Chapter 2:The Heart Of A Fool
1358 Words
The "medical team" didn't take me to a hospital.
They dragged me into a cold, windowless basement tucked away in a private wing of the estate. The air smelled of sterile chemicals and old blood. I was thrown onto a metal operating table, my wrists and ankles immediately snapped into heavy leather restraints.
"Let me go! Hao! Captain Zhao!" I screamed, the sound echoing off the tiled walls. "You can't do this!"
The door hissed open.
Liang Hao walked in, followed by Sun Meilong. She wasn't wearing her gala dress anymore. She was wrapped in a silk robe, looking pale and "fragile," making men willing to die to protect her, though her eyes were dancing with a sick, twisted excitement.
"Don't struggle, Mei," Hao said, his voice as calm as if he were discussing a business merger. "It only makes your heart rate go up. We need the organ to be in perfect condition."
My heart stopped not from a scalpel, but from sheer terror. "What... what are you talking about?"
Meilong leaned over me, her breath smelling of the champagne we had shared just an hour ago. "Oh, Mei-Mei. Didn't I tell you? I have a very rare heart condition. The doctors say I won't last another month without a transplant. And wouldn't you know it? You’re a perfect match. In every way."
"You're lying," I rasped, my eyes darting to Hao. "Hao, she’s lying! She was dancing at the gala! She’s not sick!"
Hao didn't even look at me. He was busy checking a surgical monitor. "It doesn't matter if she’s sick or not, Mei. She wants your heart. And since I’ve already hollowed out your company, your body is the only thing left of value you have to give her."
"Hao, please!" I sobbed, the leather straps cutting into my skin as I thrashed. "I loved you! I gave you everything! My parents' company, my trust... you can have the company, l won’t fight back for it, Please don't do this!"
Hao finally looked at me. He reached out and stroked my hair, a gesture that used to make me feel safe. Now, made my skin crawl.
"That was your mistake, Mei," he whispered. "You loved a man who only loves power. You were a means to an end. Now, you’re just... parts."
He stepped back and nodded to the man in the white coat standing in the shadows. A doctor. A man who had sworn to save lives, now holding a gleaming, cold scalpel.
"Wait! No! Please!"
Meilong giggled, touching her own chest. "Don't worry, Mei. I’ll take good care of it. I’ll use your heart to love Hao the way you never could. I'll even wear your mother’s pearls while he holds me."
The doctor stepped forward. I felt the cold splash of antiseptic on my chest. I felt the bite of the needle as they injected something to paralyze me.
I couldn't move. I couldn't scream. But I could still feel it.
The first cut was a line of white-hot fire across my ribs.
I watched through tears as Hao checked his watch, looking bored. I watched as Meilong leaned in closer, wanting to see the blood.
The pain was an ocean, a screaming agony that filled my entire universe. As the doctor reached into my chest, as I felt the literal tug of my life being ripped from my body, a cold, dark vow formed in the last sparks of my mind.
I curse you, Liang Hao. I curse you, Sun Meilong. If I have to crawl out of the deepest pit of Hell, I will find you. I will take back my heart. I will take back my life. And I will leave you with nothing but screams.
My vision blurred. The rhythmic thump-thump of the monitor turned into a long, flat line.
BEEEEE-
The flatline was the last thing my body heard. But my soul... still wandering.
I felt a sudden, violent wrenching sensation, like being torn away from a sinking ship. I didn't fall into darkness. Instead, I hovered, a weightless ghost trapped in the corners of that cold, sterile basement.
I watched from above as the doctor dropped my still-pulsing heart into a silver cooling box. Meilong reached out, her fingers tracing the metal lid with a look of pure, hungry greed.
"It's finally mine," she whispered. "My ticket to a long life with you, Hao."
I waited for Liang Hao to look at my corpse with a shred of regret. I waited for him to close my eyes. But he didn't even look at my face. To him, I was just a discarded shell.
"Clean this up," he commanded the guards, his voice devoid of any human emotion. "Make it look like the plan. We can't have a surgical scar on a 'car accident' victim."
My spirit followed them as they dragged my body out into the dark, rainy night. They took me to a secluded stretch of the highway, the same road where my parents had died just months before.
They laid me in the middle of the asphalt, my midnight-blue gown stained with oil and rain.
"Check the cameras," Hao said, standing by his black SUV.
"All clear, sir," Captain Lu replied.
I watched in silent, screaming horror as Liang Hao got into the driver's seat. He didn't hesitate. He shifted the heavy vehicle into gear and drove not away from me, but over me.
CRUNCH.
The sound of my own bones shattering beneath the weight of the tires echoed through the night. He reversed and did it again, making sure the surgical opening in my chest was mangled beyond recognition.
He wanted to make sure that when the police found the only daughter of the Li family, there would be nothing left to autopsy. Just a tragic girl who died in a "hit-and-run" after a night of "grief-induced" drinking.
You monster, I screamed, but no sound came out. I was the only one left! I was their only child! How could you do this?!
Hao stepped out of the car and looked at the mess on the road. He pulled a delicate silk handkerchief from his pocket,one I had embroidered for him and wiped a splash of mud from his shoe. He tossed the handkerchief onto my mangled body like a piece of trash.
"The Li family ends tonight," he said.
As he drove away, leaving me to rot in the rain, a blinding, white-hot agony erupted in my soul. It was worse than the scalpel. It was the pain of a thousand suns. My rage became a physical force, a black hole that began to suck the world away.
I will not go! I vowed, my spirit clawing at the very fabric of reality. I will not let this be the end! Return me! Give me back my life so I can make them pay in blood!
The highway vanished. The rain turned into a roar.
“Miss? Young Miss, wake up!"
My eyes snapped open.
I bolted upright, my hands instantly flying to my chest. I was gasping, my lungs burning as if I had been underwater for a century.
I didn't feel the rain. I didn't feel the tires.
I was in my bed. My soft, expensive, silk-sheeted bed.
I threw off the covers and ran to the mirror, my heart hammering against my ribs, I ripped open my nightgown.
Smooth skin. No scars. No tire marks.
I grabbed the calendar on the nightstand, my fingers shaking so hard I almost tore the paper.
May 16th.
Two years before the betrayal,Two years before he crushed me under his wheels..
"The Li family ends tonight?" I whispered, repeating Hao's words. A dark, jagged laugh escaped my throat. "No, Hao. The Li family is just getting started. But the Liang name... I’m going to make sure it’s erased from history."
I stood up, the warmth of my living body finally sinking in.
"Thank you for the heart, Meilong," I said to the empty room, my voice as cold as the basement floor. "I'll be sure to use it to watch you bleed."
- Writer
