Am I… dead?
In a daze, Bian Shengjian felt a flicker of consciousness returning to him. However, even with his eyes closed, he still felt a heavy sensation in his limbs. Faint sounds of a door opening and closing could be heard in the background, and a faint scent of disinfectant lingered in his nose.
He coughed softly a few times before struggling to open his eyes. What he saw upon opening them was a clean hospital room. A drip was attached to the back of his right hand, and the medication was slowly flowing into his veins drop by drop. Because he had just woken up and his awareness was not entirely clear, he felt the coldness of the medication.
Bian Shengjian propped up a pillow behind him with a simple motion of his hand and sat on the hospital bed, lost in thought.
It took him a while before he gingerly pinched himself, and the sharp pain in his skin confirmed that this was not a dream.
So, that is to say….he died.
Bian Shengjian couldn’t help but cough softly again and looked around at the unfamiliar surroundings. For a moment, he didn’t know how to react—If he was still alive now, did the current time still belong to him? He felt uneasy at the thought.
If this wasn’t his time, did it mean he was forever lost in a misplaced dimension?
Just as Bian Shengjian was about to remove the needle and get out of bed, the door to the hospital room suddenly opened. Bian Jianhua walked in, carrying a thermos flask. When he looked up and saw his son, he was initially startled, but the surprise on his face quickly turned into joy. “Ah, son, you’re awake! How do you feel?”
Bian Shengjian, with a cautious look in his eyes, observed him for a while before asking, “Why are you here?”
“Oh, you,” Bian Jianhua sighed, placing the thermos flask by his bedside. “You don’t take care of yourself normally. You fainted and didn’t even realize it.”
“Fainted?” Bian Shengjian looked at him skeptically. “When did that happen?”
“Today, while you were in school. You suddenly fainted during class, and your homeroom teacher informed me immediately,” Bian Jianhua explained as he opened the thermos flask and poured a small bowl of chicken congee. “Here, have some congee first.”
Bian Shengjian lowered his head and slowly sipped the warm congee. It tasted good, but he couldn’t fully enjoy it. After finishing the bowl of congee with some effort, he finally spoke, “Are you sure it happened at school?”
“Yes, what’s the matter?” Bian Jianhua sighed again and asked, “Son, have you been under a lot of pressure recently? I know you’re entering your senior year, but your health is more important. You should take care of yourself and balance your studies…”
“No,” Bian Shengjian interrupted him. “Is it still the second semester of my junior year?”
Bian Jianhua hesitated for a moment, then immediately placed a hand on his forehead and asked, “Feeling unwell, son? Do you have a fever?”
“I don’t have a fever,” Bian Shengjian brushed his hand away and asked with a hint of urgency, “Dad, what’s the date today?”
“The 15th,” Bian Jianhua checked his phone and added, “Is there anything else bothering you? Do you want to lie down for a while longer?”
Bian Shengjian’s mind was racing as he considered his current situation. He clearly remembered that the day he entered Lu Shen’s resentment was also the 15th. However, he had no recollection of what had happened after he fainted. If he had woken up in the real world, did it mean that Lu Shen’s resentment had been resolved?
Bian Shengjian’s heart raced.
If Lu Shen’s resentment had been resolved, it meant…the car accident had likely not occurred in the end.
With it, there would be no death.
Lu Shen… might have not died too as well!
Bian Shengjian furrowed his brow tightly, rapidly contemplating the potential consequences if the car accident had indeed happened. After some deep thought, he couldn’t help but shiver.
If the car accident did not occur, then none of the students or teachers in Class 8 of his junior year would have died. If there were no casualties, there would be no lingering spirits, and the people who had been killed by the spirits would still be alive. The haunted stories that had circulated for over a decade would no longer exist…
Bian Shengjian swallowed hard.
If all of this were true, he had rewritten a significant portion of history.
However… this long cycle of life and death, could it really be disrupted so easily?
The more Bian Shengjian thought about it, the more surreal it all felt, like a mirage. His palms began to sweat, and it was only when Bian Jianhua noticed his son’s distressed expression that he spoke up, interrupting Bian Shengjian’s wild speculations. “Son, what’s wrong with you?”
“It’s… nothing,” Bian Shengjian reluctantly shook his head.
Bian Jianhua was about to say something, but at that moment, they heard three gentle knocks on the hospital room door, followed by someone entering cautiously. “Brother Jian, how do you feel now?”
“Zhou Li?” Bian Shengjian looked at the person who had entered, somewhat surprised.
“You, you’re usually so tough, how could you faint at a time like this?” Zhou Liang chuckled carelessly, but then he noticed there was another person at the door of the hospital room. His expression suddenly turned a bit awkward. “Oh… Hello, uncle, sorry, I just saw you.”
“Hello, hello, you’re Shengjian’s classmate, right?” Bian Jianhua smiled warmly and raised the thermos flask in his hand. “Have you had lunch? Would you like some porridge?”
