Jun's soul stood at a cemetary where the dark clouds in the sky rumbled loudly. It was the day when the Liu family witnessed the catastrophe of not one but three funerals.
The ever so bright and cheerful family looked bleak and hopeless. Nuo collapsed on the ground, wailing hard while Liu Chunhua tried to comfort her. But with a heart empty of feelings, she too, didn't know what words of solace to provide to her granddaughter.
Shui and the Han family were equally devastated as they stood in front of the tombstones. freew ebnovel.com
Liu Hai, the twins, Jing, Yukito, Yukira, the Chen family...
Jun felt a gnawing suffering in his chest that didn't allow him to breathe because the person suffering the most was none other than Jinhai.
The man lost his wife. The man lost his sons. The lives of his other children were broken apart.
"Dad...D-Dad, I am here..." Jun raised his hand to touch, but it simply passed through him.
The weight of everything happening before him crushed his heart akin to a bulldozer ramming in.
It wasn't Jin...
It was my death that Mom gave up...
Jun blankly stared at the ground that gradually began to turn wetter as raindrops poured from the sky. The drops didn't touch him, yet he still felt cold.
It was my death...It was me...
He understood that Jin's death was a precursor to Nana's weakening condition, but...
Was it my suicide that pushed her down the cliff?
If Nana had been holding onto her semblance after Jin's death, Jun's death which followed shortly after only made her give up the last thread of hope she had.
Maybe...just maybe...
If I had taken a different decision, then would Mom have still...been alive?
B-But what else could I have done? I was told that Mom died...
How could I not blame myself?
How could I still have had the face to continue living so shamelessly?
Mom was alive. If only...if only I had shown some courage to go inside the hospital and see her for myself...Then she would have stopped me from doing something so reckless...
And everybody...and Dad wouldn't have had to suffer so much...
It's me. I killed Mom. My foolish guilt killed her.
Jun raised his head and looked at his father, who stared at the tombs of his beloved wife and sons as the rain poured upon him.
Ah...
Jun laughed at himself.
I killed Dad too. How foolish can I be?
With what eyes do I see him alive at this moment?
Mom was his everything. If she wasn't here anymore, then that body...was just an empty shell now...
Suddenly, the cemetery scene vanished before him. He saw no more memories after that but only heard the voice of his father that quietly echoed from a distance.
"Jun, Jin, Nana..."
Why...why can I not see anymore? Jun anxiously questioned himself.
Jinhai's voice was getting distorted as well. It was similar to the time when he had first seen the golden clock and could merely hear incoherent voices.
"I finally...justice..."
"...Took...revenge..."
"Can I finally...join...all?"
A sharp shudder ran across his spine, and he desperately called out.
What is he talking about...? I cannot hear it clearly but why does it feel so painful?
"Dad! Dad! Dad!" He yelled and screamed.
But it was as if his time to stay in that mysterious space was up and what greeted his eyes beyond was nothing but darkness.
--
On her side, Ai too, was beginning to lose her hold over the world. After listening to the conversation between her parents and Jun's, what she saw after that was nothing more than torture to her heart.
Xie Nuying was barely holding onto herself after Ai's loss and Zhou Yichen...
He made it his life's mission to find the culprit behind Ai's death. Naturally, he had confronted Guiying and Yating who were the last two people with her on the terrace.
But neither Guiying nor Yating were in any state to answer.
"I killed Ai. I killed Ai..."
Ever since the news of Ai's death had reached his ears, that was the only thing which Yating kept chanting to himself all day.
"I killed Ai. I killed Ai...If only I had held her hand in time...If only...If only I wasn't so afraid..."
On the other hand, Guiying had completely locked herself in her apartment, refusing to step out or talk to anybody. Zhou Yichen couldn't reach her no matter how much he tried.
Eventually, Dream High made a statement declaring Zhou Ai to have committed suicide. They grieved the loss of a talented author and prayed for her soul.
"Bullshit!!!" Zhou Yichen roared. "You fuckers ignored my daughter, her efforts, her writing, her very soul all this time and now you say you pray for her!? And how dare you blame my daughter!?"
He trembled in rage as he had confronted Dream High. "My daughter...my daughter would never think of giving up on her life! She was never so weak to take her own life! It's you all...it's you all who killed her and now you are trying to hide your dirty involvement!"
Until the very end, Zhou Yichen never believed the claims of Ai jumping off the terrace herself.
"You dare think you could escape the crime of killing my only child!? Hah! Over my dead body! I will do whatever I have to. I will break all the laws if I need to, but whoever killed my daughter would never live in peace! I will drag them out and make them pay!"
Zhou Yichen dedicated the later months of his life in investigating the truth behind Ai's death. He used his every possible connection he could to dig anything he could to find the culprit.
And all this time as Ai watched him desperately fighting for her justice, she could only feel the tears in her eyes refusing to stop from slipping down.
But soon, everything vanished from her sight. The only voices Ai could hear was of her mother grieving Zhou Yichen's death...
"Yichen...Yichen...You are...bleeding..."
"...Cannot leave me..."
"Yichen...not breathing..."
*BANG*
The only voices Ai could hear was of her mother grieving Zhou Yichen's death...
And the last bullet shot that killed Xie Nuying's voice forever too.
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