The family, as Tian Zhu knew, liked him less groveling and more non-existent. They preferred if they didn’t see or hear him, so it was always the best solution to stay inside his room or act as a doll when outside.
Today he was downstairs. Stuck, kind of. In theory the attendants were packing up some of his things for the move, but Tian Zhu could tell that they were mostly searching for anything he could have hidden away so that they could report it before he could hide it away.
Otherwise, he thought, it made absolutely no sense for his parents to ask the attendants to do this task after nine in the evening.
Poor staff.
They were done by now, everyone having retreated to their rooms for the night where they were expected to stay unless called. It was quiet and serene in the livingroom, so Tian Zhu hadn’t moved even after they vacated his room.
His parents had chosen this day on purpose because they were out for the night, so Tian Zhu didn’t bother them even when he was downstairs.
Obedient and quiet, he sat on the sofa, absent-mindedly cutting an apple into pieces.
The sweetness and light taste helped him alleviate the stomachache he had inevitably gotten after a much too heavy dinner.
His mind was far away, barely concentrating on the task.
Soon a new game would start. They hadn’t been informed it was canceled for them, so they were both going today.
The closer the time got, the less Tian Zhu’s hands shuddered.
There were other things that were noticeably off, though – the way he got confused at the colors of his surroundings. The way he expected his arm to be marked with “River”. The way he expected Aspen to be nearby, always close enough that he could call him.
Without ShuShu, his connection to reality was slipping.
He let it happen.
It didn’t matter that much.
“You’re still here?”
Tian Zhu almost cut himself when he flinched at the sudden sound. He put his half eaten apple away, turning around to see his older brother, dressed to leave.
“Yes”, he said quietly. “I will go upstairs in a moment.”
Ling Xian eyed the apple on the table, acknowledging with a nod that Tian Zhu was down here to eat.
He fixed his collar while looking into a mirror. Tian Zhu only observed him from the corner of his eyes, making sure to have his gaze and head lowered.
“How have you been feeling these days?”, his older brother asked in a pointedly friendly tone that didn’t mask his intentions half as well as the speaker thought.
Tian Zhu thought about which answer would be best. A slow, hesitant tone for sure. “I’m okay.”
“You’ve been so quiet lately. Didn’t even accompany me outside anymore.”
To that, Tian Zhu didn’t respond.
The smirking face in the mirror did not turn away from its own image.
“Oh, but I noticed that even though you’re inside all day, you haven’t been using your computer. Is there maybe a problem with it?”
Tian Zhu’s thoughts slipped. Computer. He hadn’t been using it, yes, hadn’t been using it because-
“I-”
He thought he should respond to that, but his brain didn’t work too well.
For a moment, Ling Xian turned towards him. Nose lifted high in the air, the older brother scoffed at the stupid expression on his sibling.
“You know”, he started with that infuriatingly arrogant tone of his. “It’s not like this family won’t buy you new things when something breaks down. It’s fine, as long as it doesn’t happen too often. You shouldn’t waste money.” A humph. “Everything that this family takes away from you, they can give back – given that you behave yourself, of course.”
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.
Taken away?
“Tfr?” Kljc Ite’r ujhf kjr uijrrs.
“I’ll say it again. Stay away from my fiancee. If I want your things destroyed, they will be.” Ling Xian’s voice took a sudden turn, becoming malicious. “Whether it’s your arm or your electronics. I will hurt you if you mess up my relationship with her. I-”
Lf rjlv wbgf, qgbyjyis, yea la ofii bc vfjo fjgr.
Kljc Ite’r tfjv yijcxfv bea.
Sifmagbclmr?
Snfgsatlcu rffwfv ab njclrt, fzmfqa obg Olcu Wljc jcv tlr nblmf.
ShuShu.
“Aera rajs jkjs ogbw tfg jcv kf’gf olcf”, Olcu Wljc mbcalcefv ab gjwyif bc klatbea j mjgf lc atf kbgiv. Lf kjr qeaalcu bc tlr rtbfr, cba fnfc ibbxlcu tlr ygbatfg lc atf fsfr jr tf ajixfv.
He was so overprotected. Never had to stand up for his mistakes. He didn’t even consider that one day, he’d have to pay for it.
You caused it?
