Why Does Mr. Xie Favor Me? Chapter 42
byChapter 42 A solitary achievement becomes a prophecy
In a life of desolation, I can only make the decision at this moment.
The lingering sound of the cell door closing lingered for a long time in the corridor, and finally dissipated completely.
Shen Youjin sat in the shadow of the corner, slowly raised his hand, and looked at his palm through the stingy moonlight leaking from the small window above.
The palm prints were messy and light, as if even fate didn’t bother to carve a clear trajectory for him.These hands held the cold inkstone in the imperial study room, held the poison-quenched dagger gifted by Wang Xinlu, and dug into the ground on countless humiliating nights until the nails cracked and oozed blood.
His hands were very clean now. Xie Heng had someone bring him clean prison clothes and even water for him to wash.But he knew that some dirt couldn’t be washed away.
Released from prison, new identity, new life.
He chewed these words silently, and what he tasted on his tongue was not hope, but a deeper irony.
What is that?It’s another prison without bars.He must learn to walk in the sunshine without feeling ashamed of himself, learn to talk to people without subconsciously inferring malice, and learn to forget the invisible rope around his neck and the eternal bruises on his knees.
But he doesn’t know how to do it a long time ago.
He suddenly laughed lowly. At first it was just a muffled sound in his throat, but then his shoulders began to shake. The laughter squeezed out from between his teeth, hoarse and broken, colliding and echoing in the small cell, and finally turned into an almost desperate gasp.
He laughed so hard that tears came out, but the tears were also cold, and the touch when they ran across his cheeks was shocking.
The moonlight shifted an inch and fell on his knees.He looked at the pale spot of light, his eyes empty, but extremely sober.
He saw through all the seemingly benevolent giving that there were more delicate chains tied behind them.The emperor’s cultivation, the Wang family’s adoption, and even Xie Heng’s livelihood at this moment are all like this.
They gave him the role but not the choice.
So this time, he chose to refuse, and he wanted to define the ending by himself.
He began to prepare, his movements smooth and even calm, as if he was not going to die, but to complete a trivial task that had been put aside for a long time and had to be done by himself.
He stood up and took off the dusty but thick prison clothes he was wearing.The feel of cloth against skin is rough and real.He carefully spread the clothes on the relatively dry ground, smoothed out every wrinkle, grabbed the hems on both sides with both hands, and tore them apart with force.
“Hiss-”
The sound of tearing cloth was astonishingly sharp in the absolute silence. He paused for a moment and listened.There was a vague sound of banging in the distance of the corridor, even further.There were no footsteps, no scoldings, the world had forgotten this corner.
He lowered his head and continued his work, folding the torn wide strip of cloth in half, then folding it in half again, and then began to twist it.His fingers are slender and have well-defined joints. He once could imitate all the fonts in the world when he wrote, but now his movements of twisting the cloth strips have a well-trained precision.
After tightening, tie a strong knot, then connect the next piece of cloth and continue to twist.The strands of rope gradually grew longer, thicker, and tougher in his hands.
The cloth rope was formed, about the thickness of a little finger, and the length was just right based on his visual estimation of the height of the beam and his own kneeling position.He tugged, making sure it was strong enough to bear his determination.
Now, you need to choose a place.
His eyes slowly moved around the cell, finally settling on the innermost corner.The shadows were thickest there, completely facing away from the peeking hole in the cell door.The dust accumulates thickest here, and even the guards who occasionally patrol rarely visit.
A forgotten corner, used to place an ending destined to be forgotten, just right.
He walked over and knelt down in the corner. The moment his knees touched the cold ground, a shiver that lasted for half his life ran through his spine, but it quickly subsided.
He adjusted his posture so that his kneeling posture was straight, but his back was no longer humbly bent as before, but straightened with a stiff dignity.
He looked up at the rough beam above his head and found a tiny bulge formed by a wooden knot.He raised the cloth rope, estimated the point of force, looped one end around the beam, and tied it with a complicated but extremely strong sailor’s knot, or some kind of knot used in the palace to hang heavy objects, which would never loosen.
He lowered the other end of the cloth rope and slowly arranged it into a rope loop of suitable size with both hands.
The rough cloth rope rubbed against my fingertips, which was a bit prickly.He put the rope loop over his head and slowly lowered it until the rough hoop touched the skin of his neck.It feels cold to the touch, with the unique stiffness of the fabric.
