Who Killed Robin

Onstage, Robin's body suddenly jerked.

A small, dark red spot began to spread faintly across the side of her neck.

The crowd below noticed something was wrong. A brief scream rang out, then cut off as abruptly as if someone had seized the screamer by the throat. Soldiers at the edge of the square began to stir. In the shadow of the stage, Old Zhou threw his cigarette butt to the ground and rushed toward the gunshot with several others. Like a wheat field swept by the wind, the panicked crowd fell back in widening circles.

Sounds of a struggle and dull thuds soon came from a distant rooftop, followed by the sound of someone being led away with their arms twisted behind their back.

But Robin did not fall.

She stood where she was and pressed a hand to the side of her neck. Her fingertips came away dark red. Robin looked down at the blood, then raised her head and managed to take a deep breath.

The movement was slight, but it tugged at her wound, making her brow crease almost imperceptibly.

"I'm fine." Robin's voice remained steady, even carrying a hint of a reassuring smile. "Don't panic. Everyone, please keep listening to the song."

She was lying.

Jingxing saw her trembling, saw the red line on her collar widening. Yet Robin stood there, straight-backed, without a single note out of place. As naturally as if nothing had happened, she continued with the next verse.

The commotion below the stage gradually died down. People lifted their heads again, their tear-streaked faces shining in the sunlight. They believed her, because no one wanted to suspect that the dazzling figure onstage was smiling at them while she bled.

Jingxing stood at the back of the crowd, burning pain bursting in waves around his eyes as tears streamed down his face. He couldn't tell whether they came from the pain or something else.

The singing continued, but his ears were buzzing, and he couldn't hear it clearly. All he knew was that she was hurt. All he knew was that he stood in the crowd, separated from her by a sea of people, unable to do anything.

The sachet in his pocket rested against his chest, cold as a piece of ice.

Unable to keep listening, he turned, pushed through the crowd, and ran backstage.

The canvas overhead blocked the sun, making it much darker backstage than outside.

When Jingxing rushed in, two staff members were helping Robin down from the stage. Her face was frighteningly pale, and blood was still seeping from the wound on the side of her neck, staining one side of her collar red. Someone rummaged through a first-aid kit while someone else tore open a packet of gauze with trembling hands.

Ofila was so frantic that she had her phone out, ready to contact her superiors. Her company's biggest star had been kind enough to come to this godforsaken place to do charity work and mediate a war, and these audacious natives had actually dared to shoot at her? Did they really think Interastral Peace Entertainment was so easy to bully?

"We have to teach those bastards a bloody lesson!" Ofila muttered through gritted teeth as she typed up a report.

"Let me." Just then, Jingxing walked over and took the gauze from the staff member. He crouched down and pressed it against Robin's wound.

Her blood quickly soaked through the gauze and seeped between his fingers, sticking to his fingertips.

It was warm, just like Robin herself.

"Are you really all right?" Jingxing asked quietly.

Robin raised her eyes to look at him. She was still smiling, though the smile looked especially strained on her deathly pale face.

"Of course I'm fine," she said hoarsely. "I finished the song, didn't I?"

Jingxing kept his head down, watching the blood gathering on his hands. He put every bit of first aid he had learned to use, but it was nowhere near enough. By the light, he could make out the path of the wound. The attacker had originally aimed for her throat, but the bullet had only pierced her neck.

It had missed by about an inch.

"They weren't after your life." Jingxing heard his own voice, low and hoarse. "They were after your voice. Those b○stards..."

If they had wanted her dead, one bullet would have been enough. Only if they wanted her unable to sing would they have needed to aim for her throat.

But if Robin lost her voice, how was that any different from killing her?

Robin chuckled, her face showing no concern, but the movement tugged at her wound again, and she drew a sharp breath from the pain.

"It's all right. If that was their goal, then they lost," she said. "Look, the people outside are already calling for peace."

"Why didn't you come offstage then?" Jingxing gripped Robin's wrist with his other hand. "For people you'd never met, for a planet you might never visit again, was it worth risking never being able to sing again?"

Robin closed her eyes and didn't answer.

But that response already showed how she felt. She thought it was worth it.

The medical team arrived quickly and nudged Jingxing half a step aside. They cleaned the wound, administered anesthetic, stitched it, and bandaged it, their movements swift and efficient.

The military surgeon in charge took off his gloves and gave his assessment. "The bullet grazed the side of her neck. It didn't damage any major blood vessels. It's a flesh wound. A few days of rest will be enough."

Jingxing listened, but the weight on his heart did not lift.

The wound was bandaged, and the bleeding had stopped. Yet Robin's complexion had not improved at all. If anything, she was even paler than when she had first come offstage. The halo above her head flickered on and off like a lamp with a loose connection. The fingertips resting on the armrest trembled more and more violently.

Jingxing was about to speak when Ofila screamed first. "Haven't you already removed the bullet? Why isn't she getting better?! Is there something wrong with your treatment?! Robin is our company's most precious star! If anything happens to her, your entire—"

"It has nothing to do with them, and the bullet isn't the problem now," Robin said, opening her eyes and cutting Ofila off. "When I was attacked, I was using all my strength to channel Imaginary Energy and spread my singing."

She paused, as if considering how to explain it to a layperson. After all, neither of the two people before her was a Pathstrider.

"You can think of it as a taut string. When the bullet struck, it was as if someone hit the string hard. It didn't break, but..." Her voice was even. "The Imaginary Energy that slipped out of my control has started running wild inside me. Unless I calm it down, I can't recover."

"How long will that take?" Jingxing pressed urgently.

"I don't know," Robin said. "I've never experienced anything like this before, and..."

"Then let's have the company come pick us up right away! There's no equipment in this lousy place that can regulate Imaginary Energy!" Ofila said urgently.

Robin shook her head. "I can't take a spaceship in this condition."

If the uncontrolled Imaginary Energy inside her resonated with the Imaginary Energy of the spaceship, even her life could be in danger.

But if she stayed and relied on herself to regulate it here, one look at her increasingly trembling fingers was enough to show that it was no different from watching Robin die a slow death.

Jingxing clenched his fists tightly and said nothing.

The doctor's words, "A few days of rest will be enough," still echoed in his ears, but the person before him was already struggling to sit upright.

He thought back to those few minutes in the crowd—watching helplessly as she was shot, watching helplessly as she kept singing, while the only thing he could do was listen to her and stay until the performance ended.

Rage lodged in his chest like a piece of red-hot iron, burning until Jingxing's throat tightened.

"When Mom and Dad were killed by the Antimatter Legion, I was just like this too. Standing there, unable to do anything."

More than a decade had passed. He had become the top student in the oil painting department at the Klimt Central Academy of Fine Arts, a painter others called full of promise, and an honored guest of General Huaiyan.

Jingxing had thought he had grown, thought he could do more now.

Yet when a truly life-or-death moment came, all he could do was stand there.

Jingxing hated it. He hated his own helplessness.

Can I only stand here and watch?

Am I still unable to do anything?

Idrila, Idrila, I'm grateful that you let me be reborn into this world. Now I'm begging you, begging you, begging you.

I promised I would use this new life to pursue beauty throughout the universe.

But now the purest beauty is vanishing before my eyes. Are you going to leave me helpless too?

As he stared fixedly at Robin's trembling fingertips, praying again and again in his heart to Idrila, the Aeon of Beauty, the sachet in his pocket suddenly quivered.