Chapter 143 Extra (Part 4) Twin Life and Twin Deaths
Cheng Yixie first realized he wasn't going to live long on his fifth birthday. While other children at five were still naive and had no particular understanding of life and death, he realized something in his mother's tears and his father's gloomy face. He spent his fifth birthday in the hospital, with his younger, clueless brother, Cheng Qianli, hooked to an IV drip, taking bitter, unpalatable medicine, and making a wish on a beautiful cake with five candles.
Cheng Yixie looked at the lit candles on the cake and whispered to himself that he hoped he could grow up quickly and see other parts of the world.
Cheng Qianli clearly didn't think as much as Cheng Yixie did. He wore a bright smile, a stark contrast to the expressionless Cheng Yixie beside him. His entire attention was focused on the sweet, fluffy cake before him. A fool's life was always better than a wise one. Just one sweet candy could bring a genuine smile to his face.
Cheng Yixie and Cheng Qianli were born to the same sibling, but apart from their faces, they seemed to be very different.
Cheng Yixie realized early on that they were different from other children. He even overheard a private discussion between the doctor and their mother about their condition. One sentence from that conversation etched itself deeply in his mind: their attending physician had said that, with current medical standards, he and Cheng Qianli wouldn't live past sixteen.
Sixteen—sixteen, life has just begun. Cheng Yixie returned to the ward and saw his younger brother Qianli sitting in front of the bed, giggling at the cartoons on TV. There was no trace of gloom in his eyes, which were as bright as the blue sky outside the window.
Cheng Qianli was much thinner than him, and even weaker. Although he was almost ten years old, he still looked like a malnourished bean sprout. To treat their illnesses, they had no hair, and their heads and wrists were covered with purple marks left by needle pricks.
Cheng Yixie walked into the ward. Cheng Qianli raised his face towards him and called him "brother" sweetly. His cute cat-like eyes were filled with strong joy. He never concealed his love for Cheng Yixie.
"Brother." The little Cheng Qianli looked left and right, then waved cautiously to Cheng Yixie.
Cheng Yixie walked to his bedside, and Cheng Qianli motioned him to bend down. Cheng Yixie thought he wanted to say something to him, so he did as he was told. But as soon as he bent down, a small candy was stuffed to his lips.
"Shh." Cheng Qianli said, "Don't tell the nurse, grandma gave it to me secretly. I took a lick and it tasted delicious."
Because of their illness, their diet was strictly controlled, and they had only a handful of snacks throughout the year. Cheng Yixie thought, if only they were just ordinary children, then Cheng Qianli could eat all the food he wanted and wouldn't look so pitiful.
"Give me back what you've eaten." Cheng Yixie responded to Cheng Qianli's kindness. "It's so dirty."
"You're lying." Cheng Qianli snorted, "You obviously like to eat candy too, bad brother."
Cheng Yixie didn't say anything. The sweet taste of the candy melted in his mouth, but he only had their future in his eyes. He couldn't imagine losing this silly brother in front of him. He wanted so much to watch him grow up and have his own life.
Cheng Yixie thought that staying alive was just a luxury until he was chosen by the sect.
The terrifying world inside the door is a terrible torture for many people, but for Cheng Yixie, it is a generous gift from God.
He wasn't even sixteen when he walked in, and he looked so out of place among the adults.
The first door was very difficult to open. Cheng Yixie once thought he would die in it, but he was lucky and met a veteran who often passed through doors. The veteran opened the door, and Cheng Yixie finally left this bizarre world smoothly.
After coming out of the door, Cheng Yixie's physical condition began to improve rapidly.
The doctor said it was a miracle. They were using the same medicine and the same quality method, but Cheng Yixie's body was rapidly recovering to normal, while Cheng Qianli was getting weaker and weaker.
Cheng Yixie knew what was going on. He tried to tell his parents about this absurd yet very real thing, but his parents all thought he was joking.
In the eyes of others, Cheng Yixie was just sitting on the bed in a daze, not going anywhere. Everything he said was probably just a child's imagination. How could imagination be taken seriously?
The clever Cheng Yixie knew he would never be understood by the adults. This matter was beyond the scope of common sense, and he had no evidence to prove the existence of the door.
What should Cheng Qianli do then? Cheng Yixie thought, what about his silly brother?
Before Cheng Yixie got the answer, he entered the second door, and in the second door, he met Ruan Nanzhu, the leader of Obsidian.
Ruan Nanzhu was wearing women's clothes at the time and called him "little friend" with a smile.
Cheng Yixie just gave him a cold look, too lazy to refute. What's the harm in taking advantage of him verbally? He had seen many adults in the first door who were smug one second and dead the next.
