Returning - Chapter 67
Chapter 67: Hatred
On the second day of the Lunar New Year, it was customary to honor ancestors and visit their graves. This was also Zhao Yu's first time coming to the cemetery in more than three years.
She and her godparents had arrived early enough, but fresh fruit and flowers had already been placed before the two adjoining headstones.
Zhao Yu paused, slightly stunned, and turned to her godparents. Her godfather said, "It must have been Song Xuan. All these years, he has often come to see Xiao Jin, and he visits your godmother and me as well."
Zhao Yu fell silent, her gaze fixed intently on the two names carved into the headstones: Zhao Meiyin, Yu Jin.
Her godmother bent down to arrange the carefully prepared pastries and sighed. "That boy Song Xuan is truly good. So many years have passed, and he still hasn't forgotten Xiao Jin. If Xiao Jin were still here, they probably would have been married by now…"
Abruptly nudged by her husband's elbow, the godmother stopped talking in time and said to Zhao Yu, who was staring blankly at the headstones, "Xi Xi, pay your New Year respects to your mother."
According to local customs, visiting a grave required kowtowing. Zhao Yu slowly knelt before her mother's grave, earnestly performed three kowtows, then moved to Yu Jin's grave and likewise knelt, preparing to perform the ritual.
Her godmother immediately pulled her back. "You can't do that. You and Xiao Jin were of the same generation. Coming to see her is enough; such grand gestures aren't necessary."
Yet Zhao Yu still insisted, bending over, prostrating herself, and performing the ritual.
The couple exchanged a glance and said nothing more.
After rising, Zhao Yu stared at Yu Jin's headstone for a long while before asking softly, "Godmother, Godfather… have you ever resented me?"
The couple stood there, stunned. After a long moment, her godfather finally said in a deep voice, "That was an accident. We don't resent you."
"But Xiao Jin… she met with misfortune because she was coming to my house to find me."
"For over ten years, did a single day pass when you and Xiao Jin didn't visit each other? When true disaster is meant to strike, nothing can stop it." Her godmother sighed again. "Rather than resenting you, I might as well resent myself. Even the master at Qingyang Temple said Xiao Jin had a calamity of blood that year. If I had taken it more seriously, maybe…"
The cemetery was bustling with people coming and going; many children who didn't yet understand the meaning of the rites were even chasing and playing, snatching the offerings of fruit meant for the deceased as they frolicked.
Yet within this lively scene, basking under the rare warmth of the gentle sun, Zhao Yu felt an increasing coldness.
The words that had countless times surged to the tip of her tongue, only to always stick in her throat, this time too, without exception, remained unspoken.
She didn't have the courage to speak the truth of that year. She didn't have the courage to tell them that it wasn't an accident, that she was the chief culprit.
Her godparents still had to return to their ancestral home in the countryside to pay respects. Zhao Yu didn't go with them. Instead, she stayed behind at the cemetery alone, keeping company with the two people who had once been closest to her.
"I'm sorry."
These three words, she had said countless times in her heart, and countless times before the two graves as well. Regrettably, it was of no avail.
After leaving the Eastern Suburb Cemetery, she was in a daze. She drove aimlessly, and without realizing it, ended up heading to the Western Suburb.
The west side of Wucheng had developed very slowly in the past. Over a decade ago, it was filled with unused wasteland everywhere. It was during that time, taking advantage of loose policies and low prices, that her mother had scrimped and saved to buy a small plot of land. Later, she hired people to build a decent three-story building.
That was the home Zhao Yu and her mother finally had after moving countless times between rented places—a house that completely belonged to them, their home in the truest sense.
But now, the house was empty, and the home was gone.
Parking the car on the street, she stared blankly for a long time at the much-dilapidated house. Finally, Zhao Yu mustered her courage, got out of the car, and slowly walked to the front door.
Both shopfronts on the first floor were fitted with rolling metal shutters. The dust-covered shutters were tightly locked, also sealing off the stairway leading to the second and third floors, preventing anyone from entering.
Zhao Yu did have a key, but… where had she put it?
She couldn't remember.
Even if she remembered, she probably wouldn't have the courage to go up.
This staircase, soaked in countless amounts of blood, had once haunted her nightmares every night. She didn't dare to personally experience that feeling of despair and suffocation again.
"Miss, are you looking to view the house?" A middle-aged woman came out of the hardware store in the neighboring building and kindly pointed Zhao Yu in another direction. "If you're looking for a house, you can go over there. Several houses there are for rent. The owner of this building has vanished to who-knows-where; you can't rent this one."
Zhao Yu clenched the hem of her clothes and forced a smile. "Thank you."
Another woman who had just bought something from the store pointed at the house that had been vacant for a long time. "I remember that's a haunted house, isn't it? The one where someone fell to their death three years ago?"
The shop owner's wife nodded. "Isn't it? Three people fell together, two died on the spot. So tragic."
"How come I heard three people died? Did one of them survive?"
"Three did die, it's just…" The shop owner's wife looked left and right and lowered her voice slightly. "I heard from my landlord that the daughter of this family got knocked up by some bastard. When they fell, the adult didn't die, but the baby in her belly did. So, wasn't that three deaths?"
The two women huddled together and said something more, but Zhao Yu could no longer hear them.
By the time she gradually regained some awareness, she realized she had already sped all the way onto the highway.
She had only one thought now: she wanted to go back, back to Donghai, and kill Zhuang Yiqing with her own hands.
That fury, identical to three years prior, overflowed from her internal organs, from every drop of her blood, driving her mad, making her demonic.
But when she finally raced all the way to Donghai at a hundred and twenty kilometers per hour, looking at this bright and flourishing city under the setting sun, that boiling hot blood gradually calmed again.
That wasn't enough. Far from enough.
She wanted that woman to experience every single pain she had endured.
No, she wanted it to be ten times, a hundred times more painful than what she had gone through.
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