GV – Chapter 92

After Ye Mo said this, Song Zhiqing was stunned.

She incoherently tried to salvage something, though she couldn’t quite articulate what it was she had lost.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t… mean to assume. I was just… just…”

Song Zhiqing couldn’t continue. Then, her increasingly muddled mind had a rare flash of insight. “We still have our bet.”

Yes, the bet. She was supposed to cooperate with Ye Mo’s treatment. If Ye Mo was no longer treating her, how could she cooperate?

But upon hearing this, Ye Mo simply slapped the knife down on the cutting board. With a sharp crack, Song Zhiqing’s shoulders flinched involuntarily.

Turning around, Ye Mo said with excessive calm, “I believe that with Miss Song’s deep-seated prejudice against me, continuing the treatment would be pointless. The progress over the past three years has proven that it would indeed be pointless. So please, find someone more qualified. As for the bet, in two years, if you still feel the same way, I will give you the data.”

Ye Mo meant every word. She had thought it through. It was somewhat excusable for Song Zhiqing to be unable to escape that false story, but for her to be unable to let go of that real yet illusory dream was a failure of both professional ethics and personal dignity.

The one Song Zhiqing liked was “Song Zhiqing,” that bright and beautiful young lady, not the plain and cold Ye Mo, nor the foolish Ye Yuhuan who had confessed with a love letter only to be brushed off with a single sentence.

“Ye Yuhuan? You’re the top student in our school, right? Ah, the top student shouldn’t be in a puppy love romance. You should be focusing on your studies.”

See, just that one sentence.

And she had been ecstatic for a whole day.

Only to then lose her appetite in a fit of anger over Song Zhiqing’s grand confession to Shangguan Xianxian.

The more Ye Mo thought about it, the less it seemed worth it, and the colder her expression became. Song Zhiqing froze, frightened by the chill in her eyes—a fear born of training, a fear born of voluntary training.

She was very confused.

She’s just a doctor I don’t know very well.

But Ye Mo was still digging deeper—

She clearly remembered my name back then, but now she has no impression of it at all.

And to think, she had even rehearsed what she would say if Song Zhiqing asked why her name in the dream was the same as a girl from high school. She would smile, professional and carefree, and reply, “Maybe it’s because the name is very common.”

Then she would cure Song Zhiqing—not just wake her up, but make her fall in love with this world.

Then she would pursue her. They might get together, or they might not, but it wouldn’t matter.

But now, even that was gone. And that mattered a great deal!

Song Zhiqing was too cruel.

The two stood in silence until the sound of boiling water startled them. Song Zhiqing hurriedly turned off the stove and grabbed Ye Mo, who was walking away. “I’m sorry. I was possessed just now.”

“I shouldn’t have…”

Before she could finish, she felt an abnormal stickiness on her fingers.

Looking down, she saw the blood flowing down Ye Mo’s wrist.

Song Zhiqing clamped her mouth shut. She carefully let go and took hold of Ye Mo’s other hand. They walked to the living room, where Song Zhiqing sat Ye Mo down on the sofa. After asking where the first-aid kit was, she retrieved it and silently began to treat Ye Mo’s wound.

Her slender, delicate fingers touched the burning, painful skin around the cut. This time, Ye Mo didn’t pull away. She didn’t think much of it; the silence alone was unbearable. She hated gaining concessions this way, even if it was unintentional. Once the wound was dressed, she hid her hand behind her back again and said calmly, “I was careless. It has nothing to do with Miss Song. You don’t need to look so apologetic.”

“It makes me feel… very pressured.”

During that period of silence and the moments before, Song Zhiqing had already realized how inappropriate her words had been. It was she who, under the influence of loneliness and the movie, had lost control of her obsessive thoughts and made such assumptions about an innocent person.

Song Zhiqing had no explanation to offer. Everything was out in the open. The root of the problem was her illness, yet she was unwilling to be treated. This meant that such incidents would happen again, and they would not only crush her but also hurt Ye Mo.

This knot bound them both, trapping them in place.

After silently putting the first-aid kit back in its place, Song Zhiqing took a step back, then another, and slowly bowed.

She said in a low voice, “I’m sorry. You’re a very good doctor. I’m just a difficult patient.”

With that, she straightened up, and carrying the heavy weight of her black attire, disappeared through the entryway.

After Song Zhiqing left, Ye Mo walked to the window and watched the dark figure retreat along the path they had taken to get here. Her heart felt numb, the pain having subsided.

Admittedly, she was still incredibly in love with Song Zhiqing.

She couldn’t forget the Song Zhiqing of her youth, nor could she forget the “Ye Yuhuan” from the dream. However, she knew deep down that a world of distance lay between them.

What Song Zhiqing had wanted from the very beginning was “Song Zhiqing.” Uncle Yu had told her that when Song Zhiqing first woke up, she had searched for girls who looked and were the same age as “Song Zhiqing.” She might have held onto the hope that a living, breathing “Song Zhiqing” had woken up along with her. But later, perhaps because the search results were too discouraging or because she understood how the machine worked, she had stopped looking.

