Hamish clicked in and the first thing that popped up was the live broadcast of “Weekend Show”, the screen already occupied by all sorts of vulgar comments. In an instant, Hamish lost all thoughts. Just as he was about to exit, a familiar voice came from within.
“In the long years to come… you must live well… even if life feels like death…”
The background music’s thunder blended perfectly with the gloomy weather outside. Hamish’s eyes reddened as he tightly gripped his phone, finding it hard to breathe. His trembling fingers shut off the barrage of comments in the video, and a familiar face came into view.
Elisa was on her knees, desperately trying to look up at the man in front of her. She wanted to hold onto him so much, but the man standing before her took a step back. Elisa’s face seemed to be a mix of crying and smiling, tears smearing her entire face. She could no longer support her body and, accompanied by a muffled thunder, she fell heavily to the ground, losing all breath.
Tears trickled into Hamish’s mouth. He slightly parted his lips and tasted a strong bitterness, more bitter than any medicine he had ever taken. His phone slipped from his hand onto the wooden floor. Hamish bent down to pick it up, but his mind felt as if it had been struck by a heavy hammer. He staggered and fell to the ground, tears falling one by one.
The voice from the phone echoed in his ears, but his mind was back six years ago when the Powell family went bankrupt, and he took Elisa, who had been hungry for four days, to the court to see her father being sentenced.
To humiliate her pride, he made Elisa kneel in the pouring rain in front of the reporters for half an hour. Back then, Elisa looked at him just like in the video, wanting to reach out to him, only to be avoided by his disgust…
He never thought he would see that look and demeanor again. It was exactly the same as the Elisa in the video, and the Elisa from years ago.
Tobias went downstairs and then back to the study, where he found Hamish on the floor, covering his face and trembling.
Tobias thought he was having another episode and hurried over to help him up. “Mr. Burns, is your stomach acting up again? Where did you put the stomach medicine?”
After a brief moment, Hamish moved and sat on the ground, “I saw Elisa…”
His tone was resolute, his eyes, though bloodshot, were clear, not like someone seeing a hallucination. “She’s been dead for three years.”
Hamish’s voice was already hoarse, and now, after crying, it sounded muffled, as if he had a bad cold, “I know, but I really saw her, or I saw her shadow in someone else.”
Tobias sighed and then squatted in front of Hamish, looking him in the eye, “Where?”
Hamish still held the phone. He held it up for Tobias to see, but now only Sebastian’s figure appeared on the live broadcast.
“Mr. Burns, you mean on him? He’s a man.”
“Not him.” Hamish frowned, a gloom between his brows, “It’s the woman lying on the ground.”
Tobias took the phone and clicked back, looking at the title “Weekend Show Live Fourth Round, Sebastian, Filippa, Elisa”. The last name was particularly striking. There were many people in the world with the same name, but what was surprising was that this “Elisa” looked exactly like the Elisa who had died three years ago.
The name was one thing, but looking exactly like her was another. Tobias looked at the photos that came up in the search.
“Weekend Show” had been recorded by many online users, and the most widely spread was the segment with Elisa’s performance, which had successfully made it to the hot search.
“#Elisa’s acting skills#”
“This person looks familiar,” Tobias had a good memory and felt like he had seen this person somewhere, not because she looked like Elisa, but for some other reason.
He thought for a moment, his head hurting before he finally remembered where he had seen her. “Mr. Burns, do you remember a year ago, there was a woman next to Finn who looked like his wife? That’s her. I remember that one time she was even brought to your hotel by Finn. Her stage name is Elisa, but her real name is Aoife.”
Yes, it was Aoife! Tobias’s reminder helped Hamish recall. Over the years, in order to outdo him, Finn had secretly set many obstacles. The one that left the deepest impression on him was when Finn found a lookalikeof Elisa and even had the lookalike change her name to Elisa.
At the time, Finn’s thinking was simple: if he couldn’t beat Hamish physically, he would mentally crush him. But Hamish’s spirit had long collapsed and gone mad after Elisa’s death, so Finn’s little tricks had no effect. For Hamish, the pain had become numb and habitual.
Realization dawned on Hamish. His gaze remained fixed on the phone in Tobias’s hand, his heart, silent for three years, now beating fiercely, an unprecedented obsession taking over his mind.
“She’s not Aoife, she’s Elisa.”
“Mr. Burns, have you been overworking yourself and having mental issues again? I should have Dr. Ji come and check on you.”
As Tobias was about to dial, Hamish grabbed his wrist.
Tobias looked at Hamish’s trembling hand. That grip seemed like clutching at a lifeline, but he didn’t want to comfort him with deceit. “Mr. Burns, can you please come to your senses? This Elisa is just an impostor. Look at her face, it only resembles her. Can you lie to yourself that this is the same person who was physically disabled?”
Hamish looked up, his heart aching. His eyes, dry a moment ago, now filled with tears, the reddened eyes seeming to ooze blood. He struggled to breathe, his heart, just recovered, now felt as if it were being tightly squeezed, suffocating him.
Tobias turned away, knowing that his words were harsh, but it was better than Hamish deceiving himself. Since Elisa’s death, he had secretly vowed: never to deceive Hamish again, not even with well-intentioned lies.
“Maybe this is Finn’s scheme, just to get this woman to grab your attention. He used a similar method before, didn’t he? Mr. Burns, you don’t have to fall for it again.”
“I can feel that she’s different from before.”
“People change.”
Hamish had a paranoid personality, inherited from who knows where. Once he decided on something, it was hard to change his mind. All Tobias could do was comply and let him feel and see for himself, to distinguish the truth from the falsehood.
Still holding Tobias’s hand, Hamish had beautiful hands, slender and clean. When he held on to someone, his knuckles curled, exuding a hint of loneliness.
“Tobias, do you know how much I miss her? I want to die, to not live, but that day, I saw her in the elevator. You’re right, people change, but the look in her eyes hasn’t changed. I believe my intuition; it really is Elisa. She’s come back after three years. She really has come back.”
Hamish had lost weight in recent days, his complexion pale. The study’s light shone on him, making him look almost translucent, sickly and lifeless. Sometimes Tobias felt like he was facing not a living person, but a soulless shell, a walking corpse of Hamish that had persisted for three years.
“I need to find her, I must see her.”
Elisa had really come back. He wanted to tell many people, but even Tobias, who had been with him the longest, didn’t believe him.
Hamish stood up unsteadily, propping himself up on the table and chairs, looking helpless like a child. Finally, he found his phone in the sofa crevice. His phone didn’t have any entertainment apps, so he had to download Twitter again to search for Elisa. He opened Twitter and immediately clicked on the trending topics.
As if watching the performance of her weeping on the ground, the volume was at its maximum as he clicked in.
Earlier, the stuffed cat that had followed behind Tobias upstairs barged in from the corridor. Mimi, who usually never made a sound, was now fixedly staring at Hamish’s phone, circling around him.
“Meow…”
Mimi’s hoarse meow further confirmed Hamish’s suspicions. He turned to Tobias, his face blank, his eyes dark as if a faint glimmer had lit up, pointing at Mimi with a trembling voice, “See, even it recognizes her.”
Tobias didn’t know what to say for a moment. How could a person come back from the dead?
“Mr. Burns, if you want to confirm your suspicions, you need to get your health back in order first. She’s on the show, she can’t run away. Rest for a day, and I’ll go with you to see her tomorrow.”