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Hours Before the Wedding, I Saw Everyone's Last Words
NovelShort
new
Completed
Seventy-two hours before the wedding, I gained an ability. Stare at a person for three seconds. Beneath their captions there's a string of numbers too. [Times they took part in your death: 68.] [Times they took part in your death: 103.] [Times they took part in your death: 126.] He left behind the 127th delivery order.
Chapters (4)
第1章
Seventy-two hours before my wedding, I got a power.
Stare at someone for three seconds.
Under their caption, there's a string of numbers.
【Times taken part in your death: 68.】
【Times taken part in your death: 103.】
【Times taken part in your death: 126.】
He left behind the 127th delivery order.
“Every time you die, I restart this wedding.”
But this time, he has only seven days of life left.
“Sis, why do you look so awful?”
Ann Swanson pinched up the hem of the gown and did a slow turn in front of me.
Because this gown was never cut to my measurements.
Ann's waist is a twenty-six.
When they took my measurements two months ago, David Abbott told me the designer suggested letting the waist out an inch and a half so I could eat comfortably on the wedding day.
David walked over and adjusted the strap slipping off Ann's shoulder.
“Stop fooling around. Take it off.”
“Why so harsh?”
Ann pouted at him.
David said in a low voice, “It'd be a shame to get it dirty.”
I fixed my eyes on David's.
Three seconds.
Those two lines of transparent caption appeared again.
【Last honest words: I've only ever loved one person in my life, and it's a pity it wasn't you.】
【Love balance: 23 hours 56 minutes.】
David frowned.
“Vivi, what are you doing with those scissors?”
I walked up to Ann and took hold of the gown at the side of her waist.
A dress worth a hundred and eighty thousand, and I cut an eight-inch slit into it.
Ann screamed.
“Are you insane?”
“Didn't you say it didn't fit?”
“Now it's roomier.”
“Martha Swanson!”
My mother, Ava Ramsey, shoved the door open and slapped my wrist.
Then she rushed to check whether Ann was hurt.
“Your sister was just trying it on. What's the big deal? Have you lost your mind?”
Three seconds later, a caption surfaced above her head.
【Last honest words: If you had half of Ann's sense, I wouldn't be this worn out my whole life.】
【Love balance: 13 days.】
I just never knew the expiration date was printed above their heads too.
“Mom.”
I asked softly, “Whose gown is this, really?”
“Yours, of course.”
The answer came fast out of Ava's mouth, but her hand was still shielding Ann.
“Then why can she wear it?”
“You two sisters are about the same build. What's strange about that?”
“Something made to measure shouldn't even zip up with an inch and a half off.”
David bent down and picked up the scissors.
He set them out of reach and softened his tone.
“All this wedding planning has worn you out. Don't twist yourself in knots over it.”
“I'm not twisting anything.”
“Ten weeks, right?”
Ann's face went white in an instant.
Only David was still putting on an act.
“Ten weeks of what?”
I picked up the tablet on the table and opened the Bluetooth printer Ann had just connected to.
A prenatal report was still sitting in the print history.
Ten weeks and two days pregnant.
Fetal heartbeat normal.
The line for the father's name left blank.
“This.”
“Whose is it?”
Ann's lips trembled.
“Sis, let me explain.”
She called me sis, but the line above her head was a blood-red glare.
【I waited three months after you died to announce the pregnancy. That was already sparing your face.】
“How do you plan to explain?”
“It was an accident.”
“An accident with whom?”
“I can't say.”
“What's there that you can't say?”
“The kid didn't come from scanning a code, did it?”
Ann covered her face and started to cry.
“She's in this state already, and you're still pushing her?”
“I got her pregnant?”
“Vivi!”
“Or did I make her put on the wedding gown?”
David stepped forward and grabbed my wrist.
“Enough.”
“Your heart aches for her?”
“I just don't want you to make this too ugly.”
“Make what ugly?”
“My sister's the one who's pregnant, so why is it my fiancé who's afraid of it looking ugly?”
We were standing very close.
Close enough that I could smell the woody scent at his collar.
Ann had just posted a photo of her new perfume last week.
The same scent.
I pulled my hand free, my fingertips brushing past his shirt collar.
I hooked out a long strand of hair.
Chestnut brown.
I've never dyed my hair.
Ann did.
“Care to explain?”
David looked at the strand of hair and said nothing.
“Ms. Swanson, your delivery.”
“I didn't order anything.”
“A Mr. Norris sent it.”
