"Qingliu...it's me, Zhiye..."
"Do you remember? We agreed to apply to the same high school. During those few days after the high school entrance exam... it was raining heavily... I could feel your silent pain in the hospital room..."
"You're so capable of crying...but your stubbornness is so awkward..."
"I'm sorry... I forgot about it for so long... I forgot something so important..."
"But I remember this red string... I always remember it... I gave it to you... You promised me to wear it..."
"It's like a light..."
"Qingliu...you really did it, always wearing it..."
"The first day of high school... on the road... you were standing there in the sunshine... the first time I saw you... my heart started beating so fast..."
"Later... I found out your name, Ye Qingliu... Ye Qingliu, your name is so nice..."
"We practiced together...we were fed by Xiwan together...we watched Jinyue messing around together...we laughed together at Shuce's sullen face...we applied to the same university together..."
"Qingliu...you promised me...that we would go to the top of the mountain to watch the sunrise together..."
"Let's go see the Northern Lights in Iceland together..."
"You can't break your promise...you can't..."
"Please... please... wake up..."
"Ye Qingliu... please... wake up... you are a big liar..."
"Don't leave me alone... Don't leave me..."
She talked on and on, from the excitement of their first meeting, to the little things they did together, to her longing for the future.
Every word was like a warm hammer, gently knocking on the tightly closed door deep in Ye Qingliu's consciousness.
Hua Jinyue leaned against the door frame, covering her mouth and crying silently, tears rolling down her face.
Ning Xiwan leaned in Duan Shuce's arms, biting her lips tightly to prevent herself from crying out loud, but her body trembled uncontrollably.
Duan Shuce hugged her tightly, looking at the girl beside the bed who was calling her lover with all her tenderness with complicated eyes, his heart was filled with turbulent waves.
The observer's consciousness... is actually responding to humanity's most primitive emotional call? Bai Zhiye... the only variable in this world line... her power may far exceed everyone's imagination!
Chao Youye was still standing at the end of the bed, like a silent shadow.
His bottomless eyes stared at Ye Qingliu who was unconscious on the hospital bed, and Bai Zhiye who was whispering beside his hand.
In his eyes, the bright red rope seemed to have become a light band flowing with strange energy, connecting two tiny but extremely tenacious souls.
Rule-based logic is frantically calculating and analyzing this incomprehensible phenomenon, but the result of each calculation points to a cold paradox.
Gradually, deep within his unchanging cold eyes, beneath the empty ice field, something was extremely slowly... loosening and melting.
Mu Xinrong quietly walked to Chao Youye, gently pulled his sleeve, raised her head, and looked at him with her tear-red eyes, which were filled with endless worry and pleading.
Chao Youye's gaze shifted from the hospital bed to Mu Xinrong's face. He saw fear, dependence, and... a pure light called "love" in those eyes that he couldn't interpret logically.
His cold fingers moved slightly, as if he wanted to lift them up, but seemed hesitant.
In the end, he just nodded very slightly, almost imperceptibly, as a response.
Time passed by minute by minute. The night outside the window turned from dark to light, and a faint fish belly white appeared on the horizon.
Bai Zhiye's voice was already hoarse, but she still didn't stop. She rested her forehead against the back of Ye Qingliu's hand, her tears almost dried up. Just when she was about to give up -
The hand she was covering on the back of Ye Qingliu's hand clearly felt... the cold hand under her fingertips moved very slightly!
It wasn't the unconscious attraction from before! Instead... it was a response... like groping in the dark, trying to grasp something!
Bai Zhiye suddenly raised her head!
On the hospital bed, Ye Qingliu's thick eyelashes, like butterfly wings, trembled extremely hard and slowly in the dim morning light!
Once... twice...
Like a sleeping butterfly, it tries to flap its wings for the first time after a long winter!
"Qingliu...!" Bai Zhiye's voice was instantly stuck in her throat. The huge surprise made her almost unable to breathe!
Inside and outside the ward, everyone's heart was in their throat! Ning Xiwan grabbed Duan Shuce's arm tightly, her nails almost digging into his flesh!
Hua Jinyue covered her mouth, her eyes wide open! Duan Shuce held his breath! Chao Youye's gaze instantly became extremely focused!
Under the focus of countless eyes, in the gentle caress of the morning light, under the silent traction of the red rope——
Ye Qingliu's pair of gray-blue eyes, which had been tightly closed for what seemed like a century, finally... with great difficulty, as if pushing open a heavy stone door... slowly... opened a crack.
The light penetrated, bringing a brief blur and sting.
His consciousness struggled to surface from the dark, cold sea like a sinking ship. Countless shattered images, cold data streams, heart-wrenching pain, and... a touch of bright, warm red... madly impacted his chaotic nerves.
The observer's memory database, like a tsunami, tried to regain control the moment it woke up: a cold recording table, a flowing star map, coordinates of countless destruction and restarts... responsibilities... rules... formatting...
"Qingliu..." A hoarse but extremely familiar voice, with endless tenderness and choked sobs, was like a lighthouse penetrating the fog, clearly entering his chaotic sea of consciousness.
His eyes focused slowly and with difficulty.
The blurry vision gradually became clear.
The first thing that caught my eye was a tear-stained, pale yet breathtakingly beautiful face that was right in front of me.
Those eyes, filled with great surprise, worry and deep love, were staring at him without blinking.
Bai Zhiye.
Then, his distracted gaze slowly moved down and landed on the two people's overlapping hands.
His fingers were tightly wrapped around the bright red string wrapped around his wrist. The other end of the string was tied to Bai Zhiye's equally slender wrist.
The only variable.
The only anchor point.
A huge, indescribable warm current, like a thawing glacier in early spring, instantly broke through the observer's cold logical dam and flooded Ye Qingliu's entire soul!
All the chaos, all the coldness, all the responsibilities... all seem so pale and powerless in front of this red rope and this face!
Deep in his gray-blue eyes, billions of galaxies belonging to the observer flickered violently, and were eventually replaced by a deeper and hotter light.
His lips moved extremely hard and weakly, and a hoarse and broken sound like sandpaper rubbing against each other came from his throat.
The voice was so faint that it was almost inaudible, but it exploded like thunder in the silent ward, clearly reaching everyone's ears:
"Zhi...Ye..."
"Red...rope..."
He... is back!
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