Chapter 65: Zhizhi, don’t cry Chapter 65: Zhizhi, don’t cry After swimming in West Lake, Wen Zhi had a restless night.
She had a nightmare.
In her dream, her hair was disheveled as she found herself in a desolate wilderness, surrounded by grass that was waist-high everywhere she looked. She stumbled through the grass, moving faster and faster until she stopped in front of a woman’s corpse.
Loud, piercing screams tore through the night’s curtain.
Wen Zhi knelt down, extending her trembling hands to lift the battered corpse lying in the grass.
She kept shouting, “Mom, mom, mom…”
The body, having been exposed to the wilderness for a long time, was barely recognizable, but the marks of torment inflicted before death were shockingly vivid…
There were strangulation marks, bruises from pinching, burn marks, and hand bones broken at ninety-degree angles.
Wen Zhi carefully cleared the weeds and dirt from the corpse’s face, sobbing uncontrollably.
“Mom, it’s Zhizhi… it’s Zhizhi…”
“Mom, it’s Zhizhi…” her voice nearly faded into silence.
For several long minutes following, Wen Zhi could not make a sound.
It was as if her throat had been seized.
After a long while, when she finally spoke again, her voice was hoarse, her lips moved but no sound came out.
“Don’t be scared, mom, Zhizhi will take you home, take you home…”
But the person in mourning couldn’t muster any strength.
Stubbornly embracing the woman’s corpse, Wen Zhi couldn’t get up and eventually, she too collapsed.
When she opened her eyes again, she found herself in the Mourning Hall, surrounded by somber funeral music and clusters of white chrysanthemums around Wen Yinxi’s black and white portrait in the center, countless wreaths placed around, the entire hall a dim and despairing shade of gray…
A slanted shadow appeared from behind, its footsteps sometimes steady, sometimes faltering. Wen Zhi turned around and saw Mu Yanzhou’s pale face.
She instinctively called out, “Dad.”
Mu Yanzhou lifted his eyes, a face startlingly handsome with eyes like bright stars and a nose like a jade column, his demeanour aristocratic. The passage of time hadn’t left visible marks on his face, rather it had become more composed than ever before.
That moment he wore a black trench coat, his pale face bloodless, revealing a hint of a gaunt, morbid expression.
“Zhizhi.” Mu Yanzhou called her over.
His expression was gentle, and his gaze towards Wen Zhi held a father’s tenderness.
Wen Zhi walked towards Mu Yanzhou step by step.
Mu Yanzhou gently lifted his hand, palm open. Wen Zhi sniffled and plunged into Mu Yanzhou’s arms, sobbing uncontrollably, “Dad.”
Mu Yanzhou’s palm rested on the back of Wen Zhi’s head, consoling her like when she was little: “Don’t cry, Zhizhi.”
Wen Zhi’s tears soaked Mu Yanzhou’s front, and when she spoke again, her voice was so raspy it almost vanished, “I was one step too late, one step too late…”
Even with everything laid out before her, Wen Zhi still couldn’t accept the reality that Wen Yinxi was dead.
She repeatedly brainwashed herself, telling herself, mom is still here, mom didn’t have an accident.
But no matter how many times she opened her eyes, the black and white portrait at the front of the Mourning Hall was glaringly harsh to look at.
The steady voice of Mu Yanzhou fell from above her head, “Zhizhi, don’t blame yourself.”
“No…” Wen Zhi couldn’t persuade herself not to feel guilty.
She cried for a very long time until Mu Yanzhou called his subordinate, Zhan Feng, to take her away. She was reluctant to leave, crying out, “Dad, mom she was tortured to death, mom she was tortured to death…”
What Wen Zhi couldn’t accept was the forensic report provided — death by drowning.
“It wasn’t drowning! Dad, mom she didn’t drown, she didn’t drown, must recheck, must recheck, dad—”