Life is worse than death
The hospital corridor was silent in the dead of night, permeated with the smell of disinfectant. Only the occasional hum of medical equipment or the very soft footsteps of nurses could be heard from afar. Xiao Jue stood by the window at the end of the corridor, near the emergency exit. The signal was slightly better here, and it was also relatively secluded.
The city outside the window was bathed in the dark blue night, and the lights of thousands of homes resembled a shattered galaxy, yet they could not illuminate the deep weariness in his eyes.
"...Yes, I know. You and Sister Jin should also take care of yourselves. Don't buy too much New Year's goods, you won't be able to finish them. Keep an eye on Qin Zhou, don't let him play so much that he forgets his homework."
Xiao Jue's voice was tinged with laughter, but the laughter didn't reach his eyes; it only lingered on the slightly upturned corners of his mouth.
He leaned slightly against the cold wall, his gaze unconsciously falling on the closed door of the opposite ward—Qing Ran's ward.
A sliver of warm yellow light shone through the crack in the door; all was quiet. Qingran was probably asleep.
As he thought about it, the tension that had been constantly taut in his heart eased slightly.
"And what about you?" Qi Shuo's tone seemed to change, his voice carrying a barely perceptible seriousness. "Has the law firm been particularly busy lately? You haven't looked too well."
Xiao Jue's heart skipped a beat, but his voice remained steady: "It's the end of the year, there are many cases and miscellaneous matters, so it's a bit tiring. Just get through these few days and you'll be fine."
He brushed it off lightly, not wanting Qi Shuo to worry, and even less willing to touch that deeply buried secret.
“Xiao Jue,” Qi Shuo paused on the other end of the phone, seemingly choosing his words carefully, then his voice came through the electromagnetic waves, clearly striking Xiao Jue’s eardrums, carrying a heavy weight, “We are brothers. After all these years, if anything happens to you, don’t always bear it alone. If you’re tired, just say so; if you have any difficulties, just ask. I will definitely help if I can.”
This sentence sounds so familiar.
It was so familiar, like a warm brand, etched into the more than ten years they had walked side by side. Every time Xiao Jue encountered a setback, Qi Shuo would say something similar.
But this time, those words were like a key, unexpectedly opening the most vulnerable crack in Xiao Jue's defenses.
The secret he carried alone, the tireless care he gave Qingran, the anxiety about her illness, the uncertainty about the future, and the heavy sense of guilt he kept hidden deep in his heart, which he could not tell anyone...
All these pent-up emotions were about to burst forth in the face of Qi Shuo's simple yet powerful promise of "brotherhood."
He opened his mouth, his throat dry, wanting to say something, but was blocked by deeper weariness and the shackles of "not being able to speak." In the end, he only gave a low "hmm," his voice a little hoarse: "I know. You too, Brother Shuo, don't keep everything bottled up inside."
The call seemed to be ending. The two chatted for a few more minutes about their New Year's plans and agreed to stay up together on New Year's Eve. Just as Xiao Jue was about to say goodbye and hang up, something unexpected happened.
"Ugh...mmm..."
A very faint, suppressed, sobbing-like gasp could be faintly heard through the not-so-soundproof hospital room door.
Xiao Jue froze, his attention instantly drawn from the phone to the door. Was it Qing Ran? Was she awake? Or was she having a nightmare?
Almost simultaneously, he heard a muffled thud from inside the door, like something soft hitting the floor, followed by the rustling sound of fabric rubbing against the floor.
"Ranran?" Xiao Jue quickly said "Wait a moment" into the phone, not even bothering to hang up. He simply took the phone away from his ear, held his breath, and listened intently to the sounds coming from inside the door. Qi Shuo on the other end of the line seemed to sense something was amiss and fell silent.
Inside the door, Qingran had actually been awake for a while. She sat up sleepily, still holding the new rabbit doll that Xiao Jue had given her last night.
The ward was quiet, with only a dim nightlight on. She groggily looked towards the door, where the light from the crack and the faint, hushed voice of Xiao Jue made her feel at ease, yet also a little curious.
My brother is outside. He's on the phone.
Holding the doll, she slowly and tentatively moved to the edge of the bed.
This afternoon, the therapist encouraged her to try walking a few steps. Although she was shaky and needed someone to help her, she actually took several steps on her own.
Her brother's eyes lit up with joy, and he praised her, saying, "Ranran is so great!" She thought...she'd try again.
After her brother finished his phone call and came in, she wanted to go over to him and give him a surprise.
This simple thought filled her with a little joy and courage.
She carefully placed her feet on the cold floor, held onto the edge of the bed, and slowly, little by little, stood up.
