Chapter 125 The plane landed at six in the morning...
The plane landed at Frankfurt Airport at six in the morning. The moment I stepped out of the terminal, the cold wind of Western Europe, carrying the unfamiliar, damp scent of pine needles, hit me.
She checked the route and traced the path as she went, then transferred to a train to Munich.
Completely extricating herself from Cheng Mingdu's golden protective net, she was greeted by the raw, real Europe.
Her first challenge was housing.
She had previously underestimated the housing shortage in German university towns at the start of the winter semester. She thought that with her German language skills and start-up capital, she could find a clean single apartment, but the reality was endless house hunting, rejections, and disappointments.
It's even harder than getting a job interview; good properties are one in a hundred.
For the first month, Ye Yuying was like a ghost, moving from one hostel to another with her suitcase. She talked with people from all over the world, and they all came to wander for different reasons.
On Christmas Eve, heavy snow fell, blanketing the entire city in white.
Due to heavy snow blocking the train, the train had to turn back halfway through the journey, and her trip was canceled. She was stranded at Cologne train station, shivering in the damp and cold weather, clutching her heavy suitcase.
As she watched the Germans around her calmly accept the chaos of the transportation system, a profound sense of loneliness and helplessness welled up within her. She tried to find some humor in the Cologne Cathedral throughout the night.
She eventually found a temporary Luo Jiaojiao in the basement storage room of an old apartment building on the outskirts of the city.
There were no windows, and the air was always damp, cold, and musty. The room was too small; it could barely fit a single mattress and a makeshift desk. The landlady was a stern old Middle Eastern woman who demanded absolute quiet.
Ye Yuying had to rely on an alarm clock every morning to know when it was dawn, and for the first time, her vitality felt suppressed by the cold and darkness.
While at Tsinghua University, she could enjoy the flowing starlight from her rooftop apartment, but in Germany, her world was confined by concrete walls and dampness.
In such an environment, her academic path became even more difficult. Although she scored high on the TestDaF, the barriers of engineering terminology far exceeded her expectations. In class, the professor spoke at a rapid pace, and she had to exert all her strength to keep up.
After class, to save time, she could only eat the simplest fast food, wash her face with cold tap water to force herself to stay awake, and spend most of her money on expensive textbooks and printing costs.
At night, as she lay exhausted on the damp mattress, a wave of immense fear and self-doubt washed over her.
She questioned herself many times: Had she made a mistake? Was she really going to be overwhelmed by the ocean of academia, as Su Yun had said?
She was initially a blank-sounding voice in class, and when she was in a group, the white students clung to each other and ignored her. She single-handedly achieved the highest score in a single subject, which was the turning point in her study abroad career.
She missed Cheng Mingdu's refined and aloof face, the feel of his body and his warm embrace.
She knew that with just one phone call, he would immediately take her away from the Cologne winter and bring her back to the tranquil cottage with its underfloor heating and floor-to-ceiling windows.
But she didn't.
She closed her eyes tightly, wrapping her frozen, battered body and her tenacious soul in a tight embrace.
She had to persevere. Ji Xianlin had spent ten years in Germany, and countless people had been able to establish themselves there. She also wanted to persevere in her pursuit even in the most difficult circumstances.
She transformed all her grievances and longing into an obsessive thirst for knowledge. In a windowless storage room, with an old laptop, amidst cold data and complex German technical terms, she gradually built a tower of knowledge that belonged only to herself.
That love for Cheng Mingdu did not become her way out; instead, it ultimately became the most fervent flame in the long, cold winter she endured in a foreign land.
She had no choice but to complete her studies.
That day, she was working as a waitress at a Japanese restaurant. The exhausting work left her mind working almost mechanically, constantly picking up and delivering food while speaking politely to the customers.
But then the music switched to the next song, and the intro to Ayumi Hamasaki's "Dearest" began. She recalled the past, paused, and her eyes welled up with tears.
She rushed into the restroom like a madwoman, leaned against the door and cried silently. But she wasn't allowed to leave her post for too long. Two minutes later, she wiped away her tears, forced a big smile, and continued working with a cheerful expression.
Her colleague asked her with concern, "Ye, are you crying?"
She wiped her face haphazardly, shook her head, and laughed, saying, "My eyes were stung by the wasabi octopus."
The spiciness of the wasabi octopus, mixed with a chill that seeped into her bones, pulled Ye Yuying into a long and twisted delirium.