He just knelt there quietly, his hands hanging by his side, feeling the blood rushing through his blood vessels for the last time, the subtle sound of his lungs expanding and contracting, and the heavy and lonely beating of his heart in his chest.
He took one last breath, closed his eyes, and threw all his weight forward.
Click.
The slight sound of pressure on the neck bones may just be an illusion.The feeling of suffocation was like a tide, overwhelming all the senses in an instant.His vision rapidly shrunk and darkened, and the roar of blood rushing could be heard in his ears.
The body’s instincts began to scream wildly, and the muscles tensed, wanting to struggle, kick, and grab any chance of survival.
But his consciousness firmly suppressed everything. He remained in a kneeling position, and his hands did not even grasp the tight rope, but just grabbed his knees tightly.The nails dug into the flesh, the pain was sharp, but it helped him maintain his final consciousness.
Darkness is like the thickest curtain, wrapping up from all directions.On the edge of complete sinking of consciousness, some broken lights and shadows began to flash uncontrollably.
It was the piece of bran cake that was as hard as a rock that his mother finally put into his hand while escaping from the wilderness in the north.When she turned around, her patched clothes disappeared into the wind and snow.
It was the mute old chamberlain in the palace who clumsily stuffed half a piece of ice-crusted parfait into his parched mouth in the corner of the woodshed.
One spring day on Wang Xinlu, in a yard full of begonias, she suddenly turned around and smiled at him and said, “The flowers are blooming so well this year.” At that moment, there was no humiliation or calculation in her eyes, only the purest joy of a girl when she sees the flowers.Just for a moment.
These rare moments in his life were like poisonous needles, piercing his last line of defense.Not because of nostalgia, but because their existence so sharply reflected the desolation and unbearability of his life.
Why me?
This unanswered question became the last echo in his consciousness.
Darkness fell completely, soundless, lightless, and boundless.
He knelt in the deepest corner of the shadow, his head lowered, like an ascetic who finally fell asleep after a long pilgrimage.There was no ferocity on his face, just a calmness like settled dust.
It seemed that all the hatred and pain, as well as the unwillingness and questioning, were finally calmed down in that decisive fall.
In the darkest hour before dawn, the guard walked slowly along the corridor with a dim lantern.The keychain jingled on his waist, the sound carried far in the silence.He yawned endlessly, thinking about having a bowl of hot haggis soup after his shift.
When he reached the innermost cell, he habitually approached the peephole and squinted to look in. It was too dark to see clearly.Probably still sleeping, he muttered, taking out the key and opening the cell door.
“Hey, it’s time to eat.” He shouted, his voice echoing in the empty cell.
There was no movement.
The guard frowned and walked in holding a lamp.The light dispersed a small patch of darkness, illuminating the empty thatched bed and the corner of the wall.
His breathing stopped suddenly.
Under the light, the man knelt quietly in the corner, his head and neck wrapped in a rough cloth rope loop, the other end of the rope disappeared into the shadow above his head.
His upper body was naked, he was kneeling straight, and he was leaning on the rope as if he was extremely tired. His posture was even weird.There was no pain on his face, just a dead grayness and the emptiness of complete relief.
There were no signs of struggle, and the dust was smooth underfoot.In this way, he quietly erased himself from this world.
“Clang!”
The lantern slipped from the guard’s suddenly outstretched hand, the glass cover shattered, and the flames flared up and then extinguished.Darkness came back, but the scene he saw at that moment was burned into the eyes of the guard.
“Come…someone! Something happened!!”
The shrill screams tore through the dead pre-dawn silence of the prison.
It was just dawn when the news was delivered to Xie Heng’s desk.There are only a few numbers on the paper: “The criminal Shen Youjin committed suicide in the prison cell at night.”
Xie Heng held the light piece of paper and didn’t move it for a long time.The morning light filtered through the window lattice, cutting the boundary between light and dark on his face.
He seemed to be able to see through these cold words how the soul huddled in the darkest corner of the dynasty used the last bit of strength to twist out a rough rope and then deliver himself decisively.
That’s not a collapse, it’s not a loss of control.It was a cool defection.
Xiao Jue walked up behind him silently and put his palms on his tense shoulders. “He chose his own path.” His voice was low, not comforting, just a statement.
“Yes.” Xie Heng’s voice was a little hoarse, “He refused everything we could give him, including living.”
He raised his eyes and looked out the window at the gradually brightening sky. “In this way, he got back the only thing that had never really belonged to him, and that was the right to dispose of his own life.”
