Chapter 382
Zhou Moran clutched the torn remnants of the script so tightly his knuckles turned white. The edges of the paper left fine scratches in his palm, yet they were nothing compared to the tearing pain in his chest.
"Impossible..." he muttered, his voice hoarse like sandpaper scraping. "This is impossible..."
Shredded paper drifted down between his fingers, yet those ink characters were branded onto his retinas like hot irons.
[Chapter 376: Zhou Moran discovers Zhou Qingyang colluding with the Zhao family]
[Final Scene: All cast members wrap up filming]
Every character seemed to grin as they tore at his perception.
He abruptly turned and rushed out the door. The carved wooden windows on either side of the long corridor twisted into blurred patches of color in his vision.
From the distance came the silver-bell laughter of servant girls. The sound of flowing water from the artificial mountain was crisp and pleasant. All these scenes that had been familiar to the bone now seemed falsely vibrant, like stage backdrops.
Before the latticed window of the west wing, Liu Yunyao was holding a brush and copying onto snow-wave paper. Lin Xinyao leaned on an embroidered stool beside her, mixing colors for her. Sunlight filtered through the thin gauze, enveloping both in soft light. Even the shadows cast by their eyelashes were as exquisite as painted strokes.
"Moran?" Lin Xinyao was the first to notice him standing under the corridor. Her brows curved into that familiar arc. "Why are you standing there in a daze?"
Liu Yunyao set down her wolf-hair brush. Her white sleeve swept across the inkstone's edge stained with cinnabar. Her gaze was crystal clear, with none of the panic from when her conspiracy had been exposed. "Want to taste the new osmanthus crisps? The cook deliberately reduced the sugar according to your taste."
Zhou Moran's Adam's apple bobbed violently.
Three days ago, this woman was still sneering in a secret room: "If he doesn't die, how can we get the Zhou family?" Yet now, even the temperature of her fingertips as she passed him a teacup felt terrifyingly real.
"You..." His voice floated in the void. "Do you know about the script?"
The crisp sound of a porcelain cup shattering startled the sparrows under the eaves.
Lin Xinyao's silk skirt was stained with tea, yet she didn't care. She lifted her skirt and approached. "You saw the final draft? Actually, we only realized after your 'rebirth' when it suddenly became clear in our minds..."
"Xinyao!" Liu Yunyao suddenly interrupted, but it was too late.
Zhou Moran stumbled backward and collided with a corridor pillar. The dull pain in his back finally confirmed this wasn't a nightmare.
He stared at Lin Xinyao's suddenly pale face. Every word seemed ground out from between his teeth. "So you knew all along? Knew this world was fake? Knew everyone was acting?"
Liu Yunyao's fingertips unconsciously rubbed the jade slip in her sleeve. This was her nervous habit.
In his previous life, in that dungeon, when she had passed him the drugged wine, Zhou Moran had seen this habit with his own eyes.
"Moran," she said softly, as if soothing a startled spirit beast. "Listen to me..."
"Say what?" He suddenly burst into laughter. The sound scattered the koi in the pond. "Say how you arranged for me to be betrayed by everyone in the script? Say what angle Zhou Qingyang should stab me at to be tragic enough?"
He grabbed Liu Yunyao's wrist and pulled her close. "Or say how much your pupils should contract right now to appear guilty?"
Lin Xinyao's gauze handkerchief drifted to the ground. She opened her mouth, then finally smiled bitterly. "Actually, we all have our difficulties. Many times, our minds don't think this way, yet we must act according to the script that appears in our heads..."
As if suddenly realizing she had misspoken, she covered her mouth in panic.
This sentence completely shattered Zhou Moran's last shred of hope.
He released Liu Yunyao and retreated step by step. His black robes swept across the broken porcelain on the ground.
Those sharp shards were so much like his shattered perception right now. So-called rebirth. So-called revenge. Nothing but a farce written by higher-dimensional beings. Even his heart-wrenching pain was a performance requirement carefully designed.
"Moran!" Liu Yunyao chased two steps then suddenly laughed lightly. "If it weren't for the script's constraints, you really are the type I would like."
This joking remark drifted over mixed with osmanthus fragrance, yet it made Zhou Moran's stomach churn with a metallic taste.
He crashed through the vermillion-lacquered gate and rushed into the streets. The city's lights melted into twisted spots in his vision. The vendors' cries. Children's laughter. The watchman's clapper. All the once-vibrant mortal fireworks had now become dense pages of stage directions.
"Young Master Zhou, taste the newly brewed plum wine!"
"Thanks to Young Master Zhou, we can live in peace!"
"Young Master Zhou..."
Every smiling face reminded him that these heartfelt gratitudes were all rehearsed performances.
Zhou Moran knelt on the bluestone pavement, dry-heaving, yet he couldn't even vomit bile.
He frantically circulated his spiritual power, trying to break through something. But the surging power within him was clearly real, not illusory. Yet was this power also scripted by the script?
Those night-and-day cultivation sessions in his previous life. Those life-or-death epiphanies. Were they all arranged plot points?
Most laughable of all, he had actually been heartbroken over fake betrayals.
"Ahh—!"
A mournful, drawn-out cry startled the birds throughout the city.
Zhou Moran tore open his chest with his bare hands. Three bloodstains stretched from his collarbone to his heart.
Warm blood welled out, yet he laughed neurotically.
It hurts.
But was this pain real?
Blood droplets bloomed into dark flowers on the bluestone. He vaguely saw himself in his previous life, in that room, taking his last breath. The blood had seeped into the floor cracks just like this.
What he thought was an ending back then was merely someone getting tired of the revenge drama and hastily wrapping up.
From the distance came the sound of hurried footsteps. Zhou Hong—or rather, the actor playing Zhou Hong—led a large group rushing over.
Zhou Moran looked at that face identical to his father's in his memory, showing an anxious expression. He suddenly felt it was utterly absurd.
...
Zhou Moran lay on his back in a pool of blood, gazing at the starry sky above and laughing lightly.
This was fake too, right...
Fake. Everything was fake...
So the fate he had struggled two lifetimes to escape was merely someone else's after-dinner entertainment.
Those unforgettable loves and hatreds. In the eyes of certain beings, probably didn't even count as a play within a play.
Before the last shred of clarity dissipated, he suddenly remembered the gilded small characters on the script's title page.
[This story is purely fictional. Any resemblance is purely coincidental.]
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{
Dear Readers,
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