Thud!
The sound of a heavy body collapsing echoed across the floorboards.
Fang Xiaoxia stared forward with glazed eyes, her blood-streaked little face awash with shock and bewilderment.
The cooling man lay sprawled on the ground, his head a mere five or six centimeters from her feet. The fruit knife remained lodged deep in his chest, stained red to the point of blackness with blood. Just minutes ago, Fang Xiaoxia had planned to peel an apple for Bai Zhou with it.
"He's dead," Mom said.
There was no doubt about it. The furious Old Fang would never rage again. Countless wounds densely riddled his chest and abdomen, blood welling up in fountain-like surges, without a single patch of intact flesh to be seen.
Even a real wolf or bear would have met only death from such trauma.
The floor was dyed entirely crimson, like a vivid red flower blooming across the living room boards.
Fang Xiaoxia felt emotionally numb. She could not tear her gaze from the corpse on the floor, yet her stomach churned uncontrollably.
To say she felt no grief would be a lie, for the one lying on the floor was no stranger—he was her father.
Only minutes earlier, he had been sitting on the living room sofa with his arms folded, wearing a dark scowl alongside Mom, waiting for their daughter's late return.
He was the man who always had his love for his daughter on his lips. When Fang Xiaoxia was little, he would hoist her high into the air, spinning her over his head amidst the girl's laughter;
when she stumbled on an exam, he would clumsily pat her head with his rough, broad hand, telling her she just needed to try harder next time. Yet the monster that had suddenly gone mad moments ago was him as well.
He had been utterly alien. Even his face had twisted beyond recognition, resembling a werewolf, and his physique and build had fundamentally altered. He hadn't looked like a human being, let alone a father.
When he seized her throat and dragged her off the wall, Fang Xiaoxia had seen not a shred of warmth in that face—only the shocked fury of someone whose control had been challenged.
In that instant, she was certain he truly would kill her.
Just like...
Just like an aging lion in a pride whose authority was defied, mauling the challenger to death in a duel.
Yet what Fang Xiaoxia thought of first was an aviculturist who, upon finding a caged bird attempting to flee, chose simply to drown it instead.
Because he discovered his captive pet would no longer depend on him, he tried to hammer her back into the iron mold of an "obedient daughter"—even if she suffocated inside, even if what finally poured out was nothing more than a shriveled specimen.
Ridiculous, wasn't it?
She hadn't been harmed during the bizarre manhunt through the rainy night, yet she had nearly perished inside the home she trusted and relied on most;
she had chosen to leave so she wouldn't drag her parents down, yet for that very reason, she had nearly been beaten to death by her own biological father.
Staring blankly, the girl instinctively curled her legs against her chest and wrapped her arms around them.
All she felt was cold.
Mom's reaction was even more extreme—and naturally, it should have been.
Mom clutched her own throat with both hands, dry rattling gasps escaping her parted lips, unable to speak for the longest time, her face drained of every drop of color.
"You're really dead," she whispered to the man on the floor.
Looking half as though she were weeping and half as though laughing, Mom finally sank to her knees in the pool of blood. She took the man she knew best in this life into her embrace, rocking him gingerly, like an infant in swaddling clothes.
She seemed to have lost her mind, softly muttering words Fang Xiaoxia could not comprehend. There seemed to be no logical connection between one phrase and the next—a rambling, incoherent babble spoken in an exceedingly quiet, fragile voice.
Blood was still draining from the man, soaking into the woman. Her hands, chest, legs, and even her face were smeared with crimson gore. And not just blood, but shreds of flesh.
"Mom..."
Fang Xiaoxia called out timidly. The sight before her was enough to shatter anyone's sanity, yet the girl felt only sadness—a sorrow that enveloped mother and daughter alike.
Hearing her daughter's soft call, Mom looked up.
The madness on her face had long receded, leaving behind only a hollow stillness and the numbness of relief.
Yet when she heard Fang Xiaoxia's trembling voice and raised her eyes to see the girl's timid, frightened face, some profound instinct seemed to awaken, breathing life back into her.
The empty marionette began to stir. Those lifeless eyes suddenly flickered with a faint gleam of light.
"It's all right now, Xiaoxia,"
she said softly. "No one can hurt you anymore."
Watching her mother steeped in blood, Fang Xiaoxia instinctively reached out, wiping the gore from her mother's face.
The slick blood clung to her fingertips. The girl's hand trembled, yet her movement was steady.
Strangely, Fang Xiaoxia felt an inexplicable familiarity in the action, as if she had performed it countless times before.
"Mom, what should we do now?"
