Chapter 195 My Wish
The loquat really escaped.
Without looking back, he left his mother, who had given him life and raised him, far behind, in that place of raging fires and howling ghosts.
At that time, Pipa thought that if there really was a hell on earth, it would probably be the scene behind her.
—Then what am I?
A ghost that escaped from hell, a damned ghost that failed to die?
And even if he did escape, where could he possibly go?
The loquat has never left this village; the farthest place it has ever been is the cave behind the ancestral hall.
But then, why did they flee?
Those he loved, those who loved him, and those who may have loved him—all of them are gone now.
Alive...
It seems it was all because of the look in her mother's eyes before she died.
Pipa couldn't even tell whether the other person's insistence on letting him leave was because they genuinely wanted him to live, or simply because they didn't want him to die before their eyes, lest he be dragged down even in death and not find peace in his soul.
Loquat doesn't know.
All it knew was to keep stumbling and running in the opposite direction.
Following behind were the other villagers who had just come to their senses and hurriedly caught up.
Pipa knew he couldn't escape, but he wanted to at least run as far away as possible, to a place where his mother couldn't see him, just like he had promised her—'Get as far away as possible'.
Loquat is lucky.
Normally, even disregarding his current terrible condition, if he were well-fed and had no external injuries, how could he possibly outrun those adults with all their limbs intact?
But things are different now. After last night's poisoned soup and the fumigation just now, it is already very difficult to spare any manpower to chase after him.
So, by hiding and dodging in the bushes, he managed to escape all the way to the top of the mountain.
The terrain here is flat, and the so-called mountains are not actually very high, but once you reach the top, you can still see the scenery below.
This was Pipa's first time here, but she had no interest in appreciating the scenery around her.
He turned around and looked at the menacing people not far away, taking in every face and every ferocious expression, and then smiled with relief.
Seeing that the child had reached the end and there was nowhere left to retreat, the people stopped and leisurely formed a circle around him.
They concluded that the child was already cornered, so they could casually tease and play with him like a mouse in a trap.
After all, he was just an orphan without parents, a disabled child with no strength to even kill a chicken. At most, what tricks could he pull? In the end, wouldn't he still have to obediently surrender?
They eagerly awaited the look of fear and terror on that face.
Perhaps there is an innate destructive urge in human nature towards the weak. This destructive urge can be restrained by social norms and morality in an individual, but when a group of people with the same intentions gather together, they can unleash this malice without restraint.
After all, the law does not punish the masses...
After all, in such a remote place, the ancestral laws are the highest law, and that's why they gathered here to capture the evil child who breaks the rules and disrespects the gods.
Both in terms of public and private interests, it makes perfect sense.
But when the desperate child turned around, covered in blood and filth, he was barely recognizable as a human being. Yet his face remained blank, showing none of the expected fear or pleading.
Especially those eyes, the expression in them was so quiet, they were almost like the eyes of a dead woman.
Clearly, more than one person had thought of this, and those people couldn't help but feel uneasy, making the atmosphere somewhat oppressive for a moment.
It was at this moment that the child suddenly smiled slightly, his empty eyes scanning everyone present.
Suddenly, he took half a step back, then his body tilted, and he disappeared directly from the empty mountaintop.
The last thing Pipa saw was large, white, carefree clouds high in the sky.
The stagnant air seemed to be disturbed by the sound of his descent. Amidst the howling wind, all the events of this life flashed by before my eyes, which is probably what people often call a revolving lantern.
In that revolving lantern, he saw his mother in the morning mist, sitting on the steps, smiling and waving at him...
Then I saw a round little head peeking out of the ash heap. Because its face was covered in plant ash, its pair of green eyes looked unusually bright and clear...
And sitting under the loquat tree in the courtyard, looking out at the blue sky and white clouds through the low bushes, so high and so far away—this small world was a cage he could never break free from or escape from for the rest of his life…
Perhaps because the fall took much longer than expected, the loquat suddenly felt a sense of resentment.
Not for his own death, but for those who committed heinous crimes and showed no remorse—how dare they be so smug, how dare they—
Is it simply because they have the backing of some so-called deity?
If... if there really is a God in the world.
If only God could lower His eyes to look at this world, open His ears to listen to what these tiny, ant-like humans are thinking and praying for.
So he was willing, willing to offer up everything he had, since the gods of those people could accept flesh and bones as sacrifices, he could even give up his own soul.
They don't live for themselves, but only to watch those evil people die before their eyes, suffering the torment of hellfire, never to be reborn!
Even if he had to give up his soul and abandon his physical body, even if he had to endure the same suffering, he... he was willing to do it all!
With a thud.
He heard it; it was a deafening roar, like a mountain collapsing and the earth splitting open.
But Pipa knew that it was actually just the sound of his body disintegrating.
His bones were probably broken, many of them, and perhaps even pierced his lungs, otherwise why would he be spitting out blood and foam like Yuanxiao?
It hurts so much...it hurts so much...
I'm in so much pain I feel like I'm going to die, so why am I not dead yet?
Pipa never knew that humans were such tenacious creatures... Yet now, she couldn't even bring herself to commit suicide again.
He was blind in one eye, apparently caught on something while falling, and it's unclear where he fell to.
There was one eye that couldn't be closed no matter what it did, and its vision was filled with crimson. Perhaps because it was stained with blood, even the sky had turned a dark red.
I feel like I've seen this red color in loquats somewhere before, but I can't quite place it... Maybe it was before I was born?
However, even now, the fact that she still retains the ability to think is unbelievable to Pipa herself.
I guess I'm still unwilling to accept it.
How ridiculous. For a moment, he actually believed that gods existed in this wretched world.
How could someone still harbor such delusions...
The sky was a deep crimson, and thick clouds pressed down, making even Pipa, who was on the verge of death, feel a tightness in his chest.
Unexpectedly, the wind picked up at this moment, so is it going to... rain?
Lost in thought, Pipa suddenly realized that everything he saw was slowly spinning and drifting away from him. At the same time, he could hear faint thunder in the distance.
The thunder was muffled and indistinct, barely audible.
For a moment, it even sounded a bit like the drumbeats from that night.
I could no longer distinguish loquats, nor did I have the strength to do so. In the end, I could only watch as the world plunged into utter darkness...
So... is this the end?
No.
In the depths of darkness, he clearly saw it again—
The flickering crimson dots, eerie and dazzling, quickly merged into a magnificent sea of fire in the dead of night.
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