She was still in the basement of Munich, but the walls of the storage room had become a damp, musty deep sea, completely engulfing her.
She was trapped in endless German technical terms and countless cold, hard failures. The basement became like an abandoned ship in the deep sea, its hull rotting in the ocean. She couldn't get out of the water, and every time she swam a little higher, countless hands would pull her back into the damp mud.
The gentle vocals of Ayumi Hamasaki's "Dearest" mingled with the screeching of a train braking suddenly in the snow, and the screams of a friend during a car accident... all intertwined in my ears.
She saw Cheng Mingdu standing on the top of the tower, dressed in a white shirt and suit pants, looking both casual and elegant.
He reached out his hand to her, but it was separated from her by a layer of cold, blue seawater.
"You don't need to pay any price to get me." His voice echoed in the deep sea, sounding exceptionally distant.
In the final moments of her dream, she felt a violent, irresistible tearing sensation. The walls of the deep sea collapsed with a deafening roar, and extreme pain pierced her soul. She was utterly robbed of her life by the cold, rusty liquid.
*
Ye Yuying suddenly woke up from her dream.
She wasn't lying on a damp mattress, but in a glaring hospital room filled with the smell of disinfectant.
The ceiling was white, everything was white, and the surroundings were eerily quiet. An IV drip was hanging from my arm.
She returned, but she didn't know how her soul returned to her body, or even what she had gone through.
She tried to move her body and found that her legs were tightly fixed in a heavy cast and bandages. The pain was like fire, pulling her back to reality.
The ward was quiet. Li Song was wearing a white coat, looking exhausted and ashen-faced.
"Yuying, you're awake." Li Song immediately perked up and whispered in her ear, his voice carrying an unsettling heaviness.
Ye Yuying opened her mouth, her throat dry, only able to utter a faint breath, but Li Song understood what she wanted to say: "My leg... was the surgery successful?"
"I'm so sorry, Yu Ying."
Li Song sighed, unable to look away from her.
Finally, it was another German doctor who spoke, his tone carrying an air of irreversible judgment:
"Ms. Ye, your surgery is a complex nerve and tendon reconstruction procedure. We must be honest with you and tell you that nerve reconstruction surgery is considered to be of extremely high risk in medicine."
He opened the medical record in his hand, trying to make her understand the result with facts:
"The location of the peroneal nerve and posterior tibial nerve injury is extremely complex. After multiple repairs four years ago, the severed nerve ends have developed extremely severe and diffuse scar tissue."
“We tried autologous nerve peritunic transplantation under a microscope, but that’s the limit of repair.”
...
She had become familiar with the numerous technical terms during her four years of treatment, and could understand them so clearly even when the other person spoke in German. However, she noticed the subtle nuances behind this long and elaborate explanation.
Finally, only one sentence remained in my ears: a painful regret.
“We are very sorry. The nerve conduction function in your legs has been permanently interrupted. This means that you will no longer be able to stand for long periods of time with the help of crutches, and you will have to rely on a wheelchair for the rest of your life.”
The ward fell into deeper darkness and silence. Sunlight streamed in through the window, but her room remained as dark as if shrouded in clouds; her soul was utterly imprisoned by her body.
She left for a distant land with all her courage, pride, and love, only to suffer a complete and irreversible defeat at the most painful physical cost.
Contrary to everyone's expectations, she did not overreact. Instead, she smiled calmly and said to the doctor in German, "Thank you for your patient explanation. I understand."
"I heard from Dr. Li that you were once a highly talented sprinter, and it's a pity that you met with such an outcome..." The doctor recounted her past with a hint of admiration, which deepened his regret.
"It's okay, doctor. I've been away from the competition for eight years and I'm not a professional athlete anymore. Before the surgery, I considered the worst possible outcome. I still feel that being able to open my eyes after the surgery and continue living is already a great fortune. After all... my life would most likely have ended in that car accident four years ago. I'm grateful to be alive."
The doctor looked at the calm and resilient smile on her face, his eyes filled with admiration. He knew that someone who could say such things must have gone through a struggle more cruel than the surgery itself.
She looked at her legs and accepted this eternal confinement with equanimity.
Four years ago, after a car accident, she stayed in Germany to pursue her doctoral degree, focusing her research on artificial exoskeletons in hopes of helping people who cannot stand to stand again.
