Chapter 98
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Jiang Yanchi’s outstretched hand froze in mid-air, not moving.
“Chu… Xie.” He didn’t dare to touch again. After pausing for a moment, he propped himself up, swiftly coming down from the bed, assessing the person sleeping with their back to him at a short distance.
He forgot to breathe.
Thus, in the empty sleeping chamber, only the lonely sound of the wind passing through the hallway remained.
The pearl curtain in front of the bed swayed, and the crisp sound of pearls and jade colliding broke the eerie silence. The canopy at the head of the bed was lifted by the wind, as if a mist in a dream enveloped the figure and then became clear again.
But Jiang Yanchi tightly pinched his palm.
It hurt.
It wasn’t a dream.
Slightly turning his body, the snow outside the window illuminated the bed, casting a light on the bluish-gray silhouette.
Especially clear.
Jiang Yanchi couldn’t describe the feeling, only feeling as if a large piece of his heart had suddenly been hollowed out. His knee bones trembled, and he knocked against the edge of the bed with a thud, instinctively raising his hand to support the headboard.
After stumbling for a while, he moved closer. Seeing a strand of hair falling on the mouth and nose of the person, it remained motionless.
Only now did he reach out, trembling, to touch his cheek and neck.
Ice-cold.
As if burned by fire, his hand withdrew involuntarily.
“Come, someone!”
Taking a few staggering steps, he rushed out of the hall, his voice mosquito-like, full of hoarse despair. “Call, call the imperial physician!” There was no sound outside, so he raised his voice again, alarming Little Xizi in the corridor.
Little Xizi noticing Jiang Yanchi’s unusual expression, immediately shouted to the palace attendants in the distance, “Quick, go call the imperial physician!”
Supporting Jiang Yanchi, they returned to the hall and saw the empress lying on the bed, already lifeless.
A chill ran down his spine.
“Your, Your…”
Jiang Yanchi raised his hand to interrupt Little Xizi’s words and said, “Go, first prepare the medicine.”
“But, Your Majesty, the Empress—”
“Make something to eat… he didn’t eat anything last night; he must be hungry. Go cook a bowl of porridge.”
Several imperial physicians were staying in the side hall. In less than a moment, they arrived. Upon entering, they opened the wooden box on their back, hearing that the empress was unwell; their movements became somewhat flustered. Taking a piece of ginseng after hearing that the empress was not in good condition, they held a few two-inch-long silver needles in their other hand and approached the bed, their movements flowing like clouds and water, without observing Little Xizi’s facial expression.
When they turned to the person lying on the side, they were shocked when they saw the withered, bluish-gray face.
Turning around to look at the emperor, Jiang Yanchi pointed at Chu Xie and shouted, “What’s wrong? Hurry up.”
“Yo… Your Majesty.”
The chief imperial physician set down the silver needle and clenched the ginseng in his hand. Despite the freezing weather, cold sweat covered his forehead and back. “The Empress has already… passed away.”
Jiang Yanchi’s eyes flashed suddenly, a dark and malevolent expression emerging. “What are you saying?”
“He… he has already… passed away, Your Majesty.”
The chief imperial physician bowed down forcefully to the ground. “Your Majesty, spare me. It’s not that I won’t save him; it’s just that… I can’t resurrect the dead.”
Another imperial physician, equally shocked, approached Chu Xie, feeling his pulse, examining his eyes, nose, and mouth closely.
“Yes, probably… around the Chou hour last night.”
How could that be? At the Zi hour, he was awake.
At that time, he was very clear-headed.
He smiled, teased, and joked.
He even wrote a letter. His spirit was so good; he didn’t seem like a dying person.
Jiang Yanchi was bewildered, muttering, “He spoke to me many times during the Zi hour; how could it be at the Chou hour?”
The imperial physicians hesitated for a moment and finally revealed their seven or eight-point guess, “Your Majesty, do you know that dying people often have a brief period of revived consciousness? The Empress…”
In the face of death, when the sun is setting, the last glimmer of light.
In his dying moments, he couldn’t let go of his younger brother, thus experiencing that brief period of clarity.
The tender words from the previous night, the sincere interaction, the lingering intimacy – all of it was the final burst of light before death.
With a loud sound, a cold glint flashed.
Little Xizi hurriedly stepped forward to block Jiang Yanchi’s arm, which seemed ready to strike, and burst into tears. “Your Majesty, Your Majesty, don’t be impulsive! It’s not the imperial physicians’ fault. Your Majesty, the Empress is still watching; he’s still watching…”
Jiang Yanchi, with a trace of redness in his eyes, stared at the figure lying on the bed.
After a while, he pointed to the door, “Get out, get out!”
When Little Xizi led the imperial physicians away, a sword was thrown, piercing the vermilion door with a sharp sound.
Shocked, a few imperial physicians at the door tumbled down the stone steps, injuring their foreheads. In panic, they hurriedly retreated.
Jiang Yanchi knelt on the ground, his body hunched over, nails scraping over the cold stone bricks beneath him, producing a harsh scratching sound.
The wind blew the bead curtain, making a pleasant tinkling sound.
Several bloodstains appeared on the ground, but were soon blurred by tears falling one after another.
“Chu Xie, Chu Xie!”
Clutching his teeth, he choked back his sobs.
No, this can’t be!
The young emperor suddenly lifted his head, climbing onto the bed in front of him, his bloody fingertips touching Chu Xie’s pure white face. “No, I don’t want this. Wake up, please wake up… Chu Xie, Chu Xie…” He brought his ear close to the chest, hearing no sound.