She had expected herself to completely collapse. Everything had happened far too suddenly; whether it was the horrific violence or the slaughter between her own parents, any of it warranted weeping her heart out or screaming hysterically.
Yet she did neither. To her astonishment, she felt remarkably serene, like a hollow, lonely valley where dropping a single pebble would produce echoes that lingered endlessly.
Perhaps it was because she had noticed the bruises and scars exposed on her mother's neck as she lifted her head.
Those were marks left by past quarrels, just like the scars her father had borne.
Again, and again, and again.
Fang Xiaoxia had simply chosen to forget them.
Out of self-preservation and denial, people deliberately locked certain memories away. As the self-proclaimed King of Ah Q, Fang Xiaoxia was better at that than anyone.
Yet when confronted with them, everything she had once erased came rushing back with redoubled force.
Those late nights when she could not sleep amidst the shouting, the screams, and the shattering of objects...
That was why Fang Xiaoxia had clung so desperately to that secret base.
"There is nothing you need to do."
Mom's voice reeled Fang Xiaoxia back to reality.
Then, under Fang Xiaoxia's gaze, Mom knelt beside the bloody corpse, bent down, and kissed him.
Her expression was almost reverent. To the man silenced forever, she said, "We love you."
Fang Xiaoxia remained quiet, offering no contradiction.
She looked at that face—both familiar and alien, pale as a devil's. In that moment, countless memories flashed across her mind like fleeting shadows. It truly was a twisted, hideous face, heavy with lingering malice and thick with bristling fur, a savage murderous intent failing to disperse even in death.
The curses still echoed in her ears; the pain of the blows still burned across her body. All those years of treading on eggshells, living in fear, wracked with insecurity and hypersensitivity, were inextricably tied to this man. Today, he had even tried to take her life.
Yet from that same face, Fang Xiaoxia saw another person: a father who loved Mom and her with everything he had, the idealized father she had constructed behind rose-tinted glasses. The past could never have been purely suffering; sweet, warm memories filled most of its pages.
The desperate, groveling pleas for forgiveness after the cursing and beatings, and the paternal pride when he declared, "Our Xiaoxia is the best."
At the thought of this, a bitter ache surged through Fang Xiaoxia's heart.
Human beings were truly strange creatures, capable of loving and despising someone deeply at the exact same time.
Fang Xiaoxia felt that her father's departed soul would surely haunt Mom and her for a very long time—not just an apparition, but the imprint he had left in their hearts and across this home.
Looking at the man's corpse, a sense of loss and sorrow was inevitable, and such weakness made Fang Xiaoxia feel ashamed.
Yet once those tangled emotions receded, only tranquility remained deep within.
Like ruins swept clear by a hurricane, after a heavy rain, the battered world was left with nothing but a vast, empty wilderness.
Nothing remained—not even resentment.
Only the winds of sorrow blew across this lonely world from time to time.
Yet sorrow was not an emotion; it was an instinct.
Nor was loneliness; it was simply the baseline condition of existing.
"Goodbye, Dad," Fang Xiaoxia finally said to the mangled flesh cradled in Mom's arms.
She knew that one day in the future, this shapeless pulp of blood would not be her final memory of him. Perhaps long from now, she would remember more of his good side, recalling how he held her hand, carried her on his shoulders, and counted the cars driving down the street.
But that would be a very long time from now. Certainly not today.
Right now, everything felt like an absurd, horrifying nightmare.
The rain outside seemed to have stopped.
The dark clouds parted, leaving the night sky like blue velvet. Swirling moonlight spilled through the window, ethereal as a dream.
Crystalline moonlight drifted and wove through the room, bearing witness to the scene within, as though mourning something.
"You should go, Xiaoxia," Mom said, her quiet voice brimming with tenderness. "Just as you said... leave this place. Escape the pursuit of fate. Flee to a place where no one can find you."
"What about you?"
Fang Xiaoxia felt a sudden surge of dread, her eyes turning to Mom with a plea. "You're coming with me, right?"
Mom merely smiled and shook her head. "No. Only you."
"Only me?"
"A path must be walked on your own. You understood that long ago, didn't you, Xiaoxia?"
Mom said softly, "It's time for you to go to the real world."
"—You've lingered with us long enough, Xiaoxia. How much longer do you plan to nestle in your mother's arms?"
"...What do you mean?"
Fang Xiaoxia parted her lips, but for some reason, she couldn't make a sound.
After a long while, she finally managed to speak again:
"I... I don't understand."
Bewilderment filled Fang Xiaoxia's eyes.
Yet Mom only smiled with gentle warmth.
