Marry the NPC with Money, Wife Comes Knocking - Chapter 50

Chapter 50

Hua Suihe went silent for three seconds, then forced her tone to stay light. “Aiya, let’s go~”

Ye Susheng took Hua Suihe by the hand and led her up the wooden stairs. Without meaning to, Ye Susheng’s grip tightened. She was still worried.

They quickly reached the second floor.

What greeted them was a child-sized skeleton, perfectly intact. Rose thorns pierced straight through where the heart should be, forcing black-and-crimson roses to bloom between the ribs.

The tiny white bones hung suspended in midair, roses blossoming all over the body. Only the skull wasn’t wrapped in thorns, facing the direction of the staircase like it was staring right at them.

The entire second floor was choked with roses, as if they’d fed on the richest nutrients and grown in a frenzy. There was almost nowhere to step; one careless move and the thorny barbs would pierce the skin.

Hua Suihe stared at the scene. For a moment, it was like her thoughts had completely stopped, and she didn’t speak for a long time.

“Hua Hua…” Ye Susheng worried about her. She gave Hua Suihe’s hand a gentle squeeze.

Hua Suihe snapped back to herself and tugged up an extremely strained smile. “The Yu Sheng Troupe’s props are really lifelike.”

She swallowed her tears back down and quietly let out a breath. “Let’s go take a look.”

The moment the words left her mouth, the roses carpeting the floor parted on their own, opening a path.

The skeleton hung high above a stone platform. On the platform sat a cartoon pen and a bar of chocolate.

The chocolate had already melted from the heat, sticking to its unopened plastic wrapper, wrinkled and misshapen.

Hua Suihe stared for a while before she barely managed to look away. Her gaze dropped to the withered rose petals scattered everywhere-like lives being torn apart and dying off. This stone room filled with black-and-crimson roses was a stone coffin that imprisoned him.

“Chai Chai…” Hearing the nasal edge in her own voice, Hua Suihe paused, steadied herself, then spoke again. “Chai Chai doesn’t seem to be home.”

“Teacher Hua Hua, Sister Susheng.”

Chai Chai’s childish voice sounded from behind them. Hua Suihe turned around. It was still that same boy in worn old clothes, standing where the wooden stairs ended.

“You came to see me?” Chai Chai’s smile was bright with joy. “Teacher Hua Hua, you said you’d come see me-and you really did. Thank you, Teacher Hua Hua!”

Ye Susheng’s gaze stayed guarded. The black mist lurked in the shadows-if Chai Chai showed even the slightest intent to kill, it would immediately strangle him.

“You are home. Then why didn’t you eat the chocolate I gave you before? You left it here until it melted.” Hua Suihe didn’t notice any of the undercurrents at all. She spoke with Chai Chai as naturally as ever.

Chai Chai walked over, picked up the chocolate from the stone platform, and held it carefully. “This is the first gift I’ve ever gotten. I couldn’t bear to eat it.”

It wasn’t that no one had ever come to see him. But those people only ever snapped off his branches and handed them to him. They’d never brought him a real gift-not even a single piece of candy.

“Today I brought you lots of tasty things.” Chai Chai had to be living a miserable life here. Hua Suihe pulled out the desserts from the bag and set them on the table.

There were little cakes, and all kinds of pastries.

Arranged on that tiny offering stand, they were bright and colorful. The sweet aroma was so strong it crowded out even the scent of roses.

“Thank you, Teacher Hua Hua!”

Chai Chai plopped down on the floor and devoured a small cake, wolfing it down.

Hua Suihe noticed again the hole in the back of his clothes-starting from the left shoulder down, right over the heart. It was a gash slashed open like it had been cut by a knife, revealing skin marked with an X that looked like it had been drawn in red pen.

Hua Suihe lifted her head again, looking at the skeleton. At the child’s heart, the thickest rose thorn ran through it-the most crucial support point holding the body suspended.

‘Your clothes were clearly cut up by your dad!’

