After Transmigrating as the Northeast CEO's Pampered Little Husband - Chapter 56

The air around him was filled with howling flames; every current was a scorching heatwave generated by the fire.

“Dai Gucan!!!” Gu Jiaoyang shouted, the burning air flowing into his throat and causing a stinging pain. He ignored it. There was a problem before him now that he sensed was extremely severe.

Gu Jiaoyang walked for a long time through the fire before finding the source of the noise near a broken section of the roadside barrier. He swiped away the guardrail, which was swinging loosely in the heat-haze of the fire, and stepped over a second cluster of flames. He then discovered a vacuum zone at the heart of the inferno…

A broken car lay flipped over on the ground, its body bent into a sharp ‘L’ shape. The bonnet was the tail of the ‘L’; the entire windscreen and engine had been ripped out. Large amounts of engine oil leaked from the fuel tank, mixing with blood and slowly streaming across the asphalt.

The grinding, ear-splitting sound of metal came from the car door, which was flapping due to the heat generated by the fire.

That car door was severely damaged, resembling a crumpled piece of paper, barely clinging to the frame.

“Dai Gucan?”

Gu Jiaoyang called out softly, a dull ache in his chest. Too much blood was flowing out from under the car; it was too horrifying.

“Dai Gucan? Are you alright?”

Gu Jiaoyang slowly walked over to the car, holding onto the twisted door as he peered inside.

Dai Gucan was nowhere to be found inside the car. Instead, a man and a woman were huddled together, completely soaked in blood, their limbs twisted and entangled. The sight of shredded flesh and exposed bone was shocking. Even Gu Jiaoyang, who had dealt with countless vengeful spirits, was startled, his heart pounding faster and faster.

“Hey… are you…” Despite the extremely gruesome sight, Gu Jiaoyang, on humanitarian principle, reached out to check for breath.

They were gone.

Gu Jiaoyang quickly drew his hand back and stepped away. The description of the scene from the novel his Senior Sister had made him memorise suddenly flashed through his mind.

The supporting male lead Dai Gucan’s parents died in a multi-car pile-up.

“No way…”

Gu Jiaoyang rubbed his arm, an involuntary chill washing over him even amidst the scorching inferno.

A sound of shattering suddenly echoed in his ear. Gu Jiaoyang turned around, and when he faced forward again, he realised he was sitting inside a car, and he could hear a child’s laughter.

“Hahahaha, Mummy, look! Jingjing posted on his Moment; his daddy spanked his bottom again!”

Gu Jiaoyang snapped back to reality. He was sitting in the back seat of a car, next to a little boy, seemingly eight or nine years old, holding a tablet and wearing a Pikachu T-shirt ensemble.

“A-Jing will cry again if he knows you’re teasing him.”

The voice came from the woman sitting next to the little boy, leaning by the window. Her voice was incredibly gentle. Gu Jiaoyang turned his head to look: the woman was very beautiful, wearing a pale blue dress, her large, permed waves clipped back behind her ear with a pearl clasp. She looked very gentle and kind.

“You need to help A-Jing more at school. His grades aren’t great. As his desk-mate, you have to keep an eye on him. Don’t let him hide in his desk reading comics all day.”

The driver was a man. Gu Jiaoyang couldn’t see his face, but judging by his voice, he was a man with a similarly gentle disposition, speaking with a slight nasal tone and a slow cadence.

“I know, Daddy! I want a whirlwind candied hawthorn!” The little boy closed the tablet and patted the seat in front. His adorable, chubby face was full of yearning for the sweet treat.

“I’ll buy it for you, I’ll buy it. Honestly, you won’t eat the ones sold in the shops, but you insist on eating the ones on the mountain that cost several times more.”

The man driving replied with a hint of exasperation, his tone filled with affection.

“Well, buy a few more for Gucan to take home. He’s just a boy; he loves those sweet treats,” the woman said to her husband, stroking the little boy’s head.

“Yes, ma’am, my dear wife!”

The man driving quickly replied, filling the car with joyous laughter. Even Gu Jiaoyang, sitting beside them, was infected, unconsciously curling the corners of his mouth.

