eurekapd Chapter 318: A Silent Cry in the Rainy Night
Chapter 318: A Silent Cry in the Rainy Night
Chapter 318: A Silent Cry in the Rainy Night
"Thud!"
A dull sound.
It was the sound of a stone hitting rotten mud.
In that final lightning-fast moment, Jiang Ci's wrist shifted by a fraction.
The stone grazed the back of his hand and sank heavily into the mud puddle beside it, splattering mud all over his face.
He hadn't actually smashed his own hand bone.
But the absolute, self-destructive resolve that erupted in that moment,
sent a chill down Jiang Wen's spine behind the monitor.
That right hand, nearly crippled, began to tremble violently, uncontrollably, in the muddy water.
Jiang He (Jiang Ci) lay there in the mud, gasping for breath,
rainwater mixed with mud constantly dripping from his hair and cheeks.
His vision blurred.
The torrential rain curtain before him dissolved into a swaying, indistinct play of light and shadow.
At the very edge of that light and shadow, where the rain was densest, a tall, silent silhouette gradually materialized.
The man wore a crisp, old-style police superintendent's uniform, his epaulettes still gleaming in the gloom.
He just stood there, letting the rain wash over his sharply defined face.
That face bore a seventy percent resemblance to Jiang Ci's, yet was etched with greater resolve and severity.
He said nothing, his gaze piercing through the heavy rain curtain, silently watching his son, this wretched figure wallowing in the mud pit.
A hallucination.
Yet this hallucination felt more real than any reality.
Jiang Ci was pinned in place by that gaze, his trembling ceasing.
Then, he moved.
He struggled to rise from the mud, to stand straight and walk towards that phantom.
But his legs were long numb; every exertion sank him deeper into the mire.
He gave up on standing.
He began to crawl.
Bit by bit, with immense difficulty, he crawled towards the phantom at the rain curtain's edge.
Muddy water flooded into his collar, but he felt nothing.
All his consciousness was focused on that figure, growing closer and clearer.
Just as he was only a few steps away from the phantom, close enough to even make out the outline of the police badge on the uniform,
his foot suddenly slipped.
"Splash!"
He lost his balance completely, face-first, plunging heavily into a deeper mud pit.
"Cough... cough, cough!"
Jiang Ci hunched over.
He lifted his head, a pathetic sight, spat out several mouthfuls of turbid muddy water, and opened his eyes to look ahead again.
At the rain curtain's edge, the figure in the police uniform had not vanished.
Under Jiang He's (Jiang Ci's) gaze, its silhouette gradually blurred, shrank,
and finally transformed into the thin, small little girl he had pushed in front of the school bus.
She still wore that faded, old dress, the cheap plastic red flower pinned to her chest.
But the look in her eyes was no longer a child's innocence or fear; it was a gaze that pierced the rain curtain, carrying a silent accusation.
Jiang Ci was completely immersed in the role, continuing his pantomime performance.
His entire body curled into a ball in the muddy water, shaking uncontrollably.
Trembling, he reached his hand into the inner pocket against his skin.
Something was hidden there.
In the script, it was a piece Jiang He had torn from a damaged corner of the school bus donation supplies,
but in his blurred vision now, it was the most glaringly bright red scarf in the world.
His fingers touched a piece of soft fabric, then he pulled, tearing it out.
Jiang Ci looked at this blinding red in his palm, the muscles in his arm suddenly tensing.
Throw it away!
He raised his arm high, wrist cocked back, veins bulging one by one on his forearm.
His hand froze in mid-air.
One second.
Two seconds.
That hand trembled violently, unable to hurl the red scarf away.
Finally, a sob suppressed to its absolute limit escaped from deep within his throat.
That raised hand was abruptly withdrawn.
With all his strength, he pressed that filthy red scarf tightly against his own heart.
As if trying to press Jiang He's last shred of faith back into that already riddled, scarred heart.
Emotion, in this moment, was pushed to its peak.
Jiang Ci threw his head back, facing that lightless, oppressive, perpetually overcast rainy night, and opened his mouth wide.
His jawbone was dislocated from the extreme tension,
the blood vessels on his neck protruded one by one.
His chest heaved violently, all the muscles in his face contorted by pain into a living rendition of "The Scream."
Raindrops pelted densely against his face, against his wide-open eyeballs.
He didn't even blink.
This was a silent roar.
Not a single sound issued from his gaping mouth.
The entire world was left with only the roar of the rain and the muffled explosion of his soul within his chest.
The camera slowly rose, switching to a god's-eye view.
Under the wide-angle lens, the artificially created rainstorm shrouded a mud pit that stretched as far as the eye could see.
Jiang Ci huddled in the center of the pit, insignificant.
He convulsed and twitched at the pit's center, finally collapsing onto the ground, motionless.
"Cut!"
Jiang Wen's roar finally exploded from the walkie-talkie.
The rain sound ceased abruptly.
No one on set made a sound.
Everyone was still rooted to the spot, stunned by the performance they had just witnessed, forgetting to move.
In the center of the mud pit, Jiang Ci still lay there, unmoving, letting the residual water flow wash over his face, pale as paper.
This time, he did not activate the system's [Emotion Isolation].
He let that despair, that filth, that self-loathing pain run rampant through his limbs.
He wanted to remember.
He had to remember this moment, the pain of "Jiang He."
"Bro!"
Sun Zhou's anxious voice was the first to break the silence.
He charged into the mud pit, stumbling through the muck to Jiang Ci's side, wanting to help him up.
But when his hand touched Jiang Ci's body, he was horrified by the rigid feel of it.
Jiang Ci's body was stiff as iron.
His hand was clenched around that filthy red scarf, unyielding.
Sun Zhou exerted tremendous effort, finger by finger, pried open Jiang Ci's curled, rigid fingers.
That red scarf, crushed out of shape, finally fell from his palm.
"Plop."
A soft sound.
Jiang Ci's vacant, lifeless eyes moved slightly.
He watched that deep red color being swallowed bit by bit by the churning muddy water at his feet, until it disappeared.
Suddenly, he shuddered uncontrollably,
not from emotion, but from his body's instinctive reaction to being soaked in cold water for so long.
He instinctively looked at Sun Zhou, who was holding him, his gaze unfocused.
But he mumbled in a breathy voice, "Sun... Sun Zhou, my leg cramp is... it feels like it's gonna spiral into the sky..."
Sun Zhou was stunned, thinking he was hearing things.
And in that very instant,
the rigid muscles of Jiang Ci's face suddenly twitched, squeezing out a smile uglier than crying.
In a chillingly calm tone, he whispered,
"Sun Zhou, I think... I killed him."
"Jiang He... died in this rain."
"Bro... don't scare me, we're going to the hospital right now!"
Jiang Ci's body began to tremble violently, uncontrollably.
It wasn't an act.
His body's instincts had finally overwhelmed all the forcibly injected emotions.
That night, Jiang Ci was carried back to the guesthouse by several set assistants, a chaotic, many-handed affair.