Summer Must Die - Chapter 51

The words I was about to say went back inside. Summer felt dazed, as if something had struck the back of her head.

“What do you mean?”

She was bewildered. More than the foreign land, strange people, and grand destiny.

Perhaps it was a story she already knew but had been deliberately ignoring.

An urge to violently cover Mary’s mouth rose from within. But in the end, she heard it.

“In the world where you originally were. Even if your body is not safe there. Will you still go?”

The most important fact that Summer had arrogantly overlooked until now.

Summer’s answer to this was no. She had never thought about it. She was going to return no matter what.

Above all, her last memory in the original world was falling asleep. Her condition when falling asleep wasn’t bad either.

She naturally thought she would return to the original world as if waking from a dream. How naive.

Even after seeing Selena’s end.

She felt like throwing up.

“Stop. Mary, please stop.”

Summer pleaded.

The air in the room became damp and dark.

The warm feeling from conversing with the maids had long since disappeared.

This was reality. Summer was pained by Mary awakening her to reality.

“There are only two types who reach out even after seeing you broken and ugly. The kind or the con artists.”

“Stop!”

“Which do you think that witch is?”

Mary asked, pointing at Fei. Summer ended up covering her ears with both hands.

“I said stop!”

She wondered why Mary was acting like this, but it was futile. Mary’s words and actions couldn’t be explained by any reason.

“Miss. Until I met you, I existed, but it wasn’t a real existence.”

Mary stood with her hands neatly placed on her stomach.

Her slightly hunched shoulders and shadowed eyes clearly revealed her hard life.

“Get out.”

“Returning to that life… is more frightening than annihilation to me. But the reason I’m not trying to hold you back or dissuade you is for a different reason.”

“Mary, please…”

She hated it. When she looked at Mary, she saw her own self from the original world inside her.

Perhaps it was a fragment of the life that Summer, no, that lost name, had lived.

“I too know how painful this world is, so I can’t forcibly tie you down here.”

“…”

“Miss. You are precious. Even if I’m trapped again in that terrible time. I won’t stop you from choosing your path.”

“Mary!”

“All I can do is persuade and appeal. Miss, I’ve waited my whole life for this moment. Though it will disappear like a midsummer night’s dream tomorrow.”

Through Mary, she saw that fragment of life – hunched shoulders and a slightly protruding neck, diligently doing her work while rubbing her stiff eyes after sitting at a desk all day.

Summer met Mary’s hunched shoulders and slightly tired eyes with a somewhat blank gaze.

“I need… I need time to think.”

“Yes. Whenever your thoughts are sorted out, call me anytime.”

Fortunately, Mary obediently left the room.

“Ha, haha…”

Summer collapsed onto the carpet as if crumbling. The soft red carpet wrapped around her hands.

She wasn’t a cruel person. But she wasn’t a saint either.

Summer knows. The Mary of this world closely resembled her lost self from that world.

If she abandoned them and returned to find her name, could she bear the guilt and live on?

She clearly talked and breathed with them here, but could she dismiss it all as a dream?

Is it a dream that can be ignored? Or a reality that shouldn’t be turned away from?

Cruelly, almost everything in the world was usually unclear. That’s why choices were always painful and difficult.

“Ugh, augh…”

It felt like someone had turned her brain into mush, melting down into a mess.

It’s a mess. Everything was a mess. To the point where she wanted to hit the reset button if this were a game.

Summer started breathing heavily, then soon began making strange choking sounds. As if she was about to lose her breath at any moment.

At that moment, the sky suddenly began to darken. Fei approached the window with a bewildered face.

The sun disappeared behind the ridge, and night was falling.

“How?”

Had a day passed? Or had a day returned? She had to check right away. Fei took out her pocket watch.

“Damn it.”

9:23 PM.

It was last night. Time had gone back several hours.

Has the world gone mad? Otherwise, how could time be turned back?

What on earth was this reckless act of turning back time for?

“Black Hair, something terrible has happened. It seems the world is… Black Hair?”

“…”

Hazy white moonlight shone in.

In the beautiful scenery like a scene from a fairy tale, a silent wail spread mournfully and desperately.

Fei looked at Summer wailing silently, with a dazed expression.

Except for the sound of birds fluttering away from the trees, it was a truly quiet night.

Sadly, there were no stories of a princess and knight’s secret meeting, or a prince and maid’s love.

Here, there was only the cry of a black-haired foreigner who had fallen in the wrong place.

When the white round moon was hidden behind clouds and then clearly revealed again, Summer closed her tired eyes.

With a pale face as if she would never open her eyes again on the red carpet.

“…”

Summer’s complexion came into Fei’s view one by one.

