Chapter Ninety-Six: The Streak of Darkness in the White Night

“Did the corpse you planted in the garden seven years ago sprout? Will it bloom this year? It takes root in the dark and flowers in blood.”

Luo Hanya repeated in confusion, and a sudden stab of pain struck his heart for no reason at all, as if an old wound buried deep within him had been dug back into the light after all these years. The wound, long since rotten, lay stark and naked beneath the sun, and only tearing agony seeped into his chest.

“So you remember?” Xiye laughed softly. “You should have remembered long ago.”

“Are you me?”

“Don’t lump me together with you. You’re far too stupid.”

“How should I address you, then?”

“Heh. You can call me Xiye.”

“Xiye, then?”

“Enough. Give me your body for now. You really are stupid—of all times, you ask Xue He something like that?” Xiye cut Luo Hanya off again. It seemed he had only a moment of gentleness, and that moment had all been given to Xue He.

“What a rude fellow. But maybe there’s a gentle side to him too?” Luo Hanya muttered to himself.

“There. It’s yours. Don’t let Xue He be sad again.”

“Nonsense. How could I be as stupid as you?” Xiye said impatiently.

“Who exactly are you? Why do you… why are you so much like him?” Xue He’s voice trembled faintly, carrying confusion, surprise, and perhaps many other complicated feelings.

Xiye stiffened. It felt as though all the blood in his body surged upward at once, his scalp so hot it seemed ready to ignite. In that instant, all his savagery and coldness vanished. He was like a boy of thirteen or fourteen, cornered by the girl he loved most when she asked, Do you love me or not? His face flushed bright red, and he forced out, “I—”

“You’re not him. Your eyes are different. The darkness and gloom in your gaze are far greater than his.” Xue He lowered her lashes and said softly, “You’re a pitiful person too, aren’t you? We’re the same kind of people—abandoned by the world, barely surviving in its darkest corners.”

Xiye stared at Xue He in silence for a long time. He did not know how to explain any of it to her, nor how to make her believe what he said. Although Xue He was only ten, he knew she had already seen through far more than most people ever could.

He was Luo Hanya, and he was Xiye. Or rather, Xiye was only a name. In essence, he was the same as Luo Hanya—only he had taken all the darkness and gloom from Luo Hanya’s heart. At the age of eleven, he had buried himself with his own hands, along with all that darkness and sorrow. He had never imagined he would be reborn one day, much less that he would ever see Xue He again.

“What are you thinking about?” Xue He sat on the floor, cradling her exquisitely delicate little face in both hands.

“I was thinking… am I some defective thing left behind after God made the world? Maybe I should never have existed at all. I should have stopped breathing long ago.” Xiye lowered his head, sounding strangely relieved.

Xue He looked at him in surprise, then gazed earnestly out the window, her eyes full of remembrance as snow drifted beyond the glass. “Then you two are not the same kind of person. He is not like that. Though his world had never once seen the sun, he cast enough light of his own to illuminate me through the night. I am the same. We borrow light from each other, like clownfish and sea anemones living in symbiosis. The clownfish lives among the anemone’s tentacles, protecting it from being eaten by other fish, while the anemone’s stinging cells shield the clownfish from predators. We lean on each other and struggle to live.”

Xiye fell silent, and in that silence he agreed. It was true. From the moment he buried himself, he was no longer the original Luo Hanya, and Luo Hanya was no longer who he had once been. They were indispensable to each other, yet they had been separated for seven long years.

“Perhaps this is the turning point,” Xiye thought quietly. “The chance to become whole again.”

The two of them remained there in silence, sitting dumbly as they watched the snow outside the window grow more and more frantic.

“I have a strange feeling,” Xue He said, turning back to look at Xiye. “I feel like I’m going to die very soon.”

Xiye still had his head bowed. His words carried no emotion at all, yet they sounded strangely dependable. “I won’t allow you to die. Unless I die first, you are not allowed to die.”

Xue He looked at Xiye, who kept his head lowered yet never took his eyes off the sky, and smiled brightly. The clear, silver sound of her laughter rang out like a bell, just as it had when they used to be together.

“Wait for me here for a moment. You must be good and not move, all right?” Xiye looked earnestly into Xue He’s eyes, waiting for her to nod.

Xue He pursed her lips, then nodded seriously.

Xiye walked out of the abandoned building, still wearing that black tracksuit. He lay dazed in the snow, staring blankly at the gray-white sky and the boundless whiteness around him.

“So this is all you have?” Xiye muttered to the sky. “I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you.”

The snow grew heavier and heavier, far beyond that snowfall eight years ago. Flakes as large as goose feathers seemed ready to bury the entire world. The dazzling white snow turned the night into day.

“My life has been very short—just a little over ten years. I remember that there was a sky above my head, but there was no sun in that sky. It was always night. I never had the chance to see white, and naturally I would not be erased by it. There was only darkness in my sky.” Xiye paid no heed to the freezing weather, as if none of it existed. He murmured the words like a mad poet in exile.

On the endless white wasteland, Xiye was the final trace of black—out of place, unwelcome by heaven and earth. Yet this lone streak of darkness could not be swallowed by however much white surrounded it; instead, it kept expanding its borders.

White night returned to darkness. The snow became ink. The world of white sank into eternal night, and all things ceased to exist. Only that one thread of light still preserved its original brilliance.

“I will not allow you to die, even if I must die myself.” Xiye lifted his head and looked at the brightest thread of light in that black night, a trace of smugness curving his lips.

He reached out and touched it with his fingertip, leaving that thread of light at the center of his brow. Light and shadow flickered, and it fused completely into his soul—and into Luo Hanya’s as well.

“You— you madman! You actually burned away all your spirit! Have you lost your mind? Do you not value your life?”

A terrified voice echoed again and again throughout the world, like the sigh of the dying, like the cry of the one already at death’s door.

“I was never alive to begin with. Naturally, I have nothing to fear from death.” Lying upon the ice, Xiye stared foolishly at the night sky, black as ever, and slowly closed his eyes. The only thing left behind was that triumphant curve at the corner of his mouth.