When Huo Huai An sent someone to go to Huo Chen's villa, Lin Yuan was playing games on the sofa in the living room.
Housekeeper Yuan stopped the person outside before coming back in and said solemnly: "Young master, Master Huai sent someone to relay that Mr. Huo had gone to the Huo house. And he sent people to take you over."
If it was about any other matter, Housekeeper Yuan would directly send those people away and not tell Lin Yuan. But now Sir went back to Huo's house, and Sir would never go back unless Elder Huo had ordered him to go or something drastic happened.
Housekeeper Yuan also tried to call Huo Chen. The call went through, but no one picked up. He was worried and decided to let the young master know and then accompany the young master to Huo's house.
When Lin Yuan heard this he immediately jumped up from the sofa: "He went to Huo's house? Why didn't he tell me?"
Inside that villa was an abyss that encompassed up all of Huo Chen's pain and scars. In the end of the plot, Huo Chen set fire to the villa and resolutely ended it all.
Housekeeper Yuan shook his head: "My phone calls to Sir weren't answered."
Lin Yuan was anxious to death and put on his shoes and rushed outside.
Housekeeper Yuan quickly followed. Fortunately he was always health-conscious and wasn't left behind by Lin Yuan. He got into the car before the driver started the car and left.
Lin Yuan urged the driver to drive faster. 521 felt that he was a mess of anxiety and quickly comforted him: "Senior, don't worry. The blackening value of the mission target hasn't fluctuated, nothing will happen."
The blackening value was still 20%. From the numbers, Huo Chen should be fine, but Lin Yuan was still worried. His heart was clenched by an invisible hand, and his body seemed to be crushed under some pressure. It hurt so much, and it felt empty.
Huo Chen...
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Some memories don't fade, instead they deepen over time.
From the moment Huo Chen entered the room, the dusty sheets suddenly disappeared and the room regressed 20 years. Everything was like how it used to be, like nothing had ever changed.
He didn't know how he entered the room. He could've walked in on his two legs or crawled through with his hands and feet, he didn't know at all. When a little bit of consciousness came back to him, he was already sitting on the ground at the edge of the bed.
His black pants and his white sweater were covered with dust. The dust was like gray fog that couldn't disperse.
Huo Chen leaned back against the bed, his chest panted heavily, short and rapid. The dull pain made it so that it took a long time for him to faintly remember that the clothes he was wearing were what Lin Yuan bought for him. His wife looked for a long time before happily giving them to him.
No-- --
He couldn't stain the clothes that Lin Yuan gave him. Lin Yuan was so bright and clean, how could he be covered by dust?
Can't-- --
Absolutely cannot!!
Huo Chen raised his hand and desperately patted his pants. Fortunately, they were quickly clean.
But when he tried to brush away the layer of dust on his sweater, he found that it couldn't be cleaned. It only got dirtier and dirtier, as if the gray dust had self-awareness and reproduced itself constantly, swallowing the soft white little by little.
Why can't he clean it-- --
Huo Chen moved faster and fiercer. His eyes were dark and paranoid, and his handsome face only contained madness.
The gray dust spread more and more. Huo Chen's whole body seemed to be shrouded in darkness, the darkness that had been accumulating for 20 years.
Huo Chen rubbed his clothes crazily and only one thought was left in his heart. He must clean it, he must clean it! He... had to be clean!!
"Really dirty..."
The woman's voice suddenly sounded behind his ear, and the sound of her breathing could be heard.
Huo Chen's body turned cold and stiff, like a corpse or a broken body that was struggling to live. His hands stopped moving and from his fingertips to his eyes, they were all shaking violently.
It was the middle of winter, and the sun was bright and warm and soft, as if purifying the white snow. A large area of sunlight fell through the window and landed on Huo Chen's face and in his eyes.
Huo Chen didn't look back. He couldn't look back and shouldn't look back. He should look forward, look to where Lin Yuan was.
"So dirty..."
The woman's voice sounded again, dripping with sarcasm.
Huo Chen felt that the other party was breathing straight into his ear. His Adam's apple bobbed, his throat was blocking too many things, but he couldn't spit out a single word. He could only listen the other talk.
"Do you know what I'm talking about?" The woman laughed innocently, but in the next second, her tone took a turn and carried extreme malice and hatred: "I'm talking about you, Huo Chen..."
