After My Death, I Became a Heartless Madman - Chapter 64.1
The rain outside grew heavier, turning the shrubs across the mountains into scattered, withered branches under the downpour. The softened earth rolled down the slopes, and raindrops splattered one by one on the stone path before the Baoxia Temple.
Song Shizhou lowered her head, wiping the rainwater off the back of her hand.
The Inner City had seen an unusual number of extreme weather events in recent years whether rain or snow.
As she watched the violent storm outside the window, Song Shizhou suddenly recalled the heavy snowfall before her death. At the moment of collision with that truck, what had truly crossed her mind?
Was it regret for her short-lived life? Relief at finally being free? Or…
The unwillingness to be forced off the stage just as the game she had orchestrated was about to reach its conclusion?
Song Fengyu took two steps back, her voice laced with bitterness and mockery.
“Song Shizhou, does it feel so good to toy with us, to watch us tear each other apart?”
Song Shizhou smiled brightly.
“Good? Of course it’s good. It’s absolutely wonderful.”
A candlestick was violently swept to the ground by Song Fengyu, the bronze clattering sharply against the floor. Even Feng Yu, in her fury, could no longer maintain her usual composure. Song Shizhou slowly crouched down, placing the candlestick back where it belonged.
“Sister Yu, sometimes some things are better left unsaid.A voice bordering on collapse echoed in her ears.
“Song Shizhou, why did you have to do this?”
Why did she have to do this?
Wasn’t the answer obvious?
A candle flame before the altar was extinguished, plunging the main hall into deeper darkness. She walked slowly toward Feng Yu.
The Baoxia Temple, long neglected, had wooden floorboards warped at the edges, creaking underfoot like an unbearable state of mind.
“Because of hatred.”
Because she hated.
She hated these hypocrites, every single person who had hurt her. Every word Song Fengyu said was true but if they could leave her battered and bruised, why couldn’t she fight back?
This twenty-year-long revenge had been brewing since she was just a child.
A look of sorrow flickered across Song Fengyu’s face.
“How did it come to this, Shi Zhou?”
“You weren’t like this before. Why have you become like this?”
“Why choose such extreme methods? Why must you be so ruthless, so cold…”
Song Shizhou’s voice turned icy.
“Sister Yu, are you blaming me?”
Song Fengyu’s expression froze.
A bolt of lightning flashed, how many times had this unnatural thunder roared in what should have been a silent night?
A faint, fleeting fragrance of night-blooming cereus drifted by as Song Shizhou’s expression remained gentle yet mocking.
“Sister Yu, are you blaming me for being heartless?”
Song Shizhou suddenly slammed her hands onto the altar. Across the fierce yet solemn statue of the Nanling Master, the darkness in her pupils was terrifying.
“What right do you have to blame me? Do you really not know why I became this ruthless?”
“In your eyes, should I have just endured the abuse from the Lu family, smiled through my miserable childhood, and forgiven everyone who hurt me playing the role of a kind, tragic heroine who repays evil with good?”
“Is that the image of me you wanted?”
Song Fengyu staggered back, stunned.
“I’m not, that’s not what I meant. I never wanted you to return good for evil.”
“Then what did you mean?”
Song Shizhou let out a light chuckle,
“You want me to choose a less extreme method for revenge? Or perhaps you want me to cry for help to you or to anyone else waiting for some savior to descend from the heavens and deliver justice, to rescue me?”
“Sister Yu, that sounds like a fairy tale. Unfortunately, I never read fairy tales as a child.”
Song Fengyu’s eyes trembled violently as she stared in disbelief at the person before her, at those eyes that had always seemed so gentle, so kind, so utterly devoid of aggression.
Song Shizhou’s amber-colored eyes naturally exuded warmth, and when she smiled, it intensified like flowers reflected in water, embraced by the tender caress of a spring breeze.
But the truth was, no one was born gentle.
No one was born kind, born selfless, born to be a tool for others’ benefit.
Song Shizhou smiled,
“How could someone who grew up abused by adoptive parents, who never experienced a shred of familial warmth, grow into a gentle person?”
“Some people receive kindness and care every day, of course they grow up gentle. But if someone is met with resentment, indifference, and hostility every single day, and still becomes gentle there’s only one explanation.”
“If she wasn’t obedient, she wouldn’t have survived.”
Her childhood was a monstrous grinder, and she was the most terrifying thing to emerge from it alive.
Outside the temple, wild shrubs grew freely, a lush expanse of green stretching as far as the eye could see. The relentless rain battered them, leaving the fragile branches scattered and the flowers swaying precariously.
A flash of lightning illuminated the temple’s mural-covered walls, casting its stark white light on Song Shizhou’s inscrutable expression.
