Chapter 100 Welcome to the Real Mirror
"Are we just going to leave like this?"
Before going through security check, Song's mother, who was in disguise, couldn't help but look back.
In the bustling hall, unfamiliar faces were all in a hurry. Father Song put his arm around her shoulders and said in a deep voice, "Do as Ningning says. If we stay here, we'll only become a burden to her."
He supported his wife, took another reluctant look at the city where they had lived for decades, then turned around resolutely and walked towards the security check area.
It wasn't until I successfully passed security and boarded the plane, and the plane started taxiing, that I finally let go of my worries.
Father Song took out the piece of paper that he had kept in his pocket, which was already wet with sweat.
After hanging up the phone that night, they immediately found the suit and discovered the slightly yellowed note in the pocket that Song Youning had put in there some time ago.
Dad, Mom:
If you see this note, it means that the worst-case scenario I anticipated has occurred and normal means of communication are no longer feasible.
Please stay calm, I am fine, act according to your plan, do not book any flights or train tickets in advance, buy them just before you leave, use cash, and choose the least predictable flights and routes.
You must go first, I will come and join you when I am safe.
Don't worry, trust me.
Your daughter: Song Youning.
The plane maintained a steady hum in the stratosphere, and outside the window was a dazzling and monotonous blue that seemed endless.
Song's father was sitting by the window, next to Song's mother who was already fast asleep. They had escaped Ji Siyun's surveillance yesterday and flew to Lingang. After a transit, they had now successfully boarded a plane to Norway.
He held the small, frayed piece of paper between his fingers, and in the sunlight, he read the calm, almost cruel instructions word for word.
His fingertips unconsciously rubbed the words "Don't worry, trust me." Deep in his eyes, there was a hint of complex comfort for his daughter's meticulousness and thoroughness, but at the same time he felt deeply confused and uneasy.
She must have discovered something, which is why she wrote this note a few years ago and hid it in her clothes.
And why, knowing that there was a problem, I never mentioned it to them?
All of this would have to be answered by her after they met up. Father Song sighed softly, folded the note in half, and prepared to put it back into his inner pocket.
At this moment——
A dull explosion was faintly heard, and almost at the same time, the plane shook violently.
He subconsciously looked out the window at the wing.
The massive engine casing, which had previously shone silver in the sunlight, suddenly ripped open irregularly, fragments peeling off and instantly swept away by the high-speed air currents. Immediately afterwards, a thick plume of black-gray smoke suddenly gushed out from the damaged area, quickly forming a long trail that fiercely streaked across the sky.
The alarm sounded sharply, piercing the brief silence in the cabin.
Song's father had no time to think. Instinctively, he stretched out his hand with all his strength and grabbed Song's mother's hand tightly.
Song's mother's hand trembled at first, then she gripped him back with the same resolute strength. There was no time for eye contact, no time for words, only two hands clasped with all their might.
Outside the porthole, the once tranquil and beautiful blue sky was now pressing towards them at an irresistible speed, and everything was swallowed up by the bright light.
The piece of paper in my hand, which I had not yet put away, slipped quietly from my loosened fingers, like a fallen leaf that had lost its direction, and was immediately swallowed up by the feeling of weightlessness and chaos.
The air in the single-patient room was thick with the scent of disinfectant. Sunlight filtered through the heavy curtains, leaving only a faint haze that barely illuminated the room. The monitoring equipment emitted a regular, monotonous ticking sound, and the lines on the screen danced, the only signs in this silent space that time was still flowing.
Song Youning lay on the pure white hospital bed, her body barely perceptible beneath the thin blanket. Her dark hair made her face appear even paler, but her breathing was steady, her long eyelashes casting a quiet shadow beneath her eyelids, and her entire being exuded an almost fragile calm.
In the silence, his calm brows suddenly frowned.
Song Youning seemed to be falling in the cold darkness for a long time, until an extremely gentle electronic female voice sounded in his ears, like some kind of welcome guide: "Welcome to the 'Real Mirror', you will experience a..."
A sharp, piercing sound of electricity, accompanied by a dazzling white light, cut off the sound. Then Song Youning heard a familiar mechanical voice suddenly interrupt her, cold and emotionless: "System binding successful, reloading the script... Script loaded successfully..."
These sounds seemed to come from the distant bottom of the water and were a little unclear. Song Youning didn't have time to think about it. The white light dissipated and she seemed to have returned to the time when she first came to this world.
The initial confusion, the little things with Ji Siyun, the time spent with her parents, the peaceful daily life... all the scenes passed by her eyes as if they were accelerated dozens of times.
Those moments when she subconsciously felt something was wrong suddenly stopped as if in a freeze during her recollection, becoming extremely clear.
A system that always automatically "avoids suspicion" when Ji Siyun approaches her.
Ji Siyun who always "accidentally" interrupts her conversation with the system.
Ji Siyun, who came from a poor mountainous area with water shortage, said that he was "pushed into the river and almost drowned."
…
These stagnant doubts became more and more numerous and dense, converging into a huge vortex, pulling Song Youning and swallowing her into the center.
Her vision flashed, and she suddenly found herself standing in the driveway.
On a rainy night, on a mountain road, Song Youning saw car lights shining through the rain in the distance.
The night was dark and the air was suffocatingly hot. Song Youning was like a lonely soul that was out of tune with this world. He was dragged by an invisible force and floated towards the vehicle.
The glaring high beams, the violent steering wheel movements, the screams of someone losing control...
She was in mid-air, helplessly watching the car crash into the mountain, and watched the driver of the other car panic and run out of the car, looking inside through the broken window, and then ran back to the car holding his cell phone.
Then came the ambulance and police cars with flashing lights. Song's father and mother, who were lying in the cars, were carried out. The strong smell of blood washed away by the rain made Song Youning want to vomit.
