Chapter 56: The Return of the Angel

“I was so naive at the time.
I thought he just wanted to break us up.
I looked for help everywhere, trying to rescue Shiyao.
But… but…”
His voice choked, and two lines of turbid tears finally rolled down from his turbid eyes.
“When I went back… Shiyao was gone.
She just vanished into thin air.
A living person, just disappeared like that.”
“I searched for her like crazy, asking everyone and checking every corner.
But there was no sign of her anywhere.
That bastard Zhang Weiming just coldly told me that she had dropped out of school.
But I knew that was impossible!
Shiyao loves music so much, and she’s about to participate in a provincial competition.
How could she just leave without saying a word?”
“Zhang Weiming!
It’s him!
That bastard!”
Zhao Haoyu whipped his head around, his sallow, twisted face fixed on Chen Dongyang, his eyes blazing with venomous hatred.
“He killed Shiyao!
He must have hidden her… hid her to cover up his crime!
He killed her!”
He roared, saliva flying from the corners of his cracked mouth.
“I’ve searched everywhere and asked everyone, but… it’s useless!
The police searched everywhere but found nothing!
That old fox Zhang Weiming did it too cleanly…
No, he must have an accomplice!
That Old Liu!
That handyman!
He must have helped Zhang Weiming deal with it… deal with it…”
He seemed unable to continue, and a “ho ho” sound came from his throat, his face a mixture of extreme pain and rage.
“I have no evidence, not a single bit of evidence…”
His voice trailed off, filled with impotent despair.
He slumped in his chair, his spine removed, his eyes still burning with unquenchable hatred.
“I could only wait, endure, like a rat in a gutter…
I watched him, his every move…
He thought it was over, and began to recklessly make money… embezzlement, bribery, misappropriation of public funds…”
A kind of sick and twisted pleasure crept onto Zhao Haoyu’s face.
“Finally, I finally got hold of him!
Those accounts, those shady deals!
I spent several years collecting evidence bit by bit, and then…”
He grinned, revealing a smile uglier than crying, his teeth looking white in the dim light.
“I sent them to where they should be sent.
I watched him being taken away, watched him being thrown into prison, watched him being ruined…
Haha… Hahaha…”
The maniacal laughter rang out again, causing creepy echoes in the dilapidated hall.
Chen Dongyang gritted his teeth, his chest heaving violently as an uncontrollable rage surged from the depths of his heart to the top of his head.
He clenched his fists tightly, his nails digging deep into his palms.
He used all his strength to restrain the urge to rush forward and tear the madman in front of him to pieces.
“Even if… even if what you said is true, even if Zhang Weiming deserves death!”
His voice trembled with extreme anger, and every word seemed to be squeezed out from between his teeth.
“What about the others?
That senior high school student who jumped from the building!
Li Wenbo from the library!
And those five people last night who had no grudge against you!
What did they do wrong?
Why did you kill them?”
Zhao Haoyu’s frantic expression suddenly froze upon hearing Chen Dongyang’s question.
His cloudy eyes stared straight at the enraged young man before him.
There wasn’t a trace of guilt in them, but rather a twisted pity and pride, seemingly stirred by Chen Dongyang’s “ignorance” and “shallowness.”
“Kill?”
His cracked lips stretched into a cold, twisted smile.
“No, no, no, how could a mortal like you possibly understand?
I’m not killing them.
I’m giving them liberation and bestowing glory upon them.”
He continued in that paranoid, fanatical tone.
“Their very existence is a form of suffering.
Despair, sorrow, forgotten by the world…
Their lives are meaningless, their cries unheard.
It is me, it is me who gives them value, it is me who elevates their humble, insignificant suffering into the most sacred nourishment!”
“Their death is not the end!”
Zhao Haoyu’s voice suddenly rose.
He struggled, trying to stand up from the invisible restraints, his eyes burning with madness.
“Their death is a ladder, a step that my angel must take when he descends into the world.
It’s a long stairway to godhood paved with earthly suffering!”
He raised his head slightly, his cloudy eyes seemed to penetrate the dilapidated dome and cast into some non-existent void, a morbid piety like a martyr’s emerged on his face.
“This city… this world… is a giant cage.
It’s filled with suffering, despair, and numb souls.
Day after day, year after year… living like the walking dead… what’s the point?”
“I heard it… I heard the call from on high…
I understand my mission!
I am not a murderer… I am a guide, a messenger of the gospel!”
Zhao Haoyu’s voice suddenly rose, with a kind of hysterical excitement:
“I played the melody of peace for them!
I gave them the sweetest liberation!
I freed them from this endless sea of suffering!
Their death is not the end, but sublimation!
It is a sacrifice!
It is the only way to cleanse the filth and return to purity!”
His gaze swept across the four shocked people in front of him, finally settling on the empty darkness, his eyes flashing with madness:
“Their lives, their souls, will become the purest foundation.
Paving the stairs to a new world!
When the stairs are high enough, when the sacrifice is pure enough…”
Zhao Haoyu’s voice trembled with extreme excitement, with a chilling certainty:
“…Angels, true angels!
They will break free from the shackles of this filthy world!
They will descend upon the earth amidst the peaceful sleep of all people!
They will bring eternal peace and order!”
“This is… true salvation.
You foolish mortals will never understand.”
Before he finished speaking, he raised his clenched hand high up.
It was not until this moment that everyone saw clearly what he was holding in his hand.
It was a dancing doll, barely half the size of a palm, clearly the missing piece from the music box.
Its material, wood or ceramic, was unclear, its entire body radiating a warm, milky white like ivory.
The figure, which should have been a delicate and lovely ballerina, now appeared strangely eerie.
Its face was devoid of features, and its body was twisted into an odd angle, tinged with pain and struggle.
An extremely ominous aura was emanating from the doll.
Just as Zhao Haoyu raised it above his head, the entire observatory shook without warning.
At the hole above the dome, the originally lead-gray sky had turned into a bottomless darkness that swirled like a whirlpool at some point in time.
A holy yet cold silent chant slowly sounded from the center of the vortex.
The song seemed to be sung by countless choirs, with an inhuman quality that seemed to completely freeze and peel off the human soul.
“Come… come…”
Zhao Haoyu raised his head, opened his arms, and his face showed a crazy and pure intoxication, as if he was welcoming the most important moment of his life.
“Come, my most perfect work, my angel!
My—Shiyao!”
Rays of golden light poured down from the center of the dark vortex, forming a huge and sacred beam of light.
And within that beam of light, a disgustingly huge white figure was slowly and silently descending from the sky.