This world was her chessboard, and everyone in it was merely a piece in her game.
Song Fengyu spoke slowly,
“So you planned this from the very beginning? You always intended to take revenge on Mother, on everyone who ever hurt you?”
“Exactly.”
Song Shizhou smiled,
“But I gave Song Lanyi one chance.”
Life with the Lu family had honed her ability to read people. Had she wanted to reconcile with Song Lanyi, she could have easily played on the woman’s guilt, staged a tearful mother-daughter reunion, and reclaimed her rightful inheritance from the Song family.
But some people never realized just how cruel they’d been.
“Do you remember that time Song Lanyi took us on a trip, and we both fell into a lake?”
“She saved you first.”
Song Fengyu’s heart lurched.
Song Lanyi had looked to her first, handed her the towel first, held her in her arms first.
In that moment, Song Shizhou knew there was no going back.
There was no reconciliation.
She would rather forfeit her claim to the Song family fortune, would rather sever ties with Song Lanyi completely, if it meant they all suffered.
A mocking smile played on Song Shizhou’s lips,
“Sister Yu, you knew about this all along, didn’t you?”
“You’ve been aware of my changes, of these thoughts of mine, haven’t you?”
“It’s true that I’m the one seeking revenge, but what role have you been playing in all this?”
Song Fengyu paused.
“My role?”
“All these years, I’ve been holding together this broken, dysfunctional family. And you’re asking me what role I’ve played?”
Song Shizhou smiled.
“Sister Yu, you say I’m the one who drove Song Lanyi to become like this. You say you’ve worked hard to maintain our twisted, shattered family. But when you saw my relationship with Song Lanyi deteriorating day by day, Sister Yu, how did that make you feel?”
Song Fengyu’s breath caught abruptly.
“You were happy, weren’t you?”
Before the statue, three incense sticks burned. One was thinner, nearly consumed, leaving only flickering embers.
“When I said I wanted to open a porcelain studio, you demanded I return to the Song Corporation. After I refused, you spread word to prevent any vacant shops in Houhai and Songmo commercial districts from renting to me.”
“You wanted to keep me by your side. I could overlook all that.”
“But when I said I didn’t want to see Mother now, you told her I’d had a change of heart and wanted to meet. You sent her to me.”
Word by word, they struck Song Fengyu’s ears.
These things, she had indeed done them all.
Song Shizhou crouched beside her.
“So Sister Yu, why did you do this?”
Those amber eyes suddenly darkened, their depths like ink, too frightening to contemplate.
“Because you wanted to see Song Lanyi and me completely fall out.”
“The worse our relationship became, the more precious your kindness to me would seem, wouldn’t it?”
Everything seemed to have reached its inevitable conclusion.
Not a single word Song Shizhou spoke was wrong.
They had both been harboring ulterior motives all along.
All these years, these endless days and nights whenever Song Shizhou did something beyond her expectations, it unsettled her. She interfered with Shizhou’s career, drove wedges between her and Song Lanyi. She wanted to keep Song Shizhou by her side, to turn her into a spineless waste who could only be saved by her.
Song Fengyu’s mind was in turmoil.
She sat upon the high altar of Baoxia Temple so very high. The blazing candle flames licked at her exposed skin, yet she felt no pain. Looking upward, the solemn, half-lidded eyes of Master Nanling’s statue gazed down upon her.
Wasn’t all her obsession rooted in love?
In this love she’d sunk so deeply into that she couldn’t extricate herself?
In Lu Nanling’s sacred vessel, what was truly trapped his sister, or his own devout, maddened, self-abandoned heart?
“Shizhou, perhaps I have indeed committed grave wrongs. But everything I did stemmed from…”
“Love.”
From this love that would never be reciprocated, that could only grow more obsessive.
The temple fell silent for a moment. Between her and Song Shizhou would always lie an impassable chasm, one she couldn’t cross, couldn’t express, couldn’t articulate.
After what felt like an eternity, Song Fengyu finally heard the other woman sigh softly.
“No.”
“Song Fengyu, you’re not qualified to speak to me of love.”
“To you, love is something that brings pain. It’s war between two people. It’s one side forcing the other to compromise. The victor becomes king, the loser a bandit.”
A light laugh escaped her lips.
“How can something that only brings endless suffering be called love?”
“Love is not war, not one person’s chastisement of another, not a conquest, but willingly changing one’s own shape for the sake of the other.”
Silence fell.
When visiting temples to offer incense, one doesn’t need too many followers. The sudden downpour had lasted over half an hour and was finally showing signs of subsiding. Footsteps echoed at the temple gate, it was Little Zheng, followed by many from the Council.
Madam Chen was always worried about Song Shizhou’s safety, hence the constant entourage, though Shizhou found it bothersome.
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