Chapter 155 (2/2) : Interlude: The Apostle of Fate, Jin!

Breathing, ceased.

Heartbeat, stopped.

All vital signs, at this moment, came to an abrupt halt.

He collapsed into the wide armchair, his head lolled to one side, his limbs hanging limply at unnatural angles.

A body that had just possessed the ability to think and act, the moment the coin stopped, became a complete, still-warm…

corpse.

The wick of the oil lamp seemed disturbed by this sudden death, flickering slightly and uneasily, casting the shadow of the motionless body on the sofa long one moment, short the next, distorted, adding to the gloom.

In the room, only the faint crackling of the burning flame and the eternal whimper of the wind outside remained.

Dead silence.

Absolute dead silence continued for about… a few seconds.

Then…

On the sofa, that corpse, clearly devoid of all life, suddenly sat bolt upright without warning!

The movement was stiff and violent, like a puppet jerked by invisible strings!

He grabbed the armrests of the sofa with all his might, desperately, and the exquisite mask previously placed on the armrest was knocked to the floor with a soft thud, but he didn’t even notice.

His eyes were wide with rage, his originally ice-blue eyeballs, now bloodshot, nearly bulging out of their sockets!

Beads of cold sweat, like a sudden rainstorm, crazily dripped down his pale, gaunt face, soaking the crisp collar of his white shirt.

He gasped for air, greedily and violently, each inhalation seeming to use the full capacity of his lungs, each exhalation carrying a hoarse rasp.

His posture was not that of an elegant manipulator of fate, but more like a drowning victim who had just struggled out of a nightmare of suffocation, lucky to be alive!

The whole scene was filled with extreme contradiction and eeriness—instant, senseless death, followed by an instant, equally senseless resurrection!

The gasping continued for a full half-minute or more before slowly calming down and subsiding.

Yan released his fingers that had nearly gouged into the leather.

His body was still trembling slightly, but he could barely control it.

He slowly, with immense difficulty, adjusted his sitting position, leaning back into the chair again, as if he had just survived a life-or-death struggle that had drained all his strength.

He raised his still-trembling hand and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and face with the back of his hand, the movements clumsy and flustered, a far cry from his earlier elegant composure.

Then, his ice-blue, bloodshot eyes refocused, staring intently at the desktop—at the coin still lying there quietly, showing the hourglass pattern.

His lips moved a few times, his dry, cracked lips still bearing un-wiped sweat stains.

An extremely faint voice, carrying the exhaustion of a survivor and deep disappointment, sounded in the room:

“First time…”

“My Lord… did not bestow His gaze…”

After his voice fell, silence once again filled the room.

But this time, the silence was no longer filled with prayerful waiting.

Instead, it was thick with a suffocating mix of pain, disappointment, and a more stubborn, unyielding… obsession.

Yan stared at the coin for a long time.

So long it seemed the lamp’s flame dimmed a bit due to fuel consumption.

Then, he reached out again.

That hand, having just experienced death and revival, still pale and cold, once again firmly and without hesitation, grabbed the coin on the desk, clutching it tightly.

He closed his eyes, took a deep, long breath, his chest puffing slightly with the inhale, as if absorbing all the dim light and hopeless air in the room into his lungs.

Then, he opened his eyes.

There was no more hesitation, fatigue, or pain in them.

Only a mechanical-like, cold determination remained.

His wrist exerted force again—Ting—clang-clatter—!

The coin was thrown onto the desk for the second time!

Spinning, bouncing, blurry shadows… Stopped.

The hourglass pattern.

Hk… Ah…!

More violent convulsions!

More agonizing roars!

Swifter and more thorough death!

And, moments later, a more flustered, panting resurrection!

“Second time… gaze not bestowed…”

Grab the coin.

Throw it for the third time.

Clang-clatter…

Outside the window, the lead-gray, false sky began its cycle of light and dark.

It transitioned from the deep, starless and moonless night, gradually to dawn, and then sank back into night…

Inside the room, the lamp’s flame had gone out once, only to be re-lit by a trembling hand, which added lamp oil of a peculiar scent, fetched from somewhere.

On the sofa, the man named Yan had long lost his initial elegance and neatness.

His golden hair was soaked with sweat, plastered messily to his pale forehead.

His tailcoat was wrinkled, stained with dust and suspicious blotches.

His ice-blue pupils were riddled with a spiderweb of bloodshot lines.

His gaze was sometimes unfocused, sometimes coalescing into a frighteningly obsessive light.

His cheeks had sunken further, his lips were chapped and bleeding, and his whole person emanated a disgusting aura of decadence and madness, a mix of sweat, the smell of blood, and the smell of lamp oil.

He was like the most pitiable and terrifying gambler, who had lost all his chips but still refused to leave the table, his eyes red and stubborn.

And his stake?

His own life—paid for with each instant of death.

His goal?

To change the side facing up on the coin when it fell, from the hourglass to… the sleeping face.

…

Who knows how much time had passed.

Yan lay collapsed on the sofa, his chest heaving violently like a broken bellows, each breath carrying the pain of tearing lungs.

He had almost no strength left to lift his arm.

