A Way Out (2)

The view before them returned to the graveyard. The curtain of flying bones had already fallen.

Zheng Wuyou stood dazed before Zhu Li's grave. The words on the tombstone seemed to stitch themselves into her heart, one needlepoint at a time.

She had said the answer was on Zhu Li's tombstone.

But why wasn't she happy now that she had seen the truth?

Did tragedy have to keep spreading...

But he had indeed killed Xiao Xia when she was out of her mind. That man was hardly worthy of pity.

"...This man... is the one in the wheelchair?" Wen Dian had once hated the stranger in the wheelchair with all his heart. Looking at the description on the tombstone, he didn't know how to express what he was feeling.

All he could do was punch the tree beside him.

The bark curled up from the trunk shattered beneath his fist, scattering across the ground.

"He's like Themis of ancient Greece. After this, he'll be blindfolded, holding a sword in one hand and scales in the other." Miao Laisheng wiped away some of the blood on Zhu Li's tombstone.

The words looked more dignified and solemn now.

"Ah..." Uncle Cai instinctively glanced at Wansi, who was about the same age as his daughter.

If his own daughter had suffered something like that...

He didn't think he could have done what Zhu Li had.

"So what does any of this have to do with getting out?" Guo Mu had followed everyone around in a daze, and his frustration was growing.

Especially when Zhu Li had admitted to his face that Xiao Xia had gone mad because he'd fed her a hallucinogenic drug used specifically in her village.

He was closer to breaking down than ever.

This man was like a seasoned chess player, toying with them like pieces in his hand.

Without caring whether they lived or died.

"...Zhu Li is King Yama. He put on a woman's mask to avenge his sister, setting all of Zhu Village ablaze." Zheng Wuyou rose calmly and dusted off her clothes, her tone inscrutable.

A sea of fire...

So the Red Sun had been a reflection of the flames.

And of the hatred that had built up over time.

He had planned every step, all to lure outsiders into his trap.

To help him break the curse that kept them trapped in this day.

"Go with Miao Laisheng to the other side. I'm going to find Zhu Li." Without looking back, Zheng Wuyou ran up the mountain path.

She paid no attention to the people behind her.

Even as their calls and curses kept coming.

When she reached Zhu Li's house, she found his door wide open, just as she'd expected.

Zhu Li sat in his wheelchair, still in the middle of the small courtyard.

He wasn't surprised to see her.

It seemed he'd expected this all along.

Zheng Wuyou steadied her ragged breathing after the run, then calmly walked into the courtyard.

"King Yama wears a mask... You and your sister share one body, don't you?" Zheng Wuyou approached him without fear and stopped in front of his wheelchair.

A flicker of surprise passed through Zhu Li's eyes before they returned to normal.

"Do you have any proof?"

"Proof?" Zheng Wuyou's expression was unreadable. She braced both hands on the arms of his wheelchair and leaned closer.

Then she pulled away the ragged cloth covering his legs. "This is proof. You used to be able-bodied. You trapped everyone in this one day because the bride on the next day was... your sister, right?"

No wonder she hadn't been able to find any evidence connected to Zhu Li. The evidence was Zhu Li himself.

That night, perhaps they had both died.

Little Zhu Li, weakened and helpless, couldn't take his sister away from this place.

Or perhaps he had left with his dead sister, following the river away from this hellish place, only to return in the years to come and live with her forever in this one day.

Zhu Li let out a snort and couldn't stop himself from laughing.

He threw his head back and laughed wildly, as if he'd discovered something incredible.

"Do you think someone like me, with no one in the world, could trap everyone in today?"

Zheng Wuyou was startled by his sudden roar.

The veins on Zhu Li's hands bulged as he laid one hand over hers and gripped it tightly.

Though his words suggested otherwise, his eyes betrayed him.

"So you became their lackey. You hated this sort of thing, yet you chose to be a blind and deaf bystander." Zheng Wuyou's familiar voice came from the doorway behind her.

It was Miao Laisheng...

Why had he followed her? She'd told him to go to Old Zhu's family and look for the story of the rose!

From the moment she'd entered that room, her heart had been weighed down by too many emotions.

Yet Miao Laisheng kept barging in on her...

"Zhu Li, you should be a good person." Wansi's voice came from behind her, too.

Zheng Wuyou took a deep breath, collected her thoughts, and looked into Zhu Li's eyes again.

"I know you helped many women escape these mountains, but there was nothing you could do about what happened to your sister. You wanted her back by your side, so you made a pact with these people's souls, keeping them trapped here forever." Zheng Wuyou's voice softened. In his features, she seemed to glimpse someone else.

"But... does that make the harm done to your sister disappear? You've had your revenge. It's time to let her go, Zhu Li."

"You don't know how much she longed for the future..."

Zhu Li's eyes could not conceal their sorrow. His emotions spiraled out of control, his face flushed as he roared at the three of them.

Suddenly, countless roses sprouted from his palm, as if countless women had reached back and clasped his hand.

The roses gradually buried Zhu Li, until he vanished from Zheng Wuyou's sight.

Only when a pale-faced woman appeared before them, clutching a child and trying to slam him to the ground, did Zheng Wuyou understand that they had entered a memory again.

The truth of that year slowly surfaced, one step at a time, amid the sorrow.

This was the story of a girl born to an outsider woman. She was only fourteen, about the same age as Wansi.

Her outsider mother had had no choice but to give birth to the girl in order to survive. After suffering inhuman abuse, she had at first resented the sight of the tiny, wrinkled face.

But in time, a mother's love took hold.

So she taught her to read and raised her until she was this age.

All so that one day, she could send her daughter away and help her escape this hellish place.

But when the girl was fourteen, in the prime of her youth, a middle-aged man from the village took a liking to her.

When her outsider mother refused, he went and raped her, then accused her of adultery.

The people of the clan tied her up and threw her into the river east of the village,

to test whether she was chaste.

Her mother had been thrown into the freezing water and never came back out.

In only a few short days, her Zhu-surnamed father handed her over to that middle-aged man, claiming it was so she could marry him...

Ever since she was little, her mother had taught her never to trust anyone easily and told her that one day she must go out into the world.

She said that in the outside world, she would have to learn to read many more words, and that the world outside was much bigger.

So at the time, she couldn't understand why her mother hadn't fought back that night, why she hadn't retaliated...

She was also furious with her mother for being with another man, then leaving her behind all alone.

On the night of her "wedding," she put on the best and most complete set of clothes she had ever worn.

In this isolated place, she had no idea what awaited her on her wedding night. She sat there eating something she'd never tasted in her fourteen years, something they called candy.

She listened to the lively celebrations outside and waited quietly for them to arrive...