Chapter 137

Chapter 137

“You coughed up blood just now. Do you know what that means? It means your nervous system can’t withstand another breakdown.”

A trace of dark red still stained the Director’s fingertips. She slowly withdrew her hand and rested it on her lap. “In your current condition, I don’t believe you can handle another round of hypnosis.”

She sat across from Qingshui, her eyes looking especially dark in the dim light.

Qingshui met her gaze. “I can.”

Her voice was calm. Those memories had only just begun to return. She couldn’t stop now. She needed to know more.

The Director shook her head. “I’m the doctor here.”

Qingshui fell silent for a second before insisting, “This isn’t a normal society anymore. You don’t have to… keep following those rules…”

The Director looked at her.

“Child…” She sighed, averting her gaze from Qingshui and looking out the window at the ashen sky. A long time passed before she finally spoke, but when she did, it was about something else entirely.

“I once cared for a child.”

Qingshui’s eyes shifted slightly.

“From the day she was born, she never cried, never smiled, and never spoke. She didn’t even understand anything beyond hunger and thirst. She was like a plant, completely devoid of emotion. But even so, I raised her little by little.”

She held out a hand to demonstrate. “From a baby smaller than my hand…” Her hand slowly rose until it reached the top of her head. “…to a child almost as tall as me.”

At that, a genuinely warm smile curved her lips. It lasted only an instant before a cold shadow swiftly smothered it.

“Unfortunately… in this world, children are hope, but they’re also the ones who have the hardest time surviving.”

An image suddenly flashed through Qingshui’s mind.

Zhou Yaping.

That equally quiet and fragile child whom they had sheltered behind them, yet who had ultimately failed to escape her cruel fate.

Qingshui’s throat tightened.

The Director pressed a hand to her chest. “It hurts here when I think of her.”

“So… sometimes people hurt so much because they remember too much. Because they refuse to let themselves rest.”

She reached over and gently touched a fingertip to the space between Qingshui’s brows. Her touch was cold, yet carried a strange hint of warmth.

“You don’t have to force yourself to remember everything,” she said, her voice as gentle as if she were soothing a child. “Forgetting is what protects you. Trust me. I won’t hurt you. As long as you follow the feelings I give you, you’ll be safe.”

Qingshui’s eyelashes trembled, but she still shook her head.

“I still want to continue.”

The Director studied her before finally letting out a soft sigh. “All right.”

The pocket watch began to swing again.

Silver light swept back and forth before her eyes. Qingshui’s consciousness began to drift, as though something were cradling her and lowering her into a place far, far below.

This time, however, there were no images. There was only sensation.

Qingshui’s entire body was plunged into the sea. Freezing water surged over her again and again, suffocating her and leaving her no way to escape.

For one brief second, she expected the Director’s voice to sound again and give her some sense of direction.

But it never came. There was only the sea, only the terrifyingly real sensation of water swallowing her mouth and nose and nearly suffocating her.

Then, just as Qingshui’s last breath was about to be stolen, the sea abruptly stopped, as though someone had pressed pause.

The surging waves, the water, and even the feeling of suffocation all froze in place like a paused video.

The next second, Qingshui sat up in the water.

She rose to her feet.

Chaos surrounded her, making it impossible to distinguish up from down or left from right. There was only the strange, color-block-like “seawater,” frozen around her.

She began to walk. She didn’t know where she was going, but somehow, she knew this was the direction she needed to take.

Then she saw a figure she knew better than anyone.

The girl was huddled at the edge of that expanse of color, curled into a tiny ball as though trying to fold herself up completely and hide within some crevice where pain could never reach her.

Qingshui’s heart suddenly raced. She rushed forward, reached out, and slowly helped Li Wei’an to her feet.

Smack!

Her hand was violently slapped away.

The blow was hard enough to leave the back of her hand burning with pain. But Qingshui paid it no attention. She only stared at Li Wei’an, at the look in those eyes that filled her with dread.
“Dorm Leader… Wei’an…” Her voice trembled.