They couldn’t see him.

Gu Jiaoyang waved his hand in front of the little boy’s eyes, only to find his hand passed straight through the boy’s head and hit the headrest behind him.

What a happy family.

Unlike him, he had been abandoned since childhood, without a mother or father’s affection, having to beg his iron-fisted Master for ages just for candied hawthorns.

Gu Jiaoyang smiled and shook his head. Now, he didn’t even have his iron-fisted Master anymore.

Perhaps the weather reflected the mood. Gu Jiaoyang’s spirits sank, and when he looked up again, it had started raining outside the car window, rapidly growing heavier. It quickly escalated from a delicate drizzle to a torrential downpour of fat, bean-sized drops, drumming against the car window.

“What’s going on? The weather forecast didn’t say it would rain today.”

The little boy checked his tablet again, pouting at the torrential rain outside. He was clearly upset.

The rain was so heavy it looked like it wouldn’t stop anytime soon. They would have to turn back halfway and wouldn’t be able to climb the mountain.

“You’re right, it started so suddenly.” The woman looked out the window, putting an arm around the little boy’s shoulder. Even through the heavy rain, they could see other families driving from Changjing city, heading up the mountain road for an outing, all fooled by the sunny forecast.

A few cars had already slowed down and were pulling over. The road up the mountain was wide and lacked many traffic lines or lights. The cars ahead started turning around, and the white glare of many headlights reflected off the raindrops on the glass, sparkling like many small stars.

“Let’s go home too. Blame this weather forecast.” The little boy looked reluctant but instructed his father to turn the car around, intending to head home.

Gu Jiaoyang also leaned on the window, watching the traffic lights outside, an odd feeling coming over him.

Suddenly, a massive barrage of car horns sounded outside. Gu Jiaoyang pressed his face against the glass, trying to see what was happening, but then felt the car get struck by something, shaking violently.

“What’s the matter? How is that person driving!”

The man driving slammed the brakes. The car next to them had crashed into their passenger side. It wasn’t a severe impact, fortunately, but it was startling enough.

“Yan Jun!!!”

Gu Jiaoyang was relieved it was only a slight bump, but before he could finish his thought, he heard the woman beside him scream. This was instantly followed by a much fiercer impact. The entire car was thrown outward. Before it could even slow down, it flipped onto its side and was struck again. Even with the heavy rain outside, the screeching of tyres, the sounds of impact, and the grinding of a lorry rolling over the car roof could be heard clearly.

“?!??!” Gu Jiaoyang froze. In those few seconds of shock, the car flipped over several times. Amidst the high-speed rolling and bending of metal, a massive explosion and a sense of weightlessness followed. For that split second of being airborne, Gu Jiaoyang genuinely thought his soul was flying out of his body.

Screams were continuous in his ears. Just before the car exploded and flew into the air, the woman by the window tightly hugged the little boy, shielding him from the shattered glass and the bending car frame. Gu Jiaoyang could smell blood; the scent was coming from her leg, which was pinned by the warped body of the front seat.

“Gucan! Run!!!”

Even in this extreme situation, the previously gentle woman endured the pain and somehow managed to keep her wits about her. She desperately pushed open the car door beside her, seized the moment, and shoved the little boy out of the car. The man in the driver’s seat also had a chance to escape, but he unbuckled his seatbelt, climbed into the back, and tried to help free the woman. With the sound of an explosion, he and the woman were engulfed in flames.

The first explosion triggered a chain reaction with several other vehicles crashing and exploding. Gu Jiaoyang was thrown out of the car in the blast and finally saw the full picture of the multi-car accident. Seven cars, one lorry, four exploded, one was pulverised, almost none were spared.

The rain began to lighten, but the petrol leaking from the fuel tanks spread across the ground, creating inextinguishable flames that instantly consumed all the vehicles.

The roaring sound of the fire was immense, like a giant beast chewing on human bones…

“Daddy! Mummy!”

