— Do you believe a person can stick to their beliefs unwaveringly from start to finish throughout their life?
This was a question Su Ming’an had read in a philosophy book.
At that ti, he thought that only great people could do it. Only those towering figures, highly capable, possessing both universal love and wisdom, could remain steadfast in their beliefs without wavering.
However, in this world, he had changed his mind during this long yet brief journey, he had encountered too many such "great people"—so were rely inexperienced youths, so had wasted most of their lives in decay, so had even lived a lifeti of insane love under the guise of "fervent love," and so, even seen as lapdogs and traitors, had carried their beliefs to the last mont of their lives.
The brilliance circulated, the Ring of Ti on his right hand sparkled, and Yao Wen’s na was engraved on its gemstone, like crushed gemstone powder.
It lined up with two other nas, "Tretiya, Su Xiaobi," with the font sized as small as possible, as if leaving ample space.
— Will there co a day when this ring is filled with nas?
"Whirrr—"
The white space of the Spatial Fracture broke, and Su Ming’an returned to the blood-filled corridor. The area was still full of signs of lee, with bullet holes and chanical debris everywhere, and bodies were encountered every few steps.
The sound of people fighting was like swords, clashing day and night in a downpour. Yao Wen’s body was entrusted to a soldier by Su Ming’an. The soldier saluted him, indicating that he would definitely deliver the body to a safe place.
Su Ming’an stepped through knee-high rainwater.
"Whoosh—"
The cold wind blew his black hair, he shattered the high-rise building’s glass and leaped down from the sky, moving swiftly between the orderly high-rises in the night, like a hawk soaring through the night.
Rainwater ran down his cheeks, reflecting a faint flush at the corner of his eyes. He rushed forward, his dark pupils reflecting the twin towers standing far away like Gemini stars.
He had a place to go.
The deceased had passed away.
He wanted to try his best... to grasp so things that had not yet passed away.
...
"Thump."
"Thump."
Like a harsh white rain had fallen, scattered Bai Yu like disordered neon, tearing open the rifts in the night.
In the center of the room, the heart of the Dawn System, blood red, incessantly swelled. Crimson tubes extended and danced, continuously stabbing at thousands of white birds resisting fiercely, dyeing their white bodies a translucent red.
"Swish, swish—"
The air was filled with a strong scent of blood, birds fell, hundreds of Bai Yu bodies lay on the ground, like a mortal purgatory.
The remaining Bai Yu flew and struck fearlessly, in the sa posture—protecting the central blonde youth, injured all over for him, sacrificing their lives for him, like vibrant flas burning in the air.
In their eyes, the blonde youth was their leader, a mythical Phoenix.
At this mont, the blonde youth had fallen to the ground, enduring the painful Emotional Resonance. His left arm was pierced by the tubes, exposing stark white bones, his legs covered with hundreds of abrasions, and he had been severely injured by the crimson tubes to the point where he could no longer stand—but the watch on his wrist remained tightly affixed to the Dawn System, even though his arm was injured like a red-hot poker, he did not let go.
His mind was full of fragnted images, his Heavenly Sea-like pupils clouded with a layer of white mist, enduring the long and intense Emotional Resonance, Noah had almost forgotten who he was. All that remained in his mind was one obsession—
He couldn’t let go.
He couldn’t die.
He had to endure as much as possible, no matter how painful, no matter how close to collapse, he had to keep going.
...
Like plunging into a black-red vortex, his vision flickered with colorful fragnts of Emotional Resonance, thousands of sharp voices tornted his brain. His Physical Strength could no longer hold up, and it seed his vision was about to dim—
A flash of bright red erged in his pupils, and at that mont, he actually heard the voice of the deity:
"The resonance is already very high."
"You can rest now, Noah. Give your body to , don’t persist anymore, it’s aningless."
His pupils trembled as he still held his blood-soaked arm high, tightly up against the Dawn System, not letting go.
"Dre... am on." He said intermittently.
The deity was actually trying to invade him at this mont; impossible, he would not give the deity the chance to beguile him.
The voice of the deity laughed softly beside his ear, then said no more.
