Chapter Thirty-Eight: The Butterfly's Monologue
Cold.
It is the only perception when consciousness reassembles.
It felt as if I was submerged at the bottom of an ancient, unmelting glacier. The chill didn't penetrate my skin, but rather ran rampant from the depths of my bone marrow, from the cracks in every cell.
The blood flow became viscous and slow, like a river about to freeze over. The teeth chattered uncontrollably, making a fine but clear "clucking" sound, the body's last futile protest before losing control.
Zhong Si's consciousness floated in an endless, white, cold expanse.
He felt like an insect frozen in amber, still in its former posture, yet devoid of all life. His vision began to blur, and before him lay a hazy white mist, his own breath rapidly condensing into ice crystals.
The rusted steel beams and tangled pipes on the warehouse roof appeared twisted and deformed in view, as if viewed through a layer of frosted glass covered with frost flowers.
My hearing became unusually acute, or rather, the sounds of the outside world were rapidly fading away, replaced by a symphony of internal collapse.
The friction of blood struggling to flow through the veins, the heavy, muffled thud of the heart as if gripped by a giant, cold hand, and the ubiquitous, tiny rustling sound of ice crystals condensing.
He felt his limbs losing sensation, starting from his fingertips and toes, the numbness spreading upwards like a tide. He tried to move his fingers, but the simple command seemed to sink without reaching his peripheral nerves. His body no longer obeyed his brain's commands, becoming a heavy, cold, rapidly stiffening shell.
However, amidst this all-encompassing cold and physical fear, Zhong Si's heart strangely settled into an almost transparent calm.
Unlike most people who, when faced with death, do not exhibit a strong will to survive or are completely consumed by fear.
A deep, long-understood sense of relief, mixed with an immense sorrow that almost crushed the remaining consciousness, flowed slowly.
Siago...
This name, like the only glimmer of light in the darkness, lit up his gradually cooling mind.
He wasn't particularly surprised by Qianxu Wuyun's betrayal.
Or rather, he had a premonition long ago, when he occasionally saw the heavy shadows that were impossible to conceal and so different from her sunny smile in the depths of her bright yellow eyes.
He wasn't dull-witted; Mu Ye's training had already honed him to be exceptionally perceptive of emotions and pretense. He simply... chose not to delve deeper, and even... willingly stepped into this gentle trap.
He craved the warmth from the "normal" world, untouched by any organizational shadow. It felt like discovering a small patch of daisies outside the fortress of the Moonlit Organization, built of steel, blood, and cold rules.
Even knowing that there might be explosives buried under the grass, he would rather lie there a little longer and bask in the false but comforting sunlight.
Moreover, deep down, he may have already grown tired of being West Asia's "Achilles' heel."
He clearly remembered how, after the ambush, Xiya questioned him with red eyes, like a wounded and trapped beast.
For the first time, those red eyes, which always held a hint of arrogance and protectiveness, were filled with such direct doubt and pain.
At that moment, Zhong Si felt a sharp pain in his heart, as if it had been pierced by needles. He would rather Xi Ya beat or scold him than see him show that kind of... almost desperate exhaustion because of him.
He knew what he meant to Xiya—a substitute for his deceased brother Yani, a continuation of Xiya's unfulfilled promise to protect him, and a responsibility and emotional attachment so heavy it was suffocating.
Xiya retrieved him from the ruins, gave him a name, and provided him with a place to call "home," but in doing so, she also unknowingly placed an invisible shackle on both of them.
Sia's almost obsessive protection of him was less love and more a compulsive compensation for past trauma. This love was too intense, too close, and too... fragile.
He is so vulnerable that the enemy can easily exploit him to attack West Asia and cripple the entire organization.
So... this is fine too.
A clear thought, like an ice crystal, solidified in his mind.
If my disappearance can sever this Achilles' heel... if my death can completely free Siago from his guilt over the past, turning him into a blade free of all attachments, born solely for revenge... then this deal isn't too bad.
It's better for her to do it... than to die at the hands of a stranger. At least... in the final moment, I saw a familiar face.
Thinking of this, a tremendous sorrow, almost overwhelming his remaining consciousness, surged into his heart like a flood bursting its banks. This sorrow was not for his own impending death, but for West Asia.
Siago...
In the end, I became a burden to you.
I'm sorry to make you go through that pain again...
I can't... stay with you anymore.
I may... be unable to meet your expectations...
The cold tears, barely spilling from my eyes, almost froze on my cheeks.
He seemed to see that rainy day when the boy with fiery red hair and eyes like a wounded wolf reached out his hand to him.
He saw Xiah clumsily bandaging his wounds, grumbling under her breath but moving with utmost gentleness. He saw Xiah quietly placing a bowl of hot soup at his doorstep when he was training to the point of collapse.
I saw those trivial yet real, down-to-earth banter and jokes between the two of them...
These warm fragments, now surrounded by extreme cold, seem so precious, and so heartbreaking.
His body grew colder and colder, so cold that he could no longer feel his limbs, and even the beating of his heart became barely audible.
Breathing became extremely difficult; each inhale felt like countless ice needles piercing my lungs. My consciousness began to fade, and my sense of time became blurred, as if it were stretched out infinitely, yet also as if it were fleeting.
In the moments before he succumbed to complete darkness, he used the last vestige of his remaining mental strength to silently recite in his heart—not resentment, but a deep, endlessly regretful apology, and… a twisted wish:
Siago... don't be sad for me...
Become a real 'whale shark'...
Survive...
The last thought flickered weakly, like a candle in the wind, before being completely swallowed up by the boundless cold and silence.
His violet eyes glanced one last time in the general direction where Qianxu Wuyun had been. There was no hatred in them, only a vast, frozen sorrow, and a faint... sense of relief. Then, that faint light went out completely.
The frost that had formed on his long eyelashes covered them, as if closing his eyelids.
Inside the cryogenic warehouse, only the incessant hissing sound of leaking refrigerant and an absolute silence more suffocating than death itself remained.
Zhong Si, "Little Butterfly," this boy with the appearance of a "sea of butterflies," who could have spread his wings and soared high, his young life, his unfulfilled talent, all his longing for warmth, and the deep-seated apology and concern he could not express, all solidified into eternity in this man-made extreme cold hell.
In the end, he replicated the deepest scar in Xiya's heart—the nightmare of losing his "brother"—in the cruelest way. Only this time, he was no longer the child passively waiting to be saved, but instead, he used his own life as a bargaining chip to make a silent, desperate sacrifice.
When Xiya finally breaks through that heavy iron gate and witnesses this frozen tragedy, what he feels will not only be the heart-wrenching pain of losing his beloved, but also an unspeakable, immense trauma and self-doubt from being "abandoned" by the person he cherishes most.
Zhong Si's apologetic love, punctuated by death, will become the sharpest file, grinding away the last trace of human warmth and hesitation in the "whale shark's" heart in the most cruel way.
All of this happened silently in this cold tomb, unknown to anyone.
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