Silence filled the study room, and in the distance came the sound of the market coming to life, the hawking of vendors, and the rolling of wheels, full of life.And another life has just come to an end in the most silent way.
“How to deal with the funeral arrangements?” Xiao Jue asked.
Xie Heng closed his eyes. When he opened them again, his eyes were filled with silence. “Buy a coffin and choose a clean place to bury it.”
He left this matter to Xie Nanqiao and Xu Shuhuai.
Xu Shuhuai raised his eyebrows when he heard this, but when he saw Xie Nan Qiao’s serious expression, he swallowed his teasing words and just sighed: “What a decisive person.”
They did not make any fanfare, and chose solid pine for the coffin, which was not painted and retained the original grain of the wood.The shroud is a set of indigo cotton clothes and trousers worn by ordinary people, with fine stitching.
An old Taoist priest with a good reputation in the city was invited to perform the simplest ritual in the side room of Yizhuang where the coffin was parked.There were no elegiac couplets, no mourners, just the light of the ever-burning lamp, swaying slightly in the draft.
Before the burial, Xie Nanqiao paid a visit.The coffin lid had not yet been closed, so she stood beside the coffin and looked down.
The man was lying in plain cotton cloth, all the anger on his face had dissipated, and after washing, his original slim outline was revealed.The old scar runs across it.His expression was unprecedentedly peaceful, and there was even a hint of relief, as if a heavy burden had been lifted and he could finally sleep peacefully.
Xu Shuhuai silently placed a wild chrysanthemum he had found somewhere on his folded hands.The pale yellow petals look particularly fragile and eye-catching on the indigo cloth.
“I heard,” Xie Nanqiao suddenly spoke softly, as if he was afraid of disturbing the deep sleep, “he walked on his knees.”
Xu Shuhuai held her cold hand and nodded.
They said no more.The coffin lid was gently closed, covering the face that finally gained peace.The dull sound of nails being hammered into the wood one by one was the only music to send him off.
The coffin was carried to a sunny hillside outside the city. It was far away from the official road and inaccessible, but the view was wide and distant mountains and flowing clouds could be seen.
The soil was uncovered and gradually buried.There is no tombstone, only an uncarved stone is erected in front of the grave, facing the east to welcome the sunrise every day.
Just like him, he came naked and left naked.I walked through this world and tasted all kinds of bitterness and turbidity. In the end, I took nothing away and left nothing behind.
Except for the handful of loess that will soon blend into the spring mud, and the wild flowers that will grow by themselves next to the stone.
A few days later, Xie Heng passed by that hillside and stood alone in front of the grave for a moment.The summer wind had warmed up, blowing his broad sleeves.The grass is green in the distance, and the nameless stone nearby is silent.
He remembered Shen Youjin’s last question.
“What is the meaning of life?”
He has his answer, but it is his way, the backbone of his walking in the world.But what about Shen Youjin?For the person who is deprived of the qualification to find meaning, his answer may be hidden in the death of self-definition.
This is the ultimate choice in extreme sobriety. When the world only offers you poison, you can at least choose not to drink it.When fate only prepares shackles for you, you can at least choose not to live under the shackles.
Xie Heng took one last look at the silent stone, turned and left.The mountain breeze blows, bringing with it the smell of earth and new grass, full of vitality and everlasting.
Those who are alive will continue to trek. The road is still long and the burden on their shoulders is heavy, but the hands they hold are warm. There is still a lot of darkness to illuminate ahead.
[The author has something to say]
My dear friends, I have modified the text of some chapters. They are messages written by some characters from the perspective of me or my relatives after they went offline. I thought it was quite meaningful and wrote [Star Eyes] (Chapter 30, 32, 38).
Shen Youjin:
They say you are twisted and dark, but I always remember that when I first gave you that little bit, I also quietly buried a few crumbs of light, the dumb servant’s cold cake, the smile on the swing, and Xie Heng’s last inquiry.Although these good intentions fall into your barren life, they become a deeper irony.
So I don’t ask you to forgive me for this cruel fate.Just please remember that when you were finally in the corner of the cell, calmly tightening the rope, it was the first time in your life that you had done something completely of your own will.
That quiet death is not failure.It is your only clean victory in this life where everything is lost.You use them to train your skills and end up with the products they make.
Now, you are finally free.
If there is an afterlife, may you be an unknown wind in the mountains or a pebble in the stream.It doesn’t have to be beautiful, it doesn’t have to be useful, it doesn’t have to remember any scars.
I only existed for myself.
-your creator