Even after seeing the death notices plastered all over the hospital ward, Situ An's mother still refused to believe them. Perhaps she had known the answer all along and simply refused to admit it.
Picking up the bloodstained scalpel from the floor, Gao Ming walked toward Situ An's mother. They stood in a corridor adorned with memories of Situ An's entire life, looking at each other.
"If the devil came into this world, I suppose he would look just like you." The Middle-Aged Woman leaned sideways against the wall. Blood-red sunlight slipped off her shoulders. In this grotesque, ugly world, she seemed different from everything around her.
Holding the knife, Gao Ming did not answer the Middle-Aged Woman's question. He slowly raised its tip, but he did not plunge it into her body.
Under Xuan Wen's puzzled gaze, Gao Ming gently cut open the wound on his chest.
Along with the blood came the memories of death buried deep in his heart. The ways he had been killed, again and again, unfolded before the Middle-Aged Woman's eyes.
"Your son won't be coming home. The curtain has fallen on his life. You should rest, too." Chains clashed inside the Execution House, and instruments of torture slowly shifted as though they had minds of their own.
"Whether you're the mother Situ An imagined or his mother's actual soul, none of that matters anymore." Gao Ming stood between shadow and sunlight. The wound over his heart kept tearing open, and the Middle-Aged Woman saw the horrifying scenes of suffering within him. "I can let you see Situ An. I can reunite you with him."
Not far away, Xuan Wen seemed to realize something. She slipped her hand into her pocket and quietly dialed that number on Uncle Zhang's phone.
A familiar melody sounded