Chapter 4

Chapter 4

After my third rebirth, I started keeping notes.

I recorded the time, location, and cause of Lu Chen’s every death in a blue notebook. On the first page, I wrote:

First time: March 3rd, car accident.

Second time: March 10th, drowning.

Third time: March 1st, ruptured cerebral blood vessel.

I stared at those three lines for a long time before continuing down the page.

Fourth time: Fire in the school laboratory building.

Fifth time: The bus overturned on the way back from the spring outing.

Sixth time: Acute asthma attack in the early morning; cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital.

Later on, I no longer had the heart to write down the details.

Yet, certain images still forced their way into my mind.

The fourth time, on the day the lab building caught fire, I had reported the issue of aging electrical circuits to the Dean of Students half a month in advance. In the end, the school actually suspended lab classes. But Lu Chen still encountered a flash fire at a hardware store on his way home from school. He carried out the elderly owner, who had mobility issues, but inhaled too much thick smoke and died in the ambulance.

The fifth time, I caused such a scene that the spring outing was canceled. For two whole months, I didn’t dare let him near an off-campus bus. Consequently, on the day of the college entrance exam physical, an out-of-control truck veered onto the sidewalk. Lu Chen pushed me into a flowerbed, but he was struck, leaving him covered in blood. As I held him, I heard him speak a complete sentence for the first time.

He said, “Don’t be afraid.”

The sixth time was the cruelest.

I thought that since I couldn’t stop the accidents, I would keep him confined at home and not let him do anything. During the final period of senior year, I stood guard downstairs from his house almost every day, watching him come home, watching his lights turn on, and watching them turn off. I even thought that as long as this night passed, as long as dawn broke, he would survive.

But at two in the morning, he still developed a high fever.

Lu Chen’s mother’s hands were shaking with panic. I accompanied them to the car, clutching an oxygen bag the whole way, watching the numbers on the monitor drop. When we reached the hospital entrance, he suddenly woke for a moment. His eyes drifted slightly toward me, as if he recognized me.

But that was the only look he gave.

The next second, the numbers dropped to zero.

With every restart, I became more pathetic than the last. To avoid the lab fire, I reported the aging circuits ahead of time; to prevent the bus from flipping, I made such a fuss that the entire class’s schedule was changed; to guard against his midnight illness, I even moved into a small hostel next door to his house during senior year.

But Lu Chen still died.

It was as if someone was watching me coldly from behind the veil of fate, waiting for me to breathlessly plug one hole before leisurely tearing open a new crack.

I began to have frequent nosebleeds, and the palms of my hands would turn cold for no reason. Occasionally, when I looked in the mirror, I could see the dark circles under my eyes growing heavier. Once, while running during PE class, I suddenly fainted on the playground. The school doctor said it was due to excessive stress and anemia, advising me to stop staying up late.

Only I knew that wasn’t it.

With every rebirth, it felt more like I was being slowly hollowed out by something.

When I returned to the opening ceremony three years prior for the sixth time, I even thought for a fleeting moment: if I turned and left now, if I didn’t get to know Lu Chen, didn’t get close to him, didn’t love him… would everything be different?

But Lu Chen was standing in the Class 8 line, and at that exact second, he happened to look up at me.

I couldn’t walk away again.

I couldn’t bear to.

Even if the ending was a complete mess, I still couldn’t bear to just let it go.