“Don’t call me.” Li Wei’an’s voice was ice-cold.

Qingshui opened her mouth. “Li Wei’an.”

“Shut up.”

“Li Wei’an.”

“Li Wei’an!”

“Li Wei’an!!!”

Li Wei’an suddenly grabbed Qingshui by the collar and yanked her close. Her face was mere inches away, horribly contorted as if she were enduring some unbearable agony.

“I told you to shut up!”

Qingshui looked at her. At the emotions churning in her eyes. At every twitching muscle in her face.

She didn’t struggle. “I won’t.”

“I’m so happy I got to see you again.”

Li Wei’an froze. She stared at Qingshui without the slightest trace of a smile. When she spoke, her voice was terribly hoarse.

“If I were the Li Wei’an who grew up with you in your last life, I’d be happy.”

“If I were,” she continued, “the Li Wei’an who lived in this peaceful world in your current life, I’d be happy too.”

She paused, then raised her head and looked at Qingshui. At last, tears welled in her eyes.

“But fuck… even I don’t know what the hell I am!!!”

That roar sounded like something shattering inside her. Then she lunged forward and slammed her fist into Qingshui’s face!

Qingshui stumbled backward but didn’t fight back. Li Wei’an charged at her again, and the two of them grappled together.

Just like that time many years ago, Li Wei’an dragged her around like a piece of trash. But this time, Qingshui didn’t retaliate. She only shielded herself and let the blows rain down on her body.

At last, Li Wei’an stopped. She sat on the ground, buried her head in her arms, and wept.

Qingshui sat up and looked at her.

“Me being here,” Li Wei’an said haltingly through her sobs, “is what should never have happened…”

She lifted her head. Her face was drenched in tears, and her voice shook uncontrollably.

“We were all created… We’re all fake… The world is fake… You’re fake… Everyone is fake…”

Qingshui’s breath caught. “We were… created?”

She stared at Li Wei’an, her thoughts racing furiously. Something didn’t feel right, but the despair on Li Wei’an’s face was so overwhelming that the words lodged in her throat. “The White Hole…?”

A long time passed before Li Wei’an answered. “Yes.”

“What… exactly is the White Hole?”

Li Wei’an’s gaze darkened. She raised a hand and pointed at the frozen seawater around them. Each word was forced through clenched teeth, laden with absolute hatred.

“The White Hole… is the central bug in this game world.”

Qingshui’s pupils abruptly contracted.

“Our world,” Li Wei’an continued, her voice trembling, “is an… unfinished game.”

She looked at Qingshui and laughed. She was laughing, yet she looked utterly hopeless. “The monsters crawling out of the rifts are bug data created by them too.”

Qingshui’s mind buzzed.

A game?

Data?

The worlds where she had fought so desperately to survive were a game?

The people she loved, the people she had lost, were all data?

Li Wei’an’s tears wouldn’t stop falling. “The White Hole is this world’s source code. The so-called hope of humanity, the so-called truth, is that-”

She drew a long, deep breath as if it took every last ounce of her strength. “Our joy, anger, grief, and happiness, every life and death, every meeting and parting-even our very existence-is nothing more than a string of fucking code that can be rewritten or deleted at any time!!!”

She practically screamed the final words. Once they left her mouth, all the strength seemed to drain from her. She collapsed onto the ground, trembling all over.

Qingshui didn’t move.

She simply stood there, listening to those words echo through her mind. Again and again. Over and over.

Then she heard herself ask, “Where… is the White Hole?”

The next second-bam!

Li Wei’an sprang to her feet and punched her in the face!

The blow sent Qingshui crashing to the ground.

“Everyone’s fate has already been decided!” Li Wei’an screamed. “What do you think you can possibly do?!”
She laughed, her smile filled with sorrow and despair. “Maybe even this conversation between us is nothing more than a programmed script.”