Although she researches artificial exoskeletons, she still held onto a glimmer of hope for the recovery of her legs. Now, she is at peace, content to use the rest of her disabled life to optimize her research results.
Her supervisor had scheduled her defense for two months later, but this surgery was a major intervention, requiring at least a period of bed rest and basic rehabilitation afterward…
In fact, by cooperating with the doctor, she was indeed able to defend her thesis on time.
*
Two months later, a lecture hall at the Technical University of Munich was packed to capacity.
Ye Yuying, dressed in a neat and cleverly designed pinstripe suit, sat upright in her wheelchair and was pushed to the front of the stage.
This was the first time she had ever appeared in front of everyone in a wheelchair. However, after going through this life-or-death surgery, she had let go of her obsession with standing up. The powerful and stable aura emanating from her body was unrelated to whether she could stand up or not.
Her doctoral dissertation was titled: "Dynamic Control System of Bionic Exoskeleton for Patients with Lower Limb Nerve Injuries".
She began her public defense in fluent and precise German, methodically explaining the complex sensor fusion, gait prediction model, and how to use stability control algorithms to balance the dynamic stability of disabled limbs.
When she speaks German, her tone is much deeper than usual, which is determined by the characteristics of the language. Every professional term shines with professional brilliance.
The entire defense lasted nearly two hours. When she demonstrated how the exoskeleton system could achieve a smooth gait on uneven ground through complex adaptive algorithms, the professors and students in the audience were incredibly surprised.
Every feature and challenge she describes carries a profound truth, distilled from suffering.
During the final Q&A session, facing two demanding professors, Ye Yuying responded calmly and skillfully, offering both theoretical depth and insightful observations on practical engineering challenges.
Finally, the tutor announced with an approving smile that both professors had given a score of 1.0.
Applause erupted in the lecture hall like a tidal wave, lasting for a long time.
Just as the applause was at its loudest, Ye Yuying, sitting in her wheelchair, looked up with a sense of weariness and relief after completing her mission.
The back door of the lecture hall was opened, and a tall, upright figure walked in. He was wearing a well-tailored dark suit and seemed to have been standing outside for a long time, yet he remained elegant and composed.
He didn't look at anyone; his gaze pierced through the sea of people in the lecture hall, landing precisely and firmly on Ye Yuying, who was sitting in front of the podium.
It is Cheng Mingdu.
In order not to affect her state of mind, he must have listened to her entire defense at the door. He did not tell her in advance, but at this most crucial moment, when she was fighting alone and winning, he became a witness to this important moment in her life.
They were surrounded by a sea of people, but all the sounds and figures became a blurred background at this moment.
Ye Yuying looked at him, a bright smile, though tinged with tears, appeared on her lips.
At this moment, she could finally face him openly with this body. This was an equal victory she had won after four years of blood, tears, pain, and countless tears.
Cheng Mingdu's gaze moved from her thin yet radiant face, filled with both heartache and undisguised admiration, to her legs in the wheelchair.
He showed no sign of panic or sympathy, only a deep and unfathomable love.
He didn't step forward; he simply stood there, accepting all her imperfections and all her glory with a profound and unassuming demeanor.
Ye Yuying sat in a wheelchair, while he stood outside the crowd. They looked at each other across the applause and noise.
She felt her heart pounding wildly in her chest, trying to keep her face calm, but her heart had already been completely shattered by his intense presence.
She knew that her success was the real sign of their reunion.
He walked through the crowd to her and spoke clearly and with emotion: "Congratulations, Dr. Ye."
With tears glistening in her eyes, she smiled and said, "Thank you, Dr. Cheng."
A gentle smile, like a withered tree blossoming in spring, finally appeared on Cheng Mingdu's lips.
He bent down without hesitation and gently took her hand in front of everyone.
As if they had practiced many times, they pushed her wheelchair out of the stage with great familiarity.
“I’ve prepared a graduation gift for you,” Cheng Mingdu said softly, a hint of gentle mystery in his eyes. “You need to inspect it yourself.”
He turned around, nodded to his mentor and the two professors, and then pushed her wheelchair out of the lecture hall at the Technical University of Munich.
The next day, Cheng Mingdu took her directly to Berlin.
A detached house in a villa district on the outskirts of Berlin, featuring a classic German style. Surrounded by greenery and flowers, the villa is understated yet cozy.
