Yan Xi got off the car and opened the door. At that instant, the house was dark inside.
No one was home.
Suddenly, her phone rang. The caller ID showed Qi Yili.
Qi Yili wasn't home yet? Yan Xi frowned slightly.
"Hello..." Yan Xi had just opened her mouth when she heard his voice, hoarse beyond recognition.
"Can you come to the hospital right now?"
"Please sign quickly."
The hospital lights shone on the strikingly white critical condition notification, stinging his vision.
For a moment, Qi Yili couldn't distinguish between reality and illusion. His hands kept shaking.
With shaking hands, he picked up the pen with difficulty. His mind was like being sharply cut through by a blade, resulting in a blank vertigo.
Breathing gradually became harder. Every second felt like a pair of hands choking his neck, on the verge of suffocation.
Why?
Why him?
Why today?
The dazzling lights tonight were thoroughly shattered by a phone call from the hospital tonight.
Was this his retribution? The retribution for his complacency?
His mother's cerebral hemorrhage recurred.
Pain seemed to go on ceaselessly. At this instant, he couldn't even discern the meaning of his existence.
"Sign, Qi Yili."
The voice, calm as a lake's surface, pulled him out from suffocation.
As he looked up, he directly met her dark eyes.
He could almost see his reflection in them.
She came.
Upon his call, Yan Xi rushed to the hospital almost without stopping.
While on the way here, she had made a call to inquire about the situation.
Qi Yili's mother had a recurrence of cerebral hemorrhage. The hospital was preparing for surgery, and had now issued a critical condition notice.
"Sign it. Don't waste the medical staff's time," Yan Xi said bluntly.
Her gaze was tranquil without ripples, as if asking him to do something trivial.
That's how it always was.
It seemed nothing could ever arouse fluctuations in her emotions. He also didn't seem to have caught her eye even once.
No matter what he did, good or bad, her eyes always held an aloof and calm indifference beyond human, as if she didn't care about anyone at all. It was like a kind of arrogance that was a sin.
But at this moment, he felt strangely at ease.
Inexplicable emotions welled up in his heart. The sense of guilt pressed upon him didn't suffocate him so much. Only by her side could he feel that all his ugly and sordid thoughts could be embraced.
Under her gaze, he swiftly picked up the pen and wrote down his name stroke by stroke.
The moment he finished, he heard her words again, as if she could see through all his thoughts.
"If you feel anguished, just push the responsibility onto me. After all, I was the one who made you sign. You can also take it as a kind of coercion."
Coercing him to admit that his mother was in mortal danger.
Coercing him to wake up from his splendid dreams and face the pain.
Did it hurt?
Then shift the blame onto her. Then he wouldn't feel hurt. Then he could continue indulging himself in his happy and gentle hometown until death.
He stiffened as he saw unconditional doting emerge once more in the girl's eyes.
Just like his mother's in the past.
Seeing Qi Yili staring blankly at her, Yan Xi found a seat outside the operating room and sat down.
It was now 1:30 AM.
She had run around all night. Her feet were almost swollen. Without even having the chance to rest, she rushed to the hospital again. Now she was tired and didn't want to speak.
"Why are you standing stupidly over there? Come here and sit," the girl waved at him.
The surgery had just been underway for half an hour. Only then did Qi Yili realize his feet were numb from standing too long.
He didn't move, punishing himself by standing in place as he awaited the hopefully not unfavorable surgical results.
Yan Xi glanced at him without saying more, instead closing her eyes to rest a bit.
Having just resolved tonight's matters, she returned home and rushed to the hospital again to comfort Qi Yili. If this went on, she might just die from exhaustion.
Finally, after who knows how long, the surgery room lights dimmed.
The medical staff opened the doors of the operating theater. Qi Yili's heart was seized. It seemed he was awaiting the final verdict.
At this time, Yan Xi also opened her eyes.
"I'm sorry, due to the patient's blood pressure rising suddenly, cerebral hemorrhage recurred. The aneurysm in the brain ruptured. Rescue efforts were ineffective. Death has been confirmed," the lead surgeon gravely informed them of the results of tonight's rescue.
For an instant, Qi Yili's ears buzzed.
Rescue... Ineffective?
Death... Confirmed?
His nails dug fiercely into his palms, sinking deeply into the flesh.
It can't be...
It can't be!
Not until he saw his mother's corpse wheeled out of the operating room did the tightly-drawn nerves in him snap completely.
The familiar brows and eyes were reflected in his eyes.
The mouth that would never speak to him again.
The eyes full of gentleness that would never open to look at him again.
The face that looked as calm as ever, as if merely asleep, but would now never wake from eternal slumber.
He had never felt the world to be so pitch black. His blood nearly congealed from the cold.
He couldn't remember how he came to accept this reality. He couldn't remember how he sent off his mother with the medical staff into the morgue...
He only knew that he blacked out in the end. His last thought before losing consciousness was that he wanted to perish alongside his mother, hopefully to never wake again.
"You're awake."
Yan Xi poured a glass of water and set it at his bedside.
The instant Qi Yili opened his eyes again, all he saw was the icy white ceiling of a hospital room. So white he felt dizzy and disoriented.
He hadn't died.
He saw the glass of water placed by the bed.
"Now that you're awake I'll go call the doctor..." Yan Xi had not finished speaking when a hand grabbed her clothing hem.
"Sis, don't leave." His hand gripped Yan Xi's hem tightly, like a drowned man clutching at the final driftwood around him.
It was the first time he called her "Sis." His face was sickly pale.
He was in so much pain, from past to present.
Only she...
Only she could alleviate it a tiny bit.
He had already lost the last person who loved him in this world. So even if she was pretending, it was completely fine. He would rather drown in this illusion.
"Qi Yili, what did you call me?" Hearing his words, Yan Xi turned to look at him and suddenly laughed.
Qi Yili fell silent for a moment.
"If you don't say it, then I'm leaving." Yan Xi didn't give him time to react before threatening to leave.
From this exchange, Qi Yili sensed an unusual implication. It was like a final farewell.
She can't leave...
She can't leave.... or he would die...
He sat up abruptly from the bed, as if Yan Xi would slip away from him the next second.
His frail, pallid hand gripped Yan Xi's hand tightly.
The sickly handsome youth before her eyes seemed to have shed all pretenses. He pressed that hand, beautiful as a work of art, tightly against his pallid cheek. His morbid face held desperately twisted attachment.
"Big sis..."
His eyes held an almost pathological dependent attachment.
