Chapter 89
The village had settled into the quiet of the night, save for the occasional gust of wind rattling wooden shutters and the distant sound of crickets humming their nighttime symphony. The streets, once bustling with merchants and travelers, now lay deserted, bathed in the dim glow of scattered lanterns.
Feng Jiao Xue moved soundlessly through the darkness, her figure blending into the shifting shadows. Her footsteps barely disturbed the dirt path as she made her way through the quieter outskirts of the village.
She had come for the witness.
But instead, she had found his family.
A small, worn-down house stood at the edge of the village, its wooden structure weathered by time and hardship. The slanted roof sagged slightly in the middle, as though exhausted from years of standing against the elements. The candlelight from within flickered weakly, barely illuminating the single window.
She perched herself in a hidden vantage point, her sharp eyes peering through the cracks of the loosely boarded wall. The scene inside unfolded before her like a silent play, each figure cast in flickering gold.
A woman stood near the center of the room, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. The lines on her face were deep, not just from age but from exhaustion, the kind that sank into the bones and refused to leave. She was lean, almost gaunt, her frame wrapped in a faded brown dress that had seen better days.
Her lips were pressed into a hard line as she stared at the two boys seated at the rickety wooden table.
One of the people inside, a boy of nineteen, sat with his hands clenched into fists against his lap. His black hair, once neatly combed, had grown unruly, and his clothes, though well-patched, were too thin for the evening chill. His brown eyes were downcast, fixed on the knots in the wood of the table, his jaw set tightly as if bracing for an impact.
The younger boy, no more than twelve, sat beside him, his posture more relaxed but his fingers idly tracing patterns on the table’s surface. He had their mother’s sharp features, though his eyes gleamed with something unreadable, something that flickered between caution and detachment.
The tension in the air was thick, suffocating.