Chapter 6 — Love the Wrong Way

The Thousand Faced Fox pulled the trigger, the bullet pierced her mother's shoulder blade, but she used the force to rush forward, squeezing the opponent's wrist holding the grenade. The two people lost their balance at the same time and fell down the cliff. The Thousand Faced Fox panicked and shouted: "You're crazy! Let go!" "Let's die together." Mother bared her blood-stained teeth, her other hand tightened on the Thousand Faced Fox's belt. The Thousand-Faced Fox panicked and wanted to break her hand, but her mother pulled her along, and they both fell into the abyss and the clouds hovered around them. While falling, mother held everything tightly in her arms. It was a lock of my hair that she kept close to her body for three years. The roar of the wind covered her last whisper: "Baby, I... have avenged you." I followed my mother and rushed down the cliff, my soul as light as a piece of ash swept up by the wind. As she fell, her exhausted pupils suddenly froze, yet she looked straight at my transparent body. "Baby..." Blood kept flowing from the corner of her mouth. She trembled and wanted to raise her hand to touch my face, but only caught cold air. "Sorry... I'm not a good mother..." The sound of the wind whistled in her ears, her tears mixed with the falling blood: "In the next life... in the next life, you'll still be my daughter, okay? Mom the best." I will... definitely love you well..." I shook my head slightly. This life is too miserable. The suffocating feeling of being tied to the beer rack, the self-pity of being misunderstood, and the despair of each fist hitting my heart... I don't want it anymore. "I don't want to go to the next life anymore." I leaned close to her ear, my voice as light as a sigh. "Mom, let me go, let go of yourself too." Mom's soul suddenly trembled, the last tear formed in the corner of her eye, then immediately like broken glass, each Little by little, it disappeared in the roar of the wind. Boom... There was a dull sound at the bottom of the abyss. The rescue team searched for three days and three nights, only finding on a dry tree branch a lock of hair soaked in blood. Dad brought it back home, made a wind tomb, and placed it next to my tombstone. He sat in the rain, his fingers caressing the two cold stone stele, muttering: "This mother and child... is too stubborn." Rainwater flowed down his gray sideburns. "You and she have the same temperament... I should have seen it early... I regret... regret not protecting you and your mother well..." When it was about dawn, someone going to the graves discovered him. He remained quietly leaning next to my tombstone, the corner of his mouth even carried a curve as if he had been liberated, but those eyes never opened again. My soul gradually became transparent under the dawn light. I don't want to see this human world anymore, I don't want to experience the separation of blood and blood anymore. As soon as the wind blew, I disappeared. From now on, there will be no more Khuong Minh Chau in this world, nor will there be any more Ly Thuc Lan. There are only two steles left standing very close to each other, in the spring rain year after year, listening to the muffled sound of mountain streams.