a quiet mind | huang renjun

Chapter 10

It was a quiet night.

The lights were dimly flickering and and the path was stinking with an eery aura. The moon was high and the nighttime was at its peak.

"So this is what you mean by you can show me how you can't absolutely love anyone" Renjun scoffed "Walking in a neighbourhood in the middle of the night?"

"The good stuff comes later" She winked

They walked down a flight of concrete stairs into an area of normal looking houses placed orderly down the street.

"Down there is a family of 3. A mother, a father, and a child" She pointed at a house with flares of yellow emitting from it "The parent is in their late 20s and the child, almost 10. They had their child in their teen years. 18, precisely"

"They seem happy" Renjun missed his family. He never saw them again after he passed away. The father was pouring the child juice, the whole family laughing as they all bumped cups. Xinyi noticed the angel stare intently at the cheering and laughter.

"That's alcohol" She pointed out. Renjun nodded, then reacted a second late.

"What?" He jumped back in shock "The kid's drinking alcohol?"

"This world is messed up. You're too naive" She shook her head, trotting down the concrete to have better access to the family who fed off being drunk to pass the day.

"This family are traffickers. Child traffickers. They use their own children to achieve their goals. The child gets paid pocket money in exchange for his work. Putting fire with fire. Smart" She smirked at Renjun's sudden stiffness.

"You see that piggy bank? That piggy bank is full of candy and small toys. They use itto lead the child away and then the whole trafficking process happens. The usual tricks. Behind that piggy bank is a box full of the 'pocket money' the child collects" She explained as she lead them around a corner.

"It sounds like you've gone through their house before hand" He murmured

"I did" They arrived at the front door

"Why didn't you just do what you usually do then? You had to drag me along" He halted immediately when Xinyi was about to place her hand on the door handle.

"Our goal is to kill them. They weren't home that time so I couldn't kill them. Simple as that" She shrugged

"So you're like the police?"

"No. Police can't kill people like this. We can" She slipped a gun out of her pocket, loading it

"Do you want one?" She pulled out another gun from her waist band. Immediately, he stood back. l

"Pathetic" She scoffed.

She swung the door open and her gun was raised right at someone's forehead. The whole atmosphere froze for a second until in a split second, a bullet was shot and chaos erupted. Renjun stood back the moment he saw the first bullet fire despite being the only one who probably could resurrect if he was shot.

Xinyi walked in as if she wore a bullet proof vest, fearless and not even a single care that she was walking straight into a family that now had guns and a child with a butter knife.

Suddenly, everything went black. The lights turned off and every single one of them was swallowed by complete darkness beside a slight ray of light from the moon. She closed her eyes silently and placed her finger firmly on the trigger. Glass smashed. She whipped around dodged it effortlessly. In her head, was a clear image of what was going on. The man had blindly thrown a glass bottle at her head. She ducked. There was a soft trample of footsteps. The child was coming. A knife was being charged at her but she placed her hand out, and grasped it by the blade. It was a butter knife anyways; it didn't matter.

She saw the child being caught off guard. At that moment, a chuckle sounded.

There were two shots of a bullet. The lights flickered on again and on the floor was a pool of blood and two bodies. Xinyi held the gun, a smirk of achievement spread across her lips. The child was at her side with the knife desperately trying to be stabbed through her grasp.

Ripping the knife from the child's hand, she threw it out the window with one casually fling. She kneeled down to stare the vulnerable child in the eye. He scrambled backwards

"Do you want to join your mum and dad?" She glanced at the trembling irises of the child.

"I-I...Please...I just...Spare me. I'm sorry, I'm really sorry. I won't...I wouldn't-" His voice had such a naive tone. Xinyi cocked her head to the side in fake sympathy. The ruthless girl held the gun to the child's head. At that moment, he begun to tremble more violently. His whole face had its colour drained, his face a sheet of pale white. He began to whimper, streams of tears running down his face.

"Promise that you'll come out of here and not a say a word" She spoke. The child nodded fervently.

"Say it. Say that you won't" Her voice was a harsh demand.

"I-I wont-"

"Bullshit" And the shot fired. But the crying continued, it grew into violent shrieking. Xinyi's eyes flew up. Renjun was stood with his palm covering the gun point, his eyes a ferocity she has never seen before. It was like a lion that growled and scratched through the zoo fences. It made her feel small, for the first time.

"And I thought you changed" Renjun took the gun from her hands and catapulted it against the wall. He flicked his finger, and the gun immediately crushed. The child's screaming grew a hundredfold.

Renjun's ring was on the floor beside the child, his wings blanketing the child like a protective shield. His irises shone with vexation, that scary type where anyone could tell the world in his eyes were burned up in flames.

"You just..." The rest died on her lips. Renjun gave her a nasty scowl, unballing his fist and took the bullet that lay untouched on top of his palm. He lifted one of his fingers and the bullet diminished into fragments of nothingness, the wound in the middle of his palm healing without a single scar.

He turned around at the child, placing his hands on the shoulders of the kid and a look of sincerity flashed across Renjun's eyes.

"Are you alright?"

The child seemed too astonished to speak.

"Am I dead?" The little boy glanced at Renjun's wings, his small fingers brushing along the feathers.

"No...no you're not. You'll be alright now" Renjun's voice was so gentle. His hand stroking the terrified child over the head, patting down the stray black strands.

"My...my parents"

Renjun brought the child's head into his chest. Among their hug, Renjun picked up the ring from the floor and slipped it around his finger. His wings diminished yet again.

Xinyi stood there, utterly dumbfound. Renjun saved someone he didn't even know. Perhaps that was his specialty. She hated that. She hated how she was in the presence of someone as kind-hearted as the angel himself.

Her emotions were all over the place. Out of impulse, she scurried for the pair of gun she had offered to Renjun before. Renjun was in human form; she could kill him. She could finish all of this once and for all. She had the opportunity to return everything back to before she met Renjun. She could fix everything.

Locating the gun under her jacket, she rose it at the two bodies intertwined in an embrace. Her finger on the trigger.

End it. Xinyi.