The other eight people were mostly sticking together. They quietly exchanged comments and warnings, looking almost used to each other, but River had a feeling that it was more about having bait nearby, just in case.
Because he looked too antisocial, none of them cared much about him.
However, one of the adult men – somewhere in his late twenties or early thirties – was watching Aspen quite suspiciously.
River glanced over again.
Aspen was of average height with a slender athletic build. Wandering around curiously, he was indeed someone who could catch people’s eyes.
And sadly, this place was one without rules as any injury would be gone after you woke up.
River rubbed over his ears as if to block out the memory of a woman’s screams.
One young woman with a great figure and six older, strong men, of whom two knew each other. They had started it. The others followed.
Still, it wasn’t any of his business. He wouldn’t try to intervene and get into trouble.
“Hey, you, Aspen? Don’t wander too far off alone. It’s better to stay in groups in places like these.”
The man walked towards Aspen, who had pushed open one of the windows and peered outside. The area below them was the garden and revealed a view on the house – a true mansion with two floors surrounded by high walls.
Ignored by the youth, the sleazy guy stepped closer and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s walk around together. I’ll explore with you.”
The disgusting tone earned disapproving looks and rolled eyes from the others nearby. None of them said anything.
River closed his eyes momentarily.
…That was the kind of place this was.
Aspen finally reacted. He turned his large, bright eyes up to the man with a stupidly blank expression like a little child.
The innocent face excited the man further. He began to move his hand to knead the thin shoulder. “Don’t worry, I’ll watch out for you.”
Aspen reached up to his shoulder, touching the man’s hand. Everyone watched in curiosity – did he maybe like this kind of guy?
What followed was something no one expected.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Crqfc ugjyyfv atf jgw alutais jcv aklrafv tlr ybvs. Llr ifur rtba bea jcv yfobgf atf wjc mbeiv gfjma, tf kjr ojiilcu obgkjgvr.
Ktf sbeat yfca vbkc jcv ujnf tlw jcbatfg qert ab obgmf atf wbnfwfca. Lf xlmxfv atf batfg’r ifur ogbw atf ugbecv jcv qeiifv atfw eq ab oeiis rtloa atf ues’r kfluta.
Everyone’s eyes widened.
The man screamed miserably. A weirdly loud, dull sound broke off his scream and the following silence was deafening. Aspen leaned onto the windowsill and looked down at the ground. River did the same through the window next to him.
The distorted pile of limbs twitched once. The second floor wasn’t high up to guarantee a certain death from falling even onto the stony ground, but the man had fallen head first. River was sure that he could see some gray mass spill out from where his head was.
One of the people made a retching sound. Aspen hummed thoughtfully. “He didn’t vanish. Hmm, is it because he’s not dead or do you stay here even after death…?”
His whisper alerted another of the men. Small but broad, he rushed forward. “You sick fuck-”
Another twist. Another person who was pushed and moved to fall out of the window.
This one was able to react and clung to the windowsill in a panic. Aspen blinked in annoyance, raised his arm and crashed his elbow down onto the fingers.
With a crack they broke, causing the man to fall.
This time, he was obviously and audibly alive. Having fallen onto the other man, he had only broken at least a leg and was not moving, possibly due to pain or a broken spine as he lay over the other’s now certain corpse.
Aspen scrunched his eyebrows.
Without any visible change in his eyes, he turned to the remaining six people that staggered backwards or were in the process of throwing up.
Even one against six, there was a distinct difference between someone willing and used to injuring or killing, compared to someone who had never hurt another willingly.
It was surprisingly clear who would win this round.
River looked at Aspen approach them leisurely as if he was on a walk.
He had ignored River, who was standing closer, and had gone towards the six of them. Maybe he did not intend to attack River.
Not interested in finding out the other’s intentions, River turned and slowly walked down the hallway. When the screams began, he only raised his hands to block out the sound and continued walking.
He did not meet Aspen in the next hours. He simply explored the area and got an overview of what was happening for three rounds, a total of 36 hours.
Thankfully hunger and exhaustion weren’t an issue here but the mental strain was taxing nonetheless.
By now, he had seen the full scene.
