In the ward, the bright sunlight pouring in from the window casts warm light spots on the floor.
Lin Qingyang was sitting on the hospital bed and saw himself reflected in the glass window next to him, with neat short hair and wearing a light blue hospital gown.
"Brother, you scared me to death." Lin Yao sat beside the bed and babbled, "You don't know, you have been in a coma for a long time, and the doctors said you..."
Lin Yao paused for a moment, then continued, "But fortunately, you finally woke up. I knew you would be reluctant to leave me."
Lin Qingyang said nothing and looked at Lin Yao without blinking.
Lin Yao reached out and held Lin Qingyang's hand. His palm was warm and he said with a smile, "Brother, you are back, everything is over."
Lin Qingyang looked at her, his eyes slightly red. Now he understood everything. In the world of the book, the "way of heaven" that insisted on killing him was just the subconscious mind of the author Lin Yao. In the beginning, it was the original intention. The obsession with the direction of the plot of this novel later turned into an obsession to force his soul back from that world to reality. It was these almost crazy thoughts that even Lin Yao himself was not aware of, which gave birth to Soul Fiend Jiuchen.
Jiuchen wants to kill him, but Lin Yao actually wants to save him!
Lin Yao sniffed, raised her face and smiled at him, "By the way, brother, I just got my internship salary. When you are discharged from the hospital, I will treat you to a big dinner. You have raised me for so many years, and it is finally my turn to honor you. What do you want to eat?"
Lin Yao was talking nonchalantly, Lin Qingyang looked at her face that was still a bit green, and there was a gentle sourness in her eyes.
"Brother, what's wrong with you?" Lin Yao was stunned, and the smile on his face couldn't be maintained, "Why do you keep looking at me like this?"
Lin Qingyang curved the corners of his lips and said in a hoarse voice, "I want to take a good look at you. You have grown so big in the blink of an eye."
Lin Yao looked startled, tears suddenly welling up in her eyes. She turned away and said, "There will be plenty of time to read it in the future. If you get tired of it, just don't chase me away."
Lin Qingyang looked at this sister who had been dependent on him since childhood, and said softly, "Shake, do you still remember that you raised a rabbit when you were a child, named Tu Sirui?"
Lin Yao nodded, not understanding why he suddenly mentioned this.
"You hugged it every night when you slept, and you secretly stuffed it in your schoolbag during the day and took it to school. As a result, it chewed half of the homework book at the same table, and your class teacher was so angry that he called me directly." Lin Qingyang seemed to be telling a very distant story, speaking in a calm tone, "Later, it somehow ran out and was hit by a car and died."
"Why did you suddenly say this..." Lin Yao looked at him and asked in confusion.
"You cried so sadly that you cried for three days and refused to eat." Lin Qingyang looked at her and continued, "On the fourth day, you stopped crying and just looked at his cage in a daze. After a week, you went out to play with your classmates as usual. Later, after a month, you had put all his things into the storage box, and you only felt sad when you occasionally thought about it."
Lin Yao seemed to realize something, shook his head desperately, tears finally burst out of his eyes. "No... that's different!"
"I know it's different." Lin Qingyang said in a gentle voice, "Brother is gone. You will be sad at first. You may cry for a long time, which will be much longer than three days. But as time goes by, you will slowly not be so sad..."
"What are you talking about! You are obviously right here!" Lin Yao's voice was crying, and he held on to Lin Qingyang's hand.
Lin Qingyang gently touched Lin Yao's head. "Shake, I know you can't let me go, but there are some things in this world that cannot be forced."
"Are you back already?" Lin Yao shouted with a cry, "You are obviously here! You are right in front of me!"
Lin Qingyang looked at her, tears falling from his eyes, and said in a gentle but cruel voice, "I have no injuries on my body, Lin Yao, this is just a world you imagined."
Lin Yao froze in place, looking around blankly.
The sun was still shining brightly, but the leaves outside the window did not sway at all, and the whole world was as quiet as a still painting. She looked at Lin Qingyang, opened her mouth, but could not make a sound, only tears falling down like broken threads.
Lin Qingyang raised his hand and gently wiped away the tears on her cheek. "I know my situation. You also know that I... can't wake up."
"No! It's not like that!" Lin Yao burst into tears and shook his head desperately, "I don't want you to die! I just want you to come back!"
"I'm not dead." Lin Qingyang said softly, with a gentle tone as if coaxing a child, "I am living well in the world you created. It is very good there, I will never grow old or die, I have many friends, and... there is someone who loves me very much."
Lin Yao sobbed and looked at Lin Qingyang with tearful eyes. "Brother... are you really going to be fine?"
Lin Qingyang nodded, with tears falling drop by drop. He stretched out his hand to gently hug his sister into his arms, patting her back comfortingly like he had done countless times when he was a child.
"Shake, eat well, sleep well, do things that make you happy, and be sure to... take good care of yourself."
Lin Yao hugged him hard and cried until he couldn't stop crying.
Lin Qingyang couldn't help crying, and his hand gently touched her head, but passed through Lin Yao's body without any hindrance.
Lin Qingyang raised his head again, and the reflection on the glass window opposite had changed back to the ancient costume with long hair and bloodstains.
The bright and warm ward quickly faded away like a tide, and the eyes once again turned into a cold ICU ward.
Lin Qingyang stood not far away, looking at himself lying quietly on the hospital bed, without a ventilator on his face, and surrounded by silent doctors and nurses.
Lin Yao lay beside the bed, clutching the white sheets, crying heartbreakingly.
Lin Qingyang Turned his head slightly and looked at the monitoring equipment beside the hospital bed. On the screen, the originally beating heart rate line had now become a straight line with no fluctuations.
Accompanied by a monotonous and cold "di--" sound, it announced his complete end in this world.
Then, the scene in front of him began to quickly distort and regress. The ward, the crying sister, and the silent doctor all fell apart in an instant, turning into countless fragments and flying backwards and disappearing.
Lin Qingyang's consciousness fell into an endless darkness. In this dead darkness, suddenly, a bright light appeared in front of him.
A shimmering transparent lotus blossoms quietly in the void.