Chapter 102 The Eye-Gouging Stele
Lu Yao stood in front of the second monument.
The stele with gouged eyes.
"A single thread of fate connects us, revealing traces of our existence across two realms. The Three Pure Ones lend their divine eyes, searching for human habitation in all directions."
The incantation rippled through the night, and the ancient runes on the gouged-out stele suddenly emitted a faint blue light.
As the monument trembled, a firefly-like point of light slowly rose from the crack, circled three times in Lu Yao's palm, and then fell to the northwest with an icy blue tail flame.
Lu Yao's fingertips still retained a bone-chilling coldness, a burning sensation from cause and effect spanning a thousand years.
She looked up in the direction where the light had disappeared.
Following the clues of cause and effect, Lu Yao arrived at the city sports center.
Under the glaring flashlights, dozens of reporters surrounded a middle-aged man wearing a national team uniform.
The constant clicking of camera shutters was so loud it was hard to open one's eyes.
"Coach Liu! Was Jiang Jinshu's sudden vision deterioration caused by taking banned drugs?"
"There are rumors that she suddenly couldn't see the target during training. Is that true?"
If Jiang Jinshu withdraws from the competition, who will the national team send to replace her as a seeded player?
Surrounded in the center, Coach Liu's face was ashen, his eyes twitching as he suppressed his anger: "First, Jinshu did not take any banned drugs! Second, Jinshu is sick and is receiving professional treatment."
His clenched fist trembled slightly at the seam of his trousers. "Discussing substitutes now is an insult to the athletes!"
Lu Yao stood at the edge of the crowd, her pupils suddenly contracting to needle size.
Jiang Jinshu.
Vision deterioration.
The copper coin flipped silently in his palm, and the divination result pointed directly to Renhe Hospital in the east of the city.
The ward door was ajar.
Through the gap, you can see the girl lying quietly on the hospital bed.
Sunlight streamed through the blinds, casting fence-like shadows on her pale face.
Lu Yao slowly approached.
A corner of the medical record card was blown up by the wind:
Jiang Jinshu is 20 years old.
National Shooting Team Main Members
Clinical diagnosis: Idiopathic optic nerve atrophy
Prognosis: To be determined
Lu Yao closed her eyes, and Jiang Jinshu's life story appeared before her.
...
Jiang Jinshu was different from others from a young age.
She could recite Tang poems at the age of three, started learning piano at the age of five, and won first place in all subject competitions during elementary school.
But what's most amazing is those eyes, as clear as autumn water.
The tiny print at the very bottom of the eye chart, 0.1, was so clear to her that it was as if it were imprinted right in front of her eyes.
"This child is a natural-born shooting talent." The physical education teacher excitedly wrote to the provincial team, "Her dynamic vision test results are the best I have seen in my twenty years of coaching."
From then on, Jiang Jinshu's life seemed to have been put on the fast track:
At the age of twelve, she was the shortest champion on the podium at the National Youth Shooting Championships.
At the age of fifteen, she easily broke the national record for the women's 10-meter air rifle.
At eighteen, she received both an admission letter from Qinghua University and a formal invitation to the national team.
"A natural-born sharpshooter." The national team coach looked at the dense bullseye marks on the target paper, shook his head with a smile, "His eyes are like they're equipped with laser sights."
The walls of the Jiang family's living room are covered with her certificates and medals.
Her father specially commissioned a glass display case to showcase her trophies from various periods, and her mother wipes these honors clean every day.
“Our Jinshu,” her mother would tell everyone she met, her face beaming with pride, “is going to have the national anthem played at the Olympics.”
In the training base's corridor, photos of past Olympic champions gleam in the sunlight.
Jiang Jinshu would stop here after each training session.
She gently stroked the golden Olympic rings in the photo, feeling her heart pounding faster with her fingertips.
“This time next year,” she wrote in her training journal, “my photo will also be hanging here.”
Until that rainy Thursday last week.
"Jinshu, can you see how many fingers I'm holding up?" The team doctor's voice suddenly seemed distant.
Jiang Jinshu blinked, the fingers in her vision blurry as if they were submerged in water.
She clenched her fists instinctively, the pain of her nails digging into her palms so real, yet the world before her eyes was fading away little by little.
The doctors examined the patient repeatedly but were at a loss, and could only come up with a vague diagnosis of idiopathic optic nerve atrophy.
On the hospital bed, Jiang Jinshu heard her mother's suppressed sobs and felt her father's trembling hand gently stroking the top of her head.
She wanted to say something, but found that she couldn't even see the tear stains on her parents' faces.
The hospital corridor was bustling with people, and no one recognized that the girl with the bandage covering her face was the spirited shooting prodigy from the news.
The television was replaying footage of Jiang Jinshu's last match.
In close-up shots, those sharp, eagle-like eyes could accurately capture the finest hairs on a target a hundred meters away.
Now, those eyes are covered with gauze, like cicada wings knocked off by a rainstorm.
Between painkillers, Jiang Jinshu would think of her family waving frantically from the stands.
The support sign made by her father was always the most eye-catching, the thermos in her mother's arms was always filled with honey water at the perfect temperature, and her brother's camera lens was pointed at her to record the glorious moment.
The sunlight in her memory was so bright that it still makes her eyes well up with tears when she thinks about it now.
“It’s alright,” Jiang Jinshu said to her visiting teammates, her voice light and cheerful, unlike that of a patient. “Maybe when I open my eyes tomorrow, I’ll be able to see everything clearly.”
Only the silent water stains spreading on her pillow in the dead of night betrayed the deepest fear in this proud young woman's heart.
...
Lu Yao opened her eyes and looked into the ward.
A middle-aged couple sat by the bedside. The woman was using a cotton swab dipped in water to moisten her daughter's chapped lips, while the man, with red eyes, gently stroked his daughter's hair.
"Go and rest for a while," the man said in a hoarse voice. "You haven't slept for three days."
“I’m fine.” The woman held her daughter’s hand. “The specialist said the consultation results will be out today, and Jinshu will definitely get better.”
Their conversation abruptly ended when the girl on the hospital bed suddenly began to convulse violently.
The monitor suddenly emitted a sharp alarm, and the electrocardiogram lines jumped wildly up and down.
A look of pain appeared on Jiang Jinshu's pale face, and the gauze wrapped around her eyes gradually showed faint red stains, like a withered rose.
"Jinshu! Doctor—call the doctor quickly!" Jiang's mother pressed the call button, her voice trembling.
The ward door opened silently.
Lu Yao appeared at the doorway, the incandescent light casting a long shadow behind her.
"Who are you? This is the intensive care unit, please leave immediately—" Jiang's father instinctively stood in front of the hospital bed.
Lu Yao stepped forward slowly. "I'm here to help your daughter see the truth."
Her voice was very soft, but it made the monitor's alarm suddenly go down.
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