Pathological Possession: Even Death Will Not Part Us-Chapter 52: His Other Identity

Cillian Grant examined the long rifle in his hand, pulling the bolt open and closed, the smooth clink of the bolt much crisper than a submachine gun.

Cillian’s demeanor was much calmer than Damian Sinclair’s, a kind of condescending disdain.

"Do you really understand the land beneath your feet with that compassionate heart? The continent with the greatest biodiversity on Earth, teeming with animal life. After the new century, investors like you, with rapid industrial growth and city expansion, have caused ecological imbalance."

"Yet legal hunting, as long as it isn’t reckless or excessive, is itself a form of protection within controllable limits; it can even raise funds for wildlife conservation. ’Taking from animals, using for animals.’ This is true respect for life."

Damian suddenly found himself at a loss for words to rebut.

Cillian slung his gun over his back, one hand resting on the back of his neck, turning his head, exuding an aura that shattered all taboos, utterly wanton.

"Let’s go." He waved a hand, leading in the first jeep.

Phoebe Grant was placed in the second vehicle, sitting in the back with Damian. In the rearview mirror, their car was driven by the chauffeur, sandwiched as the third.

The convoy kicked up a cloud of dust. In the lead vehicle, the driver, a forty-something black man, glanced at Cillian, "Only a boss with vision could make a speech about protection and respect like that—"

The man in the passenger seat was cleaning a gun and impatiently interrupted, "Just fooling him."

"Huh?"

Ten minutes later, Damian and Phoebe were still in a dreamy stupor as they disembarked.

The hunting ground had a main service building, and Phoebe, who wouldn’t participate in the hunt, was arranged to do a spa in the VIP room on the top floor. Cillian had no intention of being delayed and pulled Damian directly towards the vast grassland behind the building.

They changed into camouflage gear in a not-too-dense forest.

Damian had no power to resist as he was roughly shoved into a special hunting vehicle, formally beginning the hunt for prey.

The engine roared, and the tires violently gripped the ground, frightening a flock of birds in the dry grass, including rare protected species like Afreian hornbills and falcons.

"Aim and pull the trigger." Cillian nodded towards a bird not far away, "You’re fond of taking shots from the shadows, take your fill today."

There was a deeper meaning in his latter words that Damian couldn’t fail to understand.

Damian’s lips pressed into a straight line, the gun resting on his knees heavy as though pressing on his heart, bluntly piercing, "So you couldn’t find her, could you?"

Cillian cast him a sidelong glance, "Are you happy?"

Damian clenched his fist, "I’m not just happy, I—"

Cillian suddenly drew out a handgun, pointing it straight at Damian’s forehead.

The dark gun muzzle, spreading the shadow of death, enveloped him completely. Damian’s limbs first twitched uncontrollably, then all the blood in his body crazily surged back to his heart, the explosive tension rushing up and spreading to his pupils, this moment was numb, was dazed.

He watched with open eyes as the stern-faced man opposite him pulled the trigger without hesitation.

Damian couldn’t even manage to close his eyes.

The silenced pistol’s shot, at the moment the bullet was fired, sounded like a stapler decisively penetrating paper, dull yet light.

Damian felt a coldness over his entire body, uncontrollable shivers, unable to distinguish between life and death, as he heard the sound of a body hitting the ground behind him.

He looked over woodenly, a wildebeest with its neck bloodied falling 500 meters outside their vehicle.

"Happy now?"

Cillian nonchalantly retracted the gun, his expression icy.

Damian’s teeth chattered, his voice scattered and indistinct.

Cillian sneered, "Count that wildebeest as yours."

Damian squeezed out three words through clenched teeth, "Don’t need it."

"What I give you, you better take," Cillian continued driving, "especially your face and my patience."

This stance was completely at odds with the grim and stern demeanor he had in their home country, fiercely wild to the extreme.

Damian regained his composure, gritting his teeth, "Are you trying to intimidate me today, force out Eleanor’s whereabouts?"

Before he finished speaking, Cillian slowed down, "She didn’t board the plane you arranged."

"So you suspect that I’ve hidden her elsewhere?"

A sudden thud against the passenger door almost toppled the vehicle. Damian grasped for safety, and a moment later, a cold gun barrel pressed against his nose, instantly heating up, exploding at the speed of sound, a bullet plunged into flesh with a muffled thud.

The vehicle’s tires landed, on the passenger side glass pressed two long black-brown horns, eyes moving downwards revealed gray fur.

"A gemsbok, also known as a sword antelope."

Cillian pulled back the gun, meaningfully, "Looks quite like the secretary you left back home."

Damian’s eyes widened, fear and anger, two of humanity’s most intense emotions intertwined in his mind, tearing his defenses apart, "Back home is a society governed by law, what did you do to them?"

"What did you do?" Cillian turned off the car.

Staring at each other for a full minute, his face deep and stern, eyes sinister, that sharp, chilling aggression.

Scathingly penetrating.

Damian’s pupils swelled with dense blood vessels, the rise and fall of his chest increasingly rapid.

After a moment, he just managed to steady himself.

His voice hoarse, "On the day of the check-up, Mrs. Grant said Eleanor was ungrateful, rebellious, and sharp."

"But I’ve known her for twenty years. She’s never been ungrateful; your sister is afraid of thunder, darkness, bugs, everything a woman is supposedly afraid of."

"Eleanor is not like that. She says thunder and lightning are the thunder god and lightning goddess in love. The dark night lacking a moon is the sun clinging to the moon, preventing her from working. She says caterpillars are like ugly ducklings’ reversals; to love swans, you must also love ugly ducklings, if she likes butterflies, she can’t only like butterflies; she must also like caterpillars."

Cillian’s voice grew abnormal, "Not afraid of the dark?"

Damian’s eyes were hostile, yet his expression involuntarily softened, "Of course not. At sixteen, she wanted to catch cicadas at night, but Mrs. Grant disagreed. On a dark, windy night, she climbed over the courtyard wall. The butler supported her on the other side, and I caught her outside. She jumped down and realized the flashlight was left inside the wall, and she didn’t dare go back to retrieve it.

"With no cicadas to catch, she took me to the back hill to feel the breeze. The eerie sounds of insects were infinitely amplified in the darkness, and she regretted it, saying I looked too good and that she feared a ghost would fall in love at first sight and steal my soul, leaving her a widowed weeping by the grave—"

"Shut up." The man suddenly barked fiercely.

The composure, disdain, and intimidation on his face faded away, leaving only an expressionless visage, frighteningly so.

Damian ignored him, "Eleanor wasn’t ungrateful either. She loves Mrs. Grant more than herself. Mrs. Grant loves flowers, so she followed suit, loving cherry blossoms’ pink, roses’ red, jasmine’s white, gardenias’ fragrance, every variety Mrs. Grant favored, she grew in private, though she flourished at vegetable gardening, she always failed at growing flowers."

"Before I could comfort her, she would laugh, saying she had cultivated half a garden of cucumber flowers for Mrs. Grant, pleasing to the eye and fit for eating, in line with her innate pragmatic farming genes."

Cillian’s chest swelled with an urge ready to explode.

Wanting to listen, yet unwilling to hear.

Those years he was away were the sweetest years between her and Damian.

Damian stubbornly glared at him, his voice growing louder.

"She wasn’t rebellious or sharp. You siblings toyed with her, bullied her, when she could bear it no longer, she’d protect herself, but that little bit of self-preservation, the moment Mrs. Grant intervened, she’d collapse, apologize, examine herself, without fail, laying her heart and soul on the ground."

"Where was she sharp? Where was she rebellious?"