Her knees buckled a little, but she steadied herself. She released her grip on the edge of the bed, swayed slightly, and struggled to maintain her balance. Then, she lifted one foot and took a small step forward.
Landed and stood firm. Very good.
Another step. Her body swayed more violently, but she bit her lip and remained silent.
The third step... somehow her toe tripped over the corner of the drooping blanket, and she instantly lost her balance. She let out a soft "Ah!" and fell forward.
"Thump!" Knees and elbows slammed heavily against the hard floor tiles, a sharp pain shooting through them. The doll flew out of my hand. The dull thud of it hitting the floor was exceptionally clear in the quiet room.
It hurts...it hurts so much...my knees and elbows are burning. A wave of grievance and frustration washed over me, and my eyes immediately welled up with tears.
She wanted to cry, she wanted to call out to her brother.
However, her brother's voice continued through the crack in the door. Although she couldn't make out what he was saying, his steady tone told her that he was busy and on the phone.
Don't cry... Don't disturb your brother...
The thought subconsciously occupied her simple mind. She bit her lower lip hard, forcing back the sob that was about to come out of her mouth, leaving only a series of broken, suppressed gasps.
Tears streamed down her face, but she raised the hand that hadn't hurt from the fall and tightly covered her mouth, trying not to make a sound.
Only her body trembled slightly, unable to control itself, due to pain and grievance.
Xiao Jue, standing outside the door, heard the muffled thud and the subsequent eerie silence, and his heart leaped into his throat.
He couldn't hear any crying, but the deathly silence made him even more uneasy. He was about to push the door open and go in regardless—
At that very moment, perhaps by coincidence, or perhaps by some unseen arrangement, Qi Shuo's voice, slightly puzzled and unconsciously asking questions, came clearly from the phone he was still holding.
The sound seeped through the gap in the door and into the quiet ward, reaching Qingran's ears as she covered her mouth and tried to hold back her sobs.
"...Xiao Jue? What's wrong? What was that sound? Are you alright?"
A man's voice. Deep, steady, and clearly concerned. Through the crack in the door, the words were muffled and indistinct, but the timbre, the tone…
This voice, like a thunderclap, suddenly shattered Qingran's chaotic memory barrier.
Broken, twisted, dark fragments, accompanied by intense fear and sharp pain, rushed into her fragile brain without warning and with ferocity.
—In the dark stairwell, a woman screamed, a man breathed heavily and cursed, and a boy's hoarse, desperate roar: "Xiao Jue! Run! Take Shan Shan and run! Hurry—!"
—Endless darkness, turbulence, suffocating fear, a warm yet trembling embrace, rapid breaths in her ear, a voice repeatedly, brokenly whispering: "Shanshan, don't be afraid... Brother's here... Brother's here... Xiao Jue and Sister Jin will come to save us..."
—The pungent smell of blood, the cold rain, the flashing police lights, the chaotic figures, and the blurry outline of a boy struggling frantically, being pulled by many people… Someone was shouting: “Qi Shuo! Calm down! Qi Shuo!”
"ah--!!!"
The hand covering her mouth suddenly loosened, and a shrill scream, so piercing it was almost inhuman, burst forth from deep within Qingran's throat.
The scream, filled with indescribable fear, pain, and collapse, instantly shattered the tranquility of the ward and violently destroyed Xiao Jue's rationality outside the door.
"Brother—! Brother!! Ahhh—! It hurts! It hurts so much! No! Don't come any closer! Don't hit me! Mom—! Brother—save me! Save me—"
She was no longer the quiet, naive girl whose mind remained at the child's stage, but rather like a young animal whose shell had been completely crushed, lying paralyzed on the ground, clutching her head tightly with both hands, curling her body into a defensive posture, kicking and rolling wildly, emitting incoherent cries mixed with blood-soaked wails.
Those most tragic and darkest fragments of memory that she had forcibly sealed away in her subconscious, belonging to "Qi Shan," were completely detonated at this moment by that familiar yet terrifying name, engulfing her like a tsunami.
"slowly!"
Xiao Jue was terrified. His phone slipped from his palm and crashed to the ground with a "thud," shattering instantly.
He could no longer care about anything else, and with all his might, he smashed open the unlocked hospital room door and rushed inside.
The sight before him nearly stopped his heart—Qing Ran lay on the ground, her clothes disheveled, her body trembling violently, her hands clutching her hair tightly, her face ashen, her lips bleeding from being bitten, tears streaming down her face. Her eyes, which always held a bewildered look, were now wide open, filled with boundless fear and madness, yet unfocused, staring blankly at a point in the void, as if confronting the world's most terrifying nightmare.
