SES Chapter 116 Part 2

The shop owner chased too, yelling at the door, “Hey! Pay up! You haven’t paid!”

It was the dinner rush. Fallen Street was packed, folding tables spilling out onto the road. Ma Chao shoved through, heart hammering. Seeing Yiwansan right on his heels, he grabbed a table and flung it into the street.

The diners screamed. Plates and bowls shattered on the ground. Yiwansan couldn’t stop in time—he went sprawling, hands pressed into shards and soup, porcelain cutting deep into his palms.

Damn it! Rage blazed through him. I’ll be damned if I let you get away.

He scrambled up and sprinted after Ma Chao again. At the end of the street, Ma Chao was nearly at the roadway. Yiwansan didn’t know where the strength came from, but with a roar, he launched himself forward like a tiger.

The two of them crashed to the ground. Ma Chao struggled to rise, but Yiwansan shoved his bloody hand across his face, smearing it with blood.

Yiwansan sneered, “Thought you could run?”

Ma Chao screamed.

It was a scream that tore through the night.

Was it necessary? All Yiwansan had done was slam him down, press his face.

Startled by the sheer desperation in his cry, Yiwansan froze. In that instant, Ma Chao twisted free, staggered up, clutching his face, and ran blindly on.

From the ground, Yiwansan looked up at the traffic lights blinking red and green at the intersection ahead, like an ominous prophecy about to be written.

He shouted, “Ma Chao! Car! Car!”

Too late.

The screech of brakes split the air. A truck came barreling out of nowhere, braking so hard its long body almost jackknifed across the road.

Ma Chao’s body, heavy like a block of wood, arced through the air in Yi Wan-san’s line of sight before crashing hard onto the ground.

The man who had just been running for his life was suddenly sprawled out there.

Not entirely still, though—he was convulsing, over and over.

A jumble of noises rose. Cars slowed to a stop, one after another, until the road was jammed in sections, leaving a wide, untouched space around the scene.

A crowd began to gather.

Yi Wan-san took two steps toward Ma Chao.

Ma Chao looked up at him, a ring of blisters swelling across his cheek, as if the sizzling seafood clay pot he had just hurled hadn’t splashed Yi Wan-san at all but had landed on himself instead.

He kept twitching.

Yi Wan-san looked around in a daze, spotting the cars stopped on all sides. He even saw Luo Ren’s car. Luo Ren was climbing out, with Yan Hongsha stepping down from the passenger side.

Low, restless voices, faces peering in with suspicion.

Then, out of nowhere, a voice cut through—firm, laced with indignation:

“He pushed him.”

And almost immediately, someone echoed: “He pushed him! That guy—him! I saw it too!”

That guy? Who?

Yi Wan-san suddenly realized, under the barrage of arrow-like stares—he was “that guy”!

A rush of blood pounded in his head. He shouted, “It wasn’t me!”

The words sounded hauntingly familiar.

Ma Chao had just said the same thing not long ago.

Yi Wan-san’s palms burned, the spot pierced by shattered porcelain stinging and itching. Luo Ren and Yan Hongsha pushed their way through the crowd. Luo Ren crouched to check on Ma Chao, while Yan Hongsha wrung her hands in panic, glancing from Yi Wan-san to the ring of strangers glaring at him like an enemy.

Police officers arrived, speaking quickly into their radios. Yi Wan-san saw several people rush over to them, talking all at once, then stretching out their arms, fingers stabbing straight at him.

Damn it! It wasn’t me! I told you it wasn’t me!

A suffocating panic, like cling wrap, suddenly sealed itself around his body. What he heard, what he saw—it all stopped feeling real.

…

Beyond the crowd stood a woman, ordinary enough to pass for any random bystander pausing to watch. But she didn’t push her way in, nor did she excitedly ask the people around her what had happened.

She just looked at Yi Wan-san, her eyes calm, detached.

Then she turned and walked away, as if the commotion didn’t interest her at all.

On her feet were a pair of worn-down high heels, the soles nearly flat. The red leather was scuffed all over, dulled to a murky crimson. At the tips, where the shoes had split, patches of leather had been stitched on. When she lifted her foot, the front sole curled up, exposing the crude threads that had been sewn in to hold it together.

Shoes like that—any family, no matter how poor, would’ve tossed them out long ago.