin and too stubborn. He wanted to keep her there as much as he wanted to go with her.
But he couldn't. Generations of Jiang family descendants were not allowed to leave the town. It wasn't that their predecessors hadn't left, but those who left after giving birth to an only child would inevitably wither and die within three months from a strange illness. At most, he could only try to persuade her to stay by pity from behind.
Jin Xilu remained unmoved and did not turn back to stab him again. The large hands that had blocked her from approaching her grandmother's tombstone at the funeral, and Jiang Yilin's hand that was now reaching out to stop her from leaving, overlapped in her tear-blurred vision. She sighed softly, "I'm sorry."
Her lips slowly approached the back of his hand, pressing down with a dry, light kiss, quick and merciless, before biting down without hesitation. Her teeth collided with his hard hand bones, the taut veins bulging under the pressure, and she tasted the sweet, metallic taste of his blood.
The sticky saliva and the tearing pain of his skin erupted together, overcoming all of Jiang Yilin's reluctance. His Adam's apple bobbed, and he choked out a muffled groan. He shook off Jin Xilu and gave the order to leave in a harsh voice.
"Go away, and never come back."
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