Just then, a faint "ding dong" sound ca, signaling that Su Ming’an had successfully taken over control from his side. Noah’s hand slowly dropped, and he collapsed to the ground, utterly exhausted. His mission was finally complete.
White feathers drifted onto his face, as if to forge a white coffin for his peaceful slumber. The number of white birds had reduced by four-fifths, they could no longer protect him, and countless crimson tubes crept towards him.
Noah lay on the ground, like a faded gold-and-red flag, his bright red blood more glaring than his golden hair.
He stared blankly at the swaying ceiling lights, his fingers curling unconsciously—his resonance was extrely high now, he could beco a host for the deity at any mont. For now, suicide seed the best choice.
Before coming here, he had indeed prepared to sacrifice himself. Before leaving, he had given the sunflower he had just grown on his windowsill to another child, intending never to return.
However, just as he struggled to lift his hand, intending to kill himself, he quickly realized—he genuinely felt reluctant to leave this world.
He didn’t want to commit suicide, nor did he want to die alone here.
Was it the fear of the dark?
Was it the fear of pain?
Was it the fear of death?
It seed to be none of these.
He really wanted to see soone one last ti.
He still had too many things left undone.
He hadn’t spent even one Fuyuan Festival during peaceti with that person.
He hadn’t heard a complete piano solo from that person.
He had never heard that person say "Please don’t call grandpa anymore," those words of surrender.
He hadn’t...stepped into the spring he longed for.
He didn’t want to accept this cold ending, he wanted to live.
"Noah, why are you so selfish? How can you be afraid of dying?"
This was the voice he heard from his own mouth, yet the survival instinct grew wildly like weeds; he didn’t want to die here alone, it was too cold, too lonely.
"Grand... grandpa."
The frantic desire to survive kept his divine wisdom intact. He suddenly began shouting.
Even though he knew that despite his continual shouting, there was a high probability that his grandfather wouldn’t co—it was too dangerous here. What’s more, he had personally sealed the iron door shut himself; how could anyone else possibly co?
He just...didn’t want to give up on love.
When one possesses "love," they can unleash limitless strength. The news had shown a frail woman lifting a heavy lorry to save her child.
Because he felt an emotion called "love" deep within his heart, he miraculously maintained so level of thought amidst his collapsing rationality and wasn’t invaded by the deity.
He opened his eyes wide, stretching his hand out towards the iron door that was sealed shut.
"Grandpa, Grandpa," he opened his mouth and called out.
But inside the room, aside from him, it was empty; no one could respond to him.
The iron door was cold, and outside there was nothing but the sound of the chanical Army clanging tal.
Like a legless worm, Noah crawled forward little by little, his blood serving as the secretion for movent, trailing a long sar of blood on the icy white ground.
Scattered white feathers like a thick carpet of blood, fresh blood gushed from his mouth.
...
[If I had known that calling ’Grandpa’ would bring you back, I would have called out ’Grandpa’ every day—Grandpa, Grandpa, Grandpa...]
"Grandpa... Grandpa."
As he crawled, his lone voice echoed in the room.
At his ear, the slight sigh of a deity could be heard, as though He had nothing more to say, no mockery to add.
"Grandpa, Grandpa, Grandpa..." his voice mixed with a cry.
[I’m afraid that one day if I don’t call you Grandpa, you might just disappear!]
[Grandpa, don’t jump off the edge of the world, shall we go together, alright?]
...
He had reached his limit.
Whether it was his brain, physical strength, blood loss, or resonance, he had already reached his limit. He had forcibly completed an impossible task, dragged to a level "beyond his own limits" under the deity’s precise calculations.
Now... he just wanted to fulfill his final wish.
Before him was a dream-like recall of light and shadow.
"Grandpa... Grandpa."
[Grandpa, shall we go see the bird exhibition, okay, Grandpa...]
[Grandpa, if you can’t play an instrunt, I can teach you—just as long as you talk with normally, Grandpa...]
[Grandpa,]
[Grandpa...]
...
In that mont, the "flap-flap" sound of wings beating suddenly vanished at his ear.
A blood-stained, white bird suddenly "thumped" down before him; its blood splattered onto his nose, warm to the touch. It was the last surviving white bird.