Still talking. “Not sure why you’d be hiding some stupid old phone but-”
I̴t̴ ̷w̸a̴s̷ ̷y̵o̸u̶.̴
It didn’t matter what he was saying. Tian Zhu took a slightly swaying step forward, bending over to grab the fruit knife on the table.
Y̵̭̏o̷̡̎u̶͓͘.̵͖̈́
You could read a murderer’s feelings through their killing method. Whether they were calm or agitated, whether it was a crime in the heat of the moment or something planned.
Ǎ̶͙̿ḽ̵͙̄w̵͙̌â̵̛̜ẙ̵͎̳s̶̭̫̀͝ ̶̨̤̈́ỷ̶͈́o̶̝̻͝u̶͕̺̔.̸̻̟̈́
There was a lot you could read just by looking at the victim’s corpse.
I̵̦͋ ̷̩͊͝w̴͕̖͊̕ǎ̸͚̺ń̵̫̺t̴̡̮̎ ̸̮̤̎ÿ̶̳̝͝o̶̢̩͊ù̶̲ ̵̤̋t̵̼̩́͊o̴̦̐ ̶͉̐̈́͜v̶͇̹̅a̵̧̅̾n̷̢̏̀į̶̰͐s̴̻͎̄ḫ̵̘̍̈.̶̗̀̕͜
He genuinely wondered what the police would think about his case.
D̵̮͔̼̉͂̚ḭ̶̢̨̳̮͎͉͙̞̞̉̕͝ẹ̵̡̡̛͖̞̦̼͗̂̋́̂͋͗̔̑̕.̸̞̭͙͔̭̪̲̮̱̉͒̉̈́̈́̓́͑̔̚͠
The door was open. He only had to step through it.
Tian Zhu grabbed Ling Xian’s hair from behind, pulling his brother’s head back heavily. His brother screamed in surprise, the sound getting cut off in the middle when Tian Zhu stabbed the small knife into his throat and drew it to the side.
It wasn’t easy, he noticed. Maybe it would have been easier to use the blade and slide it across his throat, rather than stab it in and try to do it.
He didn’t mind the extra effort.
Blood was spurting out, covering his fingers. They turned slippery, but he was gripping the knife tight. Ling Xian’s fingers scratched at his arm, jerking, losing strength.
Blood was slipping down Ling Xian’s windpipe, getting coughed back up in heaving, odd breaths. He continued to twitch and move for seconds and seconds, body only slowly slipping down. Tian Zhu retrieved his knife, then stabbed it right back in.
He was no butcher. He didn’t know how to cut off someone’s head, and he doubted it’d work with a fruit knife.
Still, he expressionlessly hacked away at Ling Xian’s throat, as if there was no other way to shut his brother up. The mangled, bloody mess looked like minced meat by the time he was done.
Tian Zhu paused for a moment, looking down at his brother’s empty eyes. Wide with fear, with shock, with pain, with everything he deserved.
Then he stabbed down again.
He tore at the corpse mindlessly, ignoring the exhaustion in his arm. Only when the knife began to slip out of his fingers did he stop.
The floor he sat on was slippery.
He hadn’t known that blood could be so red.
It also reeked. The stench was filling up his nose as he apathetically stared down at his hands.
He had officially murdered his brother.
All Ling Xian would have had to do was leave him alone.
He had tolerated and tolerated and tolerated. He had endured and ignored and played along.
Just this one final straw.
This one reverse scale.
If Ling Xian hadn’t gone too far, this wouldn’t have happened.
Tian Zhu poked the corpse. He had seen Ling Xian dead before, in the dreams, but there he had been black and white. Now he was in full color. Everything was much more real.
And he couldn’t care less.
The longer he looked, the more the corpse seemed to lose color. The blood seemed gray in his eyes. His world was bleeding out its colors into grayscale and it was calming. Familiar.
Tian Zhu sighed. If his parents found him, they’d kill him for revenge. He didn’t really want to be hunted down.
At a loss, he walked back into his room to take the abnormal old phone. Aspen, maybe paranoid due to the last time he had suddenly done a videocall, accepted it on the fourth ring.
“I need some help”, Tian Zhu stated the moment Aspen’s widening eyes appeared on the small screen.
Aspen inhaled.
Jing Ci sat up abruptly. He couldn’t care less about how suspicious his movements were on the security cameras right now. His gaze was fixated on the blood dripping off River’s face.
Wounded?
No.
They were smudges from wiping it away. No flowing blood, only sprayed droplets.