She was only focused on winning the bet, going through the motions of therapy, while the truth of her suicide attempt remained buried deep in her heart.

The dark figure was already far away.

Ye Mo’s right hand touched her injured left one. The bow on the bandage was tied with perfect, beautiful neatness. When Song Zhiqing had tied it, the eyelashes that hung before Ye Mo’s eyes had been just as perfectly neat and beautiful.

But all she could have was the bow.

Three years later.

The Song residence.

Song Zhiqing lay in bed. Her preference for black had now developed into an extreme photophobia. The window was blocked by two layers of thick curtains, making it impossible to tell if it was day or night.

Over the past three years, she and Ye Mo had seen each other often. This was mainly because Song Zhiqing went through psychologists at an alarming rate—one per month, on average—to the point that Ye Mo had to take on the responsibility of recommending new ones for her.

They had gone through nearly every reputable psychologist in A-City, but Song Zhiqing showed no signs of improvement. On the contrary, her will to live grew weaker and weaker, as if she were paying all that money for doctors just so they could watch her sink into a swamp.

Of course, the one who always stood on the edge of that swamp was Ye Mo.

She was an observing admirer, a hidden lover, and also a failed psychologist.

In Ye Mo’s eyes, it seemed Song Zhiqing was trying to kill her body with her soul, and she was close to succeeding. The only thing standing between her and the end was her love for “Song Zhiqing.”

The dilemma that had troubled Ye Mo remained unchanged to this day.

Telling Song Zhiqing the truth would most likely cause her to lose what little will to live she had left.

Not telling her the truth meant she was living a life no different from death.

Fortunately, the bet was almost up. Soon, she would have no choice.

On the bed, Song Zhiqing slowly opened her eyes, staring into the darkness that seemed to flow around her. She furrowed her brow, puzzled by the dream she just had.

In the dream, “Song Zhiqing’s” face had become Ye Mo’s.

This wasn’t the first time.

The first time it happened, she had been angry and desperate. Song Zhiqing believed her own humanity was betraying her heart in this painful situation.

Am I trying to find a substitute?

How utterly despicable.

But as these dreams became more frequent, her reaction calmed. She began to see them as just another symptom of her illness, like the occasional hallucinations that appeared before her eyes.

Song Zhiqing propped herself up into a sitting position.

Squinting, she opened her phone. Hmm, two more months, and she would be able to see “Song Zhiqing.”

Then she tossed the phone aside and lay back down on the bed. Three hours later, Uncle Yu opened the door.

Hearing the noise, Song Zhiqing pulled her head out from under the pillow. She weakly lifted a hand, then quickly let it fall.

“I’m not eating,” she said, as was her custom.

Uncle Yu’s once-straight back had stooped considerably under the turmoil of the past few years. He had thought that after the young miss woke up, something of the Song family could at least be preserved.

The result was merely a stay of execution.

So young, what could possibly be so hard to get over?

Uncle Yu couldn’t help but urge her, “Miss, you can’t go on like this.”

Song Zhiqing let out an irritated breath. “Uncle Yu, I’ve told you, don’t worry about me.”

“Qingqing.”

Song Zhiqing fell silent.

“I can’t help it. I can’t stop thinking.”

Uncle Yu said nothing.

After a moment, he said, “Let Dr. Ye treat you.”

“If there’s anyone in this world who wants to cure you the most, it’s definitely Dr. Ye. Back when she came to me and said she could wake you, I just thought of it as a long shot, but she actually did it.”

“This time, besides her, I can’t think of anyone else who can.”

Song Zhiqing covered her eyes with her hand, blocking the light seeping in from the hallway. “Fine, I’ll consider it.”

Uncle Yu stood there a while longer. In just that short time, his back seemed to bend another fraction.

“You still have to eat,” he said before closing the door.

“Mm, I’ll eat tomorrow.”

They both knew it was just an empty promise.

Uncle Yu sighed outside the door and decided to find a Daoist priest in a few days to take a look.

Song Zhiqing drifted in and out of a daze for several more hours. Her dreams were a bizarre phantasmagoria. The things that had happened between her and “Song Zhiqing” were like a shattered glass window. Every time she dreamed of them, it was like striking the glass with a hammer. Her already unreliable memories gradually blurred, the faces becoming indistinct. The only thing that remained clear was the feeling of her heart racing, a feeling etched into her very bones, like the sharp edges of broken glass that would occasionally pierce the softest parts of her.

Song Zhiqing had once suspected the medication was damaging her brain and had stopped taking it on her own. The rate of memory decay did slow, but it continued to shatter nonetheless.

However, Ye Mo’s face was becoming clearer, and today, a voice had begun to repeat in her dream.

Uncle Yu’s voice.

From just a short while ago.

“Back when she came to me and said she could wake you…”

“Back when she came to me and said…”

“Back when she came to me…”

Song Zhiqing’s eyes flew open, her head covered in a cold sweat.

It was Ye Mo who had taken the initiative to treat her!