Chapter 1261: The End of a Family

The baby"s crib was moved into the children"s room to improve the photo effect. The two cages containing the children were also brought in and placed behind the tripod. The children probably knew they would be released soon, so they were humming and restless inside the cages.

In the darkness, Bohemia felt her way and sat on the floor, curling her knees and hugging her legs. In the dim light from the corridor, a large, round, dark head emerged from the doorway, supported by a slender body, and slowly walked towards her. The door was closed behind her, cutting off the faint light from the corridor. Baby Bao came over with a soft sound and sat beside her.

"No, you should sit in mommy"s lap and let her hold you," her husband, who was setting up the camera, immediately reminded.

Bohemia tensed up all over, not moving at all. She didn"t want to hold Baby Bao; she would rather kick her off the stairs. Baby Bao stood up at the words, silently looked at her for a while, and just as Bohemia thought she was about to say, "Mommy, hold me," Baby Bao lowered her head without a word, closed her fingers, and suddenly stabbed down between her two knees.

Baby Bao"s nails were as sharp as blades, tearing through Bohemia"s skirt fabric with a rip. Bohemia felt slight pain, and when she slightly separated her knees, Baby Bao immediately seized the opportunity and forcefully opened her legs. Although she was just over six years old, her strength far exceeded what was expected for her age. As soon as there was a gap between the legs, Baby Bao immediately squeezed in and sat between her mother"s legs.

After thinking about it, as if it weren"t enough, she grabbed Bohemia"s arm and placed it on her shoulder.

She really wanted to move that arm up a little more and tighten it slowly around her throat.

No, after all, she was her own child. She couldn"t entertain such thoughts... Moreover, her husband was right there; she had to make sure he didn"t find out.

Bohemia stiffly placed her arm on Baby Bao, feeling like she was holding a half-human, half-poisonous insect. She wished her soul could retreat.

"Okay."

Her husband suddenly called out, and in the darkness, he reached out from behind the camera and put some kind of children"s toy on the ground. He fumbled and sat opposite the mother and daughter, saying, "Wait for ten seconds."

In the pitch-black darkness, the three of them sat face to face, not moving, and the camera stood silently by the side, maintaining a tomb-like silence.

Her husband made a sound, and in the darkness, she suddenly felt him reach out and grab her hair, pulling her head down next to Baby Bao"s face.

Her cold and swollen cheek pressed against Bohemia"s ear. When her husband let go and sat back, the camera"s glaring white flash suddenly tore apart the pitch-black room. The shutter kept clicking, and in the room that seemed lit up by lightning repeatedly, her husband sat opposite, his face repeatedly dyed white by the flash. Looking at her and smiling, his eyes squinted.

He really didn"t care about Baby Bao... So that means...

When the shutter sound and flash stopped, Bohemia immediately said, "My love for you never disappeared! I wanted to leave you not because I didn"t love you anymore, but because... because..."

"Because?"

"Because of you and that woman next door!" Bohemia didn"t have a good reason, so she could only seize the first thought that came to her mind. "You smile whenever you see her, I know you really like her!"

In the darkness, her husband fell silent as if pondering her words. After a few seconds, he said, "How could that be? I don"t see any other women in my eyes."

"But you treat her differently, I can feel it... that"s why I wanted to leave you," Bohemia replied.

Bohemia tightly covered Baby Bao"s mouth and nose with one hand; her palm sank deeply into her bulging flesh, and her arms tightened around her neck. She desperately raised her voice, and in this silent and dark room, her voice was almost unreasonably high: "When I think about what might happen between you, I feel that I might as well not be here!"

Baby Bao desperately stuck her fingernails into her arm, scratching her skin to pieces. The blood flowed down her arm, and her skin ached. Bohemia held back her voice, her legs clamping down on Baby Bao"s kicking legs and feet to minimize her struggles.

To drown out her daughter"s struggling cries and grab her husband"s attention, Bohemia"s voice became louder and faster as she spoke, "I can see it now. You don"t love me at all. You"re just possessive of me, but you always want other women. Otherwise, after the last woman, why would you still be angry with me over another woman?"

Baby Bao was so incredibly strong that it was as if all the energy that should have been used to grow a normal mind had melted into her muscles. She slammed her elbows back, one at a time, and when she was. .h.i.t, Bohemia"s breath almost broke in her chest; she couldn"t even hear what her husband was explaining in a rush across the room, so she could only endure the pain and use all of her strength to hold Baby Bao firmly in her arms, her arms tightening and tightening and not relaxing a bit on that thin neck.

"What other woman? What are you talking about?" The husband seemed to have focused on how to clear the misunderstanding with his wife, his voice earnest and anxious, asking, "How could I be interested in any other woman?"

As Baby Bao loudly sniffed, Bohemia shouted, "What about Baby Bao? You two are always together, and you even gang up against me. Doesn"t she count?"

Thankfully, Baby Bao often used her sniffling voice to act coquettish with her father. Just downstairs earlier, she had been hugging her father and humming nonstop, and even he had gotten used to it. The husband paused and suddenly burst into laughter, "You... you don"t like Baby Bao. Is that the reason?"

