【Interstellar Contract Magician】Ruyuanke

For some reason, I seemed to really "see" him. Not with my eyes, but with a deeper, more eerie perception. In that instant, even though I had lost my sight and even the light was blurred into gray, Ye Lin's face was so clear it was almost blinding.

He wasn't far from me. The snow reflected the cold light, and blood flowed across the ice, reaching his feet. His uniform was stiff, covered in mud, blood, and dust, its rigid texture almost indistinguishable from his own. The wind made his epaulets flutter, but he didn't move.

He was supposed to be the kind of person who never showed any expression—a cold, clean, and almost mechanical soldier. But now, there was an expression on his face that I had never seen before.

It was an extremely complex expression, a mixture of relief, sorrow, anger, and a strange sense of satisfaction.

His lips curled slightly upwards, as if he were smiling, but there was no joy in that smile. His eye twitched, and his whole face was stiff like a cracked mask, the crack revealing not warmth, but an intensely suppressed pain.

He looked at me, his gaze fixed on me. For a moment, I almost suspected he was looking at someone else.

That gaze was so heavy that it didn't seem to be directed at "me," but rather as if it were looking through me at something that was already beyond redemption.

He is laughing.

It wasn't a genuine laugh, but a twisted reaction of emotions suppressed for too long finally losing control. The laugh made his facial muscles tremble slightly, as if being torn apart by both pain and pleasure simultaneously. His exhaled breath turned into a white puff in the cold wind, like steam rising from boiling water.

My chest tightened. His expression was one of utter collapse.

In an instant, everything hidden and suppressed by order was forced out.

His eyes were red, but there were no tears. Something was struggling within them—

Hate?

Do you regret it?

Or is it the relief of "finally it's over" after finally seeing me collapse?

I couldn't tell. I only felt that the laughter was colder than the pain.

A gust of wind blew by, and his lips moved slightly, as if he wanted to say something. I saw his Adam's apple bob, and the muscles in his neck tense to the extreme. But he said nothing.

He just stood there, snow falling on his hair, blood flowing down the soles of his shoes.

He looked at me, as if confirming something, or perhaps saying goodbye.

My consciousness wavered, all the sounds around me were sucked away, and my body felt like it was being dragged deeper into the depths.

The last thing I saw was my fallen form reflected in his dark eyes—

But what flashed in those eyes was not sadness, but an emotion deeper than hatred, longer than pain, and more like death than life.

That smile, that expression, that stiff posture—it all seemed so unreal. He looked as if he had been torn apart by something.

I even doubted whether it was my imagination. After all—that kind of Ye Lin shouldn't exist.

I lost my sight and my hearing. Logically, I should have lost everything.

But that's not the case. Or rather, not entirely.

At first, it was cold. A bone-chilling cold, from skin to bone marrow, from the surface of the body to the internal organs, as if the whole person was sealed in a layer of ice. The air I breathed was also cold, turning into fragments as it entered my lungs and exploding in my chest. Then, after an unknown amount of time, that coldness was suddenly overturned and turned into scalding heat.

It was almost unbearably hot.

That kind of heat wasn't a rise in temperature, but a heat that felt like it was tearing a person apart.

Something was boiling deep inside me, like my blood was being forced to flow backward, like my heart was burning. Every inch of my skin was scorching, my muscles were tense, and my consciousness was being squeezed out of shape. The heat made me want to struggle, but I couldn't even move a finger.

Then, the heat disappeared. The cold disappeared too.

All warmth was drained away, leaving only a feeling of emptiness.

It wasn't numbness, but a vacuum. Nothing could get in; I couldn't feel my body's existence, and I wasn't even sure if I was still "inside."

But it was in this emptiness that pain appeared.

It was as sharp as being pricked by a needle into a nerve, not an external wound, not a bodily one.

The pain is in my brain, deep inside, in the place that should never be touched.

It wasn't intermittent, but continuous and spreading, like someone slowly inserting thin threads into my consciousness, twisting my entire brain little by little.

I wanted to shout, but I couldn't. I wanted to close my "eyes," but I no longer had any.

The pain had no direction, no beginning, and no end; it was like countless tiny rays of light flashing, tearing, and snapping simultaneously in my mind. Every nerve was stretched and knotted at the same time. It reminded me of the tearing sensation I felt when a tender seedling first awakened, only this time, it was more thorough.

I felt as if I was being "rewritten." Fragments, memories, and senses were being peeled away and overlapped simultaneously, as if something was trying to piece them together, but it didn't quite work.

It wasn't physical pain; it was as if my consciousness itself was being torn apart. I could even feel the shape of the pain—it was like a thin needle piercing straight into the back of my head.

Cold, heat, weightlessness, pain—all were mixed together. I was no longer sure if I was alive or falling into some deeper realm.

The only thing I'm sure of is—it wasn't a dream. Because I've never felt this much pain in a dream.