The Secret Code of Monsters.

Chapter 332 Ch.331 Death and Rebirth

"How long have you had these symptoms?"

"Three months."

"Three whole months?"

"I don't remember clearly... Do young people nowadays like to stare at someone they hate all day long?"

"I took the money, Mr. Sara. A lot of it."

Victor didn't comment, but he smiled much more happily than when he saw Randolph.

"A young police officer like you with a bright future would not be tempted by such a small sum of money - especially with your looks... It would be too easy for you to make money with your looks."

He and Roland each had their own things to do:

One was staring out the window, the other was concentrating on his work.

The two people did not make eye contact, nor did they look towards each other, but their words kept colliding with each other.

"Because he's my friend."

"He really needs a good friend, a frank and passionate friend who can help him look past the gold and see the true flesh and blood."

Victor carved into the details of the fingers, and the sound became much quieter along with the chiseling.

"…He uses all his shrewdness in his career. He has the business acumen of a forty-year-old and the eyes of a lover of a fifteen-year-old." His wonderful and correct analogy made Roland nod in agreement.

"He treated the lady just as you said."

"To trouble him, Collins. To trouble him. It was a delight to me when I was a young man."

As he spoke, he suddenly covered his mouth, dodging the delicate fingers as if there was a scorching fire burning in front of him. After taking a few steps back, he dared to cough wildly.

The crows had long disappeared from the dilapidated fountain.

Roland turned his head.

This may be Victor Sala's last work.

"Why are you so obsessed with...with..." Roland thought about it, but couldn't find a suitable adjective in his mind.

But Victor Sala knew what he meant.

"At first, it was just for my mother."

He kept coughing, so he put down the chisel, sat on the ground, and took out a crumpled cigarette from his trouser pocket - but found that he couldn't find a flame to light it.

I had no choice but to hold it in my mouth.

"My father was the best stonemason, until he got on that ship..."

He said.

"You don't make a lot of money as a stonemason—I mean, not a very famous one. Only the best of the best can make a comfortable living in this trade."

Roland cut himself a cigar, lit it with a lighter, then took out a box of matches and threw it to Victor.

He rolled his eyes instead.

"She said I lost my father and she lost her husband, and she couldn't live like this."

Victor lit a cigarette and drew the smoke into his mouth with his shrunken cheeks.

Soon, Roland could no longer distinguish between the smoke and the white ash.

"She said she would be gone for two months and borrow some money from relatives so that she could teach me to continue my father's business... She said I was talented and that sooner or later..."

Poor quality shredded tobacco leaves burn very quickly.

"She was gone for more than two months."

It's been more than 20 years.

"Perhaps you should think positively: for example, your mother, who just left a few days ago, had an accident on the road and her head was cut off by robbers. She didn't leave and never come back, but died early."

"You are a very good talker, Mr. Collins."

"Sometimes I envy myself. Is this considered art of expression?"

Victor held the cigarette between his legs and nodded blankly: "...Okay."

He told Roland: At the beginning, he was just full of anger, and he wanted to use chisel and hammer to open a path so that his mother, no matter where she was, would see the name "Victor Sara" in the newspaper, making her unable to sleep day by day and crying every night.

He didn't want her to repent, he wanted her to regret - regret abandoning a child who should have brought her endless honor and material and spiritual enjoyment, a relative who was connected to her by blood and should have made her happy every sunrise and sunset.

He wanted to make her regret it.

That's what he originally thought.

But later, as the hammer fell again and again, the target was changed unconsciously.

"She's not important anymore."

Victor Sala says...

“It’s a pleasure.”

"For me."

“Later, it turned into passion.”

He said.

“Ultimately, it becomes a mission.”

He said.

"Perhaps you can't understand how a loser who is sick and has to rely on his friends to survive dares to call himself 'mission' - but I still want to tell you, young you." Victor Sara seemed to be more serious than ever.

He stared at Roland, like a crow on the shoulder of a dilapidated sculpture looking at the people in the room through the glass.

At this moment, he seemed to be a bird standing in nature, standing free, and standing in the sunshine.

Roland, on the other hand, is an ignorant person who lives in a dark room without seeing the sun. "I want to tell you: everyone has his or her own mission."

He said.

"It's just that most people, most people in this world... can't find it."

"It's right there, waiting."

Victor threw away his cigarette butt, got up, and gazed at the lifelike female sculpture as devoutly as a saint gazes at the cross that will never rust.

"Just waiting here..."

he murmured.

"How happy life is for those who can find their own 'mission', Mr. Collins."

"It is the happiness that those who are muddle-headed will never feel..."

"They laughed at... those who wore costly clothes, drove splendid carriages, were served by servants, and wore the most expensive jewels..."

Victor sighed: "But 'mission' is the highest expression of a person's life..."

"Those who can't find it are not to be pitied. Perhaps they still live a rich and happy life..."

He said.

"But there's something missing, isn't there?"

"Something is missing..." He gestured, trying to modify the disordered words with his hands: "If fate and history are the same tablecloth, what should we do?"

"Take a table knife..."

"Get in!"

"'Damn it! I'm here!' That's what we're going to do...Mr. Collins."

He said.

“It’s not that I don’t want to do it, I have to do it.”

Roland looked at this nearly insane yet extremely sober man, and suddenly an indelible emotion arose in his heart - he didn't like him, he even hated him.

But he wanted to know more about him.

"It would be nice if you were still alive. Perhaps I could invite you to join us."

Victor adjusted his expression and said with a smile: "Someone just scolded me."

"Tomorrow, Mr. Sarah. Because it doesn't mean you haven't disappointed and hurt Randolph - the dead don't feel pain, the living do."

Victor didn't respond, turned around and started polishing the final work again.

He has been too tired recently.

He sat down, then lay down again.

He is too tired.

Under Roland's gaze, he coughed up blood, as if he had drained all the dirty blood from his body, and finally turned into an immortal stone sculpture.

He fell asleep.

Under the watchful eyes of Roland and the work.

Like a butterfly, his sculptures are like his offspring - and once he has completed his mission of reproduction, his life is over.

"A person who needs love so much and cannot get it from anywhere else seeks it in his imagination."

"Maybe."

Roland stood up slowly.

"But every destiny should have its spring."

He watched the woman, who was carved by loneliness and paranoia, gently flutter her eyelashes...

Miraculously he opened his eyes.

She was 'born'.

The stone statue was covered with powder.

The statue looked over curiously.

The statue bowed slightly.

"Welcome to this world, new lady."

Roland bowed in return.

She blinked her eyelids, as if she, like her creator, was born with a "mission", or that every chisel and grind had already engraved the surging emotions into a soul without a heart.

She leaned forward slowly.

Touched the tip of Victor's nose.

Carefully, yet intimately, she stroked his face.

The cold and delicate palms are just as they were when he carved them, bringing peace to a sleeping soul.

She looked at Roland again.

After receiving consent, she knelt down and gently passed her arms across to hold her maker's head.

Put him on his lap.

Patting him gently again and again.

Just like his mother did when he was a child, lulling him to sleep.

He carved her, but he was the fragile one.

(End of this chapter)