Zongman: Unknowingly trapped in the hatchet

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Since the day he returned from Meiji Shrine, Su Qing has been thinking:

What does it feel like to be dead, or to be dying?

Will you go through your life in just a few seconds as the cliché says, or will you go to heaven or hell as a result of karma?

Su Qing seemed to really have the answer.

Death is the endless fall after consciousness is stripped of all coordinates.

Here, time loses its scale, like melted wax, sticky, stagnant, and no longer flowing.

The space has lost its boundaries; up and down, left and right, front and back, inside and outside, all return to the chaotic “nothingness”.

In this pure nothingness, existence itself becomes blurred.

I seem to be living.

It also seems to be dying.

The boundary between life and death here is as blurred as a piece of thin paper soaked in water, which will collapse at the slightest touch.

Yui, is this what you experienced that day?

You are really, amazing...

Just when consciousness was about to completely dissipate, tiny specks of starlight suddenly appeared in the boundless darkness.

Those stars twinkle, illuminating with life, forming vague outlines.

Soon the spots of light became more and more numerous, and the outlines became clearer.

Su Qing sensed it.

Those outlines seem to be the faces of young girls, and they all have extremely beautiful eyes.

Caramel, ruby, and icy blue...

Without exception, those eyes were looking at him with extremely gentle eyes.

Su Qing wanted to see clearly what those outlines were. He always felt that he had seen them somewhere.

He is a very important person and must never be forgotten.

But he still couldn't see clearly, everything before his eyes seemed as illusory as a dream.

But it was precisely because of this that he always retained the last bit of willpower and refused to sink.

The chaos was pierced by those gazes.

Slowly, time began to flow and space took shape.

The cold world gradually began to warm up with light.

Ding dong.

An extremely faint and clear reminder sound rang out, as if coming from the depths of the soul.

[The system attempted to restart for the 105,782nd time...]

【…Restart successful.】

【Large amounts of nutrients were detected...】

[The body repair program is automatically activated...]

[0.01%...0.02%...]

……

[Minimum vital signs and mobility have been restored...]

[Good luck to you]

……

Consciousness is like a fish stranded after the tide recedes, struggling to swim back.

Su Qing struggled to open his heavy eyelids, and what came into his sight was a dazzling white.

ceiling?

The style is a bit familiar...

The gears in my brain began to turn with difficulty, and my thinking ability was slowly recovering, but my body was like a rusty machine, too heavy to respond.

It took him a long time to reestablish the weak connection with his limbs - first the movement of his eyeballs, then the extremely slight tremor of his fingertips...

After an unknown amount of time, he finally gathered up a bit of strength, supported himself with trembling arms, and sat up from the hospital bed with great difficulty.

"Qingjun!"

A call filled with great surprise and disbelief suddenly sounded, with a barely perceptible tremor.

Su Qing looked in the direction of the voice and saw it was Zhenri.

She stood at the door, holding an insulated box tightly in her hand, and she seemed to be nailed to the spot.

Only those caramel-colored eyes were instantly filled with water.

He tried to pull the corners of his mouth, wanting to give her a comforting smile, but in the end it only formed a tiny arc.

"Is this the hospital? Did you bring me here?"

Mahiru lowered her voice, put down the incubator, and quickly walked to the other person's side.

Stand up the pillow behind Su Qing and fluff it up so that he can lean more comfortably.

The girl's fingertips were slightly cool.

As he moved, Su Qing smelled a faint, reassuring scent from her.

"Well, this is the hospital. Yui and I brought you here together."

Mahiru's beautiful eyelashes flickered rapidly as the corners of her eyes twitched.

At this moment, the girl seemed to be trying hard to suppress some emotion that she had been enduring for a long time.

"You guys are really amazing for finding me."

Su Qing was silent for a while, then his gaze slowly shifted to the right.

There.

Yui was sleeping on the side of the bed, with her face pressed against her arm.

A few strands of hair fell on her cheeks, and the corners of her lips twitched slightly, as if she was silently mumbling a name.

He did not wake Yui up, but turned back and asked softly:

"How long have I been unconscious?"

"About two days." Mahiru followed Su Qing's gaze and understood what the other party really wanted to ask, so he continued to explain.

"Yui didn't go home these two days. Thanks to her and me taking turns to keep watch..."

"Like this..." After a long silence, Su Qing turned around, stretched out his hand, placed it on Yui's head, and gently stroked it twice.

Mahiru didn't stop it when she saw it, and there wasn't even shock or any other emotion in her eyes.

"The nurse gave you a lot of nutrient solution," she broke the silence, her voice regaining some of its usual orderliness, but still with a hint of barely perceptible tension.

"The doctor said that your body is seriously lacking in various nutrients. You will definitely feel very...very hungry when you wake up."

As she spoke, she turned around, picked up the insulated box, and opened the lid. A warm white mist with the aroma of rice immediately rose up, blurring her eyebrows and eyes.