“Xu Chunmu… yes, you don’t care about Xu Chunmu anymore… Without you, he will die…”
A drop of tears fell onto the peacefully sleeping person’s face.
“Without you, I will also… die…”
But it couldn’t stir him in the slightest.
That body had no warmth left, and those peach blossom-like eyes would never open again.
He thought everything would get better.
But it turns out, there was no future at all.
In the first year of the Jinghe era, on the day of Little New Year, at the age of twenty-four.
The snow cleared, and it was a sunny day.
After a long time, Jiang Yanchi still vividly remembered the bone-chilling cold and pain of that day.
His beloved, died in the deep winter of his eighteenth year.
Since then, spring never arrived in his life.
***
He woke up once again, hearing the faint sound of instruments by his ear.
Opening his eyes just a crack, the glaring white light pierced his irises. Lifting his hand to block some of the light, he heard the cicadas chirping outside the window.
The pungent smell of disinfectant lingered in the air.
He was in a hospital.
“Mr. Shen has awakened.” The nurse immediately came to check on him, then said, “Wait a moment; I’ll go call your family.”
“Wait, I…”
Looking at the needle on the back of his hand, he raised his hand to see. The nurse helped him lie back down and raised the bed a bit, saying, “Lie down first; Miss Shen will be here soon.”
Suddenly, his heart tightened.
He had lived with Chu Xie’s name for more than ten years. Now, hearing “Mr. Shen,” he felt a sense of unfamiliarity.
But soon, the person who entered through the door was not Little Yin but two doctors in white coats, appearing to be in their thirties. They held folders as if checking medical records and joking, “Oh, what happened to Professor Shen? Fainted as soon as you said you fainted.”
Who were these two?
He felt a bit confused.
“Hey, hey, are you still not fully awake?”
Fainted.
Right, he had just fainted in a closed room when he returned to this world.
In his mind, a voice immediately sounded, familiar yet unfamiliar: “They are your research graduate classmates. The chief physicians of this hospital, the one on the left is surnamed Wang, and the one on the right is surnamed Liu.”
He replied absently, “Oh, I… maybe I’m anemic.”
“Your body is as strong as an ox, how did you suddenly become anemic? Could it be that your sister recently got married, and you’re not used to living alone…”
Married, what marriage?
A sharp pain flashed through his head as he asked, “What is going on here?”
“You inhabited my body for over ten years, and I stayed in your body for over ten years. When you attempted suicide at the age of eighteen, I repeated two years and finally got into medical school.”
He immediately questioned, “Didn’t you say Little Yin was seriously ill and needed surgery…”
“I lied to you.”
The original Chu’s voice was very calm. “She recovered ten years ago.”
“Why do you always seem absent-minded? Are you still cursing that jerk who married your sister? Hey, I’ve never seen anyone more sister-complexed than you…”
“Hey, Brother Liu, stop always talking about me, okay?”
A gentle voice of reprimand came from the doorway.
Chu Xie looked up and saw a young girl with long hair standing outside the ward. Her almond-shaped eyes sparkled, her skin was fair, and her gently arched willow leaf eyebrows were charming. Holding a small bouquet of flowers, she walked into the room, unwrapped the packaging, and placed the flowers in a vase without looking back, asking casually, “Brother, what happened? You suddenly fainted at home.”
“Oh, the doors and windows happened to be tightly closed, so I…”
Shen Yin’s hand suddenly stopped, and she turned around, “Doors and windows closed…” She raised her eyebrows, smiling to reveal a row of neat teeth, “Can you be suffocated like this?”
“No, it’s just that I…”
Shen Yin stared at Chu Xie for a while, then suddenly frowned, “Brother, something’s not right with you today.”
Winking playfully, she asked, “Are you really my brother?”
“No, adopted.”
“No, adopted,” he subconsciously repeated the voice in his mind.
Shen Yin burst into laughter, “Hey, how did you pick her up? A beautiful sister like her can’t be picked up. Tell me, I want to pick up one too.”
“Hey, I want to go too, Brother Shen, where did you pick her up? Give us some tips.”
Laughter filled the hospital room.
It was lively.
But he felt somewhat strange.
“Alright, the doctors said there’s nothing wrong with you. Professor Shen, you can be discharged today,” Shen Yin took out a set of clothes and shoes from the bag. “Let’s go home.”
Seeing him not moving, she pouted, “What’s wrong, brother? Did you hit your head when you fainted?”
The car drove into the villa area in the city center. He sat in the front passenger seat, looked in the mirror, and glanced at his face, appearing to be in his thirties.
He had spent fifteen years in that other world. So, he should be thirty-three this year.
Shen Yin, his sister, was no longer the ten-year-old kid from before; she was now twenty-five.
It’s good.
His Little Yin had grown up smoothly.
Back when he first found Tao Li, Tao Li was only ten years old, with a dirty face and a pair of twinkling big eyes that looked so much like Shen Yin… He subconsciously shook his head vigorously.
No.
Don’t think about that side anymore.
That side was just a dreamlike illusion, and what was in front of him was his real life.
“We’ve arrived.”
Shen Yin unbuckled her seatbelt, patted his shoulder, and asked, “What’s wrong, brother? Did you really hit your head? You’ve been staring blankly.”
“No, not at all.”
“Oh, right, I have to attend the wedding rehearsal tomorrow and can’t drive. Brother, how about you drive? I want to ride in the car you drive for my wedding.”
He heard a faint sigh in his mind.
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