Sweat dripped from his chin, leaving dark marks on his expensive trousers.

His gaze was unfocused, his consciousness fragmented and blurred after countless deaths.

But still, using his last shred of willpower, trembling, with agonizing slowness, he picked up the coin that now seemed to weigh a thousand pounds again.

The cold feeling of the metal touching his fingertips restored a shred of sensation to his numb nerves.

He closed his eyes, his lips moving soundlessly, as if repeating the prayer he had recited tens of thousands of times.

Then, using all the remaining strength left in his body, he gave his wrist a… slight flick.

The coin left his hand.

This time, it didn’t even draw a beautiful arc in the air, nor did it spin or bounce much.

It just flew a short distance, crookedly, and then, with a pat, landed rather weakly on the desk.

It barely rolled, just wobbled slightly.

Then, it stopped.

Yan didn’t even open his eyes immediately.

He just maintained the throwing posture, his whole body tense, waiting for the familiar, heart-wrenching pain to descend, waiting to sink into another icy death.

One second…

Two seconds…

Three seconds…

The expected pain… did not come.

Yan’s eyelashes trembled violently.

He opened his bloodshot, almost unfocused eyes with agonizing slowness.

His gaze, like rusty machinery, moved inch by inch, bit by bit, towards the desktop.

Towards the spot where the coin had stopped.

And then….

His pupils constricted to the absolute limit!

On the desktop.

The ancient coin, soaked with his countless deaths and prayers, lay quietly there.

The side facing up…

Was no longer the blurry, spinning hourglass pattern symbolizing the passage of time and the cycle of fate.

Instead, it was…

That face—with closed eyes, a serene expression, and a smile that seemed like a sign of relief…

“…”

A very faint, choked gasp escaped Yan’s throat.

His entire body, as if struck by a freezing spell, became completely rigid on the sofa.

His eyes were open to their maximum limit, staring fixedly at the coin, at the serene face relief.

As if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

Time seemed to freeze again.

A few seconds later.

On that stiff, stone-like face, the muscles at the corner of his mouth began to twitch… upward, in an extremely tiny, uncontrollable manner.

A faint, almost invisible curve quietly emerged on his dry, cracked lips.

Then, the curve rapidly broadened, deepened.

Finally, it transformed into an unmistakable smile, mixing ecstasy, relief, piety, and a deeper, more hair-raising pleasure…

“Finally…”

A voice as hoarse as sandpaper scraping was forced from the depths of his throat.

“Finally… finally…”

He took a sharp breath, and then, suddenly burst into laughter.

At first, it was a suppressed, low laugh rolling from deep in his throat, his shoulders shaking slightly.

But soon, the laughter poured out like a dam breaking, growing louder and louder, more and more uncontrollable!

“Ha… hahaha… heh heh… hahahahaha–!!!”

The laughter turned manic, unbridled, echoing and bouncing within the empty, ruined room!

He laughed until he rocked back and forth, laughed until tears streamed from the corners of his bloodshot eyes!

He laughed until he pounded the sofa armrest, curled into a ball, as if experiencing the most absurd yet satisfying thing in the world!

In this laughter, there was ecstasy over a long-sought goal finally achieved, proof that his countless painful sacrifices had finally paid off, and an even deeper, near-morbid sense of gratification that fate itself had answered his call!

“One thousand… seven hundred and sixty-three times… hahaha… one thousand… seven hundred and sixty-three times…!”

He laughed wildly, at the same time, with a trembling hand, he fiercely grabbed the coin with the face side up from the desk, clutching it tightly, desperately, in his palm!

As if it were the entire meaning of his life, the only proof of his existence!

The cold metal bit into his flesh, yet brought unparalleled heat and reality.

He laughed maniacally for a long time before the laughter gradually subsided.

But that ultimate pleasure and excitement still lingered on his face, in his eyes, which had suddenly become exceptionally bright, as if burning with a ghostly fire, in his ice-blue pupils.

Slowly, with a kind of near-sacred solemnity, he opened his palm again.

Palm up.

The ancient coin rested quietly in his pale, slightly scarred palm.

The relief of the sleeping face faced him.

Yan’s gaze, like that of the gentlest lover, gazed upon this coin.

His lips moved again.

His voice was no longer hoarse and manic but had regained a strange, metallic calmness.

Yet beneath this calmness rolled enough certainty and chill to burn everything to ashes.

“Chu You…”

“Lin Mo…”

He softly uttered these two names, like reciting two utterly insignificant symbols whose endings had long been marked.

The pleasant curve at the corner of his mouth grew deeper.

“Your fates…”

His eyes, in the dim light of the oil lamp, were terrifyingly bright, as if reflecting a predetermined, unchangeable, cruel yet beautiful picture of the final act.

“Have already arrived…”

He slowly closed his hand, clutching the coin tightly within his palm once more, as if grasping the authority to manipulate the invisible threads.

“…At their destined finale.”

The instant his voice fell, the flame of the oil lamp in the room leaped violently, casting his shadow, along with his clenched fist, massively and distortedly onto the thick velvet curtains.

Like a silent… proclamation from fate itself.