Gu Jiaoyang landed back on the ground and followed the sound. The little boy, who had been pushed out by his mother, lay on the asphalt. He reached out an arm towards the direction of the explosion, scratching at the ground, but sadly, his legs were also covered in blood, and bone was sticking out of his chest. He couldn’t move.

“…Dai Gucan…”

Gu Jiaoyang knew this was an illusion, but witnessing the car crash firsthand made his heart clench painfully. His eyes welled up with tears as he dashed towards the little boy and knelt, trying to pick him up. However, he couldn’t touch the little boy’s body. He could only watch helplessly as the young Dai Gucan lay in a pool of blood, screaming for his parents until his voice grew weaker, his eyes strained by the sight of their departure.

“Don’t be like this… Dai Gucan… wake up… please, stop this!”

Gu Jiaoyang continuously reached out, trying to grab the boy, whose screams were getting quieter. Tears streamed down his face, passing straight through the young Dai Gucan’s body and vanishing on the black asphalt road.

“Stop… stop it, don’t shout anymore…”

“Da… Daddy! Mu… Mummy!”

The little Dai Gucan struggled towards the fire, dragging a short, bloody trail across the asphalt. His voice became fainter, and blood mixed with flecks of flesh leaked from the corner of his mouth, yet he kept crawling forward as if he couldn’t feel anything.

“Dai Gucan, wake up! Stop dreaming this! Ah!!!”

The illusion didn’t stop. Moments later, the familiar sound of shattering echoed in his ear again. Gu Jiaoyang wiped away his tears and found he was back in the scene where the illusion began. All the other vehicles were gone; only one car, surrounded by the inferno, remained quietly in the centre.

“Tell me, if I hadn’t gone hiking and climbing that day, they wouldn’t have died.”

A low, hoarse voice came from behind. Gu Jiaoyang turned and saw the adult Dai Gucan standing there, staring fixedly at the shattered car in the midst of the flames.

“It wasn’t your fault… I know you’re hurting, but… but you…”

Gu Jiaoyang turned to offer comforting words, but after witnessing the scene firsthand, his thousands of thoughts became a stutter, unable to articulate a single comforting sentence.

“It was my fault they died, wasn’t it?”

“They are all dead. Why should I still be alive in this world?”

The adult Dai Gucan spoke calmly, showing little emotion on his face, but Gu Jiaoyang could hear the depth of his despair in the rhetorical question.

“No, don’t think like that! It was an accident! You can’t blame yourself!” Gu Jiaoyang walked over and grabbed Dai Gucan’s arm, trying to shake him out of this nightmare.

Fortunately, this time his hand didn’t pass through Dai Gucan’s body; it gripped his arm firmly, feeling the coldness radiating from him.

“It was just an accident! It wasn’t your fault! If you must blame someone, blame that bastard lorry driver! He was overloaded and caused a mudslide when climbing the hill in the rain…”

“I deserve to die.”

Dai Gucan cut off Gu Jiaoyang, his eyes fixed on the burning vehicle, refusing to look at him.

Gu Jiaoyang’s heart sank. He stared at Dai Gucan’s lifeless eyes, feeling cold all over.

“Are you joking?” Gu Jiaoyang paused, then cupped Dai Gucan’s face, asking the question almost as a shout.

“I should have died in that car crash a long time ago,” Dai Gucan replied flatly, his voice mechanical and devoid of emotion.

The flames around them suddenly surged higher at his words. The surrounding scene violently shifted, cycling back to the moment the car crash started, repeating over and over around them as if on fast-forward.

Only this time, the final outcome changed: the young Dai Gucan was not pushed out of the car by his mother. He died with his parents, shattering and disappearing in the inferno.

The roaring explosions and the thick smell of blood repeated, again and again…

“Dai Gucan… it’s an illusion!!!”

“This is your illusion!”

Gu Jiaoyang cried and shouted, listening to the sickening sounds constantly repeating behind him.

“Is that how you treat your mother’s desperate effort to keep you alive, her hopes and expectations!”

“Your parents loved you so much, poured so much affection into you! Are you saying it was a mistake for you to survive?!!! Do you want to throw away the life your parents gave you?”

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