Chapter Twenty-Three

“You should have caused enough trouble already, Cecil!”

Zi’ang’s shout echoed down from above the clearing.

The blades of light that had relentlessly pursued Emilia vanished at once. The floating candelabra released a barely visible ripple, then dropped straight down, crashing onto the ground.

The wasteland fell into sudden silence, broken only by the soft patter of rain.

Kurt stepped out from beneath the bread van and stood beneath the reopened shield around Emilia. Dylan poked his head halfway out of the van’s door, peering at the scene before the solitary house.

Such abrupt awkwardness was not what Zi’ang had anticipated, and it left him standing alone atop his perch, painfully embarrassed. Rain battered his face, making it hard to keep his eyes open. He glanced around, searching for a chance to retreat gracefully, but nothing offered him such a reprieve.

“Why don’t you come down first?” Kurt said quietly.

Zi’ang seized on this offer as if it were a lifeline, nodding vigorously. Grasping the rim of the gaping hole, he lowered himself along the outer wall of the house, pushed off, and leapt toward the ground.

A faint yellow glow appeared, cushioning his fall, though he still failed to land steadily. His ankle twisted, sending him tumbling sideways. To avoid an awkward fall, he rolled with the motion, ending up with his back to Emilia, standing at the threshold of the deserted house.

Out of Emilia’s sight, a stray blade of grass clung to Zi’ang’s forehead.

A ray of light emanated from the empty doorframe. Immediately after, a young woman emerged, dressed in billowy garments with broad belts, hands cradling a red toolbox.

“Cecil,” Zi’ang spoke, “Kelly certainly made mistakes, but you’re still alive, while her husband is not. You’ve tormented her for so long; isn’t it time to let go?”

“How do you know,” the luminous woman replied, “that the boy wasn’t Donald as a child?”

“At first, I didn’t know,” Zi’ang answered, “but I understand why you created that chamber.” He glanced at the gaping hole on the second floor. “Negative consciousness seems to be something you can harness. You conjured those silvery-grey things, prompting me to express myself negatively in panic. To absorb more consciousness, you showed me glimpses of beauty, waiting for my mind to regenerate. This pattern repeated several times, but what made me realize that the boy wasn’t Donald was the final scene. The two are very similar—both willing to give—but their reasons for giving are entirely different.”

The woman trembled. Beams of light leaped from her body, dissipating into the air. “No, they’re not different,” she said fiercely. “What do you know!”

“I’ve never experienced what you did,” Zi’ang replied, “or anything else, for that matter.” He shrugged, adding, “All I know is something I once heard. Let me share it with you. You catch a cold. The one beside you notices and carries tissues just in case. Eventually, you sneeze, and he offers a tissue, but you decline, saying you have your own. Many in his position would feel a faint disappointment. Good intentions unacknowledged—an unpleasant feeling. This suggests that liking, or even love, for most people is a way of self-satisfaction—I am kind to you because it makes me feel good. When that reason disappears, their kindness ends quietly.”

“That’s why I say people change,” the woman responded, her toolbox emitting a creaking sound. “Everyone does.”

“That’s not what you truly believe,” Zi’ang said. “Initially, you thought Donald, like that boy, would eventually grow weary of Kelly. You kept following him, searching for evidence, but Donald’s attitude toward Kelly remained direct and pure, and it made you jealous. In the end, you realized something—Donald loved Kelly differently. His reason was: ‘I am kind to you because it makes you feel good.’ If his offered tissue was refused, he’d think, ‘It’s fine, she’s prepared, that reassures me.’”

“Jealous of Kelly?!” the woman’s voice rose. “What nonsense.”

“Cecil, why are you a candelabra?” Zi’ang asked. “Your true vessel is the toolbox, yet for a long time—even when you met us—you manipulated the candelabra. I suppose you did find evidence. Unfortunately, it wasn’t what you hoped for, but quite the opposite. The classroom scene—I didn’t understand why you recreated it. Donald cut Kelly’s leg, hardly a pleasant memory. Only when I linked it to the oddities of this house did Donald’s words gain extraordinary meaning: ‘In our home, this will never happen again.’ You must have scoured every corner of the house and found nothing sharp. All knives were discarded, the kitchen unused for ages. Many objects with edges had been smoothed, even cabinet doors rounded off. In the end, you found only a candelabra, because it held two candle pins. Donald did something else absurd: to let Kelly drive herself, he built a secret passage, even though it meant seeing her less. In contrast, the boy always stayed by your side. As he grew, he fulfilled his promise and took you away from the house. For a long time, he never left your side—until one day, he vanished from your life. After all, with everything that happened today, he never appeared.”

The padlock hanging from the toolbox snapped off, and the toolbox sprang open. A large blood-stained plastic sheet floated out, forming a transparent sphere that enveloped Zi’ang and the toolbox.

“I regret this,” Zi’ang said. “Looks like your bubble still formed.”

The light composing the woman faded, but the opened toolbox kept hovering.

“How tiresome,” came a raspy voice from inside the toolbox. “I’ll leave only you. As for the others, you can watch them die.”

Tentacles burst from the wasteland, thrashing wildly.

The shield that had blocked the rain contracted into a sphere, carrying Emilia and Kurt into the air.

All the tentacles extended at once. Some thrust at the purple sphere suspended in the sky, others lunged toward the bread van at the edge of the clearing.

Rannie, running from behind the house, pointed at the van. Steven, still unconscious, shot out from behind her with a swoosh. A massive orange sphere enveloped Steven, smashing aside the tentacles attacking the van.

The tentacles whipped and scattered the sphere’s light, then struck down at the collapsed Steven.

A beam of green light shot from behind the van, instantly disintegrating the tentacles surrounding Steven.

“Who did that!” Colonel Taka roared. “Didn’t you hear my order?! Until everyone from the Guild is dead, nobody moves!” He removed his hand from the spherical metal.

Kelly emerged from behind the house. She gazed at the scene across the wasteland, then stumbled to the front door. “Donald, please stop this,” she pleaded. “Let the others go. We can keep living here together.”

“She’s right, Cecil. It’s time to stop,” Zi’ang said softly from within the plastic sphere. “If you still want to see that boy, I’ll help you find him. The Guild will allow you two to meet. I hope you can talk things through.” He bent down and picked up the padlock that had fallen from the toolbox. “For now, let me offer you a brief, beautiful sensation. Honestly, that soft touch—I doubt I’ll ever forget it.”

Zi’ang suddenly hugged the toolbox tightly, closing it again and locking it with the padlock.

A yellow sphere enveloped the toolbox, bursting out of the plastic sheet and soaring upward.

The toolbox tried to open again, but the sphere transformed into violet, halting its movement.

The violet sphere pierced the clouds, then exploded, creating a massive purple ring in the sky.

The ring expanded outward, stirring a fierce wind that swept away the rain clouds above the house.

The rain stopped.

Moonlight poured down, bathing the wasteland.

The toolbox fell from the sky, caught by a purple sphere, which gently set it among the wild grass.