Three Hands Stacked Together

Without saying a word, Yang Nianxia scooped Yun Jingheng up from the ground, carefully avoiding the wound on his left shoulder, and carried him on her back.

"You... you don't look like you're that big, but you're surprisingly heavy." Yang Nianxia's voice was muffled, as if she had a stuffy nose.

Yun Jingheng rested his chin on his shoulder and chuckled weakly, "You're practically skin and bones. I'm just... heavy-boned."

Shouldn't people with heavy bones walk on their own?

"Stop talking nonsense and get going."

Yang Nianxia didn't reply.

He carried Yun Jingheng on his back and followed behind Wu Zhangkong, walking back along the corridor.

He walked very steadily, taking each step firmly before moving on, as if carrying a piece of porcelain that would break at the slightest touch.

Behind him, Luo Guixing supported the almost transparent Good Corpse.

The message traveled faster than their footsteps.

People were already waiting at the exit of the utility tunnel.

Ya Li stood at the very front.

Her clothes were covered in dust and bloodstains, and her sleeves were rolled up to her elbows, revealing her arms, which were trembling slightly from running among the wounded.

Her fingers began to tremble uncontrollably when she heard footsteps coming from deep within the utility tunnel.

Then she saw the person on Yang Nianxia's back.

The figure, covered in dirt, with blood soaking his left shoulder and lips so cracked he couldn't utter a complete sentence, completely overlapped with the Little Boy in her memory who would cling to her and act spoiled.

Ya Li didn't run away.

She walked very slowly, step by step, as if afraid that if she walked too fast she would find out it was all a dream.

Until she walked up to Yang Nianxia, she reached out her trembling hand and gently touched Yun Jingheng's face.

Warm.

It's alive.

She opened her mouth, as if to say something, but tears fell first.

One drop, two drops, and then tears streamed down my face uncontrollably.

She didn't wail or even sob; tears just streamed down her face, washing away the dust and leaving white streaks.

Yun Jingheng struggled to lift his eyelids, looking at the woman crying silently in front of him, his throat feeling as if something was blocking it.

He was trapped under the rubble for dozens of hours, facing the shockwaves of two bombs colliding and the despair of his oxygen tube gradually thinning, but he never shed a single tear.

But now, seeing the tear stains on Ya Li's face, his eyes instantly welled up with tears.

"Mom..." His voice was dry and hoarse, as if it had been sanded out, "Don't cry... I won't be able to hold back, with so many people around..."

Ya Li did not answer.

Tears continued to stream down her cheeks. She pouted, her voice trembling with a barely perceptible sob, complaining like a little girl, "Honestly... you never give me a moment's peace."

Yun Ming stood one step behind Ya Li, without stepping forward.

His Adam's apple bobbed up and down, and his fingers, hanging by his sides, clenched and unclenched one by one, repeating this several times.

He watched as his only son lay on Yang Nianxia's back, disheveled and bleeding from a wound on his left shoulder.

He wanted to say, "How did I get myself into this mess?", "Why didn't I ask for help sooner?", and so many other things.

But in the end, he simply reached out and lightly pressed on Yun Jingheng's head through the air, as if touching a child who used to ride on his neck and pull his hair a long, long time ago.

"... You brat."

He turned his head away, no longer looking at his son's pale face.

If I keep looking, the tears in my eyes will burst out.

Ya Li was still wiping the dust off Yun Jingheng's face, muttering to herself in a soft, fragmented voice, as if she were pouring out all the words she had been holding back for dozens of hours at once. "You've lost weight. You were already thin, and now you're even thinner. Have you not been eating properly again? Is there any food in the Launch Shaft? Did you leave any food for yourself when you were designing it?"

"Mom..."

Yun Jingheng was finding it hard to keep up with her nagging, but he was too weak to dodge, so he could only obediently lie on Yang Nianxia's back. His tone carried a long-lost sense of helplessness typical of sons, "The Launch Shaft is for launching nuclear missiles, not for picnics."

"Then remember to include some compressed biscuits next time you design it," Ya Li said matter-of-factly, as if discussing what to have for breakfast the next day.

Yun Jingheng paused for a moment, then smiled.

The laugh aggravated the penetrating wound in his abdomen, causing him to grimace in pain, but he still laughed, his eyes stinging and his voice nasal. "Okay, next time I'll definitely put in a whole box, enough to last a month."

Listening to the conversation between the mother and son, Yang Nianxia's lips twitched. She wanted to say something joking, but found that her nose was also getting sore.

He quickly turned his head to the side and wiped the tip of his nose with his sleeve.

The Good Corpse was supported by Luo Guixing and stood to one side. Its body, formed from Moonlight, was so thin that the wall behind it was almost visible.

It watched Ya Li wipe her face, and watched Yun Ming turn his head away stiffly, remaining silent for a very long time.

It is a kind of kindness that was extracted from Yun Jingheng.

It possesses all of the original's memories, including the nights when it was held in its mother's arms and lulled to sleep, and the afternoons when it rode on its father's shoulders and pulled his hair.