The utter hopelessness on her face instantly transformed the heartache surging through Qingshui’s chest into a sharp burst of fury.

It was different… It wasn’t like that… Everyone’s pain, grief, and despair were real.

“Don’t do this.”

Qingshui practically forced the words through gritted teeth. She grabbed Li Wei’an and yanked her off balance, then clamped both hands around her shoulders. Her fingers dug in so hard that her fingertips turned white as she tried to shake the crumbling woman back to her senses.

“I don’t care if you were created! I don’t care if this is some damn game!”

“All I know is…”

“Love isn’t fake. Grief isn’t fake. Pain isn’t fake. And neither are the people who keep struggling desperately to survive, even when they’ve lost all hope.”

She wrapped her arms tightly around Li Wei’an, feeling the violent tremors running through her body. “This embrace… isn’t fake either.”

Li Wei’an said nothing. A long time passed before she finally raised her head.

“I can’t even tell…”

“Whether this is part of a predetermined plot… or the outcome we fought with everything we had to create…”

Qingshui looked at her.

At the desolation in her eyes and the tear tracks that had yet to dry on her face. Then she reached out and gently wiped away Li Wei’an’s tears.

……..

Meanwhile, on the rooftop…

Ye Que crouched in a corner with a pair of binoculars raised to her eyes, but she wasn’t surveying the surroundings. Her gaze had remained fixed on one person the entire time.

Qi Zhi. He stood in the courtyard, talking to several people. His expression was normal. His movements were normal. Everything about him seemed perfectly normal.

Yet Ye Que’s frown only deepened. There was something very strange about him.

Ever since Sister Wenlie died, his relationship with the Director had improved by leaps and bounds. It was almost as if he had become another Sister Wenlie.

Since when had he been so close to the Director?

Were they hiding something from me?

Ye Que bit down hard on her lip. Xu Wenlie had saved her life, and she had sworn to repay her.

A gust of wind swept past, so cold that her hands trembled involuntarily. She adjusted the binoculars and casually glanced into the distance.

That single glance stopped her breath cold.

More than ten crimson eyes had appeared without warning on the distant mountain road, right at the edge of the woods she had scanned several times only moments ago.

They stood there, pair after pair of crimson eyes staring straight at her. Ye Que shuddered uncontrollably.

The Madmen… were here.

She shot to her feet, dropped the binoculars, and snatched up her radio. Then she sprinted downstairs, screaming as she ran.

“They’re here! They’re here!!!”

Her gut-wrenching scream rang across the entire channel.

At the same moment, the lookouts stationed at the other vantage points began sounding the alarm one after another. The entire Psychiatric Hospital instantly erupted into chaos.

By the time Ye Que reached the ground floor, some of the survivors had already taken up positions at the entrance with guns and crossbows.

Meng Rui stood at the very front, a rifle in her hands and a savage look on her face.

Bang! Bang, bang, bang!

The battle erupted in an instant. Gunfire mingled with the Madmen’s frenzied obscenities as gunsmoke and the stench of blood rapidly filled the air.

Ye Que had barely stepped out of the building when her pupils suddenly contracted.

Several Madmen were raising guns of their own.

But what truly made her entire body go numb was the Madman holding a child in its arms.

A dead child.

The child’s stomach had been cut open, and something round had been stuffed inside.

A… grenade!

The Madman split its mouth into a grin, swung the tiny corpse as if it were a toy, and hurled it toward them.

Ye Que’s pupils shrank to pinpricks.

BOOM!

Blood and flesh exploded in every direction.

The violent blast erupted with a deafening roar, sending flames surging into the sky. Blood and gore sprayed everywhere, while severed limbs and scraps of cloth rained down across the ground in a gruesome display.

Ye Que lay sprawled on the ground, her ears ringing so loudly that she could hear nothing else. Only the thunder of the explosion remained, reverberating endlessly inside her skull.

Soon, the gunsmoke cleared.

One blood-smeared, grinning face after another slowly… turned back toward them.