"You're really dirty..."
"So dirty..."
"There's no one else as dirty as you are, as disgusting as you are. The blood of the mother who gave birth to you runs in your body but you actually want to forget this, you want to clean the blood stains that your mother left on your body and live happily with others. How can you deserve happiness? You don't deserve it!"
Huo Chen lowered his head and curled up uncontrollably. He tightly clasped his knees with his hands. His slender body seemed to be squeezed by something heavy, squeezing his flesh and bones such that every inch of his body was in pain.
Little by little, he went from being an adult man, to being squeezed by that woman into another body, until he finally became his child self.
The woman's words continued to be vicious and cursing, like a knife. She wanted to cut off the flesh from Huo Chen's thin body and leave him as an empty shell.
"Huo Chen, in your body runs your mother's blood, dirty and full of garbage. Why do you want to clean yourself? Isn't it good to be dirty like this? You can be dirty and someone who really loves you won't care about this. Who are you lying to when you pretend to be clean? Are you deceiving him, or yourself..."
"Huo Chen, do you believe that when you're clean, you can finally be happy and loved?"
"You're mother was in so much pain, she could only use death to relieve herself. You are her son. She was in so much pain she died, how dare you be happy? You don't have the right to be happy..."
"Huo Chen, don't forget, you're a madman. No one will love a madman. It's all fake, all fake! Your love and your happiness are all fake!! Fake!!!"
The woman's voice was sinister at the start, but ended in sadness. The woman was pestering him desperately trying to drag him into the abyss and to death together.
Huo Chen listened to her, and his eyes were sore and hot liquid slowly flowed down his face. He tried his best to recall Lin Yuan's eyes, Lin Yuan's smile, his arms, and the temperature of his body.
As if he lived and died and was reborn, Huo Chen clenched his own wrist and used all of his strength to say: "...You... You aren't her..."
The sinister voice behind him suddenly stopped, and the room became quiet and strange.
Huo Chen's voice was still trembling: "She...died a long time ago, I... I saw with my own eyes that she died. You aren't her..."
"You are….."
Huo Chen's voice became lower and lower, and it was was mixed with the smell of blood: "You are me..."
"You are... Huo Chen..."
Nightmares had haunted him night after night for 20 years. From the start when Huo Chen was trapped in this room, he was forced to forget to struggle and wished to die. The woman's death and fresh blood from that day continuously drowned him, until he met Lin Yuan.
"You are me….."
Huo Chen raised his head from his knees and turned around slowly, difficultly, but firmly. There was no woman behind him, only a scarred, thin boy.
They had the same eyes, the same lips, and the same scars. They were just a man and a boy...
At the same time, Lin Yuan arrived at Huo's house and rushed in. He didn't hear a word of what the elderly housekeeper said.
Huo Huai An heard movement, and he got up from the sofa and stopped Lin Yuan, who was about to run up the stairs.
"Auntie, Uncle is just cleaning up the room. He'll be done quickly, you can just sit downstairs and wait for him."
Lin Yuan looked at him skeptically: "He came back just to clean?"
There was no flaw in Huo Huai An's expression: "Uncle said that he forgot something there, so he came back to clean up a bit. Uncle also said that he would go to a restaurant with Auntie in the evening, so he asked me to send someone to pick up Auntie. Wait until he's done cleaning and then you can go straight to the restaurant."
Lin Yuan was easily tricked and seeing that the blackening value didn't move, he believed in Huo Huai An's words: "I see, I know."
After saying that, he started walking up the stairs. He hadn't seen his husband in three hours and he wanted kisses.
Huo Huai An had thought that the foolish and simple-minded Lin Yuan would sit down and wait for Huo Chen, who knew that Lin Yuan didn't act as expected.
"Auntie!" Huo Huai An blocked him again: "Uncle asked you to wait for him downstairs."
Lin Yuan was puzzled: "I heard you, you don't need to repeat it again."
Huo Huai An: "Auntie, just wait here."
He felt that Lin Yuan's thought process was different from normal people, and he immediately clicked to play the horror movie.
Lin Yuan looked over at the TV that was playing, and the visuals were completely different from the crude ghost film that he watched before. The horrific atmosphere of this film was excellent.
