Chapter 2
Chapter 2
It took a long while for the family of four to recover.
Old Mu put the cigarette I handed him between his lips and took two hard drags before saying to me, “Thank you, Brother Long.”
“Why does it keep chasing us?”
The girl huddled in Luo Ying’s arms hugged herself tightly. “We didn’t even provoke it.”
Luo Ying patted her daughter gently. Her gaze slowly swept over my face through the rearview mirror, and her voice dropped lower and lower. “Could it be… looking for a replacement?”
“Didn’t we hear the broadcast just now? There was an accident on this stretch of road. The driver of that red sports car died on the spot, didn’t he?”
Luo Ying looked at me again. “Brother Long, do you know what happened afterward? How many people died in that crash?”
“Mom-”
Before I could speak, the terrified girl clung tightly to Luo Ying’s waist.
Old Mu turned back and glared at Luo Ying. “Don’t talk fucking nonsense. What’s it got to do with you how many people died? It’s the middle of the night. Don’t scare the kids!”
I looked through the rearview mirror and saw Luo Ying slowly lower her head. The girl was so frightened her eyes had gone red.
As for their son, Mu Xu, he had kept his head leaning against the car window the whole time. Whenever the car jolted, his forehead would knock against the glass, as if he couldn’t feel pain at all.
“I don’t remember exactly how many people died,” I said, answering Luo Ying.
“But I think besides the driver, there was also a girl riding in that red sports car. After the accident, she fell into a coma and never woke up.”
The driver’s cab fell silent for a while.
On the pitch-black mountain road, ours was now the only vehicle.
The downhill road beside us ran right along the cliff. From time to time, cypress trees growing out of the rock face thrust their branches upward in a wild tangle.
In the dark, those clawing shadows fell across the highway, making the heart jump.
“Miss, what’s your name?”
I broke the silence, glancing at the girl in Luo Ying’s arms.
The girl seemed not to have expected me to ask her directly. She sat up from Luo Ying’s embrace, wanting to answer, only to freeze there with her brows drawn together.
“Your little brother is called Mu Xu. What about you? Miss, what’s your name?” I asked again.
The girl slowly opened her mouth as if she were about to answer, but Luo Ying pulled her back into her arms.
“My daughter’s name is Mu Jia. The Jia from ‘delicacy.’ Her grandfather gave her that name back then,” Luo Ying said with a cheerful smile.
The girl paused, then nodded. But she did not sink back into Luo Ying’s arms. Instead, she sat by the window on her own.