She was an elementary school Chinese teacher, seemingly possessing an endless supply of patience, especially when it came to her own child.
"I am your mother, but am I truly your mother?"
she said. "Xiaoxia, you've known for a long time, haven't you?"
"You've known all along that we aren't real."
Hearing those words, Fang Xiaoxia froze.
In a daze, she saw a rush of scenes: pools of blood, bitter quarrels, rainy nights just like this one.
It was as though demons and specters danced wildly before her eyes. Panic flared in Fang Xiaoxia's gaze, but quickly vanished. Her pretty face, more delicate than a doll's, drooped in defeat, leaving behind only silence and a rising tide of loneliness, like a stray puppy drenched by the rain.
"I..."
Fang Xiaoxia opened her mouth, unable to speak.
As before, the human mind repeatedly sealed away unbearable memories out of self-preservation. Yet every suppression merely laid the groundwork for a more violent eruption the next time.
When countless layers of repressed memories broke through all at once, Fang Xiaoxia stood utterly helpless before the bursting dam, unable to escape at last, nearly crushed under the weight of profound sorrow.
Yes... she had known all along.
She had known her parents were no longer here. She had known for three years.
Yet whenever she drew close to that reality, the defense mechanisms deep in her brain would trigger, sealing those memories away.
Or rather, she had deliberately chosen to run from the truth.
Mom and Dad had always urged her to take her medicine, but she would have taken it faithfully even without their prompting.
Not to grow taller, but because if she didn't take the medicine...
...she wouldn't be able to see her parents anymore.
Only by taking the calcium tablets on schedule could she wait for them to return home from work each day in this apartment, chat with them, and embrace them. Even... even listening to them argue was fine.
In this vast, cold, damp house, Fang Xiaoxia had bustled about all alone, living out the cozy warmth of a family of three.
The girl had parents whom no one else could see. Though they fought every day, they loved her dearly.
And they appeared only inside this house.
Any words that nudged Fang Xiaoxia or made her realize her own abnormality were deliberately forgotten.
She was truly a genius at escaping pain, capable of hiding away where neither suffering nor loneliness could ever find her.
Until now.
Until this very moment, when her father's sudden violent outburst and her mother's direct revelation left Fang Xiaoxia with nowhere to hide and no escape remaining.
"So... the purpose of that medicine was to keep me here forever, wasn't it?"
Fang Xiaoxia murmured softly:
"No wonder you never took me outside to play, even after I took it."
"Because even with the medicine, I could only see you inside this house, right?"
"Mm." Mom nodded with a smile.
"But Mom."
Fang Xiaoxia looked up, her eyes wavering. "If that's true, why did you save me?"
"—Shouldn't you have tried your hardest to stop me from leaving, just like Dad? Even... even if it meant turning into a monster to do it."
The man who had transformed into a humanoid beast still lay on the floor, the fruit knife still plunged into his chest.
So of course he wasn't a real human being. How could any human suddenly turn into something like that?
Yet...
What about Mom?
Since both she and Dad were her hallucinations, governed by some core directive to "never let Fang Xiaoxia leave," shouldn't Mom have turned into a monster as well?
Yet Mom answered without a moment's hesitation:
"Because no mother would stand by and watch her daughter be harmed."
"Nowhere. In no world."
"And of course, regardless of whether it's real or not."
Hearing that, Fang Xiaoxia stood stunned.
What an unreasonable justification, yet completely natural and right. Because that was a mother. Even fate could not overcome a mother's instinct, even if neither she nor Dad truly existed.
"Your father and I... we both love you,"
Mom said. "We watched you grow up, develop your teenage worries, and find your own pride. It's been wonderful."
"But we aren't your real parents after all. You should have left long ago to see the world we cannot see."
"Perhaps it will be difficult for you, but life is a fearless adventure, my child. It means knowing full well a pit lies ahead and still leaping in bravely, until you climb back out with your own two hands—that is what living is."
Fang Xiaoxia hesitated. "But what if... what if I miss you?"
Mom fell silent for a moment.
Then she turned toward the window. With the storm gone, the night sky was crystal clear, starlight shimmering across the heavens like fluttering silk ribbons. Mom's voice was tender, her eyes illuminated by the pure moonlight outside, yet softer and warmer than the moon itself:
"Then look up at the moon. Whenever moonlight falls across your shoulders, know that your mother is watching over you."
"—As long as you wish it, we will always be here."
Suddenly, Fang Xiaoxia caught a faint whiff of smoke.
Thin at first, then choking.