【That's the 127th time.】
【Martha Swanson, don't marry him.】
【This time, try to stay alive.】
【Don't look into anyone's eyes again. Every one you look at, you lose a little of your ability to be loved.】
Old Rob.
第2章
When I bolted out of the bridal boutique, David called after me.
"Vivi, where are you going?"
The cup of soup had gone soft and misshapen in my grip, broth seeping out from under the lid, scalding my palm red.
The wedding countdown on my phone was still ticking down.
But David's love balance had only twenty-three hours left.
Which meant that before the wedding even started, whatever he felt for me would hit zero.
The rider account "Old Rob" had been deactivated three months ago.
Three years back, on my birthday, I'd worked until one in the morning.
【Mild spice, no cilantro. It's my birthday, please hurry.】
【Got it. I tucked a candle in the bag. Even a stranger can wish you a happy birthday.】
The candle was only thumb-length, pulled off some little cake from a convenience store.
Two years ago, I'd left Old Rob a one-star because the food spilled.
【The soup spilled everywhere. Bad review.】
【Rider: I'm sorry.】
【Me: Just leave it at the door.】
【Rider: Your stomach's bad. Don't eat anything cold.】
【Me: How do you know my stomach's bad?】
【Rider: You always order congee, always note no ice. Just a guess.】
When I opened the door that day, the hallway was already empty.
Now, looking again, there was half a hand showing in the corner of the order photo.
"You're looking for Old Rob?"
"Yes. What's his real name?"
"Can't just hand that out."
"He delivered 127 orders to me."
"So you're Little Swanson?"
"You know me?"
"He brought you up a lot."
"Said you were a real pain to order for. No scallions, no cilantro, only half a spoon of chili. When you were in a bad mood you'd order three milk teas and only drink one after they arrived."
"Where is he now?"
"Quit."
"Can you give me his phone number?"
"Hold on."
"That's strange. The number he registered is dead now."
"His address?"
"19 Haven Alley, South Side."
I pulled it up on the map right away.
Less than ten minutes after I drove off, a black van suddenly closed in from the right and slammed into me.
It forced me to a stop. Two men got out and yanked at my door.
"Ms. Swanson, Mr. Abbott sent us to bring you back."
"Which Mr. Abbott?"
"Your fiancé."
"Tell him to come himself."
"The wedding's almost here. Don't throw a tantrum."
The man started prying at my door.
I picked up my phone and opened the livestream.
"Pull it again."
"There are over four hundred people in my stream right now. The whole wedding planning team is watching. Go ahead, tell everyone who told you to run my car off the road."
The man stepped back. The other one started making a call.
Not long after, David's call came through.
"Turn off the livestream."
"So you admit you sent them?"
"I was afraid you'd get worked up and something would happen to you."
"So you rammed me first?"
"They just tapped your car lightly."
"When your brother was a kid and you pushed him down the stairs, was that a light tap too?"
The instant the van rammed me, a scene had flashed into my head out of nowhere.
A young David standing at the top of the stairs.
A boy half a head taller than him tumbling down.
The web of his hand split open on broken glass, blood spreading across the floor.
The boy lifted his face.
His features were a blur.
But there was a line of words above his head.
【Last true words: Vivi, don't look back.】
"David, is your brother really dead?"
Beep.
The call had been cut off.
第3章
I circled around to the back and found a repair shop that hadn't cleared out yet.
The owner heard the words "Old Rob" and his wrench clattered onto the table.
"What do you want with him?"
"To pay back money."
"He owes you?"
"I owe him."
"Your last name Swanson?"
"Get out. I don't know him."
"You knew him a second ago."
"I said I don't know him."
"Does he go by another name?"
"Miss, some people, finding them isn't a good thing."
"Better than marrying the wrong man."
The owner stared at me a while, then took a metal box out from under the counter.
"He left this three months ago."
Inside was a stack of order receipts.
On the back of the first one:
【She'll slit her wrists in the bathtub tonight. The wedding video got out and she became a joke to the whole internet.】
The eighteenth.
【She jumped from the twenty-seventh floor. Couldn't stop her.】
The forty-sixth.
【She found the insurance policy. Ann Swanson pushed her off the building.】
The eighty-third.
【She called off the wedding, vanished the next day. Body never found.】
The one hundred twenty-sixth.
【She opened fire at the wedding, took two people with her. She didn't make it either.】
"He comes back every so often."
"What do you mean?"
