The Branch Manager Sequence

"Ji, don't go. Please, don't go."

The woman wept uncontrollably, clutching Ji Li's sleeve and refusing to let go.

The stars in the night sky were as dim as the campfire about to burn out.

Ji Li remained silent. He only watched the stars overhead, working through the plan that could turn everything around.

"You can't beat it.

Let's die together. We can join Mo, Ouyang, Tong En, and the others..."

The cherry blossoms on the woman's white shirt turned from pink to red. Their petals broke apart, bit by bit, and scattered into the wind.

A sweet fragrance rode the breeze, and an eerie shade of pink spread across the night.

Ji Li watched the pink wind in the sky with his black eyes. At last, he turned around.

He gently laid a hand on the woman's soft, flowing hair and said in a low voice:

"Now that it's come to this, death would be a kindness. A release.

All these years, you've made too many hard choices and walked too many difficult roads.

Leave the easy part to yourself.

To Mo, Ouyang, Tong En, and A Jing.

I'll keep living on my own."

The woman had eyes only for his face. Love and heartache beyond words filled them—until she heard that last sentence.

Her expression changed. She tried to speak, but her consciousness blurred, and she collapsed to the ground.

"I can beat it. No matter what it costs."

Under the woman's grief-stricken gaze, the man walked away with his cane, his steps painfully slow.

From that moment on, the dream splintered into fragments too obscure to understand.

In the first-floor lobby of the Seventh Branch.

Ji Li lay on the sofa, brow furrowed in pain. He thrashed as though a storm raged through his mind.

Female