Symbiosis - Chapter 4

Xie Zhao knew sign language, but he had learned it in the second year of his imprisonment.

In my last life, at this point in time, he couldn’t possibly have known it yet.

And then there was what he’d just asked me.

What was there left to misunderstand?

The Xie Zhao standing before me had returned to this year too.

He had the same memories, the same soul, as the man who’d killed me in my previous life.

They were exactly the same person.

My hands shook uncontrollably with horror. Instinctively, I wanted to back away again.

Before I could take a single step, his face suddenly drained of color. He braced one hand on the doorframe and doubled over.

His other hand pressed hard against his upper abdomen. His lashes lowered, cold sweat running down his temples. He looked too weak even to stand.

If I wanted to escape, this was my chance.

But he looked so ill.

In the end, my worry for him won out.

I hurried over, steadied him, and helped him sit on the bed. Then I gently wiped away the sweat his pain had drawn from his forehead.

“Don’t press so hard.” Carefully, I pulled his arm away to stop him pressing so hard against his stomach. My voice softened. “Is it your stomach?”

I couldn’t tell whether he wanted nothing to do with me or simply felt too awful to respond.

He gave no answer, not even a nod or a shake of his head. He only bit his lower lip a little harder without seeming to notice.

Fortunately, I didn’t need an answer.

One look at him told me his stomach trouble had flared up again.

It was an old problem, dating back several years.

Several years ago—more specifically, when my father was still alive.

My father had been the most notorious local crime boss in Jinque Bay.

Not famous in a good way, of course. Infamous.

One of his best-known hobbies was adopting orphans, bringing them up on beatings, insults, and starvation, then throwing them a few rewards.

Those children would become his devoted followers: petty thugs who swaggered through Jinque Bay, despised by everyone.

He loved doing it. The bay lacked plenty of things, but never scum or children abandoned by scum.

I was his biological son. Xie Zhao was one of the orphans he’d adopted.

My father’s ideas about raising children were particularly twisted, unreasonable, and inventive.

He thought children should be raised like animals.

I was his only biological child. To him, I was the lowest animal of the lot.

The other orphans at least got a little stir-fried meat or vegetables and white steamed buns each day.

I generally made do with leftover vegetable leaves and spoiled noodles. If I was very lucky, or my father was in a very good mood, I might scavenge a little meat.

But that hardly ever happened.

I ate just enough not to starve. In truth, I was severely malnourished, my eyes practically gleaming at the sight of clean food. Somehow, I scraped my way into my teens.

Then I met Xie Zhao.

He was different from most of my father’s orphans.

He hadn’t been unwanted from birth.

He’d had parents, and they seemed to have been reasonably well-off—at least enough to eat meat at every meal.

Then something happened to his family, and they were all gone.

In a filthy, chaotic place like Jinque Bay, a child with no family to rely on could only end up in my father’s hands.

He was close to my age, with very dark eyes and a beauty that didn’t belong in Jinque Bay at all.

The prettier you were in a place like that, the more danger you were in. I treated him as something lovely to look at, something beautiful I felt the urge to protect. Besides, I was much better at fighting than he was.

So I rescued him from the street thugs. At night, afraid someone might trouble him while I wasn’t around, I brought him to sleep with me too.

At first glance he seemed aloof, but he was really just shy and uneasy with strangers. Even once we grew close, he wasn’t especially talkative. He loved physical affection, though, and was always burrowing into my arms.

During the first few years we knew each other, my father gradually stopped bothering with me.

I no longer had to worry as much about beatings and abuse. But food became even harder to come by.

Perhaps I’d grown used to being mistreated. Despite going hungry and poorly clothed since childhood, I was generally fairly healthy as I grew older.

Xie Zhao, however, developed serious stomach trouble then.

Eventually, my father died.

I had a little money to find Xie Zhao a doctor, and he finally managed to improve his health somewhat.

It didn’t last.

Within a couple of years, I poisoned him mute and broke both his legs.

The poison had severe side effects. After taking it, he often suffered throat pain so bad he couldn’t sleep or eat. The old injuries in his legs frequently flared up in damp, rainy weather too.

Tormented by pain for so long, he began suffering frequent insomnia and struggled to eat normally. His stomach condition returned, worse than before.