"Sometimes half a year, sometimes two years. His face changes a little each time, but the scar on his hand between the thumb and finger is always the same."
"What does he say?"
"He says he's stuck in a wedding."
"Every time you die, he goes back to seventy-two hours before the wedding."
"You don't believe it?"
"I can already see the last words floating over people's heads. What's left that I can't believe."
"You can see them?"
"Yes."
"Then it's too late."
"How many have you read?"
"Six."
"Stop. Now."
"Why?"
"That's not the power to see the truth."
"It uses your love for fuel and burns your life review early."
【Hold a gaze longer than three seconds, and you can read the last true words a person means to say to you before they die.】
【When the balance hits zero, the emotional bond between the two of you breaks for good.】
【Every person you read lowers the total amount of love you have received.】
【Read them all, and you lose the ability to love and be loved.】
【The only one the rules don't touch is a time-rewinder.】
I asked: "Who is Old Rob, really?"
"He never said."
"Why does his face change?"
"He told me once that rewinding isn't free."
"What's the price?"
"Every time he comes back, there's one less person in the world who remembers him."
The one hundred twenty-seventh time.
By now, probably no one remembers him at all.
Except me, who hasn't even met him yet.
第4章
The countdown to the wedding stood at fifty-nine hours.
Ann's voice came from inside.
"Does she know?"
David kept his voice low.
"No way."
"She already asked you about your brother."
"Someone told her something."
"What if that person came back?"
"Shut up."
I turned on the recorder and stayed outside the door.
Ann said through her sobs, "Why are you taking it out on me? The baby's yours. Do you actually want to marry her?"
"The wedding is happening."
"Why?"
"That patent license in her name. Only a spouse can take it over."
"And if she won't agree?"
"After the wedding there'll be plenty of ways."
"Your mother said, once the insurance kicks in, then—"
The room went quiet.
I pushed the door open.
"Then what?"
Ann shot up off the couch.
David faltered for only a second, then went calm again.
"When did you get back?"
"Right in time for the insurance."
I set my bag down. "How much did you take out on me?"
"Vivi, you've got it wrong."
"Ten million? Twenty?"
"Buying insurance before a wedding is perfectly normal."
"Who's the beneficiary?"
David walked over to me.
"Me, of course."
I was one second short of holding his gaze for the full three.
At two seconds, a hand suddenly reached in from outside the door and covered my eyes.
The man pressed close behind me, his breath against my ear.
"Don't look."
David's face went whiter than if he'd seen a ghost.
"Who are you?"
Through the thin fabric, I could feel his heart pounding hard.
"Head down."
The man kicked over the coffee table, his other hand still over my eyes.
Ann's scream tore through the room.
David swore.
"Richard Abbott, you actually dared to come back!"
Richard.
David's brother, dead more than twenty years.
"You heard that?"
"Yeah."
"Are you scared?"
"Take your hand away first."
"No."
"Why not?"
"You'll look at me."
"I can't look at you?"
"If you see my last words, you'll never be able to shake me off."
David charged.
Richard let go of me and slammed a fist into his face.
Mid-thirties, short hair, a faint scar over his brow.
Three parts like David.
He wore a plain black jacket, and the scar on the web of his right hand ran all the way to his wrist bone.
David wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth.
"What are you, that you think you can touch my fiancée?"
Richard let out a short laugh.
"When you were sleeping with her sister, did you remember she was your fiancée?"
Ann clutched her belly.
"You're lying!"
"Ten weeks pregnant. The night of June seventeenth, Room 1906 at the Grandview Hotel."
Richard turned his head to look at her.
"Want me to send the sheets in for testing?"
Ann stepped back.
David swung again.
Richard slipped to the side and pinned him against the wall.
"Don't make me kill you this time."
"This time?"
David gasped for breath, then suddenly laughed.
"So you really are still in the loop."
Richard's arm tightened.
"You know?"
"I've known all along."
David tilted his face toward me.
"Martha, did you really think you'd just come into some superpower?"
"Haven't I?"
"He gave it to you."
"Every time you died, he traded his own lifespan to turn back time. But it happened too many times. Time's broken now."
"And the captions?"
"Also cracks."
"Why did they show up on me?"
"Because on the hundred and twenty-sixth loop, you fired the shot that went through his heart."
I looked at Richard.
"I killed you?"
"No."
"He says I fired the shot that went through your heart."
"You did fire the gun."
Richard let go of David and turned to stand between him and me.
"But the one holding your hand was me."