A Good-for-Nothing 5: The Smashing of the Cinerary Urn

All of a sudden, there was a fleeting chill in the middle of his forehead, the hideous face of Qiao Peiyu showing a sharp contrast with scattered pieces of the white porcelain urn. He Zheng stared at the grayish powder all over the cabin, tears flowing down his cheeks uncontrollably. To the unrestrained laugh of Qiao Peiyu, his whole body involuntarily trembling, he knelt down onto the floorboard and tried to gather the cremains with his hands. Abruptly, some kind of voice was heard.

"Little Zheng, mom's in great pain." A tearful female voice echoed in his ears.

He Zheng's eyes fell hot with grief, drops of tears racing each other down to the floorboard.

"Do you hate her?"

From the depths of his mind came a deep, sepulchral voice. Eyes widened to the extreme with fury, He Zheng clenched his teeth until his cheeks ached distinctly.

The laughter of Qiao Peiyu and the pained voice of his mother kept reverberating in He Zheng's ears.

'That woman...That woman had never contended for anything in her whole life. Now even her cinerary urn was smashed to pieces,' he bitterly thought.

"I hate her," He Zheng uttered three words through gritted teeth. He was consumed with bitterness, grief and profound hatred, which made his countenance ruthless and ferocious.

"Do you want to kill her?"

"Yes!" He Zheng jerked his head up to glare at Qiao Peiyu with crimson eyes, lunged at her and grabbed her around the neck. Caught off guard, Qiao Peiyu failed to dodge in time and started struggling violently.

"Uh...Uh... Let me go." As if not having expected he would react this way, ‘the one being strangled gripped his hands. Overwhelmed by rage and despair, He Zheng kept squeezing the throat of "Qiao Peiyu" harder and harder. A ghost of an eerie smile appeared on He Zheng's face as he watched her increasingly paler face, which he himself was unaware of.

"Die. Die." He Zheng mumbled while exerting greater force.

"Le–Let go of..." Faint cries for help emanated from beneath his hands.

Eyes blood-red, He Zheng glowered fixedly at ‘her’ while pressing on her throat harder and harder, as if he hadn't heard her voice at all. A wave of morbid pleasure swept over him as he watched "Qiao Peiyu" struggling desperately, a happy smile on his face.

"Kill...Kill her."

An inner voice urged him. Surprisingly, after hearing this voice, He Zheng felt a surge of potent power inside him, the likes of which he had never felt before.

"Kill her!"

"Kill her!!"

"Kill her!!!"

"Cease!" A thunderous roar was heard, which seemed to have been transmitted straight through his soul to the bottom of his heart. He Zheng felt a shiver from head to toe.

For an instant, his whole view was a bright blankness and when things began to re-appear, he found himself in a totally different situation.

"Fuck... Chief... Hel–Help me..." Weak cries for help issued from his grip.

He Zheng shook his head, looked down and discovered that the person he was trying to strangle was not Qiao Peiyu but that tall, thin man who had insisted on swapping seats with him! He Zheng was taken aback and hurriedly released his grip.

He Zheng subconsciously looked down and saw that the lacquered wooden casket had fallen onto the floorboard, upside facing upwards, open, and the white porcelain urn was still in it, undamaged.

He Zheng quickly walked over, picked up the casket and held it firmly in his arms. What had escaped his notice was that apart from the cinerary urn, there was also a tiny box in the lacquered casket, which had just rolled to the man's feet.

The man lowered his head, flicked a glance at the box and with that, as if by magic, the box flew upright from the ground into his hand unseen.

Leaning against the back of his seat, Zu Zhichong, who had narrowly escaped being strangled, was coughing violently gasping for air.

Perplexed, He Zheng stared emptily at the man standing before him, unaware of when this man had arrived. As if in a trance, he mumbled, "What...happened?"

Chapter end