As soon as the ghost came out, Lin Yuan was scared to tears and his whole body started shaking.
Husband!!! There's a ghost!!!!
Lin Yuan turned into a small cannonball and directly rushed upstairs. In a blink of an eye, not even a shadow could be seen.
Huo Huai An, who was ready with his arms open: "..."
Lin Yuan had only been to the Huo's house once, and his knowledge was limited to the living room and dining room. Because he didn't have his husband next to him, Lin Yuan was so scared he forgot to cry and only wanted to quickly find Huo Chen and let his husband hug him and kiss him.
As for 521, it had also seen the TV screen, and it followed behind Lin Yuan and cried along the way: "Ahhhhhh Senior, that ghost was too terrible. I'm so scared, Senior..."
Lin Yuan's voice wobbled: "I'm also scared. That Huo Huai An must be sick, why did he suddenly put on a horror movie. I... want to find Huo Chen!!"
But he didn't know where to go. Fortunately, Housekeeper Yuan came up at this time. Lin Yuan quickly hid behind him: "... Housekeeper Yuan, which room is my husband's? Can you accompany me there?"
Housekeeper Yuan's face was dark and he looked towards the third floor: "Sir has lived next to the school since middle school. He came back at most once a month. There is nothing of his here."
Lin Yuan was stunned: "That Huo Huai An was lying? Then where is my husband?"
Housekeeper Yuan wasn't completely sure: "He should be in the former lady's room… his mother's room..."
Housekeeper Yuan used to be the housekeeper of Huo Chen's mother's family. After the fall of the Lu family, he had changed jobs, but a few years ago, Huo Chen sent someone to find him and hired him as the housekeeper of his villa. t/n Lu should be the last name of Huo Chen's mother
But he wasn't clear on all of the details of Huo Chen's childhood.
His mother's room? When Lin Yuan heard this he felt his hair rise in uneasiness.
Huo Chen's mother's room... isn't that where...
Unprecedented panic occupied Lin Yuan's thoughts in an instant, and he forgot his fear. His eyes were full of worry: "Where is it? His mother's room?"
Housekeeper Yuan had come to the Huo's house a couple times when the young lady married over: "The second room on the third floor."
As soon as he finished speaking, Lin Yuan ran upstairs to Huo Chen.
The room was opened, and Huo Chen lay on the dusty ground, stained with gray, as if he was forgotten by time.
Lin Yuan dashed over and wanted to hug Huo Chen.
But the man's eyes were dark and empty, and the darkness was full of pain. He was covered in cold sweat and he breathed rapidly. It looked like a mental episode, and Lin Yuan remembered that he couldn't touch him when Huo Chen was like this.
Lin Yuan's eyes reddened in anxiety. He knelt next to Huo Chen, with one hand on the ground to support his twisted posture. His other hand hovered an inch away from Huo Chen's back. Lin Yuan so desperately wanted to comfort him, but Huo Chen was afraid of any touch. The sun was bright and warm, but the light was stinging and frigid. Lin Yuan looked at Huo Chen sorrowfully.
Huo Chen's skin was pale like a pile of snow, about to melt and disappear. His cold sweat was stained with dust, and there were gray streaks on his face, just like his heart that had never healed in the past 20 years.
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Huo Chen quietly looked at the boy, who stared back at himself. Seeing the young and broken version of himself, somewhere in the deepest part of his body resonated and suddenly shattered. The sharp pain made him unable to support himself and he fell directly to the ground.
The boy next to him stared motionlessly. His eyes were like a pool of stagnant water, without any temperature or waves.
Suddenly, the boy smiled, and said softly through his bloody lips: "Does it hurt? I've always been in this kind of pain. It hurt so much I wanted to die. I'm covered with blood, my mom's, my own. I'm so dirty, so disgusting. How dare you clean yourself and start anew?"
"I've always been trash, and trash should stay where it deserves to stay..."
The boy squatted down, holding his knees with one hand, and covered Huo Chen's face with the other.
His face was shrouded in layers of shadows that were darker than night and denser than blood, and his facial features could hardly be distinguished.
"Why do you want to climb out? Isn't it good to stay here? Haven't we been staying here until now? Aren't we used to it?"