Fei’s face contorted as she saw the dried tear stains and pale complexion.

“Black Hair, you.”

Why on earth is the world preventing your death?

Fei looked up at the sky.

“Oh God.”

Why do you abandon us, yet intervene so much in that foreigner’s death?

“I no longer… understand your will.”

Hot tears fell on Fei’s cheeks.

She had committed any act without hesitation for the continuation of the world. All of this was for the Creator, for you.

To prevent foreigners from daring to change this world you created. But why.

“Why that foreigner instead of me… why that foreigner…”

Are you trying to draw her into this world? Do you really not know what that means? Oh God.

Oh cruel God who no longer comes to me, who has abandoned me.

Fei wept silently, bowing her head. Pale moonlight shone on top of Fei’s head.

Fei didn’t see the moonlight above her head, as she was looking down at her own shadow.

The time turned back by the world flowed again, reaching the time before it was turned back. Dawn broke and the moon faded beneath the sunlight.

Only then did Fei stop wailing and glance at Summer with a shameless face, as if she had never cried.

“…”

The carpet happened to be exceptionally red, making it look like blood Summer had shed.

Thinking that way was so dreadful that Fei quickly dragged Summer’s arm and laid her on the bed.

It was because her heart had pounded anxiously when the red carpet looked like blood for a moment.

“Black Hair.”

“…”

“Black Hair?”

“…”

“Wake up. Black Hair!”

There are such days. Days when you wake someone sleeping soundly due to needless anxiety. For Fei, it was now.

As Fei grabbed Summer’s shoulder and shook it, her swollen eyelids lifted and Summer opened her eyes.

“…”

There was no kind greeting. Fei sensed something was off.

Though she didn’t know what emotion filled Summer’s eyes, she could clearly feel it wasn’t good.

“Black Hair. Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Fei. You said you found me for this world, right?”

Summer’s voice was hoarse, as if submerged in water.

“That’s right.”

“Then can you kill me for this world too?”

“What nonsense are you talking about.”

Fei avoided answering. It was unlike Fei.

Fei herself felt it too. Killing one human for this world wouldn’t be a problem.

But if that human was Summer, the answer didn’t come readily.

Is my heart growing weak as death approaches?

“Fei.”

“I shouldn’t have woken you. Go back to sleep, and stop talking nonsense.”

Fei grumbled and tried to hurriedly leave. But Summer’s extremely hoarse voice caught Fei’s ankle.

“Did you really recommend I return without knowing what state my original self is in?”

“I never recommended it. You’re the one who said you wanted to go back.”

“What if I don’t want to go back?”

“…”

“See. You were going to send me back forcibly, weren’t you?”

“…That’s right.”

Fei answered, lowering her gaze. Fei had a mission to restore things before a small distortion created a bigger problem.

But what if that was achieved by killing Summer?

Summer, who had been quietly watching Fei, smiled faintly. That expression looked more sorrowful and pitiful than a crying face.

“What’s happened to my body in the original world?”

Fei maintained silence for a long time.

A witch loses all her powers if she tells a lie. So she could neither lie nor reveal the truth here.

After contemplating, Fei slowly opened her mouth.

“I can’t interfere with your original world. Your world is somewhat higher.”

“Then does that mean you don’t know what state my body is in either?”

“…”

Fei completely sealed her lips. It was enough of an answer for Summer.

Seeing Fei exercise her right to remain silent, Summer squeezed her eyes shut.

Without even knowing what state it was in, acting as if bestowing a favor by saying she’d send her back. How. What if her body had disappeared in the original world?

A painful sense of betrayal welled up like a flood.

She realized it now from Fei’s attitude. Fei deliberately didn’t tell her. In case Summer might say she wouldn’t return to the original world.

She was the only one in this world Summer could confide all her secrets in and rely on. She even reached out first and offered a helping hand.

The only lifeline that could help her escape this world.

Only laughter flowed out senselessly along with a feeling of powerlessness.

“Fei. All this time I climbed the spire and jumped into the lake to return to the original world.”

“I know.”

“Why did you do that to me? Did you feel I was worth even less than a cockroach?”

“…”

“I’m in a lot of pain. But I won’t ask for an explanation from you. I think it’ll hurt too much.”

“…I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. You’re not sorry. To you, I was just a foreigner who distorted the world, even though you were like salvation to me.”

“Black Hair, I…”

Fei’s lips trembled repeatedly, then closed. No explanation could serve as justification.

“Don’t worry. Everything will happen as you wanted.”

“As I… wanted?”

Fei’s face contorted terribly. Is this what I wanted? She kept questioning herself incessantly.