Chapter Thirty-Nine: Wrath
Time seemed to freeze at that moment, and then collapsed with a hundred times the speed.
When Xi Ya, driven by an ominous premonition, forcefully smashed open the rusted, heavy iron door and stepped into the low-temperature warehouse, a chill far more biting than the dead of winter outside, mixed with the pungent, sweet-smelling, rotten odor unique to leaked refrigerant, slammed into his chest like a solid fist, causing him to stop breathing abruptly.
The dim light inside the warehouse, filtering through the grime-covered glass skylight high above, barely outlined the contours of hell. Then, his gaze, as if drawn by a magnet, was fixed on the empty space in the center of the warehouse, covered with a thick layer of white frost.
There, a familiar figure was huddled up.
Zhong Si.
He stood with his back to the door, his body curled up in an extremely unnatural posture, as if he were extremely afraid of the cold, like a young animal trying to return to its mother's womb.
His thin, dark coat was covered with a layer of glistening ice, and his soft black hair was covered with frost, as if he were wearing a pale wig. He looked so small and fragile, as if he would shatter at the slightest touch.
“Zhong Si…” Xi Ya’s voice was dry, like sandpaper rubbing, so low it was almost inaudible. He subconsciously took a step, his boots making a soft “crack” sound on the cement floor covered with ice crystals, but in the dead silence it sounded like thunder.
There was no response. Not even the slightest tremor.
A cold, barbed fear instantly gripped West Asia's heart and quickly spread to every part of her body.
He quickened his pace, almost staggering as he rushed over, his knees slamming heavily onto the cold, hard ground, sending up shards of ice. He reached out, his hand trembling, wanting to touch the huddled figure.
What came through my fingertips was a hardness as solid as stone, devoid of any elasticity, and a chilling cold that pierced to the bone.
"Zhong Si?" he called again, his voice trembling almost pleadingly, a tremor he himself was unaware of. He forcefully turned the cold body around.
Time seemed to freeze at that moment.
Zhong Si's face was deathly pale, his skin had a translucent, marble-like texture.
Fine frost flowers clung to her long eyelashes, quietly covering them and obscuring her violet eyes, which always seemed to sparkle with unease, curiosity, or dependence on light.
His lips were slightly parted, displaying an eerie, almost transparent ice-blue color, as if he wanted to say something, but it had been sealed away forever.
On the young face, there was no contortion of pain or terror, only an almost dormant, frozen calm, but this calm was more chilling than any ferocious expression.
He lay quietly "sleeping" in the arms of West Asia, like an ice sculpture forgotten by time.
Xiya's mind went blank. All sounds, all thoughts, vanished. The world consisted only of the pale, cold, lifeless face before him, and the frantically pounding heart in his chest, yet feeling no blood flow.
No... impossible...
This was just a nightmare. An overly realistic nightmare. Just like the countless nightmares he'd had about Yanni.
As long as he wakes up, as long as he pinches himself hard, this terrible hallucination will disappear. Zhong Si will still be fine, perhaps he's being tortured by Mu Ye in the training ground, perhaps he's secretly reading a book in some corner, perhaps... he's whispering to that girl named Qianxu Wuyun.
He instinctively tightened his arms, trying to warm the cold body with his own burning heat.
But all he felt was an even deeper chill, as if it would freeze him as well. He lowered his head and pressed his forehead against Zhong Si's cold, stiff forehead, trying to sense even the slightest bit of life.
Nothing. Nothing at all. Only the cold, absolute silence of death.
Why...why is this happening?
This question was like a bomb dropped into a deep pool, exploding in his blank mind! Countless fragmented images, sounds, and thoughts, like a flood bursting its banks, instantly overwhelmed him!
Yesterday—no, just a few hours ago—this child was still looking at him stubbornly, her eyes red with grievance, because of his harsh questioning…
He clumsily cared for Zhong Si, who had a fever. The boy clutched at his clothes, murmuring as if grasping at a straw, "Xiago, don't go..."
When he carried the wounded and dying Zhong Si out of the ruins, his weight was terrifyingly light...
Even further back, on that rainy night, the silver-haired Xu Yue reached out to him, pulling him from the mud and despair, giving him a name, giving him "home"...
And...deeper still, almost tearing his soul apart...another rainy night...another...small body gradually growing cold in his arms...
The floodgates of memory were forcibly opened by this immense sorrow and fear, dragging him into a deeper, long-healed abyss of nightmares.
It was one of the dirtiest, narrowest, and perpetually darkest back alleys in East London. The air was always thick with the stench of rotting food, cheap alcohol, and human despair. The rain was pouring down, the cold water pounding against the leaky tin roof with an irritating sound.
Nine-year-old Xiya huddled in a corner behind a broken wooden box that could barely keep out the rain.
He was skin and bones, his tattered clothes clung to his body, and he was so cold that his teeth chattered incessantly. But in his arms, he held a smaller, equally frail child tightly—his three-year-old brother, Yanni.
Yanni had a high fever; his little face was flushed red, his breathing was rapid and weak, and he was making incoherent babbling. Xiya covered her younger brother with all the rags and scraps of paper she could find, but it was no match for the cold and the onslaught of illness.
"Cold... Brother... Yanni is so cold..." The child in his arms let out a weak groan, his small body trembling like a leaf in the wind.
“It’s okay… Yanni, it’s okay… Brother is here… You won’t be cold anymore soon…” Sia hugged his younger brother even tighter, trying to warm him with his own body heat, even though he himself was so cold that he was about to lose consciousness.
He repeated his useless words of comfort in a hoarse voice, his eyes fixed on the alley entrance, hoping that the mean-spirited innkeeper might occasionally show a bit of kindness, or that some passerby might give him some food or medicine.
But no one came. Only the relentless rain and the deep, all-consuming darkness.
