It turns out he has been following me.

I quickly take a step forward to avoid his touch, then turn around abruptly. There is nobody behind me. But as soon as I turn my head to look at the glass wall, I can see his silhouette.

He puts down his hand, but presses closer to me.

I grab a random person passing by me and ask: “Can you see anyone behind me?!”

“Someone is following me. He’s a very tall man. Can you see him?!”

The passerby looks at me like I’m crazy, and several girls eye me with fear and vigilance.

I see. It’s not that I got away from him, but that he didn’t let me see him.

I flee again, running aimlessly down the streets.

But as long as there is a reflective surface, I see his presence. Even when I try to take a taxi, I see his silhouette in the car window.

Wen Mingcheng’s mother is right. There is nothing I can do.

I panic, and I don’t know if I’m running in the direction of the Wei family house.

With the last of my awareness, I hear someone calling me.

“Mr. Wei? Mr. Wei, how are you?!”

I recognize this voice. It belongs to that young guard.

“Help me…..”

As if grasping a lifeline, I grip the hand he extends to me extremely hard. I try to tell him to take me back to the Wei family, and I try to tell him their address, but I unknowingly lose consciousness after speaking.

. . . . . . . .

Melodious piano music flows through the renovated villa.

The night sea breeze carries the fragrance of midsummer flowers as it drifts through the wide open windows. The scent of peonies is fragrant and intoxicating. The interior is neat and tidy, and the windows are bright and clean wherever the light shines.

And the round table next to the windowsill is still covered with a white lace tablecloth, with a goblet full of wine that is deep red and transparent.

The person playing the piano is probably quite happy. A song prelude begins with a light and graceful feeling.

I wake up and find myself lying on the living room sofa. The surrounding atmosphere is warm and comfortable, but I don’t feel relaxed. On the contrary, my heart is utterly cold.

Because this is not the Wei family house, but mine and Mingcheng’s marital home.

I am back again.

I have no power to resist. 

I move to get up from the sofa, but I realize that I’m completely naked. Naked, with only a thin blanket wrapped around my body.

“A-Zhen, you’re awake.” The sound of the piano had stopped at some point. ‘Wen Mingcheng’ slowly walks down from the second floor.

He seems to have dressed up with care. His clothes are very straight, and there is a white gem corsage on his chest. He smiles at me with a face so handsome that a person would not dare look for too long. His figure is tall and straight, with deep concave lines on his waist and back, and the undulations of his muscles are faintly visible beneath his clothes. His whole person shines under the lights, elegant as always, lambent like jade.

But I know this is all fake.

He is well-dressed, but I struggle to cover myself with the blanket.

I look up at him as he walks over. “……Why are you doing this?”

He curves his lips at me and stands next to the sofa, looking down at me: “You were covered in sweat. I thought it would be uncomfortable to sleep like that, so I gave you a bath.”

“You know that’s not what I’m talking about!” I reach out a hand and grab his arm, numb to the fear.

I can really do nothing to him. I’m completely at his mercy. I am a madman in everyone’s eyes. Nobody can save me. I am completely desperate.

I am done.

I instinctively plead with him, humbly showing him my weakness. “I-I’m begging you, I’ll give you whatever you want. Please let me go. I’ll never ask what you are again. My husband invited you behind my back, I didn’t do this voluntarily. If you want to go back, I will send you there…..”

My emotions surge up violently. My state of mind is terrible and my body shakes uncontrollably, tears flowing from my eyes. I’m so choked up that every word I speak is difficult.

He listens silently to my incoherent, stammering words, and sends a deep look toward my hand holding his arm.

He is silent for more than ten seconds after listening to me. Grabbing my wrist, he takes my hand away before leaning down to kiss one of my eyes.

At such a close distance, I see that his eyes have no brilliance under the lights, like a bottomless black abyss. I stare at him, and he stares back at me.

His hands touch my face, the back of my ears, and my neck.

“But A-Zhen, I am your husband. I am Wen Mingcheng.”

I’m going crazy.