Everything in the villa had been meticulously arranged, but the most eye-catching feature was a brand-new, metallic-gleaming bionic exoskeleton placed in the center of the living room.
It is not the laboratory prototype she developed, but a high-end custom product that has been industrially designed to be lighter and more aesthetically pleasing.
She was somewhat surprised, and the finished product looked a little unfamiliar to her.
Cheng Mingdu lifted her out of the wheelchair and gently placed her on the sofa.
He knelt on one knee and gently lifted her feet, placing them on a comfortable cushion. His movements carried an indescribable reverence and complete acceptance of her body.
"This is the most direct gift I can give you." Cheng Mingdu raised his head, his gaze open and gentle.
“I’ve protected Ashera for you in China. You now have the most advanced neural signal recognition and motion prediction models, but what you lack is a high-quality processing system that can truly translate algorithms into physical products.”
He paused, as if deliberately giving her time to react.
“I know you’ve been looking for the right industrial partners. I’ve acquired a precision machinery company here that makes aerospace components, called Helios Dynamics. Their machining accuracy can be controlled within ±3 micrometers, meeting medical-grade assembly standards.”
He gently pointed to the exoskeleton: "Now, it is the first joint product of Ashera and Helios. The optimized version uses carbon-titanium composite materials, reducing the weight of the whole machine by 18% and shortening the response latency to 27 milliseconds. It has the potential for mass production and is no longer just a laboratory prototype."
Ye Yuying stared blankly at the machine, its silvery light reflected in her pupils like a road extending from reality to her ideal.
"When...did you start preparing?" She was incredulous, considering the delays had been a persistent problem.
“The company was acquired a long time ago, but the prototype project started after your last flight to Germany.” He smiled, his tone almost calm.
He stood up, walked to the exoskeleton, and gently touched the cold metal as if introducing a work of art.
"Now, it's called Ashera Reborn."
She laughed through her tears: "Wouldn't calling it 'Rebirth' sound a bit too melodramatic?"
"If we can enable disabled people to walk again and regain their freedom to walk, it will be a rebirth for them."
Ye Yuying looked at him, her lips trembling slightly.
She recalled the nights she spent on the operating table and in the laboratory, those thoughts that arose from despair, which he had finally brought to life.
Cheng Mingdu walked back to her side, squatted down, gently supported her ankles, and carefully placed her still slender legs into the exoskeleton.
The metal latch made a soft click, as crisp as the sound of snow pressing down on dry branches.
He looked up at her.
She tried to manipulate the exoskeleton based on her previous experience, watching it fit her body perfectly, the joints positioned with millimeter precision, and the flexible padding between the titanium alloy and her skin slightly warm.
She took a deep breath and reached out to touch the sensor interface on the side of her wrist.
The blue indicator lights gradually lit up, rising slowly from her ankles to her knees, and from her knees to her thighs, like a flowing ray of light slowly ascending over her body.
She closed her eyes, following the rhythm deep within her memory—the only remaining instinct to stand.
She imagined the sequence of muscle contraction and bone stress, and how the signals from the nerves were amplified, delayed, and then corrected by algorithms to become the exoskeleton's response instructions.
"Now, give it a try," Cheng Mingdu gently reminded him.
She paused slightly, then lightly touched the control lever with her right hand, and the sensor on the sole of her foot began to vibrate at a low frequency.
Then……
Her body, supported by light and metal, slowly rose to her feet.
The entire process was almost completely silent, with only the faint breathing of the hydraulic system and the beating of her heart.
She could feel the air flowing over her cheeks, her gaze rising little by little, from low to high, from the ground to outside the window, from the darkness of despair to the light unfolding layer by layer.
Sunlight streamed through the high window, illuminating her hair and profile, like the dawn light washing over Andy in "The Shawshank Redemption."
“You did it,” he said.
"Look, you weren't helped up at this moment."
"It was you who personally stood up again."
At that moment, the metallic reflection of the exoskeleton shone on her face, like a shimmering cicada wing.
The silvery glow of the metal mingled with the sun, and they embraced in the Berlin morning light.
The world unfolded before her!
-End of text-
"October 28, 2025, 22:16 German time, mostly cloudy"
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Author's Note: The epilogue will feature a scene of them standing up again; it won't be too long. Another novel has come to an end. Thank you all for your support. Please consider adding this to your author's page. My next novel will be an older, healing story called "Burning Wind."
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