Chapter 1151: The Prisoner's Past |
Cheng Shi couldn't be certain whether Ji Yue's "have we met before" was a deliberate probe, or a side effect from her clash with the Memory follower Zhao Xishi.
All he knew was: if she truly recovered those memories, the one dying of embarrassment would be him.
And of course, the three other Torchbearers who'd been present at the time.
Just thinking about the nonsense he'd spouted in the void about becoming a god made his scalp tingle and his toes curl. Sure, he really was walking the path of godhood—but who wanted to look back at their dark history?
So he didn't want to stay a second longer. While the night still held, he planned to continue investigating the statue's secrets. He'd already found something, and hoped to find the answer he wanted before dawn.
But fate wasn't cooperating. Despite deliberately avoiding the direction he'd "launched" The Prisoner, he turned a corner—and there was that familiar gleaming head.
The bald scalp caught the moonlight, shining like a faded red traffic light, telling Cheng Shi: road closed.
Cheng Shi's eyelid twitched. He turned to leave.
But The Prisoner didn't try to stop him. He just stood there, gazing up at the night sky, eyes glimmering, voice low:
"?"
'Granny?'
That single sentence rooted Cheng Shi's mid-turn body to the spot. His ears perked up like gossip radar.
He wasn't leaving anymore.
The Prisoner didn't look at Cheng Shi. He rubbed his head and gazed at the stars, as if some emotion had pulled him into memory.
"I was born a stutterer. Unwanted from the start."
"They didn't like me, so they dumped me with Granny and took my flawless little sister off to live somewhere else."
Hearing this, Cheng Shi blinked. So The Prisoner really did have a sister?
"Granny..."
The Prisoner paused here and let out a sudden laugh—though the emotions tangled in that laugh were too many for Cheng Shi to sort.
"...wasn't what you'd call a good person. Sharp-tongued, mean, petty, and held grudges. Like a villain grandmother straight out of a TV drama."
"But no matter how the world saw her, she was always the only decent character in my life."
"Neighbors, classmates, teachers, villagers, random passersby—every one of them mocked me and bullied me. But whenever they hit me or cursed me, only Granny would step up and curse them right back, one by one."
"She'd take my hand and march up to their doors, stand at the threshold, point at every family's lintel, and let them have it—never repeating the same insult twice. And when she really got going, even I caught some shrapnel."
"She'd yell at me for being spineless—for not daring to curse them back the way she did."
"I wanted to. But I couldn't get the words out. I couldn't learn how."
"She was formidable. She knew every family's dirty laundry. Whoever she targeted became the village's laughingstock for days."
"Eventually, people couldn't afford to cross her, and they went easier on me too."
"But I'd been insecure since childhood. I could never lift my head around others, and I spoke less and less."
"She berated me daily for having no spine—yet the second someone else laughed at me for it, she'd grab a broom and chase them down."
"But one time... that chase went wrong."
"She ran too fast and fell—right at our own doorstep."
"By the time I came home from school, she'd been lying there for hours."
"Hours..."
"Our house wasn't on some remote back lane. People passed by constantly. Yet not a single one was willing to help her up."
"By the time I got there, she was nearly gone."
"I wanted to run and get a doctor. That's when she stopped me."
"She said: 'It's too late.'"
"She knew karma would catch up. She wasn't afraid of that. She was only afraid that after she was gone, no one would curse people for me anymore."
"I tried to carry her to the clinic. She refused. Said she'd just insulted someone yesterday and didn't want to go there and take their spite."
"In her last breath, she scolded me one final time: 'You don't know how to make people hate you. What are you going to do?'"
"I wailed. I thought every person in that village was a murderer. I wanted to kill them all."
"Granny saw it in my eyes. She gripped my hand and said:"
"'There are still more good people in this world. They're just not here...'"
"And then she was gone."
"I carried Granny inside and cried for a day and a night. I cried until I passed out, then hunger woke me up."
"When I woke with my face pressed against Granny... I realized my stutter was gone."
"Granny had left me the thing she was most 'proud of.'"
"Of course I know what being 'unlucky' means. But aside from this, I don't know how else to face the world's cruelty."
"Because this is all she ever taught me."
In the dead-silent night, the sound of teardrops hitting the ground rang clear.
Cheng Shi turned to face The Prisoner, a storm of conflicting emotions written across his face. He pressed his lips together, unsure what to say.
He didn't know why he'd suddenly been drawn into a heart-to-heart. He hadn't known The Prisoner's past was this painful.
Everyone had their own struggles, it seemed. No matter how unlucky a person appeared, there were always memories too heavy to let go of.
Cheng Shi sighed. He knew Ji Yue's words today had stirred The Prisoner's memories. But this sadness ran too deep, too heavy—he wanted to steer away from it, to keep the grief from lingering.
So he pointed at the teardrops by The Prisoner's feet and smiled with a complicated expression: "Is that gasoline too?"
The Prisoner wiped his face clean and nodded firmly:
"Exactly—brother-in-law, you really get me!"
"Is that how they taught you at home too?"
"..."
'A Masterclass in Destroying the Mood in One Second and Successfully Making Everyone Think You're Cursed.'
Cheng Shi was genuinely laugh-crying. He jabbed his finger at The Prisoner, but in the end couldn't bring himself to say anything harsh.
'After hearing his story, cursing him feels... wrong?'
'Wait—could this have been the Silence follower's plan all along?'
'I actually fell for that?!'
Cheng Shi's expression cycled through several phases before he exhaled:
"Show some mercy with that mouth of yours, Prisoner. For your granny's sake."
"But Granny never showed mercy with hers."
"..."
'If I respond to one more thing this guy says, I'm the idiot.'
Cheng Shi's face darkened and he turned on his heel.
The Prisoner didn't stop him. Only after Cheng Shi had gone far down the road did he rub his head and muse:
"Why didn't it work?"
"It works perfectly on Qin Xin and Li Jingming."
He crouched down, pulled out a match, struck it, and lit the "teardrop" at his feet.
Watching the tiny flame rise beside his shoe, The Prisoner said to himself in a strange tone:
"Granny, your tricks don't always work either."
"Sigh. Still need to practice. Still need to improve."
As the flame burned through its fuel and slowly died, The Prisoner stood and started walking back toward Ji Yue. He looked up at the sky as he went, eyes finding the brightest star in the night.
He smiled:
"In a world where evil outweighs good, who says death isn't a release?"
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