Chapter 292 - Demon from the past (1/2)
Yan Mei's phone rang, a jarring noise in the near-death stillness of the environment around her. The unknown number displayed on her screen shouldn't have caused a sense of foreboding to swell in her mind but it did.
She eyed the phone for one brief second, weighing impossibilities before she clicked the call ”hello” her voice sounded too frail, too wispy, and just like that, all the time between then and now vanished and she was just as lost, just as alone and even more vulnerable because she had so much more to lose.
”Hello my sweet little kitty, tell me that you've missed me. Wang Lu is not playing nice” the voice was urbane and friendly, yet only a fool would miss the cold tread of menace beneath all that conviviality.
It was just a voice, after all, it didn't sound any different from that of any average male but the memory made it much more, it shouldn't have knocked a hole in her confidence and reduced her to that person, that thing cringing on the floor and waiting hopelessly for the next blow but it did.
”Gu Zhi”
”Hello Dear, I have a gift for you, check your phone, and let's meet up at our favorite place” he instructed before cl.i.c.k.i.n.g off abruptly.
Yan Mei froze, the words set off an avalanche of horror in her mind, images rose in her mind unbidden to blind her in a deluge of terrorizing memories.
She knew what it would be like but she opened the video and made herself watch it. It started as a mundane image, nothing special until one realized that the man sprawled indolently in the chair was tied just like to expose all his body.
She tried to steel herself for what was inevitable, but she ended up winning when the first blow landed. Her hand tightening around her phone until her knuckles shone white.
She waited until the very end of the video, taking note of how much he had enjoyed it.
It seemed impossible but it was back, it seemed unreal. In the back of his mind, a voice clamored that it was not real, that Gu Zhi was dead, riddled with bullet holes and rotting in an unmarked grave. That Wang Lu was just, out, somewhere, anywhere apart from there.
She had to go even if she didn't want to, even if every single cell of her body clamored to run away, she couldn't allow herself to be that weak, she needed to be strong. For him, for her, even if it broke her. The abyss lay just in front of, just beneath her feet and she was holding on to her sanity by her fingertips.
”It's time,” she said and the stationary bodies around her flowed into action around her until she was the only one left. ”It's time” this time she told herself softly and stood up, ready to confront her special hell.