Until Then...

Chapter - 49

Sometimes it is hard to tell what exactly is the reason for you to keep on living. Like fish in drought, you struggled so hard to see another day. Pushed through bushes with thorns that cut you so deep, your bone exposed to the cold air outside. As the blood dripped down your shoulder and pool at your feet, you just have to wonder, was it all worth it? Sometimes you just got tired both mind and body, giving up, throwing in the white towel seemed like the best option, if not the only one.

Zhang XiXi thought the same as he watched his father's lifeless body. No matter how brave he tried to be, no matter how much he sacrificed his dreams, killed his identity to fit in with the image that was expected of him by others, at the end of the day, he was left with nothing. And even when he knew the reality of what had happened, he had to bite his tongue and swallowed the words because he couldn't do a thing. Not even lift a finger.

The late head of Zhang family, who had been on ventilator support for years, met an unfortunate end as the supposed-to-be care giver just so happened to be assassin who infiltrated the mansion after messing with the power grid in the dark of the night and took Zhang Xi's father life. And said assassin was later caught by none other than his uncle who put a bullet in his head right in his father's room before anyone could interrogate anything out of him.

Now Zhang Xi stood at foot of the bed in the room where a stranger's dead body lied on the floor and his father's body on the bed. He wanted to laugh out loud at this child play plot that his uncle cooked up. An assassin whose mission was to take out not the most powerful person in Zhang family but a comatose patient on ventilator.

He didn't realize he had his fist balled so tight the nails were digging into his flesh and blood started to ooze from the wounds. He stared at his father's dead body which was now covered with white satin surrounded by several people who hid their fox skin under sheep clothing. And at the head of the group was none other than his uncle, Zhang Feng who was giving a marvelous show of howling the ugliest cries. Since the moment he was born, Zhang Xi was a calm and rather labelled as cold child who didn't rarely interact or show his emotions apart from his parents. This was the first time in his life that he felt the hatred so bitter if he could, he would have spit poison.

The pit of his stomach was filled with bile as he watched his father's body lie lifeless on top of the luxurious bed sheets. He didn't hear what others were saying nor did he cared, all he saw before him was white. He knew his father had not been with him for so many years. And it was because of his ego and selfishness that the older Zhang couldn't receive the sweet relief from mortal bounds. He forcefully put him on ventilator and life support even though countless doctors told him there was no hope for him to ever open his eyes again. He knew his father had been gone for years and what he had was just a shell with borrowed breath from machine. Even so...he felt safe and rather felt supported just by his presence. Just listening to the hiss of ventilator and the beep of computer screen tricked his mind into thinking his father was alive and that there was hope. And now...that hope had been taken away.

A sudden grip on his shoulder snapped him out of his torrents of agony and rage. "Relax, my boy. It was unfortunate but you know your father, my brother has not been with us for years. Just think of this as letting go." With the voice as smooth as syrup on candy cane, his uncle patted Zhang Xi's back, drying his eyes with back of his hand. Zhang Xi's body shook in anger under his touch and he slapped his hand away. The two's interaction drew the eyes of the room toward them. "...Don't you touch me with your bloody hands..." "My dear Nephew, calm yourself. I know you are in shock to see your father passed away but this is..." he couldn't finish his sentence as Zhang Xi's fist landed squarely on his face and the old man stumbled back on his feet. Zhang Xi wasn't done; he lunged forward and grabbed his uncle from the collars. "I will end your fucking life...you murderer..."