The boy stood on top of
His head hung low, eyes fixed on Chen Ge's shadow the entire time. After uttering that single line — "Found you" — he never spoke again.
Boundless black fog stretched out like an ocean of despair. The dilapidated apartment building from his memories had become a lone island in Ming Tai's heart. He stood before the twisted, interlocking structures, beneath a sky of black and red, within Chen Ge's shadow, silently trailing behind him.
Many years ago, they had been like this too. He had watched everything Chen Ge possessed, witnessed that enviable happiness.
Chen Ge's life was like a butterfly dancing across the field of his heart, every pattern on its wings a thing he envied.
He wanted to become the butterfly, but in the end, he was nothing more than a shadow. Over the long years, his yearning gradually transformed. He no longer stayed at a distance — instead, he waved his arms and chased with all his strength after the butterfly dancing above his heart.
He didn't know why he did it. He didn't know what would happen if he one day caught the butterfly. He simply ran and ran, and finally — in this moment, more than a decade later, inside the world behind the door — he caught it.
The boy's bowed head slowly rose. He looked at Chen Ge.
Gazes that spanned time itself converged in the nightmare. Chen Ge saw himself from over a decade ago. Ming Tai saw a hideous, monstrous ghost.
In this world behind the door, shrouded in despair and pain, only those with light in their hearts could see brightness. If one's eyes were clouded with dust, everything visible was nothing but wandering spirits and ghosts.
"Is this the age at which you left?" Chen Ge had seen fragments of Ming Tai's memories in Fang Yu's world, but the child standing before him now was nothing like the Ming Tai of Fang Yu's world.
In the other children's worlds behind the door, Ming Tai had always appeared as an infant. But this boy had the same face as Chen Ge when he was young.
The features were slightly blurred, but it was unmistakable — this was Chen Ge.
"You..."
Chen Ge had so many things he wanted to say, so many questions he wanted to ask. He had imagined the moment of meeting Ming Tai countless times in his mind, prepared dozens of different things to say. But when he actually stood before that child, not a single rehearsed word would come out.
A monster who had destroyed multiple families, devoid of all humanity. A soul as cruel and twisted as a demon. A child who had been abandoned, deceived, hurt, and driven to madness.
Chen Ge didn't know how to judge Ming Tai. He would not feel sympathy for him, nor could he help him. He simply refused to deceive Ming Tai any further.
Even if the two of them were about to fight to the death in the next moment, he would not resort to the same tactics he used against other enemies — all manner of tricks and manipulations.
Ming Tai gave Chen Ge a very peculiar feeling, like looking into a mirror, except that both the person inside and outside the mirror were thinking about how to kill the other.
"Stop standing on my shadow. That's not where you belong."
No matter what Chen Ge said, Ming Tai showed no intention of responding. He kept staring at Chen Ge's face, and in his pupils was reflected a grotesque, demonic figure.
His body gradually leaned forward, giving the impression that the shadow itself had risen up and was trying to burrow into Chen Ge's body.
Just as Ming Tai was about to touch Chen Ge, threads of blood spread out between them, forming a barrier. A pungent smell of blood wafted from Chen Ge's body.
"Drip, drip..."
Blood fell to the ground. Ming Tai's gaze shifted away from Chen Ge's face and landed on the high heels in Chen Ge's hand.