When the stretcher was carried into the car by the paramedics, she saw Song's mother's hand hanging limply by her side.
No, that's not right. She clearly asked them to leave here early!
In the quiet ward, the heart rate numbers on the monitor began to rise and the ticking sound became rapid.
A very soft whimper escaped from the depths of his throat, broken and painful.
Song Youning suddenly opened his eyes.
The panic brought by the nightmare had not yet faded. Every breath her chest took, rising and falling violently, made her feel too heavy. It was this heaviness that made her, who was insensitive to pain, realize that this injury was not easy.
His vision was blurred due to weakness. Song Youning blinked with difficulty, and his distracted eyes struggled to focus slowly.
The outline of the figure guarding her hospital bed gradually became clear in the blurred vision.
It’s Ji Siyun.
She hardly recognized him.
The young man, always neat and upright, now had a dishevel of hair, a few strands falling across his forehead, unable to hide the horrifying dark blue and red beneath his eyes. Stubble sprouted from his chin, making him look unusually gaunt.
He sat hunched on the stool, still wearing the clothes he wore that day, stained with dried, hardened dark brown stains that looked like mud spots, but more like... bloodstains.
He lowered his head, motionless like a lifeless stone statue.
Song Youning rolled her eyes and held her hand tightly. The torn wound had not been properly treated. The coagulated blood scabs and stains were mixed together, looking hideous and terrifying.
It seemed that the sound made by Song Youning waking up from a nightmare brought him back to his senses, and Ji Siyun suddenly looked up.
Their eyes met.
A trace of disbelief and confusion first flashed across the bloodshot pupils, and then, like dry grass on fire, it suddenly burst into an almost crazy, desperate red and wetness.
The ecstasy of regaining what he had lost left him speechless for a moment, and even the hand holding her began to tremble uncontrollably.
There was an undisguised great joy in her eyes, a joy that was lost and regained, but underneath that joy was a bottomless fatigue and a kind of... heavy shadow that always made her feel puzzled.
Complex emotions rolled in his eyes, intertwined with the panic she had just brought back from the cold and desperate dream, making her heart sink inexplicably, and a certain ominous premonition, like a cold snake, silently wrapped around her heart.
Song Youning suppressed the dry pain in her throat and the sudden chill in her heart. Using the little strength she had just gathered, she asked the question that had gripped her heart since she woke up, in a voice so weak that it was almost a breath:
"...where's my dad...where's my mom?"
Hearing her finally speak, Ji Siyun's face instinctively blossomed into a larger, almost tearful smile of surprise. However, that smile froze the moment she asked the question.
It was like someone had hit the pause button.
The ecstasy and excitement on his face after surviving the disaster faded away at a speed visible to the naked eye. The blood seemed to be drained away in an instant, and he became even paler than her.
A sudden and huge panic appeared in his eyes.
He opened his mouth and moved his throat, but no sound came out.
The brief, fatal silence stretched indefinitely in the ward filled with the smell of disinfectant, feeling so heavy and suffocating.
Ji Siyun even avoided her gaze which was gradually filled with confusion and deeper fear.
It was just a stunned expression, a moment of emptiness, and an answer that couldn't be said immediately.
It was enough to make Song Youning, who had just struggled out of the nightmare, feel an overwhelming chill.
His reaction was...wrong.
Song Youning took a deep breath, ignoring the dryness and burning pain in his throat. He used all his strength and asked in a hoarse but sharp voice, "What happened to them?! Speak!"
Her eyes were fixed on him, filled with fear and the last shred of shaky hope.
Ji Siyun's lips trembled violently, and every word seemed to be ground out from between his teeth, extremely heavy: "The flight was in flight and the engine malfunctioned..."
He didn't finish, but the ending was self-evident.
Song Youning looked at him straight, with no expression on his face, as if all his emotions had short-circuited under the extreme impact, leaving only a blank silence.
Are they...dead?
A violent heart palpitation that was completely out of her control and came from the deepest part of her body suddenly gripped Song Youning. At the same time, the memory of warm family affection belonging to her soul also burst out and merged with the pain of her body. She couldn't help but curl up in pain, letting out a broken gasp.
"wrong……"
"No... I clearly... I asked them to leave a day early... Why... Why did they still..."
Tears mixed with cold sweat finally burst out belatedly. Song Youning seemed to be asking Ji Siyun, and also seemed to be questioning this irreversible fate.
"It's not your fault... Calm down, you're still injured!" Ji Siyun's voice was filled with panic and heartache, and he tried to hold down her trembling shoulders.
But his touch seemed to light the last spark in her.
"Don't touch me!" She shrank back suddenly, as if avoiding some plague. The look she gave him suddenly became sharp and hostile, filled with unprecedented suspicion and despair. "Who are you? Why am I here? Is it you...is it because of you?"
When her questioning came, Ji Siyun actually revealed a trace of unconcealable, almost panic-stricken guilt.
It was also because Song Youning appeared too weak and painful at the moment, so he had no chance to distinguish how much of that collapse was true love and how much was a test.
Ji Siyun didn't dare to answer, he really had something to hide.
Song Youning's words were confirmed, and despair and anger suddenly broke out at the same time. She began to struggle violently, and the infusion stand was pulled and shook violently. The needle connected to the back of her hand was pulled off by this brute force!
Bright red blood instantly gushed out from the needle hole on the back of her hand, splashing onto the pale bed sheet, a shocking sight.
"Don't do this! Please!" Ji Siyun was completely panicked and tried to stop her, but he didn't dare to use force for fear of hurting her, until the noise attracted doctors and nurses.
In the chaos, Song Youning was held down by the nurse. At the last moment when the sedative was injected into the vein, she saw the torment and dejection on Ji Siyun's face because of her.
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