But memories are ultimately just memories.

It is indeed an independent personality, but it is his personality.

Yang Nianxia gently placed Yun Jingheng on the temporary bed, but Yun Jingheng still gasped in pain as soon as his back touched the bed.

Ya Li immediately placed her hand on his shoulder, the pressure light but firm, leaving no room for argument. "Don't move. Lie down."

Yun Jingheng lay down obediently, watching his mother sit down by the bed and take out gauze, ointment, and tape from the first-aid kit, her movements as practiced as if she had done it a thousand times.

She re-examined the stitches on his left shoulder to make sure they hadn't come undone, and then lifted his shirt to check the penetrating wound in his abdomen.

When her fingertips touched the edge of the wound, Yun Jingheng's abdominal muscles tensed reflexively.

"Does it hurt?" Ya Li looked up at him.

"It doesn't hurt." Yun Jingheng said without changing his expression.

Ya Li didn't speak, but gently poked the bruise next to the wound with her finger.

Yun Jingheng hissed, and Ya Li gave him a look that said, "Try being stubborn again," before lowering her head to continue changing the dressing.

Yun Ming stood by the bed, looking down at his wife treating their son's wounds, and remained silent for a long time.

The lights in the medical area made the lines of his face exceptionally clear—his cheekbones, jawline, and brow ridges, each one looking as if sculpted by a knife.

But beneath those sharp lines lay something indescribable, making him look ten years older than usual.

"Yun Jingheng," he suddenly spoke, calling him by his full name.

Yun Jingheng subconsciously tried to sit up straight, but Ya Li pressed him back down.

He had no choice but to lie there obediently, turning his head to look at his father.

Yun Ming rarely called him by his full name; he usually referred to him as "Jing Heng" or "son." Calling him by his full name usually meant that they were about to discuss serious matters.

But this time, after Yun Ming called his name, he remained silent for a long time, long enough for Ya Li to look up at him.

Then he said, "You did a great job."

Yun Jingheng was taken aback for a moment, "Actually... I've always been a selfish person."

Yun Jingheng didn't look at his father. He stared at the flickering emergency light on the ceiling and asked in a low voice, "If the nuclear missile fails to intercept it, if the God-Slaying Level really falls, what will you do?"

Before Yun Ming answer, he continued, "You will fly into the air, burn your Four-Word Battle Armor and demigod Godhood, and withstand that missile that can evaporate the Sea God Lake. You will detonate it above Shrek, using your own body as the last line of defense."

"I know you can handle it. Level 99 Limit Douluo, the Sea God Pavilion Master, you can handle it. But what happens after you handle it?"

He turned his head to look at his father.

"I don't want to lose my dad."

"Please consider this before you do anything, you bastard."

Yun Ming remained silent.

He bent down, then reached out and took Yun Jingheng's hand out from under the covers, holding it tightly in both of his own hands.

Yun Jingheng's hands were very cold.

Trapped in the Launch Shaft for dozens of hours, he suffered from blood loss, oxygen deprivation, and his body temperature never returned to normal.

Yun Ming's hands were very warm.

The blood and energy of Level 99 Limit Douluo are as vigorous as a furnace. The scalding heat from his palm travels up Yun Jingheng's fingertips, warming the abrasions on his wrists, the bruises on the back of his hands, and the skin on his thumb and forefinger that has been chafed from holding the sword for too long.

"You won't lose it," Yun Ming said.

"You won't lose me. I won't lose you. We--"

He paused, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down once.

"... We will not lose each other."

Yun Jingheng could feel his father's hands trembling.

The tremor was very, very slight, so slight that even a level 99 Limit Douluo could easily control it, but he couldn't.

He let the trembling pass through his palm to his son, as if acknowledging it in another way.

I was afraid; I was afraid of losing you.

Ya Li wiped away her tears and placed her hand over the clasped hands of the father and son.

Her hands were smaller than Yun Ming's, but warmer than Yun Jingheng's, with the coolness of residual ointment still clinging to her fingers.

She didn't say anything.

She has already said too much today; there are no more things to say now.

Her hands covered there, three hands stacked together, big and small, warm and cool, like a small tower cast in flesh and blood under the flickering emergency light.

After a long while, Yun Ming straightened up and let go of her hand.

He didn't turn around immediately, but instead looked down at the hand he had just shaken.

The hand he had watched grow from a chubby little fist into a hand with distinct knuckles, and from the hand that used to pester him for candy into the hand that pressed the nuclear launch button.

Then he reached out and pressed down hard on Yun Jingheng's head.

"Go to sleep."

He said his voice had mostly returned to its usual steady tone, but the ending notes still carried a subtle softness.

Then he turned and left the medical area.

Ya Li stood up, tucked the blanket around Yun Jingheng, and leaned down to kiss him on the forehead.

"Sleep well."

She straightened up, her voice as gentle as if she had returned to many years ago, when Yun Jingheng was still a little boy who would only close his eyes after she told him a bedtime story every night. "Mommy is going to change the dressings for the other wounded. Call me if you feel unwell."