Hua Suihe froze, remembering what Xiao Tao had blurted out that day in the classroom.

At her side, Ye Susheng reminded her, “Hua Hua, we need to cut the thickest thorn and bring this little ghost-this skeleton-down. Then this formation will break.”
Ye Susheng produced a pair of black scissors from out of nowhere. As soon as she finished speaking, she was about to do it herself.

Hua Suihe grabbed Ye Susheng in time. Lowering her gaze, she saw Chai Chai on the floor, happily eating away, completely unconcerned with what they were doing.

Ye Susheng knew Hua Hua wasn’t stupid-she’d probably noticed something. In a situation like this, Ye Susheng couldn’t tell whether Hua Hua would feel frightened… or heartbroken.

After spending so long with Hua Hua, Ye Susheng had even started to grasp what humans called emotions.

She thought the little brat was pretty pitiful. So as long as he didn’t do anything to hurt Hua Hua, Ye Susheng had no intention of taking his life.

Hua Suihe only held onto Ye Susheng. Her thoughts were a mess, questions swirling in her head, yet she couldn’t force a single one out.

Before long, Chai Chai had finished every last dessert on the table.

He stood up, patted his belly, and looked at Ye Susheng with a bright smile as he asked, “Susheng-jiejie, could you… help take the prop off?”

Ye Susheng had already laid down the rule: Hua Suihe was an ordinary human. Don’t scare her.

Ye Susheng kept her eyes on Hua Suihe, waiting for her decision.

Hua Suihe made up her mind. “Then let’s settle this little prop properly.”

With a single snip, Ye Susheng easily cut through the vine root that pierced straight through the heart area. The roses wrapped around the skeleton frame seemed to come alive, rapidly withdrawing their tangled branches, leaving behind only a few scattered petals.

Without the brambles to hold it together, the child’s skeleton frame was no longer intact. Bones clattered to the ground piece by piece. Aside from the intact skull, the roses had gnawed away nearly everything else.

The prop was clean. Fed on fresh flowers for a long time, it carried only a rich floral fragrance-there wasn’t the slightest hint of a corpse’s rot.

Hua Suihe took out the plastic bag, planning to pick up the scattered bones and pack them away.

Ye Susheng’s hand shot out, snatching the job from her faster than Hua Suihe’s eyes could follow. “Hua Hua, don’t touch it. I’ll do it.”

Hua Suihe crouched down anyway, wanting to help pick them up. But Ye Susheng moved too quickly-by the time Hua Suihe lowered herself, Ye Susheng had already bagged all the fragments.

Only the skull wouldn’t fit. Ye Susheng simply held it in her arms.

Hua Suihe had no choice but to take the plastic bag from her.

Chai Chai crouched nearby, propping his face in his hands, watching in bafflement. He didn’t understand why they were collecting his bones.

After years of using his own body to nourish them, he and the roses filling the garden had become a symbiotic whole. According to Thriller rules, once the nurturing formation was destroyed, the roses would wither, and he would face real death.

He knew the consequences, and he calmly watched Ye Susheng cut through the brambles.

He’d thought ending up scattered across the ground was his fate. What they were doing now-cleaning up after him-was something he couldn’t make sense of.

Hua Suihe and Ye Susheng carried what they held downstairs and out the door. Chai Chai dragged his half-transparent body along behind them.

Then, with his own eyes, he watched them walk into the rose field, pick up the tools left there, and spend quite a while digging out a small pit. They buried his remains in the soil, piling it into a tiny mound.

Even from where he stood at a distance, the roses carried Hua Suihe’s words to Chai Chai’s ears.

“Even if it’s just a little prop, this is still the best resting place for it.”

After finishing, they didn’t turn back to look for Chai Chai or say goodbye. They simply left the rose cultivation base.

The flowers that had been on the verge of withering turned vivid again, bursting back into vigorous life.

Chai Chai happily brought the cartoon pen and chocolate to his new home. Those two things were still his most precious offerings.