CHAPTER 23

Each day passes by heavily.

I am sitting at the desk inside my dormitory room, with my face resting on my hands, staring at the photo of my sister and me in the frame on the desk. This is the only photo I brought with me before coming to Absolute Wing Hall.

I couldn’t help smiling bitterly, regretting that I didn’t take all her photos with me.

Tonight is the fourth nineteenth night.

Because of our family’s name ‘Ye ShiJiu’,¹Ye ShiJiu means ten (10) or a decade of long nights my mother used to count every night of each day that passed by with the homophonic ‘Shi Jiu Ye’.²Shi Jiu Ye means nineteen nights Later, it developed into a small habit of counting the days, that each year is a total of nineteen shi jiu ye plus four days.³Wolf’s mother was counting a total of 19 cycles of 19 nights (Shi Jiu Ye) in a year, plus 4 days. (19×19=361, 361 + 4 = 365 days a year)

Such a habit is for remembering our father who died after my sister was born. But in fact, my impression of my father is only a vague shadow. What makes this current habit even more nostalgic for my sister and me is our mother, who died when I was in high school.

I reach out my fingers and stroke my sister’s smiling face in the photo, feeling my nose twitch from sourness.

I sigh lightly, pick up the pen lying on the side, open my drawer, and fish out a half-written letter, preparing to finish it up. Writing a letter to my sister is the only thing that can comfort my scarred and exhausted soul in the Absolute Wing Hall.

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Gu Yan has recently been looking for me more often in the evening… No, it should be said that even the times he is looking for me during the day have increased. I spend almost all my time with Gu Yan except when I am releasing and securing back the prisoners, and if I have some chores to do.

It’s always not a good thing to be called by Gu Yan. Most of the time, I am forced to spend time with him in bed. But there are times when he just sought me out to sit next to him like an ornament, watching him lean back on the bed lazily and read the book with relish, just occasionally raising his head and forcing me to have a word or two with him.

This makes me more and more confused about Gu Yan’s state of mind. He is such a difficult person to understand.

Stepping onto the ninth floor, I exhale lightly, and walk towards the only cell which is emitting a faint light.

The cell door is wide open. As long as it is not closed, the electronic watch will notify every ten minutes, but we prison guards can set it to stop the buzzing.

When I enter the cell, I see Gu Yan half leaning on the bed. His eyes are closed and he is breathing evenly and peacefully. Under the bright and soft yellow light, his long eyelashes are dragging a fan-like shadow arc.

Is he asleep?

I lighten my footsteps as I walk to him. I then noticed that on Gu Yan’s chest, lay spread a half-opened book.

As I carefully picked up the book, I found that it is a philosophy book. Gu Yan loves to read, maybe because it’s too boring here. He also reads almost about everything, and I even saw him reading medical books.

I gently put the book on the side table. I do not even dare to breathe too hard, afraid of waking Gu Yan up. For me, facing Gu Yan who is moving, thinking, and lusting, is a great pressure on me.

How good would it be if Gu Yan just stayed in deep-sleep like this? My mind drifts away as I stand by the bed and stare at Gu Yan’s face.

Gu Yan is indeed a very beautiful person. This is an undeniable fact. His appearance is simply the best gift God has given him; but at the same time, I also clearly understand what a loathsome beast he is hiding under the wrapping of his beautiful shell.

Gu Yan’s locks of red-orange hair are dangling on his white cheeks, giving off an angel-like illusion under the dim lighting of the cell. My sight suddenly falls at his white and slender neck. For a moment, an idea to reach out with both of my hands suddenly flashes on my mind. To ruthlessly strangle his neck and suffocate Gu Yan to death.

I think if there is such a good chance for me to do those things after he violated me for the first time, I would definitely choke him to death without hesitation.

But now, I am no longer that irrational fool. I also don’t want my sister to carry the disgrace of having a brother who committed murder and dereliction of duty.

However, one reason may also be because my hatred for Gu Yan is not deepening with the pain day after day, instead, it’s numbing my feelings; perhaps it’s also because of my relationship with Gu Yan. My understanding of him seems to have changed, but I can’t tell where it has changed. I hate him, fear him, and feel disgust with him all the same, but there is another feeling that is completely different from resentment.

I feel panicked about that unknown and bulging emotion. I think Gu Yan’s influence of using his might to make me depend on him and to be protected by him may have worked on me a little──

I stare at Gu Yan’s face and clench my fists.

But even if that inexplicable feeling continues to flourish, I am confident that it will eventually be confined in a small box called hatred, and will eventually die and become ashes due to the lack of space. Because I have not forgotten that the person who pushed me into the Absolute Wing Hall, made me the weakest in the ecological chain⁴He’s talking about the Law of Jungle, which is the Survival of the Fittest inside the AWH. within this hellish-prison then asked me to depend on him, is none other than Gu Yan!

I raise my eyes to look at the time, it’s 9:50 now, but Gu Yan still shows no signs of waking up.

I feel a little unhappy. Gu Yan especially called me in the middle of the night, but he is sleeping so soundly now that I came. But in fact, this is worth celebrating for, because at a time like this, I know that Gu Yan called me purely for that certain purpose.

Lately, I’ve been feeling more troubled. Because doing this kind of affair with Gu Yan always makes my toes tingle in panic.

Ever since that time in the bathroom, after Gu Yan forced me to reach an orgasm, he started treating me like that in bed. Grasping the desire that I have the same as him,rubbing it so hard that it even hurts in a rough way, and forcing my body and brain to feel the pleasure of primitive lust.

Whenever Gu Yan watches me climax under him with my cheeks swollen red from shame and my body trembling from the orgasm, he would let out a soft laugh out of pleasure, and then tear me apart with misery.

I suspect that is a new way for him to torture and humiliate me.

Erza’s Note (Please read this important explanation): 

The terms ‘Ye ShiJiu’ and ‘Shi Jiu Ye’ really confused the hell out of me haha. But thanks to a colleague translator of mine, (shoutout to Lunaie, she helped most of the twist and turns of this Ye ShiJiu thingy, thank you very much!), some of my confusion was finally solved. Even though ‘Ye ShiJiu and Shi Jiu Ye’ have the same characters, they were not supposed to be homophonic because they don’t have the same character order, and so they wouldn’t also have the same pronunciation, right? However, we found out that Ye ShiJiu is Chinese, but can also be Japanese. I guess the author used the Japanese Ye ShiJiu (夜十久) as homophonic to the Chinese Shi Jiu Ye (十九夜), they don’t have the same character order, but they are still acceptable to be homophonic since it’s from different country writing (Japanese and Chinese).

So Wolf’s mother was counting a total of 19 cycles of 19 nights (Shi Jiu Ye) in a year, plus 4 days. (19×19=361, 361 + 4 = 365 days a year)

I really hope you guys understands my explanation (I’ve tried my best *sobs*). But if there’s still some confusion, just ask in the comment section below (>_<).