Black Shade

The clock echoed twelve times…Fireworks covered the bare, dark beauty and yelling “Happy NewYear!” .No stars,but still bright, only the moon hang in the sky.The river through the city was plated the silver by the moon light… The river flew slowly like an old gentleman walked across the urban area. There were numerous couples who stayed together and chatted quietly near the river. They enjoyed the time.

A man, who was in the exquisite suit, parked his luxurious car near the river. The man came out his luxurious car which had an imperious body, was parked in the shadow looked like the predator prepared to hunt anyone who dared to come close to him. The suit he wore was crafted, but not pretentious. The designer of this clothe just used the concise figure to show the owner had inside stories. All of accessaries he used and wore costed gold. But his qualities showed that he was born in the noble family and had higher education.

“So handsome! Oh my gosh!” One girl shouted. Stars was shining in her eyes.
“Yes! So cool!! The perfect masterpiece of God!” Another girl who was the couple with his boyfriend said.
The man, his charm as powerful as demon’s, attracted the young girls’ hearts,lured people stepped into his trap.
He smoothed his hair, and walked toward to the entry of the Michelin Stars restaurant. Then, the waiter confirmed his detail and said, “Good evening,sir. You had a friend was waiting for you. And have you driven your car?”
The man answered,”The car was parked on the land. Here is the key.”He casted the key to the waiter and followed another waiter’s steps to go into the restaurant.

The main part of this restaurant was located on the river,exactly was on a big ship which sailed around the city. The seat of this man was open-air on the deck. The minimum cost of this kind of seats was about ten thousand RMB, which meant only the upper class had the ability to enjoy the dinner at here.

“Hi,Lucifer, how are you?” One young beauty in the long, bright red dress came towards to him, and hug him.
“Fine,thank you, Aphrodite.” Lucifer kissed the beauty’s face and looked at her eyes,”Oh! You are pretty beautiful, looks like the yummy dessert.”
“ Is there honey on your lips? You use these words to cheat how many girls?”
“Come on, my sweetheart.It is just a rumour. Please, take the seat.”
Both of them took the seat and started to order the dishes they wanted.
Lucifer took a deep breathe to get a better state, said” You still like the sweet food as same in the past. The perfume you use is my favourite style.” Then, he squinted to the other table which was on their right side,continued,”Why your face is so pale? Are you too cold?” Lucifer caught Aphrodite’s hands,”But why there is sweat in your hands?”
“Errrr…”Aphrodite did not know how to response.
“Or maybe you use too much foundation.”
“Probably. Oh, luci, how many years we did not see each other?”
“More than twelve years? Even thirteen years”
“These years, how about your life? Did you have some adversity? I remember you are still lonely, don't have the marriage. Right?”
“Oh, my lovely girl,you are so close. But I think the most difficult adversity I have meet is I forgot my homework in home when we were still in the junior high school.”
“Come on, luci, be seriously. Maybe you don't want to mention your past. However, I am so curious about if you meet the problem, you will how to solve it?
“Why you ask me so many weird question? You want what?” Suddenly, Lucifer became harsh and said the last sentence word by word. The atmosphere nearly fell to the zero point.
“Calm down,luci. We had long time no see. I just want to know more detail about you…My goal is simple.”
“Sorry, I am not rational. I am sensitive about the questions about this topic. But to you, I believe we can chat heart to heart.” Lucifer sipped a little red wine and propose a toast to the lady who sat opposite to him, “Now, I make the apology for my rude words I have said.”
“Actually, you don't need care. You have said, we are important friends. So when you are in the adversity, if you need to overcome it, you have two choices. One is you should suffer more pain, the other is sacrifice your friends. Which one do you choose?”
“ The second one. I would rather sacrifice my friends than I got hurt. But you are the special one, I don't want you painful.” After this sentence, Lucifer hang Aphrodite’s hands and said very gently.
Aphrodite felt a bit embarrassed . Thus, she shared his hands off and continued her dialogue, “ Personally, I think maybe you have many unhappy experience. I have a misgiving about how you control your emotion. You always are the Ph.D in the public eyes and are the professor of many aspects about technology. Where did you unleash your negative emotion ?” She ate some potato chips and vegetables because after the long conversation, she showed a little tired and hungry.
Lucifer was still talking as he was cutting the rib cage in his plate, and put every piece he cut into Aphrodite’s plate. “You should have some meat. Oh, sorry, what have you said? How to control?Errrr… There are no better way to control. I just unleash my negative emotion by beating people. Even sometimes I killed the small animals like rabbits cruelly and ate them. I don't like to see good things on the world. ”
“Why you did this! Although the rabbit is just a kind of the animals, they still have the family and also have the right to own their lives!” Aphrodite, the girl liked the water, raised the voice loudly. It surprised the neighbour tables and attracted their attention.
“ Sorry.” Lucifer used the angel’s smile to express the apology to people who sat near them. “ You care the animals but nobody loves me, even doesn't care me! !”
“Luci, sorry, I really don't know how to comfort you.” Aphrodite looked down to the paper which was hidden under the table.There was no more question on it.
The unusual silence spreaded into the air…

