Chapter 174 Torrential Rain
Rumble—
A faint rumble of thunder could be heard from the sky.
More raindrops fell, the wind grew stronger, and dark clouds gathered, pressing down on the hilltop located in the remote village.
Without further hesitation, Pipa quickly removed the soil covering the corpse's head.
Then, Pipa saw a face that should have been familiar yet was extremely unfamiliar.
That was... his own face from his childhood, now standing across the distance between life and death, across fragmented flesh and bone, gazing directly at the loquat.
Loquat cannot describe the feelings in my heart at that moment.
He knew he should have been terrified, should have been deeply shocked.
Even with Yu Qingzhou's mangled corpse as a precedent, no matter how similar they looked, in Pipa's mind, they were still, ultimately, the remains of 'someone else'...
But the corpse in front of me is different.
because……
Because this is his own corpse, the body he has lived in since childhood... Even now, he can still feel all sorts of sensations emanating from this body: pain, aches, hunger, thirst...
However, at this moment, the strongest feeling occupying this body is confusion.
A vast, incomparable, inexplicable, and inescapable strange bewilderment was trapping him, surrounding him completely.
If the real loquat had already died before leaving Nancun—
If his body had been buried beside his mother long ago—
"Then who am I, the me I am now...?"
Pipa raised her head somewhat blankly, muttered something as she stood up, and looked around, seemingly looking at something.
The question I keep thinking about and repeating is just one: Who am I?
"...Who should I be?"
You are both the loquat and the light boat.
Upon hearing this, Pipa, who had been lost in her own confusion, suddenly stopped and turned her head to look in the direction of the sound.
—It's the Lantern Festival.
The white cat still gazed quietly at the loquat with its emerald green eyes, but now there seemed to be a hint of pity in them.
It was pitying him.
Being pitied by a cat did not offend Pipa. On the contrary, he seemed to have just remembered that there was such a cat, and he showed a look of sudden realization.
Sparks of light ignited in the depths of his chaotic eyes, gleaming brightly against the dark, almost inky sky.
“Yes,” Pipa muttered, nodding at the same time.
As if to confirm, she repeated to herself, "I am a loquat."
She paused for a moment and then added, "Oh, right, there's also Yu Qingzhou, a name my mother personally gave me."
As she said this, Pipa glanced at where her mother was lying, her eyes filled with tenderness and contentment, completely transforming into the child who wholeheartedly clung to and trusted her mother.
But then his gaze fell upon the child's corpse lying beside him, and the smile on his face vanished instantly.
Turning around, she asked Yuanxiao with a mixture of confusion and grievance, "Then who is he?"
It was just a cat's face, but Pipa seemed to see a sense of helplessness in it, and more than just that.
He is also loquat, he is also Yu Qingzhou, and he is also you.
Yuanxiao's tone was calm and resolute.
Upon hearing this, Pipa glanced at the white cat, then at the corpse in the grave mound, and finally stared at the white cat, her brows furrowed as if she had some doubts.
Yuanxiao had no choice but to add another explanation: "That was you who had died."
"You mean... I'm dead?" Pipa couldn't help but blurt out the question.
Upon hearing this, the white cat nodded.
Indeed. And it's happened many, many times already...
At this point, Yuanxiao lowered her voice a little.
He paused for a moment, then looked at a steep spot on the edge of the hillside before speaking slowly and calmly.
[Do you remember? This is where you first died, where you fell. You hit many rocks and branches along the way, and finally fell into a crevice in the rocks. Even so, you still had a breath left, and you held on for another day and night...]
This story is too unbelievable.
For a moment, Pipa thought the other person was joking with her, or perhaps he was still dreaming, in a nightmare from which he could never wake up.
But Yuanxiao's expression was clearly so serious.
A bolt of lightning, like a centipede, suddenly streaked across the sky, splitting a vast expanse of white in the dim world, like endless, swirling snowflakes, burying all the causes and sins of the world...
After the white light, a deafening clap of thunder soon followed, and then large raindrops began to fall like they were free.
It seemed to be putting in all its strength and going all out, as if it wanted to smash the bewildered loquat awake.
At this moment, Pipa also suddenly came to his senses, but not because he had finally figured out anything. Instead, he suddenly realized that he absolutely could not let his mother's body be left to soak in the cold rain.
He's already committed the heinous act of digging up graves, so how could he... how could he...
Thinking of this, Pipa hurriedly rushed to the dug-out grave mound, frantically trying to scoop up the soil that had been piled aside and cover the body again.
But the rain was too heavy; the mud hadn't even had time to gather before it was swept away by the torrential downpour. No matter how hard you tried to stop it, you couldn't hold onto it.
Pipa was so anxious he was about to cry, but the rain kept pouring down, and he didn't even have a chance to cry before he felt like he couldn't breathe.
Why...why...did it turn out like this?
He simply wanted to find out what had happened... He never imagined it would come to this, and he certainly never imagined his mother would suffer such torment even after her death.
The rain was so heavy that Pipa could no longer open her eyes. Even if she managed to open them a crack, she couldn't see anything clearly.
As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but endless rain.
Finally, Pipa gave up struggling and stopped trying to salvage the mud that had been washed away. Instead, she threw herself into the mud and water and hugged her mother's body, which was soaking in the cold rain, before closing her eyes tightly.
At that moment, he had only one thought in his mind: it would be better to just die like this.
To hold one's mother's body tightly until the very last moment of life—is not without its own supreme happiness, just like... just like what my former self did...
Since you're dead, wouldn't it be better to rest peacefully in the ground and be buried in peace?
Why is it that I can still breathe, think, have a heartbeat, and feel cold and pain?
Gradually, Pipa began to feel weak and his body was ice-cold. He felt his life being slowly drained from his body along with his body temperature.
But he wasn't afraid at all; on the contrary, he felt a strange sense of peace. The sound of the rain seemed to fade into the distance, and even the flicker of consciousness gradually became weaker and fainter...
He thought he was probably going to die.
Just before her consciousness completely faded, Pipa vaguely heard a faint sigh that seemed to suddenly rise from the deepest part of the darkness.
Because this was your own choice...
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