“Why does it have to be like this?! You clearly know that I know everything, so stop tormenting me! Please, I’m begging you…..”

I collapse on the sofa and put my head in my hands. The blanket slowly falls off my body, and I feel a chill down my spine. I begin to cry heartbreakingly, calling out for the Mingcheng who had brought me to this point.

I should look like a complete lunatic right now.

It’s possible that I’ve gone crazy.

The man before me looks at me with his head tilted, his expression one of heartache. He leans down to hug me, reaching out to touch my back, but there is no warmth on his body.

I raise my hand and slap him. 

He face is turned slightly away by me, but then he forcefully opens my teeth and kisses me.

It really hurts, and I try to push him away, but it’s like a mayfly trying to shake a tree.

At last, he releases my mouth.

I gasp like a dying fish, but he isn’t affected in any way.

“A-Zhen,” he says while looking at me quietly. There are emotions in those eyes that I can’t understand, and his voice is particularly clear in the empty house. “I know you think I’m abnormal. Yes, I’ve noticed it too.”

“I’m different from you. I don’t need to eat, I feel no pain, nor cold or heat. I can’t even enter the house during the day, and there is so much more.”

“But I knew that my name was Wen Mingcheng the moment I appeared. I also knew that you belong to me. I like your body very much, and your soul. I especially like the way you call me Mingcheng.”

“You say I’m not Wen Mingcheng, and perhaps I’m not.” His lips rise in a smile, the indents at the corners of his mouth particularly deep and sharp. There is great malice in that smile. “But I feel that loving him is not as good as loving me. Because for me to appear here instead of him, I think there should be a possibility…..”

“That he gave you to me.”

After he says these words, I have no strength to resist and no longer struggle.

I seem to be dead, and let him peel me out of the blanket.

Just like the first day he showed up, and just like when Mingcheng and I were newly married, I am carried toward the bedroom.

The bedroom door closes softly.

The room seems to have been sprayed with perfume, and has a soft, creamy scent.

I lay on the bed, watching him stand looking down at me from the foot of the bed. Tossing his jacket to the ground, he undoes his buttons one by one with his fingers…..

I suddenly roll over and hide under the bed in a ridiculous and embarrassing manner.

He doesn’t seem to have expected me to hide, and after a pause, he calls to me.

I watch as he walks to the side of the bed and lowers himself to one knee, stretching a hand under the bed.

“I don’t have that intention. Don’t be afraid.”

The floor is very cold, and the only things I can cover myself with are the clothes he threw on the ground. I wrap them tightly around my body, watching his hand reach closer and closer to me, and I duck back.

The space under the bed is very narrow, and my shoulder hits something. I subconsciously look back, and then I lose my breath again.

I have found the doll. It turns out that it was tied to the bottom of my bed.

No wonder. There was no electricity in the house that day, and the bottom of the bed was dark, as well as the doll. No wonder I searched the bottom of every bed and every corner of the house, but didn’t find anything.

It turns out it was sleeping with me every night.

I’m finally grabbed by the wrist and dragged out.

The jacket I’m holding onto is easily snatched away by him and thrown out of the room. He tosses me on the bed and holds me from behind, whispering for me to go to sleep. But I can feel the changes in his body.

They both lied to me.

Are they both beasts?

Everything is quiet during the second half of the night. The “person” next to me maintains his position of holding me. His eyes are closed.

I don’t know if he is really asleep, but what if he is deceiving me? I have been fooled so many times that it doesn’t matter.

I get out of bed and go to the closet to find clothes to put on. After fastening the buttons one by one, I go to the small garden and find a stainless steel hammer on the flower stand cabinet.

At two o’clock in the morning, I stand in front of my bed with this hammer.

The man on the bed is motionless.

It is so quiet at night that I can clearly hear the sound of the old-fashioned clock in the living room swinging.

After watching him silently for a while, I trace his outline again and again with my eyes, and ultimately lift the hammer high.

Then I smash it down hard on his head!

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Chapter 21 << Table of Contents >> Chapter 23