"But you can't eat greasy food right away," Mahiru's voice seemed particularly gentle in the hot air, "You should drink some porridge first to let your stomach and intestines slowly adapt."

She picked up the spoon, scooped up a small spoonful of white porridge at a suitable temperature, put it to her lips, and blew on it several times very carefully and gently until she was sure it would not burn him. Then she carefully handed it to Su Qing's lips.

"I bought this this morning and just heated it up," she explained.

While Su Qing was explaining, he had already swallowed it.

"Eat slowly, don't be in a hurry." Mahiru reminded after seeing this, and then repeated the same action to feed the second mouthful, but the outstretched hand soon stopped in mid-air, as if stunned.

Su Qing is crying.

There was no warning, no sound.

Only a line of clear liquid like tears slowly slid down his pale cheek, gathered at his jaw, and dripped onto the snow-white sheets, leaving a small dark mark.

"Qing...why are you crying?"

Mahiru just felt a soreness in her eyes.

[I haven't cried yet, why did I suddenly cry? 】

[You are so cunning...]

"I just think... it's delicious, and... you seem to have lost weight in the past few days since I last saw you."

Su Qing wanted to bend down to take a second bite, but Mahiru's hand had retracted at some point.

"Hmm... I don't think I got that bite just now?"

"I won't give you any more food, I won't give you any more food..."

The pain built up in the depths of his eyes, becoming more and more intense, and the surging emotions were like a dam bursting, unable to be controlled.

Mahiru put the bowl and spoon back into the cupboard and stared at Su Qing with an expression as if she was about to cry.

"What's wrong? Are you angry?" Su Qing smiled and placed his palm, which had just warmed up, on the girl's slightly cool cheek.

He whispered, "Don't cry."

"That kind of thing... is totally impossible!"

Mahiru raised her head and her nose began to twitch violently. Layer upon layer of mist densely overlapped and appeared in her caramel-colored eyes, sparkling with a distressing luster under the incandescent light.

In just a moment, it was completely filled, and the world before my eyes kept switching between clarity and blur.

"Why don't you take good care of yourself? Why don't you eat well?"

"I've been taking good care of myself and eating well..."

"Didn't we agree that love isn't everything in life? You were the one who took the initiative to break up, so why don't you take good care of yourself!"

The girl placed one hand on top of the hand that was pressed against her face. The familiar warmth made Mahiru feel at ease, yet also so scared.

Her voice suddenly rose in a tearful tone, and every word seemed to be dug out from the deepest part of her heart.

"Do you know how worried we were when the doctor told us this? The doctor also said that even if someone didn't eat or drink for days and nights, their physical condition wouldn't become as bad as yours!"

The suppressed thoughts could no longer be suppressed, Mahiru could no longer bear it, and stopped thinking, tightly embracing the boy who had been lost and found in front of her.

"What on earth happened during the days you were away?"

"Don't cry, don't cry. If you keep crying I'll cry with you, and it won't be good if you wake Yui up."

Su Qing soothed the back of Mahiru's head at a slow rhythm, whispering in her ear with his most gentle voice at the moment.

The trembling in my arms seemed to slowly subside, and the heart-wrenching cry turned into suppressed, intermittent sobs.

Mahiru finally raised her head from his arms, her whole face was red from crying, her eyes were swollen like peaches, and tiny tears were hanging on her eyelashes.

Su Qing raised his hand and used his fingertips to very gently wipe away the tears on her face, bit by bit.

The temperature from my fingertips is scorching hot.

"What is this... How can you comfort someone like this?" Mahiru turned her eyes away slightly, as if trying to create the illusion that I wasn't crying.

Then she stared at Su Qing stubbornly, not giving him any chance to escape.

"You haven't answered me yet, please answer me properly."

"Why did you leave without permission and come back so suddenly?"

He paused here and squatted for a while.

The misty eyes changed from stubborn to nervous and uneasy, and became a richer caramel color.

——That was the girl’s determination.

"Also...are you leaving this time? If you want to leave, you need to tell me."

"What will happen if I tell you?" Su Qing asked.

"I will do everything I can to prevent you from leaving." Mahiru said seriously.

Su Qing: "Including some violent means?"

"No." Mahiru shook her head, "I will make you like me even more, so much so that you can never leave me for the rest of your life."

Su Qing smiled, put some force on the girl's hands behind her back, and the two of them hugged each other again.

"The reason I came back is probably because I realized that I can't live without you in this life, so I regretted it."

"Like if you don't eat my food for a day, you'll starve to death?"

Mahiru was just trying to tease him originally, but unexpectedly Su Qing answered very seriously, without sounding fake.

He shook his head and said:

"It's worse than that."

"Yeah." Mahiru murmured softly, "You stole my cooking skills without me noticing, it's not that exaggerated..."

"That's different." Su Qing said again.

"You're so smooth-talking." Mahiru buried her head and complained in a low voice.