Huo Chen..."
Lin Yuan noticed something was wrong and immediately lifted the quilt and turned on the bedside lamp.
A warm yellow light instantly illuminated the surroundings, making the original dark space light up. Lin Yuan borrowed the light to look at Huo Chen and saw that his eyes seemed to be staring into an empty abyss. He couldn't see the bottom. His face was as pale as paper, and his lips were blood red.
He was just like a corpse that had lost all life and vitality.
Lin Yuan had never seen Huo Chen like this. He went forward in a panic and hugged him. At a loss, his hands fell on Huo Chen's broad and thin back, and comforted him.
"It's okay..."
"Huo Chen, it's okay..."
Even though for the past half a month Lin Yuan pestered Huo Chen and used various ways to get him to eat, Huo Chen was still strangely thin. His body was cold like he'd never been warm, like a dead body.
Lin Yuan used to be a system written by data, and now he was a human being with a body temperature. Although he still hadn't fully understood human emotions, at this moment, he could clearly feel Huo Chen's pain.
It was a subtle and hidden pain, slowly transmitting from where he touched Huo Chen's body.
Stagnant water can form an abyss, ripples can become tides.
In Lin Yuan's short and fragile human experience, he felt this kind of heartache for the first time. His chest felt stuffy and his eyes were hot, even breathing became difficult.
"It's okay, Huo Chen..."
"It's okay..."
Lin Yuan said it over and over again. He said it tirelessly, hoping to help Huo Chen by even just a little bit.
But he didn't know that Huo Chen's consciousness was immersed in the depths of a cold ocean, and he couldn't hear the sound from the outside world clearly. Regardless of how bright and warm the light was, it couldn't shine into his eyes. He could only see a blurred fog.
The touch on Huo Chen's body was not a hallucination, it felt very clear. He felt someone hug him, and his first reaction was that it was that woman. That woman who turned into ashes long ago.
That memory suddenly burst into countless bloody flowers, striking and clear. Huo Chen wondered, 'whose blood is this?' Was it his? Or was it that woman's?
These few years Huo Chen seemed to be living in the light. With fresh flowers and applause, with power and wealth, with the pursuit of many people. He had many things, his hands were heavy from riches. But when he looked closely, behind him was the head of the abyss, and there was a valley of pain underneath his feet, full of corpses.
The sun was shining and shadows emerged. From his shadow, he could see an ashen and beautiful woman emerge, and an almost broken child, and a room that was always messy no matter how much it was cleaned.
The boy lay on the bed, his tender face and thin body littered with blue and purple bruises. Those traces kept disappearing, then reappearing, adding on top of each other until you couldn't tell which injuries were new and which ones were old.
The only thing you could tell was that the scars never disappeared from the boy's body.
There seemed to be the sound of breath next to him. At first it was calm, but then it began to heave quickly, as if someone was being strangled.
The boy's expression became fearful and panicked.
He wanted to cover his ears and pretend to not hear the suffocating gasps behind him, but he didn't dare. He could only close his eyes, pretending to sleep, to dream, stuck in a never ending nightmare.
With a sharp cry, the gasps became softer. The boy felt the bed sink, and the crazy woman's face was as pale as snow, but her appearance was still beautiful. She approached the boy's ear and said quietly: "Don't sleep, get up and talk to mommy..."
The boy was scared and shivered, and the woman's expression gradually distorted. Her long bright red nails fell on the boy's face: "Even you are ignoring mom? Even you aren't looking at me! Even you aren't looking at me! You were birthed by me, by me!! Why don't you look at me? Why aren't you looking at me?!!"
The woman suddenly strangled the boy's throat. The severe pain of suffocation made the child open his eyes. Above him was the woman's beautiful but twisted and fierce face.
Seeing the boy open his eyes, her indescribable madness and pleasure increased. She choked him harder while saying in a gentle voice: "Good boy, you really listen to mommy. You're this obedient, this pretty, why doesn't your father like you? Why doesn't he not look at you? You're useless, really useless. Too useless..."
After saying that, the woman released the boy and got up from the bed. She was wearing a red nightdress, and her skin was strange and white, her whole person uncomfortably skinny. The exposed arm seemed to only be bones.
The boy curled up in pain on the bed. He was choked to the point he couldn't breath, and his throat was painful and itchy. He wanted to cough but he didn't dare to make a sound, and could only cover his mouth with his hands.
Once, he couldn't control himself and coughed out loud, and then was choked by the woman again because she thought he was noisy.
The woman walked over to the door and held the cold metal handle, wanting to open it, but no matter how much she turned, she was unable to open the door.
If she didn't open the door, then she couldn't see the man she loved deeply...
Looking at the door that was forever locked, the woman's face turned even more ferocious and crazy, distorting her originally beautiful features.
She hit the door crazily and roared sadly: "Open the door!! I want to go out!! Quickly let me out!! I want to go out!! Open the door!! Open the door!!!!"
The woman roared for a long, long time, but never got any response. Finally, she began to smash the things in the room, like a crazy beast. Her sharp claws and fangs disappeared, but she still hissed and gasped.
This room had been ruined countless times, over and over again, as if stuck in a cursed loop.
The woman shouted and plundered and roared, but regardless of how crazy she was, the door would never open. In the end, she finally spent all of her strength and fell to the ground feebly. Her eyes were dull, as if her soul had been dragged away, leaving only a withered body.
The boy didn't dare look. Just the woman's roar alone was enough to make him afraid to move.
When the sound disappeared, he trembled and raised his head in a panic to look at the woman on the ground. He got off of the bed and carefully walked over, knelt down, and said softly: "Mom..."
He was thin and beautiful, just like the woman.
The woman's empty eyes could no longer hold anything. Even when looking at the child, there was no fluctuation in them. Her heart could no longer fit other people. Hearing the boy's voice, her injured and bleeding hand slowly fell on his body: "I want to see him... I really want to see him….."
The woman asked softly: "Mommy wants to see Daddy, can you help me?"
The boy looked at the woman in dismay and didn't understand her meaning.
The woman hugged the boy into her arms, covered his eyes, and gently patted him on the back: "Sleep. Good boy, Mommy will coax you to sleep. Baby, quickly sleep. It won't hurt when you're asleep, mommy will be very gentle and won't let baby be in pain..."
"If you die, your daddy will definitely come to see us. Good boy, baby is so obedient, baby is really mommy's good child..."