It croaked a hoarse sound at him, its red wings struck once, sweeping across his similarly blood-stained golden locks as though trying to caress him, but the affectionate glint in its eyes faded quickly, and it had already fallen silent before he could even reach out.
All the white birds were dead, killed by the crimson hoses.
Their bodies lay scattered like dawn stars on the ground, each forming thousands of silver-white constellations on the icy white floor—universe, where the intermingling red and white carcasses were the stars and the trailing red blood links were the constellation lines.
—And the golden-haired youth, dragging a long scarlet trail, crawled towards the end of the universe, like a golden-red teor falling between the constellations.
Under the do, the blazing white lights flickered. It was very quiet around him. Those crimson hoses had not pierced Noah’s body but stood still, allowing him to crawl in the direction of the iron door, as though respecting his last effort.
"..."
In fact, he didn’t even know where he wanted to climb. Outside the iron door, there was the cold chanical Army; farther away, there was Eternal Night; and even further, nothing but Eternal Night. Even if he got out of one cage, he was still trapped in another, with sunlight and dew extrely far from him.
He just didn’t want to lie on the cold floor like a corpse. He wanted to try his best to fly forward, even if it ant dragging his heavy body close to the ground.
"Grand... pa."
He continued to call out intermittently.
One who is bound in the Two Dinsions could never own a future.
But he thought, if a sunflower saw the sun, how could it not grow towards it? If a moth saw a light, how could it ignore it?
He had always stuck with the silly na "grandpa" because he feared seeing a nightmare descend. He was extrely afraid of losing the people around him, so much so that——he even chose to ignore Rationality, fooling himself with a ridiculous reason, believing that as long as he called him that, grandpa would never leave.
——But, God.
He suddenly really wanted to pray to God.
——If there really was a Deity that blessed the Ruined World, could he have one last chance?
——Although he had always been an unfaithful believer, could a person who had never had a past or a future, and whose life was extrely short, receive even a shred of rcy from the legendary Deity?
——If he was dood never to see springti, could he, on the last night of winter... see the person who could bring spring back?
...
"Bang!"
Suddenly, a loud noise erupted from the iron door.
Noah fell to the ground, his consciousness already blurry. He no longer had the strength to crawl.
Trailing behind him was a bloody line that he had painfully crawled through from the very center of the Dawn System, dragged himself a full thirty ters to the edge of the iron door, his legs soaked in a pool of blood.
So much so that when a bursting sound erupted from outside the iron door, he didn’t even know soone had co.
But soon, another sound followed.
And then a second one.
"Bang!"
"Bang!"
Like the crackling of fireworks, the sound at the doorway erupted like spilled popcorn, resembling the fireworks ascending in the sky on the night of Fuyuan Festival, bursting out a deafening sound.
"Bang——Boom——!!!"
The noises of the chanical Army outside gradually faded away, followed imdiately by a violent Spatial Fracture. The completely sealed iron door was slowly blown open, creating cracks bit by bit, from dots to lines, from lines to surfaces, linking the scattered puzzle into a large hole, the whole tal door splitting to each side amidst the vibrations——
Finally, under the shaking warm-colored lights, a hole was shaken open from the iron door. A young man with black hair stepped over the tallic fragnts, drenched in rain and blood, walking towards him.
Noah slowly lifted his head, his gaze trembling as he followed the young man, the completely drenched black-haired youth who broke the door, swung his sword, charged forward, and severed the blood-red hoses, running a few steps towards him.
Their eting gazes seed locked by the drifting white feathers. At that mont, Noah felt as if all his vision was blocked except for the approaching youth; he couldn’t see anything else.
The next instant, the light outside the door was blocked by a shadow, and Su Ming’an stopped in front of Noah, knelt down, and embraced him, who was lying on the ground, with sticky hands full of blue blood, cupping the back of Noah’s head, their shoulders and necks touching, their chests and stomachs pressed together.
"... Grandpa?" Noah whispered as he was embraced in a smoky hug, as if he had instantly stepped into spring.
The hug is the most beautiful word in language.
When souls embrace each other, temperature eting temperature, like a stream rging into another stream, one can feel an all-encompassing acceptance and fulfillnt. Su Ming’an was so close he could hear Noah’s heartbeat, beat by beat, growing ever more slow.
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