The only Actors and shadows in this mansion were a couple, their daughter, the butler he had seen before, two maids and a gardener.
The little lady was grounded and not allowed out of her room. Her parents were fighting constantly, especially after leaving her room when she screamed at them and cried.
The butler and the maids were quiet participants that did not react to her pleas. They were visibly distanced from the gardener.
Judging by his body, the gardener must be a young man. Often he would linger nearby the ground below the little lady’s room, only to be shooed away by the maids. Whenever that happened, the little lady would stand at her window and clench her fists or cry.
The twelve hours were from somewhere late afternoon and into the deep of the night. Once the mansion had fallen completely quiet, the gardener was suddenly outside again.
The little lady’s window opened. Using the ivy, she climbed outside and almost fell but caught herself.
Once down, she hugged and kissed the gardener. Then the two of them ran.
Sadly, it wasn’t for long.
River watched the butler catch them and the couple drag her to the side as she screamed. The gardener resisted heavily but the butler swung a club and brought it down on his back. The couple tried to hide the sight from their daughter but she ran forward again and again. The maids got a sheet to place over the gardener and hide it.
What it didn’t hide was the butler’s brutal beating. Hit after hit, the sheet soon stopped moving and took on a dark shade. The little lady broke down to her knees.
The gardener stopped moving and the whole scene broke like a mirror image to the sound of a chime.
River shuddered at returning back to the starting point of the twelve hours. The last round for today.
His feet brought him into the mansion again, finding the figure of the gardener who went to change his clothes. He watched the figure leave and stared at the pile in the corner of the tiny room.
That was where the little lady’s message was. The letter where she asked her beloved to wait outside her room at night.
…The message that the maid found and that was one of the reasons this plan failed.
Behind him, Aspen had stepped up wordlessly. He had watched River for a while now, following him around silently to see what he was up to.
All other people were in different places. As it turned out, the bodies always stayed behind, no matter how the person died.
River was deep in thought and did not notice Aspen approaching. The glasses and messy hair had been blocking his sight before.
Aspen looked at the pair of sparkling eyes he could see at this angle. They were unlike anything he had seen before. That pair of eyes was burning low, a candle behind a murky window, flickering softly and almost extinguishing in the draft.
He did not know what about it made him speak, but he felt that this truly was a flicker of life. A something that he did not want to see become static and still.
“Why don’t you do it?”, he whispered low and River flinched away. His head, which had been raised slightly, lowered again as if he wanted to hide. Aspen closed in on him. Like a devil’s whisper, he softly hummed the tempting words. “What do you want to do? Why not? …Who here will care if you do or don’t?”
River quivered.
His fingers were trembling at the sound in his ear, weirdly intimate. He felt his ear heat up and hurriedly covered it, wanting to flee from the words.
But his legs didn’t move.
…Why not?
…Since there was no one here to disdain him?
…Who could still say anything about it? This person who had thoughtlessly thrown someone out of the window?
He could see it in the dark gray eyes. Aspen was expecting him to do something with the simple curiosity of a child wanting to see what would happen. There was no bad intention in his eyes.
He simply wanted to see. And River wanted to do.
Now it was his throat that was trembling with an unfitting chuckle that desperately wanted to break out. He held it back, pushing his hands in front of his mouth to keep it in.
Aspen was beginning to grin.
Author’s Note
As you’ll discover as the story progresses, River/Tian Zhu is somewhat nihilistic (rather than depressed or similar issues).
“Existential nihilism begins with the notion that the world is without meaning or purpose. Given this circumstance, existence itself–all action, suffering, and feeling–is ultimately senseless and empty.”
In a way, he knows that some actions are against morals, but he isn’t going to involve himself with it. For him, not changing a status quo (even if painful) is easier than fighting against it. Keep this in mind, as it explains a loooot about his behaviour in this story.
Thanks for the chapter~
I’m hooked, and there’s another one to my billion novel reading list 😅😍
Sounds interesting ❤️ Thanks for the chapter
Thank you for the chapterrr
Is it weird I was smiling reallyyy widely while I was reading this lmaoo
Can’t wait to see what River gonna do in the next chapter ehe
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