SES Chapter 28 V1

Chapter 28

By the time Mu Dai was sent off, it was already late. In the haze of the night, it felt eerily like the night Uncle Luo Wenmiao had his accident—Xiao Shanghe was as silent as if no one lived there.

Mu Dai tried to reassure him. “Don’t worry too much. We’ll figure something out.”

Luo Ren gave a faint smile. “But Pingting doesn’t have much time left.”

The so-called charlatan had been right—Pingting had no control over herself now. If that snake-like malice in her struck again, the consequences could be devastating.

A bold and dangerous thought suddenly occurred to Luo Ren.

What if he transferred whatever was possessing Pingting into himself? The hosts of this thing didn’t always go into sudden fits—it seemed, based on earlier cases, that the “human skin” could lie dormant in a person for over a year.

It wasn’t a real solution, but right now, it was the best option they had.

Luo Ren looked deeply weighed down. Of course he did. If she were in his shoes, her mood would be even worse. Mu Dai sighed inwardly and said, “I’ll head back then.”

She shoved both hands in her pockets and lowered her head as she walked away. The wind had picked up again, dry and laced with the sting of sand against her face.

Behind her, Luo Ren called out, “Mu Dai.”

She paused and looked back at him, puzzled.

He glanced up at the sky. Even the stars seemed to shiver from the cold, giving off faint, distant light.

“The weather’s good. Let’s go for a drive.”

The car exited Xiao Shanghe and plunged into the vast darkness. Inside, the lights were off. Mu Dai leaned her forehead against the window, trying hard to make out the scenery. Everything looked the same—barren Gobi, illuminated by the headlights.

The car moved fast, but Luo Ren knew the road well.

“I like driving at night,” he said. “The best places are the ones with no people. Quiet. No one is around to tell you what to do. You can stop anywhere, just sit there and feel like you’re the only one left in the world.”

He soon turned off the main road and drove into the Gobi. The bumpy terrain made the car shake constantly. Then, he accelerated, driving uphill on a steep slope—so steep, an ordinary car likely couldn’t make it. The climb seemed endless.

Mu Dai grew nervous and instinctively gripped the edge of her seat.

Out of nowhere, Luo Ren asked, “Mu Dai, would you die with me?”

Mu Dai stared, dumbfounded. “Huh?”

Luo Ren didn’t reply, just gestured ahead.

She looked—and her scalp went numb. They’d reached the top. There was no road ahead!

She screamed, “Luo Ren! Stop! Stop! There’s no road!”

The car suddenly pitched forward. Her mind went blank. Her heart stopped.

Is this how I die? Crashing off a cliff?

…

It felt like an eternity or just a few seconds—before the car slowed to a stop.

There was a road. It wasn’t a cliff after all, just a trick of the eyes. It was a steep downward slope, invisible from the top. Luo Ren hadn’t slowed down or warned her at all.

It was like a brush with death—close enough to taste it.

Luo Ren came around to open her door and unbuckle her seatbelt. Mu Dai’s soul was probably still floating somewhere out there—she completely forgot to yell at him.

He tugged at her hand. “Come on, get out.”

As soon as her feet hit the ground, her legs gave out.

Luo Ren laughed. “You okay, Mu Dai? That scared you?”

Fine, she admitted it. She had no strength left to argue.

He pulled a mat from the car, and the two of them sat against the vehicle.

In front of them stretched endless darkness. At the horizon, dunes rippled like waves, and above them, stars glittered. When she reached out, they seemed to fall between her fingers.

Luo Ren said, “Some stars are so far away that by the time their light reaches Earth, it’s been traveling for many light-years. What we think we’re seeing now actually happened a long time ago.”

He pointed to one. “That one… might already be dead.”

Mu Dai had heard this before—about how time works in space. It takes eight minutes for sunlight to reach Earth, meaning the sunlight we see is already eight minutes old. The nearest star besides the sun, Proxima Centauri, is 4.2 light-years away. So the starlight from there is also 4.2 years old.

In a way, everything we see with our eyes is already in the past.

Mu Dai said, “When you put it like that, it’s like all those stars are just skeletons—everything we see is ghost light.”

She suddenly felt proud of herself for being so poetic.

Luo Ren gave her credit: “Congratulations. You’ve officially ruined stargazing for the rest of my life.”

Mu Dai laughed. “Do you come here often?”

“I’ve brought Pingting here.”

So he had. On a night like this, under a sky full of stars, driving, with the wind howling around them, barreling down a slope…

Mu Dai suddenly felt a little deflated.

And just then, Luo Ren said, “My dad had two wives.”

Mu Dai answered absently, “Uh-huh.”

Luo Ren waited. Sure enough, after a pause, Mu Dai snapped to attention. “T-Two?!”

“That’s illegal!”

“So is murder.”

Fair enough. Somehow, Luo Ren always managed to win the argument. Mu Dai thought for a second. “Your family must be rich. Poor men can’t afford two wives.”

Luo Ren chuckled. “My mom was the wife who went through the hard times with him. They were introduced, got married, and struggled together while he built his business. Then he got rich and decided to reward himself… by pursuing what he wanted—including…”

He paused. “Including love.”

Mu Dai spat, “Bullshit.”