Hazy gray smoke and glistening flames spread out of thin air from the floor, the walls, and the ceiling.
Fang Xiaoxia abruptly realized what was happening.
The sole mission of this entire illusion had been to keep the caged bird confined, keeping her a girl who would never grow up within this apartment. Yet once the entity executing that mission defied the objective, once the mission itself no longer had a reason to exist—
—the illusion and everything inside it would naturally have to disappear.
"How do I keep you here?" Fang Xiaoxia panicked, lunging toward Mom.
Mom still held the cold man, reaching out to gently push Fang Xiaoxia's trembling hands away.
"You don't need to keep us, child,"
she said.
"Because we have always been a part of you... No matter when, we will always be with you."
The fire spread.
Leaping flames cast long, flickering shadows. Within those shadows, Fang Xiaoxia faintly heard the timid whispers of countless voices. Indistinct, twisted silhouettes emerged from the cracks in the floorboards, the edges of the walls, and the corners behind the sofa.
They writhed, blindly slamming into and tearing at one another amidst the smoke and fire, letting out overlapping sobs and wails as the flames drew near. The small living room seemed to become a corner of purgatory, demonic specters scurrying from nowhere, ancient wraiths weeping and howling.
"Xiaoxia... Fang Xiaoxia!"
Mom remained in the posture of cradling "Father," sitting in the pool of blood in the middle of a blaze that steadily encroached upon her. Sizzling sounds rose beside her feet as the fire scorched the blood dry.
She softly called the girl's full name, her voice as gentle as if waking a sleeping child in a cradle, yet carrying a sudden solemn gravity.
"What?" Fang Xiaoxia asked.
For reasons she could not explain, the hollow numbness that had possessed her since seeing her father fall was suddenly overwhelmed by grief.
The girl who hadn't shed a single tear until now, who seemed to have grown strong, couldn't help a sudden stinging in her nose at that careful, tender call; tears pooled in her reddening eyes.
"Be bold in everything you do,"
Mom whispered to her daughter amidst the crackling sparks.
"You will always be your mother's pride."
Then, she thrust her hands forward.
Her palms cut through the burning fire, her voice piercing through the wails of the shadowy throng.
A tremendous force surged from her palms as Mom shoved the girl in the white dress away.
"No!" Fang Xiaoxia reached out, grasping fruitlessly at the air.
All she saw was an encouraging smile rising on Mom's face, followed by surging flames swallowing everything.
Falling back, plummeting, falling back, plummeting.
Fang Xiaoxia felt herself hurtling away, fleeing this inferno of weeping ghosts.
Everything trembled before her eyes—the sea of fire, the walls, the ceiling—all outlines blurring until the noise stretched out and snapped with a soft pat.
The lingering warmth and the icy chill—everything froze in an instant, and then collapsed.
Silence fell, or rather, a dead quiet.
The pool of blood vanished.
Before the dust-covered sofa, Fang Xiaoxia knelt on the floor, her head hanging in silence.
Her white dress trailed across the floor, slightly soiled, noticed by no one.
Whoosh...
The rain outside had never stopped. The downpour continued unbroken.
Tonight had never known gentle moonlight, just as Fang Xiaoxia had never had a mother.
Life was just like this endless, dreary rain, the heavens dark, the four corners of the world shrouded in gloom.
Fang Xiaoxia felt an urge to laugh at herself. All along, she had never walked out of those barren years, nor crossed those bitter mountains. Even the sheltering eaves over her head were just a fantasy she had conjured by holding up a leaf.
She... had long had no home.
Tap.
Footsteps sounded beside Fang Xiaoxia, exceedingly soft and quiet.
Like the boundless dark clouds looming over her head parting just slightly.
"Most people think life begins at birth, but it isn't so,"
Bai Zhou said softly. "It begins earlier—in your family's anticipation, in the blessings of parents and friends, wrapped inside your parents' love. That is when your life truly began."
"And because life began there, it moves forward from there."
His steps came to a halt. Bai Zhou slowly crouched down, stopping beside Fang Xiaoxia.
"As long as you were wrapped in love, as long as someone loved you, they remain part of your life at every moment."
"...So, Fang Xiaoxia, welcome back."
Bai Zhou looked into the girl's tear-streaked eyes, which had grown clearer instead, and spoke softly:
"And congratulations on your rebirth."
Upon the ruins, the mindscape was reborn; amidst the flames, the cinders flared anew.
At this moment, Bai Zhou saw a little shrimp leap above the water's surface.
Henceforth beneath Bodhi, not a single worry remained—
The little shrimp leaped free of the green duckweed.
Chapter 191