NOVPUBEven in her death, she still looked so beautiful.
Except for the gradually spreading blood on her white dress and ground, who wouldn't praise her as a stunning beauty?
...
Mu Chen, Jiang Yi, and Jin Yao stared at their empty hands, which held nothing, and went silent.
None were able to catch Yue Ran's falling body in their hands.
Mu Chen's mind went blank for a moment before he walked down from the top floor and to the ground floor, leaving only Jiang Yi and Jin Yao's figures behind.
Both men's eyes on the roof slowly blurred with tears.
Jin Yao seemed to be able to see a vivid image of Yue Ran greeting him under the morning sky.
Today was a good day; even the sun was shining warmly upon his face. However, his world turned gloomy in just a split second.
"Yue Ran…"
"Does she think we despise her?" Jiang Yi's voice suddenly sounded from beside Jin Yao.
Jin Yao blinked vigorously, blinking away the tears from his eyes, then turned his head and asked hoarsely, "What do you mean?" He swallowed to clear his throat. "What exactly do you want to say?"
"Ever since we found out that Yue Ran was... violated, we have always avoided this topic in front of her, so how could a smart person like Yue Ran not realize it?"
Jiang Yi could feel his hand trembling as he ran it through his hair; his voice was also shaky as he spoke out.
"She must think that we despise her, so she doesn't want to see us anymore…"
He was smiling, but anyone could see his sadness.
☼︎ ✵ ☼︎
The rain in a thunderstorm always looked especially cold.
Under the gray weather, the four men went to Yue Ran's funeral and watched as her body, in a coffin, was being buried.
The atmosphere not only looked gloomy but felt gloomy. Everywhere they looked, there were no smiles.
Good, no one was supposed to be happy. Everyone should be depressed.
Jin Yao's lips were shaking; his body had lost a lot of weight in a short amount of time. When he saw the coffin about to be buried in the earth, he rushed over and stopped the procession.
The roses, red in color, on top of the casket flew to the ground with his actions.
The crowd exclaimed, but they couldn't stop the man in front of him because his eyes were too desperate, so desperate that they couldn't help but feel pity for him.
"Yue Ran, Yue Ran, Yue Ran..."
Jin Yao muttered as he hugged the casket tightly in his arms, as if this were his only form of redemption.
Rain was beating harshly against his face, but he couldn't care when Yue Ran was no more.
"Jin Yao, what are you doing?" Yang Chi shouted and forcefully dragged the man away. "Have you gone crazy?!"
"Yue Ran, Yue Ran!"
Jin Yao roared with tears streaming down his face like a madman, still wanting to get close to Yue Ran's body.
With a gesture from Mu Chen, his men easily restrained Jin Yao and hauled him away. This would be enough to prevent him from further wrecking the funeral procession.
Mu Chen originally thought that he could withstand the pain of losing Yue Ran.
After she died, he seemed to feel no pain at all, and he even helped her parents arrange everything for her funeral.
But once he checked her smartphone and even went through it, he suddenly felt extremely empty and cold. For the first time, Mu Chen felt that it was a pain to live.
☼︎ ✵ ☼︎
When the casket was fully buried, Jiang Yi felt unprecedented remorse and pain. It was like termites were slowly biting his heart into tatters.
"I like you, Jiang Yi. Can you be my boyfriend?"
He remembered her asking him this sentence many times before, but he just shrugged it off like dirt on his shoulders, not even bothering to give her a second glance.
Even when faced with so many rejections, she still uttered this sentence determinedly, word for word, with a smile on her face.
So when Jiang Yi heard this sentence again from one of her recordings on her phone, he felt that the whole world was quiet and submerged in darkness.
"No," he heard him say.
"Then... then I'll ask you again another time!"
He heard footsteps running away; it was hers.
Just before the recording ended, he heard her say, "It's okay, Jiang Yi was not in a good mood; I'll ask him again another time."
There was a short pause.
"I really, really like you, Jiang Yi."
Then there was pain, and he felt like his whole being was torn apart.
Piece by piece.
"Will you say yes to me one day?"
The tears in his eyes finally fell, drop by drop, line by line, gushing out.
He didn't even know when his umbrella had fallen to the ground.
In this bad weather, no one could really distinguish his tears from rain.
"I love you."
Remorse, pain, and despair intertwined into unbearable agony—and he completely broke.
"Yue Ran, Yue Ran, Yue Ran…"
"I like you…"
"I love you…"
☼︎ ✵ ☼︎
Yang Chi felt that he only had an empty body left, and he was in a daze every day, like a walking corpse.
With the funeral procession in progress, his thoughts were clouded by the harsh words he said to Yue Ran.
They were hovering in his mind, haunting him.
Sentence by sentence.
Word by word.
"Yue Ran, what are you trying to do by pretending to be such a good girl for?"
He said this when he was impatient, especially when looking at her figure.
"Where did the person who treated me so badly go, huh? Did she suddenly evaporate into nothingness? Do you really expect me to forget the aggressive lady you used to be?!"
He said this when he hated her mere existence.
"That couldn't be a better move! I would never want to marry someone I don't like and bring her home as a decoration!"
He said this when he regarded his image as being worth more than Yue Ran alone.
"She's useless, aggressive, domineering, and definitely not my type!"
He said this when he let his pride cloud his judgment.
"Heh, you're really good at attracting bees and butterflies, Yue Ran!"
He said this when he was jealous.
"Yue Ran, we are only doing this for your own good now. As long as you apologize to Rui Qin, this matter will be over."
He said this when he had unintentionally hurt her heart. He saw it flash past her eyes.
"Yeah, I don't like you. I'm not angry at all; on the contrary, I'm actually very happy!"
He said this when he didn't want to admit that he was attracted to her.
All that was left for Yang Chi was endless regret and torture.
Like a helpless, trapped beast, he suddenly burst into tears.
If only he could take everything back...
☼︎ ✵ ☼︎
The same night of the funeral, black figures dug up the grave and fixed it back to normal.
If someone were to see its current condition, no one would even realize that something was amiss.
The grave had returned to its original state.
And the only thing missing was the body in the casket.