She was still screaming, her voice hoarse and broken: "Blood...so much blood...Mommy...Brother...it hurts...Where are you...Help...Ahhh—"
"Ranran! Look at me! It's me! It's your brother! Brother Xiaojue!"
Xiao Jue lunged forward, trying to hug her, but he couldn't get close to her amidst her fierce struggles and flailing arms.
He dared not use force, afraid of hurting her, and could only futilely try to grab her wrist, his voice distorted by extreme panic and heartache, "Ranran! Don't be afraid! It's your brother! It's alright! It's alright! Look at me!"
But Qingran was completely delirious and couldn't hear his voice or recognize him.
Those sealed fragments of memory, mixed with extreme fear, formed a purgatory from which she could not escape.
She just struggled desperately, crying out and repeating those fragmented, blood-stained words.
"Brother... Waaah... Mom... Mom fell... Blood... Dad... Bad people... So many bad people... Go away... Don't touch me... Brother... Save me... Ahhh—"
Every cry was like a red-hot knife, stabbing deeply into Xiao Jue's heart and then churning it repeatedly.
His eyes were bloodshot, veins bulging on his forehead, and immense grief and helplessness nearly overwhelmed him. All he could do was call her name hoarsely over and over again, trying to pull her back from the terrible memories.
The phone, though its screen was shattered from the fall, was not completely unusable. The call was not interrupted.
Everything that horrified me in the ward—the girl's broken screams and cries, her incoherent yet heart-wrenching roars, the man's desperate and panicked attempts to comfort and call out—was transmitted without a single detail to the other end of the phone through the cold electronic components.
Qi Shuo's heart, which had been in suspense because of the muffled sound and the subsequent silence, plummeted into an ice cave when he heard the first scream.
That voice... didn't belong to anyone he knew, yet it carried a strange, heart-wrenching, soul-piercing familiarity, like a rusty steel needle unexpectedly piercing a deep, scabbed wound in his memory.
Then came more cries. Broken words. "Mommy"... "Blood"... "Brother"... "Help"...
These words, appearing individually, might just be a coincidence. But strung together, screamed out in such a devastating, desperate way, as if from the depths of hell…
Qi Shuo's blood froze instantly.
His fingers, gripping the phone, were stiff and white, the veins on the back of his hand bulging. His ears were ringing, and his heart felt like it was being squeezed tightly by an invisible hand, almost suffocating him.
Every cry from the other end of the phone felt like a hammer blow to his temple, making his vision go black and his eardrums ring.
Shanshan...
Is it...Shanshan?
That little sister, Shanshan, who was covered in blood in his arms nine years ago on a stormy night, slowly losing her warmth in his arms, and whose eyes he finally closed with his own hands?
No…impossible! He saw it with his own eyes…he did it himself…she had already…already…
But that crying… that call for “brother”… that deep-seated fear of “mother falling” and “blood”…
A wave of intense dizziness washed over him, and Qi Shuo staggered, managing to brace himself against the cold wall to keep from falling.
His face was ashen, cold sweat instantly beaded on his forehead, and his lips trembled uncontrollably.
Every cry from the other end of the phone felt like a slow, agonizing torture, tearing at his nerves piece by piece.
Xiao Jue's panicked shouts, the girl's broken screams, the chaotic sounds of collisions... all the sounds intertwined, forming a hellish scene that was forcibly crammed into his mind.
Shanshan isn't dead? Is she with Xiao Jue?
For nine years... she's been alive all these years? Living like this...? Xiao Jue kept it from him? For a full nine years?
Why?
Countless questions, shock, ecstasy, fear, anger, and a devastating pain, eight years overdue, overwhelmed him like a tsunami.
He opened his mouth, but no sound came out; only heavy, broken breaths squeezed out of his throat.
His vision blurred, and all he could hear were the horrifying cries coming from the phone and the thunderous roar of his own blood rushing and his heart pounding.
How much time passed—perhaps only a few seconds, perhaps an eternity—began to reach its peak of chaos on the other end of the phone. Then came hurried, chaotic footsteps, gasps from others, and Xiao Jue's sudden, choked shout: "Sedatives! Quick! Prepare sedatives!!"
Then came a burst of loud noise, crashes, and cries that gradually turned into suppressed, painful sobs. Then, the phone was abruptly hung up.
"Beep beep beep—"
The busy signal came through, cold and monotonous, yet like a final, heavy hammer blow, completely shattering the last remaining, precarious balance in Qi Shuo's world.
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