WMSR — QT Chapter 91

 

Chapter 91

He also hated those people who were originally supposed to protect Ziqian, wondering why they failed to do so, and why that large crowd could tightly isolate him whenever he wanted to get close to Ziqian, yet now that Ziqian had encountered danger, where had they all gone.

Ziqian, if Ziqian were still by his side, he would definitely be able to protect him well; he would certainly not let him fall into such a dangerous situation for even a single moment.

Meanwhile, the bodyguard who was resented by Xu Jiangzhe stood pale to one side. Clearly, he had not expected that just moments after his employer told him to stand farther away, his employer would be struck like this by a car suddenly flying out from the road. Although he had not yet gone to test his employer's breathing, with an impact like this, not even an immortal could survive.

Behind the two of them, a figure walked over in a manner that was nearly stiff, wooden, and zombie-like, moving with limbs uncoordinated. The closer he got, the slower his steps became. When he reached a distance of one meter away from Bai Yichen, he no longer dared to approach any further. However, the blood flowing across the ground slowly crept toward him until it stained the sole of his shoe.

Fang Ruoming looked at the bloodstains that had spread to the sole of his shoe, and finally dropped to his knees helplessly. He crawled forward on his knees for two steps, reaching out to touch Bai Yichen's body, which was already stained crimson. Xu Jiangzhe, who had been holding Bai Yichen the entire time, vigilantly backed away with a guarded expression. Yet at this moment, Fang Ruoming's strength was frighteningly great. He slowly placed his hand on the side of Bai Yichen's neck—actually a redundant gesture, because given Bai Yichen's appearance at that moment, anyone looking from afar would know he could no longer be alive.

Yet Fang Ruoming stubbornly kept his hand there, as if unwilling to accept the truth, or perhaps waiting for a miracle to happen.

Xu Jiangzhe, who had previously been wary of Fang Ruoming's movements, showed no repulsion toward this action. He merely stared blankly at what Fang Ruoming was doing, waiting patiently, looking as though he expected Fang Ruoming to tell him of some miracle.

Yet the reason a miracle is called a miracle is precisely because it is an event that is fundamentally impossible to occur.

Amidst this eerie and tragic scene, several police cars came roaring over from another direction. However, these police cars were not summoned by nearby onlookers who called after seeing the accident; the police officers inside those vehicles immediately rushed out upon arrival and tightly surrounded the car that had previously crashed into Bai Yichen.

One minute later, after investigating the results, the driver operating the vehicle was already dead.

Upon learning this outcome, those fully armed criminal police officers all exchanged glances, looking at the innocent victim who lay lifeless in a pool of blood, and then looking at the desperate criminal who had died from a catastrophic rollover inside the car. Everyone fell silent.

The next day, a social news segment broadcasted a report: a desperate criminal fleeing after hijacking a vehicle and being pursued by criminal police accidentally rolled his car, crashing onto a sidewalk. This resulted in the unfortunate death of an innocent pedestrian, and the perpetrator died at the scene.

...

Bai Yichen's death was hastily concluded by a brief social news report. Having neither relatives nor friends in this world, and hardly anyone with whom he intersected, his departure seemed to cause not a single ripple. Yet two people were completely transformed by his passing.

Xu Jiangzhe vanished for a long time following Bai Yichen's funeral, but when he appeared once more, people discovered that he had lost his mind.

Naturally, his madness was not particularly severe; he could even go to work at the corporate office with a clear mind and handle business decisions. But whenever he returned home, he would frequently push an empty wheelchair, speaking to it with the utmost tenderness.

His attitude toward the wheelchair was so vivid and lifelike, as though a real person truly sat there. The phrase he spoke most often to the wheelchair was, "Ziqian, it's too dangerous there. Let's go home, let's go home."

Occasionally, while sunning the wheelchair in the garden, he would suddenly recall something and gently say to it, "Ziqian, let me take you shopping at the mall."

No one knew that when uttering these words, Xu Jiangzhe's mind drifted back to their youth. It was Ziqian's birthday, and that evening, he had barged into Ziqian's room, willfully holding him and asking what he liked, promising to gift him anything he desired.

Yet Ziqian had replied that he wanted to go shopping at the mall.

What had he said back then? Oh, he had said nothing at all; he had simply closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep.

Only now, after all this time, did he realize that one day, even wanting to accomplish such a trivial matter had become an extravagant hope.

What pained him even more was that during all those wonderful youthful years of Ziqian's that he had monopolized, he had never fulfilled even such a small wish for him.

...

...

Among a cluster of tombstones standing densely in a public cemetery, Fang Ruoming sat dazedly in front of a grave marker, staying from dawn until dusk.

Ever since that day, a gaping hole seemed to have been torn open in his heart, buried away along with the departure of that person.

Day after day, the voice, appearance, and smiles of that individual replayed before his eyes, leaving him with no desire to go anywhere else except the cemetery.

Over and over again, he regretted why he hadn't hurried over a little earlier that day, and why he hadn't made a phone call to Brother Bai along the way—perhaps if he had, everything would have turned out differently.

He likewise regretted why he had been such a coward, keeping his confession unspoken until the person he loved was already dead.

The will left behind after Bai Yichen's passing had already been made public by a lawyer, yet receiving Bai Yichen's inheritance only brought Fang Ruoming even greater torment. In a constant haze, he shuttled back and forth between his home and the cemetery day after day.

After living this walking-corpse-like existence for an unknown length of time, he suddenly wondered what meaning there was in living like this.

Could there possibly be anything left in this world worth holding onto?

Had not the person he cared about most already departed, so why should he remain behind?

Fang Ruoming knew that such thoughts were wrong, yet he found himself unable to restrain them, constantly drifting in a trance back to the spot where Bai Yichen had met with the car accident.

Months later, one day, he experienced an hallucination at the exact site of Bai Yichen's accident. Believing he once again witnessed his Brother Bai being struck by a vehicle, he rushed directly forward—and this time, it was an eternal sleep.