“No, no need,” Zhou Liang quickly waved his hand and felt a bit embarrassed as he touched his nose. “I can’t really take the patient’s meal.”
“By the way, Brother Jian, quite a few of our classmates are here too. Should we let them in now?” Zhou Li whispered.
“Let’s wait for a moment,” Bian Shengjian replied ambiguously.
His mind was still a bit confused, but everything in his surroundings, the people, and even the physical sensation of touching objects, indicated that he had indeed returned to reality. “Zhou Li, I have a question for you.”
“Yeah, what’s up?” Zhou Liang replied quickly.
“Has there been… rumors about ghosts at our school before?” Bian Shengjian asked, hesitating in his tone.
“Ah?” Zhou Liang was a bit stunned by the question and, after realizing it, he chuckled, but he only laughed after glancing at Bian Jianhua’s face. “Are you still half-asleep, Brother Jian? Our school is perfectly fine. Where would ghosts come from?”
“Have there been any strange suicides at our school before?” Bian Shengjian followed up.
“No, there haven’t been,” Zhou Li shook his head, then couldn’t help but add, “Brother Jian, maybe you should lie down for a bit longer… Why do I feel like you’ve been talking nonsense this whole time?”
Bian Shengjian paused for a moment before taking a deep breath and then exhaled. At the same time, he rubbed his face vigorously with his hand. “Is that so?”
“You’d better lie down for a bit longer,” Zhou Li was about to step back from the hospital room. “I’ll have them leave first, or should you rest first… Oh, by the way, your phone was just brought over from school.”
“Thanks,” Bian Shengjian took a deep breath and accepted the phone. After turning it on, he couldn’t help but tap the phone case with his fingers and begin a new round of contemplation. If he had truly altered the future, then what about Lu Shen…?
The phone remained in constant vibration after being turned on, and several messages flooded in rapidly. Most of them were expressions of concern about his fainting episode. Bian Shengjian only glanced at them briefly and was about to toss the phone aside when a text message suddenly popped up on the screen. Its content was quite simple:
–Come quickly, waiting for you at the school gate.
For some reason, this single message made Bian Shengjian’s heart race.
He almost trembled as he tapped on that message, but all the information about the sender was unknown, and there was nothing to glean from the message itself.
However, for some inexplicable reason, when Bian Shengjian saw that line of text, he had a strong hunch: this was from Lu Shen, it must be Lu Shen.
“Where are you going, son?” Bian Jianhua shouted from behind as Bian Shengjian decisively removed the needle from the back of his hand, startling his father who quickly grabbed his hand. “What are you doing!”
Bian Shengjian didn’t respond and took a deep breath. After pushing open the door, he dashed into the corridor. A nurse tried to stop him, but he managed to evade her. He rushed down to the ground floor, then headed for the hospital’s main entrance. When he pushed open the last door, what met his eyes was the dappled sunlight scattered on the ground, mixed with the chirping of cicadas from the trees along the street. It was just an ordinary summer afternoon.
But there was a saying…how did it go?
If it’s to meet you, I will definitely run.
Bian Shengjian opened the door of the first taxi he saw, struggling to contain his surging emotions. “Go… go to Fengmen Fourth Middle School, and please hurry.”
“Sure thing,” the driver immediately stepped on the gas pedal and pulled the car out. He muttered to himself as he drove, “This hospital is quite close to your school. Young man, is it an emergency?”
“Yeah, it’s urgent,” Bian Shengjian replied, clutching his forehead. “Driver, please hurry.”
“Two minutes, and we’ll be there!” the driver said cheerfully. But for Bian Shengjian, it felt like time was dragging on endlessly. The shadows of the trees by the street seemed to elongate and cling to the car’s edge. The few minutes of the journey felt like they had been two hundred years.
“We’ve arrived!” The driver had barely stopped the car when Bian Shengjian pulled out a few wrinkled bills from his pocket and placed them on the seat. He opened the door and rushed out. “Thank you, no need for change.”
He was met with a blast of hot wind as he arrived at the school gate. The sound of cicadas grew louder, but Bian Shengjian, panting, reached the gate and saw the person he had desperately wanted to meet. His hands, which were resting on his knees, were trembling slightly.
Impossible, it couldn’t be, it shouldn’t be…
Footsteps approached from behind, and then someone gently patted Bian Shengjian’s left shoulder.
He turned around. Their eyes met.
“Hi.”
The person smiled at him, their facial features and contours slightly more mature than before, but what remained unchanged was that gaze—gentle and focused, like a light breeze brushing past the corners of his eyebrows on a summer day. “Silly, I’ve been waiting for you for a long time.”
Finally, they took another step forward, still smiling, and spoke again, “Let’s reintroduce ourselves again, I’m called Lu Shen.”
Bian Shengjian held back and held back, but in the end, he couldn’t hold back anymore. A long, furious roar seemed to want to shatter all the unease and despair that had occurred on this summer day, leaving only tears of extreme joy.
“Lu Shen, you fucker!”
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