His hands were covered with thick, wet blood, so slippery that with just one movement, his fingers would fall off and be submerged in the dark sea in front of him.
Are you in a dream? Lin Sanjiu thought vaguely.
She dreamed that she was sitting under the moonlit night, sitting in the rising tide. The invisible sea of blood rose little by little, submerging her feet, her legs, her hands... in this wet place.
On the sticky black sea, she could only see a face as pale as the moon, swaying in the swaying blood-black waves.
Lin Sanjiu desperately wanted to collect the waves of blood, press them back, and stuff them back into the body under the face; she wanted to find the crack where the tide poured into the world, and wanted to close it again to stop this rising tide.
The endless blood rapidly lost its temperature under the moonlit night, and she even felt that her body temperature was about to melt into the sea like ice and snow.
I don't know at what moment, she finally gave up her resistance in futility, and sat blankly in the tide of blood, looking at the face floating on the sea.
"You have done so many things... just to die in my hands, right?" Lin Sanjiu asked angrily.
Why?
But Gong Daoyi had no way to answer her.
Maybe she will never know the answer to this question in her lifetime.
She raised her head, and half of the white moon was faintly floating in the dark night; she lowered her head, and still saw the same scene.
It didn't look like a human face, but more like a piece of thin moon that had been sliced off. It had never had blood color, only outlines and undulations, whiteness and shadows.
So many plans, so many efforts, just like the tide does not want to be pushed and attracted by the moon, and wants to fight for control of the direction of destiny from the world.
She wanted to convince herself that this was another trick of Gong Daoyi, but she knew very well that it wasn't.
When Gong Dao died, he was killed by her.
She lowered her head, as if she was gradually waking up from a dream.
The previous insanity, the encounter with the fake gift bag, the reunion with Mather... and other experiences and emotions, at this time, it was like a layer of hot sweat covering the body, poured on it by the cool night, and washed away from the body.
Lin Sanjiu, who was completely blank, shivered slightly.
The blood spread out in the night, flowing on the stone pavement, like a pool of black water with nowhere to go. Lin Sanjiu sat in the blood, waiting for the trial in a daze, unable to leave.
Maybe the first person to come will be the gift bag, a distant voice said, maybe the gift bag will have a way to reverse this period of time...
After sitting there for an unknown amount of time, she suddenly realized that the outline of a human figure was vaguely reflected on the dark water in front of her.
The shadow stood straight in the blood, with a faint ray of moonlight on its back; she heard no movement, as if the shadow was already here when the world was born.
When Lin Sanjiu raised her head, she was not surprised at all.
It was as if she had known for a long time that apart from the person in front of her, there would be no other person who should be here at this moment.
"...Puppet Master," she looked up at the black shadow in front of her and called out hoarsely.
The puppeteer was wrapped in a leather coat, with his head hanging down, and his black hair covering his face. It was almost impossible to tell where the night ended and where he began. The cold and thick aroma of blood was like a film-by-film scene.
The falling snow gradually filled the sky and the earth.
After a moment, he made a low sound from his throat: "Yes."
Lin Sanjiu wanted to raise her hand and point out the face in the sea of blood to him, but after moving it several times, it was as if someone had cut off the nerves in her arm, and it still fell heavily in front of her.
If you don't point it out to him, won't he be able to see it?
The puppet master's dark, dry eyes were falling motionlessly on Lin Sanjiu's face, as if she could not see the scene beside her at all. There was a silent power that isolated the sound of wind, the smell of blood, and Lin Sanjiu from the world.
Sanjiu's own sobs; he was still standing a few steps away, but she had never been so close to the puppet master, because the world had receded away.
"I..." Lin Sanjiu felt deeply that her words were pale, but she still said with difficulty: "I'm not... I didn't think I would really..."
Even if she had the energy to imagine the puppet master's reaction just now, she would never have imagined that the puppet master just said "hmm" again and said quietly: "I know."
...Lin Sanjiu did not dare to say any more.
Things have come to this point, and there is no room for change, so she would rather time stop at this moment, stop at the puppet master's few words, and never go any further.
She looked at the puppet master without blinking, watching him take one step, then another, and come to stand in front of her.
In the smell of leather and fragrant powder, Lin Sanjiu raised her head and waited blankly. The puppet master first bent down, and then slowly, almost unconsciously, lowered one knee; the leather creaked
The subtle sound of "squeaking" seems to belong to a boat that is about to set off for a long journey in this night.
Their eyes were level - not exactly, because the puppeteer was taller than her after all.
"I'm sorry," Lin Sanjiu tried her best to silence the moment, but she still let these three words slip out of her mouth. "I...I'm sorry..."
"It's not your fault." The puppet master said slowly.
His eyes were still as deep and dark as dry wells, dry and dull; only the ends of his eyes shone faintly with a transparent, dim light, like distant stars that were unreachable in the universe.