Some people in the uniform who was standing on the highest building at the river bank kept watch on the process of their talk.
“Why Aphrodite stopped talking?”
“ Just one reason for that was no more question.”
“Yep.The script we gave was not long enough”
“So, is it the timing?”
“Sir, could we start the next step.” One person turned around, saluted to the strong person.
The military rank and the uniform showed his special character. It meant he worked for the secret organisation.
“Protect Aphrodite. Let the sniper prepare. Start!”

The ship dropped anchor and sailed close to the land…A part of customers and most of staff were ‘invited’ to leave the ship by some special waiters .

“So, Aphrodite, this dinner was a trap, right?” Lucifer still kept the smile. However, Aphrodite felt it was the prelude of the storm.
“You know that, Luci. Fifteen years ago, you were the youngest General who owned the great honour. I am so proud of that I had you, this kind of friends. But after half of a year, you betrayed your country and organized a new Mafia. You are right, Luci. Today, the government asked me to date with you and let you stand in the spotlight.” Aphrodite adjusted her sitting position, pretended to be brave. If there were some little children at here, they would laugh her for her low-quality acting.
“I had the suffering. Originally, I did not have the extravagant hope everyone could understand me.Right now, you did not understand my heart.” Lucifer drunk the rest of wine in the glass, stood up and streched his hand into the pocket which was inside the suit. The action was slow, very slow, which made people on the ship have a wrong illusion that time was frozen.
“Please, Luci. Control yourself. It is not necessary for you to take the gun to resist. All of the elites in the army is outside. Please don't make the unnecessary death. You don't have the chance to escape. Put down the weapon.” Aphrodite screamed, and her face became very white like the snow.
“Peng!!”
“No, I didn’t want to….” Lucifer could not finish his talk because a bullet from the highest building near the river was through her heart. Immediately, several plained-clothes rushed out and pull Aphrodite out the scene, as fast as even Aphrodite could not make the reaction.
“God damn it!” Lucifer shouted.
At that time , there was bullet rain, which reflected the moon light on the deck. After a few seconds, it stopped. Lucifer was bleeding and lied in the blood. He looked like just caught the last breathe, if he relaxed, he would be taken to the hell. He was trying his best to keep this situation.
“Lucifer!” Aphrodite breached the block which was made by polices, rushed towards to the lonely man on the deck and held his head up.
“ Aphrodite, I don’t want to resist… Just… want to give you…” Lucifer putted an attractive pack which blood covered the surface into her left hand. “I love… you..” He was too weak to keep the voice consistent, “Today, I am here… cuz I want to … propose to you.. Will you accept?”
“I will…Lucifer, I love you, too. “ Aphrodite was crying. The tears like the rope the string of pearls was broken. One drop, one drop fell on to Lucifer’s face.
“Don’t cry.. Tears would blur your make-up….” Lucifer spitted a little blood. The pale spread on his face. His eyes turned into grey, the colour of the dead fish’s eyes. At his last moment, he wanted to touch her face, wanted to feel the temperature of her face. Unfortunately, he failed.
Fortunately, he died in her hug.