Huo Chen gasped with difficulty, and the pain in his body made him almost unable to make a sound. His struggling appearance on the ground made him look more embarrassed than a drenched dog and poorer than a lonely ghost.
"...I need to... go out."
Huo Chen exhausted his efforts to say: "I need to go out..."
"I need go to out."
"I need to go out!"
"Yes. I'm dirty, very dirty." Huo Chen slowly sat up despite the searing pain and said with a gentle smile: "I know, my whole body was covered in the blood that splashed when she died. I am mud, I am trash, and have always been rotting and disgusting. But, so what?"
"Huo Chen, there has been one person who thinks that I can be happy, and I dare not be unhappy….."
"You have been here for more than 20 years, waiting for 20 years, and finally there is someone who is willing to reach in and pull you out now. Do you really not want to grab that hand, do you really not want to go out?"
"Huo Chen, you have a lover, and he is waiting outside for you. He's waiting for you behind that door. You can only see him if you go out, so you need to go out. He's waiting for you….."
Listening to this, the boy hesitated for a long time. Then a look of panic appeared on his gloomy face. He began to shrink his hands into his sleeves and even squatted down to desperately pull his pant legs, as if he wanted to cover something up.
Huo Chen smiled softly: "What are you doing?"
The boy said with some embarrassment: "Ugly..."
He stretched out his hands to Huo Chen, and his short sleeves rolled up, revealing two arms full of blue and purple bruises: "I have these all over my body, it's really ugly..."
Huo Chen looked at him in silence, and stretched out a trembling hand. When he lightly touched the scars on the boy's body, the boy hissed in pain, and there was the same painful sensation in the same place on his own body.
"It's okay. He won't dislike us, and he doesn't think it's ugly..." Huo Chen said softly, comforting the boy and himself.
The boy didn't believe it, and his expression was full of suspicion. His expression clearly exposed the panic and fear in the depths of his heart that he never dared to face.
Huo Chen and the boy confronted each other, silent and deadlocked.
[Di! Warning! Warning! The villain's blackening value has risen to 99%! The villain's blackening value has risen to 99%!]
Lin Yuan heard the system prompt and was so distressed he was going crazy. The system anxiously jumped up and down next to him: "99%! What to do, what to do, what to do?"
"Huo Chen!" In haste, Lin Yuan threw away his hesitation and hugged the man who was curled up on the ground.
"Huo Chen, what is going on? What happened to you?"
"Huo Chen, don't be scared, I'm right here. Don't be scared, we'll always be together..."
"Huo Chen, let me save you, I'm begging you. Just give me your hand and let me save you..."
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Looking at the boy, Huo Chen was silent for a long period before saying: "It's okay, you're not her, and you're not that old man..."
The boy was still not convinced: "Really?"
Huo Chen hummed. With a paranoid and crazy smile on his pale and handsome face: "En. If… If he wants to leave, then we'll eat him. Eat him bite by bite, into our stomach, and then we'll never lose him."
The boy slowly smiled contentedly and then looked at the closed door of the room, the door that the woman didn't open until she died.
Huo Chen also looked at the door. For more than 20 years, for thousands of days and nights, he always believed that he would be like that woman and never leave until he died.
He held the boy's hands and approached the door. The moment the door moved, Huo Chen heard the boy nervously ask: "He... what if he doesn't like me?"
Huo Chen looked down at the boy and then looked back into the room.
Once upon a time, when he was sick and in pain, he became violent like a crazy beast, because his deepest memory was that woman who was like a crazy beast, roaring and destroying everything. He unconsciously imitated her and learned from her.
But now, he won't.
He had never so clearly felt that the shadow of the woman was completely stripped away.
It was peeled off by the young man, like peeling off a silk cocoon, and there was no trace of darkness left.
Dead trees meet spring, and flowers bloom on white bones.
"It doesn't matter, we have a whole lifetime to make him like us..."
"A lifetime..."
[Di! The villain's blackening value has decreased to 50%.]
[Di! The villain's blackening value has decreased to 35%.]
[Di! The villain's blackening value has decreased to 10%.]
[Di! The villain's blackening value has decreased to 0% and successfully cleared. Congrats to the host on completing the task.]
The mechanical tone had no warmth.
[Departure is about to be executed. You will leave the world in the next 24 hours. Please get ready.]
[Countdown: 23:59:59.]