"No, I-"
Just as Lin Sanjiu was about to continue, he stopped him with a slight shake of his head.
"...It's my fault." The puppet master said almost calmly, almost gently.
He had always been gentle and polite when he had murderous intentions and was extremely angry; but tonight, it seemed different.
It was as if...as if he really hoped that Lin Sanjiu could feel every trace of A-Yun who no longer existed; just like a person shivering in the cold sea, if he puts his feet into the sand, he can also feel the traces of A-Yun who no longer exists.
Before leaving, I felt a little hallucinatory and fleeting warmth.
"Do you think I haven't thought about it?" His voice was gloomy and low, as if he was recounting a very distant event many years ago. "These years, these roads I have traveled... these days and nights. I
I have thought that there is always a price waiting for me ahead. From the moment I was touched by the power of Karma, I imagined this moment... I just didn't expect it to be you."
Lin Sanjiu wanted to open her mouth and say something, but she didn't know what to say.
"I have felt like a puff of smoke since a long time ago." The puppet master smiled slightly, only half of it. "Unlike the smoke, there is something that can weigh me down like a weight.
Revenge is the only meaning I can think of, the only thing that won't let me drift away from this world."
When he said this, he gently took a breath from the gap between his lips and looked at the sky. He still did not turn around to look at the body of Gong Daoyi next to him.
"This me has probably created countless others like me in the world." The puppet master said slowly, "But I don't know why, you didn't die in my hands, and you didn't escape from me.
…I don’t know what to think of you.”
Lin Sanjiu's cheeks felt hot and tears fell down.
"Sometimes, it seems that I can get salvation if I get close to you." The puppet master laughed at himself, silently twitching the corners of his mouth. "There are not many times like this. More often, I just want to kill you."
After a pause, he lowered his head and sighed softly. The wet black hair that fell down swayed slightly.
"More often than that, what I feel... is probably a kind of freedom." He seemed to be mumbling, his voice getting softer and more indifferent. "It seems that I can free myself from the shackles of the 'Puppet Master'
Here, I want to get away temporarily, follow you to do some stupid things, and listen to you say some stupid things. You have been reaching out to me, as if...if you catch me, you can leave."
Lin Sanjiu forgot about her bloody hands and wiped her face. She was sobbing so hard that her voice was broken.
"But...if you listen carefully, you may also be able to hear the mocking laughter deep in the depths of human destiny."
The puppet master said calmly, "He has never put me in the scope of his thinking, just like he has never put human beings in his eyes. But he just wants to die in your hands, doesn't he? Let me mistakenly think
He was also attracted by the idea that his sentence might be over...this exile has no end."
Lin Sanjiu suddenly started to shake her head, her body realizing what was happening faster than her consciousness.
The puppeteer had already raised his hand, and his palm slowly passed over her head and slid down her hair; his right hand finally stayed on her occipital bone, holding her with neither light nor heavy force.
There was just a slight tremor in his mouth.
The next second, he grabbed the hair on the back of Lin Sanjiu's head and pulled it back.
She raised her head involuntarily, and her lips parted slightly.
Lin Sanjiu could hardly see anything clearly, and her tears filled the night. But she had a vague sense of what was about to happen.
"The essence of Karma is a kind of irony."
The puppeteer leaned forward and lowered his head. His fallen black hair could almost touch the tip of Lin Sanjiu's nose. His voice sounded low from the distance where their breaths were tinged with each other.
"You also met Karma, right?"
His left hand—the cold, clear-jointed hand—had already grasped the hard, smooth candy at some point.
Lin Sanjiu wanted to resist and escape. She knew what it was and she would not eat it again no matter what.
The puppet master actually let out a low "shhh" like he was coaxing a child.
"I can't help it," he said, while pressing her lips so that she could no longer close her mouth. His force was very steady, and his cold fingers inserted between her warm lips and tongue, spreading the sugar all the way
Pushed deep into the mouth.
"Even if I kill him, I won't be free again. I still can't...can't stay here."
The fingers stained with saliva were pulled out from her lips, slid down, and pressed against her chin. They were moist and warm, but soon became cold again.
Lin Sanjiu wanted to hold the candy in her mouth without swallowing it; but at this moment, the puppet master's thumb touched the bottom of her jaw, and with a sudden force - she heard a clear swallowing sound in her own throat.
After that, for a few seconds, her memory was a blur of flickering fragments.
She kept raising her head, and she forgot whether she was forced to lower her head, or whether she forgot to lower her head; cold tears, skin, and wet hair swayed from her memory, accompanied by a thick coldness.
fragrant.
When Lin Sanjiu opened her eyes again, she found that she was sitting in a pool of blood, and Gong Daoyi was gradually dissolving in the blood, as if she was about to wake up from a dream in the early morning.
She turned her head and saw a stranger in black standing between the stone tower and the stone road in the distance.
The two people's eyes met distantly; after two seconds, the stranger turned and left.