Far away, the sound like the knights walking came close to them. When they stood at the opposite of the Lucifer’s dead body, people found all of them wore the same type cream colour army boosts, except the person stood at the middle place. He wore the black shoes which was made of the black leather. The shoes could show his character easily.
“Lucifer, finally, you died.” The General said without any feelings.
“Raymond, are you satisfied? He has been dead and now you could use his death to achieve higher position.” Aphrodite shouted to the General. She was not afraid about his position.
“Yes… I am very satisfied.” The General said it near the Aphrodite’s left ear and blew the air to her brown hair. The action was very ambiguous. Then, suddenly, he took his gun out and shoot all the bullets in the gun into the dead body and continued to say, “ Now I am more satisfied.”
“You totally are the beast!”
“Bitch, watch your language!” The General slapped her face and said.
“Raymond, you look like a barbarian.” A sound came from the General behind.
The General turned behind and saw there was a silhouette at here. “ Lucifer, are you here? Who at here? Don't pretend! You have been dead, luci!”

As he was looking around, the beast from dark jungle jumped onto the deck and hit to the General. He avoided it quickly. Then, he stared the brand of this car. He noticed the car belonged to Lucifer. Afterwards, he found he was wrong that Lucifer was alive because the man came out the Lamborghini in the suit was him. At the other side, Aphrodite was too surprised to close her mouth open.
“Raymond, a nice trap.”
“Lucifer, good escape.”
Lucifer kept talking, “ Long-time enemy. Now, face to face.”
“Yep. Today, we will know who will emerge victorious.”
Lucifer just smiled. But The General stepped forward and gave the sign to people who stood behind him. It meant that be ready to shoot.
“Aphrodite, you want to know why I betrayed my country. Now, I tell you.” Lucifer said.
“Shut up, Lucifer!”
“ That time, I got a secret mission. I leaded my team to perform it. Until I arrived here, I noticed that was a trap which wanted to kill people who had the relation with me. My team were killed by people who wore our uniform and pledged allegiance to our country. After this event, my informant told me the detail because the governor in the army worried me influenced their power. And the leader of the killers was Raymond.”
Aphrodite opened her eyes wide and could not say any words,” Really? Raymond, please tell me the truth. All of us three has been old friends for more than fifteen years. Why you did that?”
“I had to do that. For the higher position and much more power. Shoot him,soldiers!” The General was hysterics.
“Siu. Siu. Siu. Siu.” The man was shoot but was not Lucifer.
“Why you did that? Soldiers!” Raymond yelled not resignedly as he was gasping for breath.
“Cuz they were my people. You should sleep forever, Raymond.” After the speaking, Lucifer used his hands to tie his neck and let him dead.
“How about you, Aphrodite? Do you want to engage with me?” Lucifer cleaned his hands and said seriously.
“No. Maybe after this event, I will choose to change a country to have a new life.Strange place will give a different new sense.”
“Ok. I won’t force you.”
“Errr… See you, Lucifer.”
“See you, my sweetheart. I will keep the love to you in my heart perpetually.”

Aphrodite left the deck decisively and didn't turn around. As she walked quickly through the boulevard, she shed tears again, “ Sorry, Lucifer, I love you. But I have suffered from cancer for two years. I don't have much time. I really love you. So I don’t want to make you sad.”
Nobody heard it…Including Lucifer…
The box, she never opened.In it, of course, there was a ring and she knew it.
The symbol of love was caged in the box forever….
And now only a lonely man, stood on the mess deck, was singing the blues.
“Tomorrow, will it be a new day?”