Chapter 25: Lu Jiuyuan's Request
234 Words
He'd just started practicing the fourth stroke when Lu Jiuyuan showed up again.
This time he looked different—pale, dark circles under his eyes, like he hadn't slept in days. He stood at the shop door, looking at Shen Moyan with an expression Shen Moyan had never seen before.
"I'm asking you for something," he said.
Shen Moyan was taken aback. Asking? This lofty Maoshan prodigy, saying "asking"?
"What?"
Lu Jiuyuan walked into the shop, sat down, was silent for a long time.
"Help me kill someone."
"Who?"
"Myself."
Shen Moyan looked at him, not knowing what to say.
Lu Jiuyuan kept his head down, voice very soft:
"I can't hold on much longer. Those memories, every night they argue in my head. 127 people, 127 voices, 127 lives. Some want me to avenge them, some want me to live for them, some want me to die for them. I don't know whose to listen to. I don't know who I am anymore."
He looked up at Shen Moyan.
"You can hear the voices inside you. You can talk to them. Help me listen to mine. Ask them—what do they really want from me?"
Shen Moyan was silent for a long moment.
Then he reached out and placed his hand on Lu Jiuyuan's forehead.
"Hu Sanniang, help me."
"Okay."
He closed his eyes and entered the depths of Lu Jiuyuan's consciousness.
- Writer