River was fine.
“Who?” Jing Ci’s thoughts were running.
“My brother.”
“How intact? Can you hide it?”
River shook his head. He wiped his cheek again, smudging the bright red further. “I have to leave. They will kill me. There’s people upstairs, I don’t have much time.”
Jing Ci’s fingers tightened around the phone, enough to turn pale. He hid his tension behind a toothy smile.
“Wait for me”, he said gently. He hung up immediately afterwards, clutching the phone to his chest. His head jerked upwards. “…Gamblers! You, can you hear me?”
The phone vibrated immediately.
【We can】
【We can】
【What is wrong?】
【What do you want?】
“Can you save River?” Aspen squeezed his eyes shut. “Can you do it so that the murder was done by someone else? Can you do it so that he’s safe?”
There was a pause. The seconds stretched endlessly.
What happened then was a whisper in a breeze that shouldn’t be able to appear in a room without a window. It tickled Aspen’s ears in his own voice.
【Can. But that is a gift too great for what you gave.】
Jing Ci quivered.
Too great…
“Then… Please take me to him. Please. I want to be with him.”
Jing Ci curled up around the phone, holding his breath.
There was a pause again – then the breeze.
A real breeze.
When Jing Ci appeared, Tian Zhu froze. It wasn’t out of surprise – for some reason, he wasn’t surprised to see the other here.
He had moved from the house to behind it, squatting in the grass to keep himself calm while focusing on the wind and the subtle smell of incoming snow. The weather was dreary.
Jing Ci was disoriented after suddenly appearing outside. He gasped like a fish out of water, eyes swimming around in confusion until Tian Zhu grabbed his hand. Only then did the focus return. “I waited”, Tian Zhu whispered, and a slightly dizzy smile appeared on Jing Ci’s face.
The blood stained their hands, but they didn’t notice. Where the gaping holes on Jing Ci’s wrists had once held shackles, the fluid now slid into the open area and dyed it red.
“I asked the Gamblers. They said that changing this would be too much for what we got”, he quickly explained. Tian Zhu nodded solemnly.
“To ensure my safety, there’d have to be another killer. That means changing the situation of another human completely. I can see how that is too high of a reward. But maybe, if the reward is too high for what we’ve won…”
Light sparkled in Jing Ci’s eyes.
“Maybe there’s a way to increase the bet? Increase it high enough that we could ask for this reward?”
The phones in their hands vibrated immediately.
【We will ask】, came the message, somehow excited.
【We will see if that’s possible until the game starts】
“Two hours”, Jing Ci said with determination. “It’s only two hours. Who will notice that your brother is dead tonight?”
“I can’t say for sure. The servants are asleep and not allowed to roam at night, at least in theory. My parents will return in the morning.”
“That means we don’t have too much time. Let’s go. We will hide elsewhere.”
Jing Ci squeezed Tian Zhu’s hand.
It was cold outside, too cold for either of their outfits. But they both felt warm and oddly secure.
Tian Zhu followed Jing Ci blindly, only replying when the other asked about directions. Their hands stayed intertwined, giving each other strength as they walked on and on, searching for a suitable place to take a rest until the dream took them.
Author’s Note
Welcome to the final game.
This is unexpected, but at the same time something logical and expected. Didn’t think that his ‘brother’ did it
Omg that was epic! I had to pause everything around me and get fully sucked into that experience. So glad that he killed him and that they are together now at long last!
Now for the final game! I’m so excited!
Thanks for the chapter! 😀
Pretty sure the brother didn’t do anything to ShuShu and he was just running his mouth. Still, he got what he deserved for everything else.
Since this won’t ever be talked about in depth – he basically just ensured that River would get a virus and hoped it would destroy whatever it could. He never knew about ShuShu (otherwise he’d have stolen her), but he did want whatever important thing River had on his electronics to be irreversibly damaged. Indeed, compared to everything else, this was supposed to be a small and petty move.
It’s so childish to think like that… “I’m mediocre so you must be worse than me?” What an imbecile. It is Karma that he got. Thank you for this chapter!!
Thanks for the chapter ! ^^
It was unexpected and surprisingly… cathartic. I felt relief at that, like all the bad emotions caused by previous chapters were let out a little.
Good job !
Man I wanna see the parents reactions
bruh
I was thinking Ling Xian would hopefully get his desserts served, but it still caught me off guard when it actually happened 😂