Wen Chaosheng stared blankly at the congealed blood on the ground, saying, “This is great; the only place we could make a fire and cook is gone.”
“Now that I’ve killed him, his accomplices will likely find me very soon.”
A Shui said, “Bury him while he’s still warm. Heaven and Earth will know, and only you and I will know.”
Wen Chaosheng pulled open his collar, revealing only scraps of cloth and dry grass inside.
“I can’t bury him. If I go out in that snowstorm for half an hour, I’ll die.”
“As long as the snow doesn’t stop, the body will have to stay here.”
He paused, then laughed self-deprecatingly, “The good news is, he won’t stink.”
A Shui looked at the body on the ground, frowned, and said to Wen Chaosheng, “Give me the knife.”
Wen Chaosheng directly threw the knife in his hand to A Shui, who caught it steadily. With one hand holding the knife and the other dragging the black-clad man’s body, she went out into the vast snowstorm.
About fifteen minutes later, A Shui limped back to the dilapidated temple. Wen Chaosheng was still there, not having left. He was bringing the snow piled outside the temple inside, slowly cleaning the bloodstains on the ground.
Wen Chaosheng turned his head to look at her and asked, “Did you bury him?”
A Shui replied, “I didn’t bury him. I chiseled open the ice ditch, chopped him into pieces, and threw him into the ditch.”
She returned the knife to Wen Chaosheng; the bloodstains on it had been cleaned, making it look as good as new.
“You can still come back anytime in the future. I’ll be staying in the dilapidated temple for a while.”
Wen Chaosheng paused his action of wiping the bloodstains from the ground and looked up at A Shui: “On the third day of next month, I will go to find Liu Jinshi for the last time. Whether it succeeds or not, I will not return here again.”
He indeed planned it that way.
If he succeeded, he could live in the county town from then on.
If not, both he and Liu Jinshi would die.
A Shui did not respond to this, and Wen Chaosheng stopped wiping the blood. The other party had already made it clear that she would face this mess head-on, so leaving traces no longer mattered.
Before leaving, he asked A Shui, “Oh, right, you weren’t here these past few days. Did you go look for your parents? Did you find them?”
A Shui held a piece of firewood, poking at the fire, silent for a long time, then answered irrelevantly, “Come to the temple tomorrow at noon. I’ll treat you to wine.”
Saying that, she turned her head to look at Wen Chaosheng: “Are you coming?”
Wen Chaosheng met her gaze, and after a moment, said, “Yes.”
He returned to the treehouse, wrapped himself in the old cotton quilt, his hands still trembling uncontrollably.
In his two lives, this was the first time he had killed a fellow human.
Although it was for self-preservation, the thrilling sensation when the blade cut through flesh made Wen Chaosheng feel his blood boil, and it also made him deeply understand a truth.
—In this world, to protect oneself, the knife in one’s hand is far more real and effective than the law.
The night passed, and Wen Chaosheng went with Zhang Hunter the next morning to dig out four frogs. He didn’t take any for himself, only saying that he hadn’t finished yesterday’s food. When Zhang Hunter saw Wen Chaosheng leaving, he called out to him. When Wen Chaosheng turned back, he said, “I have a heated brick bed in my house in Qingtian. My old lady said that if you can’t bear it, you can come and stay.”
Wen Chaosheng nodded and thanked him. Zhang Hunter then said, “Liu Jinshi isn’t very reliable… Some things he says can’t be trusted, much less taken seriously.”
Wen Chaosheng was silent for a moment, then replied, “Understood, Old Zhang.”
He didn't look back. Zhang Hunter stared at his retreating figure, his weathered eyes exceptionally complex, and the wrinkles on his face deepened. In the end, he just sighed and returned to his Qingtian wooden house.
Standing in front of the door, he shook off the snow from his body before pushing the door open. Mifang, the old woman lying on the bed, said to him, “Old Zhang, did Chaosheng not come back with you?”
Zhang Hunter scooped clean snow into the pot to melt, his voice muffled: “He’s not coming.”
Mifang was stunned for a moment, then murmured, “This child… With such heavy snow, he’s relying on just one tattered quilt. How can he bear living in a treehouse? Oh, counting the days, it’s almost the third.”
Zhang Hunter’s hand, holding the ladle, unconsciously tightened. He turned to stare at his wife. Mifang felt a bit uncomfortable under his gaze and said, “Old Zhang, why are you looking at me?”
Zhang Hunter came back to his senses, averted his gaze, and didn’t dare to speak his thoughts.
When he parted ways with Wen Chaosheng at noon today, Zhang Hunter smelled Killing Intent on Wen Chaosheng. He felt that Wen Chaosheng seemed to have undergone some changes.
And after he gave Wen Chaosheng that warning, Wen Chaosheng showed no surprise at all.
Zhang Hunter’s keen intuition told him that this third day of the month, if Liu Jinshi did not fulfill his promise, something bad might happen.
But he didn't tell his wife about this concern.
Mifang was not well, and it was always better for her to have one less thing to worry about than one more.
“I’ll cook some porridge before I leave this afternoon. You watch the fire in the room, don’t make it too big, or it will burn the pot dry.”
He instructed his wife.
…
Inside the dilapidated temple, Wen Chaosheng arrived as promised. A Shui had indeed brought two jars of wine. She opened one herself and seemed to have been drinking for a while, as her usually lifeless eyes held a sharper glint.
Seeing Wen Chaosheng, she greeted him, “Can you drink wine?”
Wen Chaosheng sat cross-legged opposite her and said indifferently, “Anyway, I’m about to die, what can’t I drink?”
He uncovered the seal of the wine jar, and a scent of wine mixed with osmanthus fragrance wafted towards him, making his mouth water.
“This wine probably isn’t cheap. Where did you steal it from?”
Wen Chaosheng asked casually. A Shui extended her slender finger, her eyes slightly tipsy, and pointed at herself, saying seriously, “Wen Chaosheng, Wen Chaosheng, how much do you look down on me?”
“Steal?”
“I took it openly, swaggering… I took it!”
PS: Signing today, resuming two updates a day. Another 2000+ word update will be later.