The Creatures That We Are-Chapter 1129: Secret of Heaven

Vermilion Bird’s eyes contracted. It felt like her blood had frozen into ice.

Ke Yo pressed a hand to her chest. “There was an eye inside me—the Eye of Greed. I have always been Greed’s pawn.”

“It’s okay! We-we’ll find a way!” Vermilion Bird's voice quavered, color draining from her face. “Don’t be scared, Ke Yo. We can help you. We can help extract the eye—”

“Shut up, there’s no time. Listen to me,” Ke Yo interrupted her. The rational, composed girl returned. “The Eye allows me to dream many things I cannot understand. I think they are fate, but scrambled into codes.”

“There is one word of great importance, like a heavenly secret I cannot decipher or understand the implication of. And I’m prohibited from saying it. I must tell you it now, however. It may be humanity’s only hope to turn things around.”

She stepped back and said, “This is my stop, Sister Xia. Goodbye.”

“Stop! Don’t be silly!” Vermilion Bird rushed to her. “We’ll find a way together. We’ll both live—”

“Stay away!” Ke Yo shoved her back violently. “Look at me!”

Vermilion Bird staggered and looked up at Ke Yo.

The girl smiled with tears in her eyes. She opened her mouth, yet no sound came out.

Vermilion Bird read her lips. Two syllables, a simple word.

Energy rippled out of Ke Yo’s body. She had triggered the curse by telling heaven’s secret. Her smile slid from her face, and her eyes began to melt into black viscous blood, covering her pale face.

An insidious power burst through her small chest cavity, revealing a black vortex-like heart. At its center, a red, bleeding verticle eye lodged in place.

Ke Yo's legs dissolved, morphing into writhing roots that pierced the bus chassis, spreading like blood vessels to form a crimson cage.

The vertical eye lodged in the black heart began to rotate counterclockwise, going faster and faster like someone was moving the dial.

Ke Yo's head snapped back as an inhuman cry tore from her throat. Waves of twisted, oppressive energy poured from her, corroding everything within the bus.

“No!!”

Instead of activating Unreachable, Vermilion Bird fought through the malevolent energy toward the monstrosity that was once Ke Yo. Her face soon cracked and festered with thin red granulation tissues, which bloomed and bore “fruit”—each a small eye. None were able to reach full maturity before they exploded like popped acne, killed by Vermilion Bird’s immune system.

The corruption spread down her neck, across her arms, along her legs.

“Don’t...don’t give up...”

She still refused to use Unreachable. One step after another, she moved toward Ke Yo. She would save her!

But then a radiant golden thread shot through the floor beneath her feet like a sprouting seed. It grew into a translucent phone booth, sealing her inside.

The Absolute Barrier blocked the oppressive, twisted energy and the corrosion. The tissue growths receded from Vermilion Bird's body, leaving only red blotches like burn marks.

Equivalent Exchange's regenerative power would soon heal her completely, erasing even these marks.

“No! NO!”

Her fists pounded against the golden barrier. “Let me out! Let me out now! Trust me, Gao Yang! I can save her! I can certainly save—”

Ke Yo was gone.

Gray-green energy had flooded into Vermilion Bird’s sight and enveloped the abomination in the blink of an eye, a result of War Tiger’s swing with the Dragonslaying Giantsword.

When her sight cleared, nothing remained of Ke Yo. Only shattered bus fragments marked where she had been.

The Absolute Barrier shattered into golden shards, raining down amid the thin mist of blood.

“No...no...”

Vermilion Bird looked around in despair, her eyes settling on the shoal by the riverbank. She not so much ran down but tumbled downhill, finding what remained of Ke Yo.

This chapt𝒆r is updated by frёewebηovel.cѳm.

Her skull was broken, and she had lost half of her face. She looked like a melted plastic figurine. A brutal cut had taken everything below her chest, her right shoulder missing. Blood painted her left arm crimson.

Vermilion Bird's breath caught in her throat. She trembled, paralyzed by the horror of how to even touch what remained.

Ke Yo’s eyes had melted, and she was barely alive. She wanted to lift her left hand, but didn’t have the strength to.

Vermilion Bird caught it immediately.

Ke Yo’s lips parted. Vermilion Bird bent down to hear her.

“I remembered...my name...Wenzi... My name...is Wenzi.”

“Wenzi.” Vermilion Bird clutched her hand. “I’ll remember!”

“Wenzi, you have a nice name. It’s not strange at all.”

“Wenzi?”

“Wenzi!”

...

Wenzi stopped answering. Her lips seemed to have curled into a smile, or it might have been an illusion, merely death twisting her facial muscles.

The last spark of life faded. Vermilion Bird's grip remained locked around the cold, bloodied hand. Her eyes fixed on the Black Gold ring adorning the severed stump of ring finger, nearly falling off. Blood obscured the first letter etched inside.

—ever.

Violent tremors wracked Vermilion Bird as she pulled the incomplete remains into her arms. There was nothing intelligible about her cries. Incoherent sounds tore out of her.

Thirty seconds later, War Tiger appeared on the shoal, Gao Yang, Dragon, Nine Frost, and Liao Liao behind him.

War Tiger buried his greatsword into the ground and walked up to Vermilion Bird, dropping to his knees to wrap his arms gently around her.

“Why!” she screamed. “Why did none of you trust her?! Why must you push her to death? It was your fault! All of your fault!”

War Tiger held her, his eyes fixed on the breaking dawn. He said hoarsely, “It was my fault. I killed Ke Yo. I’m the bad guy. I’ll go to hell and get thrown into a boiling cauldron. Hate me. Just hate me.”

Vermilion Bird's screams ceased. She gripped his arm and bit down hard, breaking skin until blood flowed.

War Tiger grimaced, but he didn’t make a sound. It was as if he deemed himself unworthy to voice his pain.

He thought it would last for a long time, but no. Vermilion Bird soon released him, tears of sorrow brimming her eyes once more.

A voice only she could hear sounded in her head.

“188, Strange, Support.”

“188, Strange, Support.”

...

Clink, clink. Ke Yo tapped the saucer before her with a small metal spoon twice. She sat in a booth seat by the window in the dessert place. Across the table, Edmond was still reading his novel. He nodded, telling her that he had heard her.

Ke Yo said proudly, “I’ve found my answer, Edmond. Do you want to hear it?”

“Go on.” Edmond flipped to another page.

Straightening up, Ke Yo said seriously, “I live to meet someone who will accept me unconditionally. I can tell that person my name. I can cry, laugh, babble, or do nothing before that person without feeling worried or anxious.”

“I still don’t know where I’m heading. Maybe I’ll never know. But thinking of that person, I will no longer be afraid of losing my way. We will meet each other again.”

“That is my answer.”

Edmond looked up at her and smiled. “It’s alright.”

“Hmph, it must be better than your answer.”

Ke Yo snorted, eating another spoonful of matcha mousse.

So sweet.

Head propped on her hand, she gazed out the window, losing herself in the street view. Edmond returned to his novel in comfortable silence.

The sunlight was warm in the afternoon. The music was soft and soothing. It was a perfect moment.

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine

You make me happy when skies are gray

You'll never know dear how much I love you

Please don't take my sunshine away