Cheng Yixie thought that Ruan Nanzhu was the same, but he found that Ruan Nanzhu was not as he thought. Ruan Nanzhu was very strong, and Cheng Yixie keenly grasped this from his next actions.
When Ruan Nanzhu was about to leave, he gave Cheng Yixie a contact number and told him that if he wanted to know more, he could contact him.
Cheng Yixie took a look at the contact information and secretly wrote it down.
After going out of the second door, Cheng Yixie contacted Ruan Nanzhu and learned about the existence of obsidian.
"Do you want to come to Obsidian? Maybe you can live longer here." Ruan Nanzhu said on the phone.
Cheng Yixie agreed. Without even asking his parents for their opinion, he left the hospital and flew to the city where Ruan Nanzhu was that night.
This gambling behavior is actually very risky, because Cheng Yixie cannot be sure whether Ruan Nanzhu really has good intentions towards him. He is just a powerless child. If Ruan Nanzhu really wants to do something to him, he will not even have a chance to resist.
But Cheng Yixie had no choice but to gamble because Cheng Qianli didn't have much time left.
In stark contrast to Cheng Yixie, whose body was gradually recovering, Cheng Qianli was like a plant in winter, and vitality began to drain from his body at a speed visible to the naked eye.
After Cheng Yixie arrived at the Obsidian, the first question he asked Ruan Nanzhu was, "Can other people have a door?"
Facing Cheng Yixie's question, Ruan Nanzhu was silent for a moment and said, "Yes, but I won't tell you."
"Why?" Cheng Yixie asked.
"Because it requires the lives of others." Ruan Nanzhu said, "Can you do such a thing?"
Cheng Yixie was silent.
Ruan Nanzhu didn't continue the topic, but simply introduced the door, clues, obsidian, and other details. Of course, from beginning to end, he didn't tell Cheng Yixie how to rob someone else's door. He just reminded Cheng Yixie to hide his identity inside the door, otherwise it would be dangerous.
Cheng Yixie listened carefully, and while listening, he was thinking about Cheng Qianli. He thought, even if Cheng Qianli took the door away, could he really get out of the door?
The world inside the door is so terrifying, and so incompatible with the naive Cheng Qianli. Even if he helps Cheng Qianli seize the door as Ruan Nanzhu said, will this be another kind of torture for Cheng Qianli?
He was so small and so afraid of the dark. He was completely different from me, just an ordinary kid.
Cheng Yixie sat alone in the yard for a long time that day. When the morning light appeared in the sky, he rubbed his dry eyes and walked into the house with an expressionless face.
No one knew what Cheng Yixie was thinking. After that day, he did not return to his hometown, nor did he contact Cheng Qianli again.
Is your brother too stupid? That's why you don't like him anymore? Someone asked Cheng Yixie. After hearing this, Cheng Yixie said nothing, just gave him a cold look.
He didn't go back and didn't contact Cheng Qianli simply because he was afraid. He was afraid that he would lose control and do something beyond the limit.
He didn't even dare to imagine Cheng Qianli's death. As soon as he thought about it, many terrible thoughts emerged in his mind.
Cheng Qianli is the calamity that Cheng Yixie cannot escape in this life. He knows that he can break the lowest bottom line for his brother.
When he realized this, the only thing Cheng Yixie could do was to downplay the influence of Cheng Qianli on himself, although the downplaying process was tantamount to forcibly cutting off a part of his body that originally belonged to him.
They are twins, twins connected by blood. They can understand what the other is saying or thinking with just a glance or an expression. Even though they are thousands of miles away, Cheng Yixie can feel Cheng Qianli's gradual weakening.
Cheng Yixie thought everything would end like this, but one afternoon, he received a call from Cheng Qianli.
To this day, Cheng Yixie can still remember the weather that day.
It was a spring day with a light rain. The bushes in the yard were lush and green, and everything was filled with the breath of revival. Cheng Qianli's voice came from the other end of the phone, a little weak and with a tearful tone. He called him: "Brother, brother, I'm so scared——"
Cheng Yixie asked, "What's wrong?" He had a premonition of something, and his voice became unusually nervous.
"I entered a door." Cheng Qianli spoke intermittently and a little weakly, "There were a lot of ghosts in there, and I finally got out. Am I dreaming... When will you come back... I miss you so much..." He seemed to be losing consciousness and talking nonsense.
Cheng Yixie listened and laughed softly, tears streaming down his face. He said, "Don't be afraid. Brother is here. Wait for him to come back."
My brother will protect you.
At this point, Cheng Yixie knew that he could not escape the disaster of Cheng Qianli. He would do everything in his power to protect Cheng Qianli's life, to watch him grow up, marry, have children, and live a life of wealth and glory.
The author has something to say:
The long-awaited Gemini extra is here. The memory is based on the modified version of the memory in the twelfth door (laugh cry
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