"How could she lick your bowl?" Bohemia hoped her voice didn"t sound too breathless, pretending to be emotionally excited, and shouted, "Your things are only meant for me to touch!"

The husband fell silent for a moment, probably lost in thought.

In the pitch-dark room, the mother and daughter were engaged in a silent struggle across from each other. He seemed not to have heard the rustling sound of their clothing. "So, you still love me." He suddenly took a long, satisfied breath and smiled. "Since you"re jealous of Baby Bao, you must still love me."

Baby Bao"s struggling arms grew weaker, and her voice became fainter. No matter how wrong it was, she was still just a six-year-old child.

"Who do you love more? Me or Baby Bao?"

Just as Baby Bao let out her final breath, the husband said, "If I could have you back by giving her up, I would do it without hesitation."

"I... I really wish we could go back to when it was just the two of us," Bohemia said, trembling. She felt that Baby Bao was no longer moving. She didn"t dare take it lightly, fearing that this ghostly child was pretending to be dead. She still firmly held her, stalling, saying, "Don"t you want us to reconcile?"

"Of course I do," he murmured dreamily.

Bohemia didn"t know where she got the experience, but based on her experience, she felt her target was dead. She quietly placed Baby Bao"s body on the floor, took a few steps to the side, and felt the three-legged stand beside her. Her fingers closed around the metal pole.

"Let"s take another picture," she said softly, "just the two of us this time."

Her husband hesitated before saying, "Okay, let me adjust the camera."

When she felt someone approaching the three-legged stand, Bohemia tightly gripped the metal pole and swung it forward with force. The camera flew out and fell to the ground with a thud. The metal stand pierced her husband"s soft body and pushed him back several steps as if he were lighter than the metal stand. While he was falling backward, Bohemia jumped up and rushed towards the door.

In her hurry to run, her leg hit the corner of the cage; the smallest baby inside was shaken and immediately started crying. Bohemia hesitated for a moment, thinking about carrying both cages.

But they were too big and too heavy. Even if she managed to lift them, her husband would catch up to her if she took even a single breath.

Bohemia stopped her hand, which was about to reach down, opened the door, and rushed into the corridor. The two children in the cages suddenly started crying together as if they knew they were abandoned.

"Stop!" her husband shouted loudly, "Baby Bao, go after her! Baby Bao?"

If she didn"t escape this time, the next imprisonment would be more severe. As Bohemia rushed into the corridor, she stared at the railing on the second floor, but for a moment, she didn"t know what to do next. The front door downstairs was locked, and she didn"t have the key. The windows were shut tight. To her, the whole house was like a prison.

Baby Bao"s strange behavior didn"t delay her husband"s actions. Hearing him kicking open the cages and being just one step away from coming out of the room, Bohemia quickly devised a plan. She quickly stepped aside towards the wall next to the door.

As soon as she pressed against the wall, her husband rushed out of the room, facing away from her. He looked left and right in the corridor, seemingly trying to figure out where she had run. Before he could react, Bohemia pounced on him with all her weight, hitting him on the back.

Her husband"s body was much lighter than she had imagined; he was almost immediately knocked off the ground. He broke through the railing on the second floor and fell straight into the air, dropping to the ground on the first floor.

Bohemia rushed to the broken railing and squinted in the dim darkness, finally seeing the figure on the ground on the first floor. He was lucky, falling into an open s.p.a.ce. Apart from being unable to get up immediately due to the pain, he didn"t seem to have any fatal injuries. If she let him crawl up, she feared that she would never have any hope of escaping in this lifetime.

Her husband groaned and turned over, propping himself up with one hand on the ground.

Quickly, find something heavy and smash it down on him.

In the metal cage behind her, the children"s cries continued one after another.

It was as if her soul suddenly left her body and floated in the air, watching her actions—Bohemia saw herself turning around, grabbing the metal cage, and moving it to the broken railing. With one push, she sent it down. The cage containing the baby girl hit her husband"s legs, followed by a loud bang and then his long, painful scream. Almost numbly, she pushed the second cage, this time targeting her husband"s upper body.

"Mommy!" the boy shouted in mid-air but was soon drowned out by another loud crash as the cage smashed through the floor.

Bohemia stuck her head out, feeling weak and out of breath.

After the dust, debris, and screams had gradually subsided, she saw clearly. The entire floor had been smashed, and the heavy metal cages buried her husband deep in the ground. Whether it was the man or the two children, there was no sound from any of them.

They were all finally dead.

She sat motionless, not knowing how long she had been sitting there, until she felt the light coming through the window getting shallower and brighter. The night had pa.s.sed, and morning had arrived.

Bohemia shuddered and jumped up from the corridor.

"Hey, Yuan Xiangxi?" she shouted, looking around. "Yuan Xiangxi, where are you?"

After a few seconds, a trembling and weak voice came from downstairs.

"Down... here..."

She rushed to the railing and saw that the metal cage in the deep hole had disappeared at some point. Yuan Xiangxi lay in a mess at the bottom, weakly waving at her.

"It seems like the playhouse game is over... I mean, why did you exert so much force?" 

1