The innkeeper had kicked Yanni out as soon as he started to have a fever because they couldn't pay the extra "patient fee," cursing and saying, "You brat, don't die in my inn and bring bad luck."
Yanni's breathing grew weaker and weaker, and his trembling gradually stopped. He lifted his heavy eyelids and glanced at his brother, whose eyes, as beautiful as Xiya's but now dull and lifeless, were filled with fear and confusion.
With his last bit of strength, he reached out his little hand and grasped one of Xiya's fingers.
"Brother... Yanni... am I... being naughty...?"
"No! Yanni is the best! It's your brother who's useless! It's your brother who can't protect you!" Sia's tears mingled with the rain and he roared incoherently, burying his face in his younger brother's burning neck.
The small hand that had been gripping his fingers slowly, little by little, loosened its hold, finally falling limply to its side. The last trace of warmth from the body in his arms vanished completely.
The rain was still falling. Only Xiya's suppressed sobs, like those of a wounded young animal, could be heard in the alley.
He held his younger brother's gradually cooling, small body and sat in the rainy night for a very long time, until the sky turned a deathly gray.
That feeling of helplessness, of being abandoned by the whole world, of a deep-seated coldness and despair, was like the most vicious curse, etched into the depths of his soul.
He failed to protect his younger brother.
He failed.
Reality and nightmares overlap.
The icy touch in his arms perfectly mirrored the coldness of Yanni's final moments in his memory. That familiar, all-consuming sense of powerlessness and guilt, like a dormant volcano, was ignited at this moment, erupting with magma that destroyed everything!
"ah--------!!!"
A roar, inhuman and filled with extreme pain, rage, and despair, burst forth from the depths of Xiya's throat, like the final howl of a wounded and dying beast. It tore through the deathly silence of the cryogenic warehouse, even causing dust and icicles to fall from the ceiling.
He suddenly raised his head, and his red eyes, which always burned with an arrogant flame, were now so red that they were almost dripping blood. They were filled with crazed blood vessels and a sense of near-shattering collapse.
He held Zhong Si's cold body tightly, as if clinging to the last piece of driftwood, but this driftwood was dragging him into an abyss. He shook the boy in his arms violently, as if that could awaken him from his eternal slumber, his voice broken and frantic:
"Wake up! Zhong Si! I order you to wake up! Aren't you 'Butterfly Sea'?! Aren't you the most talented?! Wake up! Look at me!"
"I'm sorry... It's my fault... It's my fault for not protecting you..."
“I shouldn’t have pressed you, I shouldn’t have doubted you… I shouldn’t have left you alone…”
"Why...why does it always happen like this...why do I always..."
Incoherent confessions, desperate cries, and frantic commands intertwined. Immense grief and self-reproach churned within him like countless red-hot blades.
He abruptly raised his head, his gaze like a poisoned arrow, piercing towards Qianxu Wuyun, who lay limp and seemingly unconscious not far away. All his pain found an outlet at that moment, transforming into a boundless killing intent capable of incinerating everything!
"It was you! You killed Zhong Si!!" He was like a furious lion, gently setting down Zhong Si's body with movements so gentle they were almost eerie, a stark contrast to the violent aura emanating from him.
He walked step by step toward Qianxu Wuyun, each step feeling as if he were stepping on burning coals, the frosty cement on the ground seeming to groan beneath his feet.
"I'm going to kill you! I'm going to tear you to pieces!!" he roared, reaching out to grab Qianxu Wuyun's slender neck, his fingers trembling violently with extreme rage.
Just then, hurried footsteps came from the doorway. Gongyang Yandaosi and several core members were the first to arrive, drawn by Xiya's heart-wrenching scream. When they saw the horrific scene inside the warehouse, everyone gasped and froze in place.
"Xiah! Stop!" Gongyang shouted, trying to step forward to stop them.
But West Asia had completely lost her mind. The world in her red eyes was nothing but blood.
Anyone who gets in his way is an enemy! He suddenly turned around and punched a nearby abandoned refrigeration machine. The hard metal casing was dented by his violent punch, which produced a huge roar!
"Get out of my way!!" he roared, like a caged beast that had completely lost control, glaring at everyone who approached. "No one can stop me! I'm going to kill her! To avenge Zhong Si!"
In the chaos, Xu Yue appeared at the doorway. She didn't speak, but stood there quietly, her gray eyes sweeping over the horrific scene before finally settling on the crazed Xi Ya and the cold bodies of Zhong Si.
Her face was expressionless, as if covered by ice and snow that had never melted for millennia, but deep within her eyes surged a storm colder than the Siberian cold front.
She offered no reproach, no comfort, but simply uttered a few words in an icy voice: "Take him back. Seal off this place."
Her voice wasn't loud, but it carried a strange power that could pierce through madness. At the Ram's signal, several elite members risked being seriously injured by the out-of-control Sia and forcibly subdued him.
Xiya struggled and screamed frantically, tears streaming down his face as he was forcibly taken away from this frozen hell that buried his last trace of warmth.
The cryogenic warehouse returned to deathly silence, leaving only Qianxu's silent, curled-up body and Zhong Si's young, cold body, which was gradually being covered by more frost.
Xu Yue slowly walked to Zhong Si's side, squatted down, and reached out to gently brush away the newly formed frost on the boy's eyelashes. Her fingertips trembled almost imperceptibly the moment they touched his cold skin. Then, she stood up and ordered Gong Yang, "Investigate. Investigate thoroughly. Everyone involved, leave no one out."
Her voice was calm and even, yet more chilling than Xiya's roar. The organization's warm facade had been completely torn away, leaving only a cold core of revenge soaked in blood and betrayal.
The death of "Little Butterfly" tolled like the heaviest death knell over the Xuyue Organization.
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