When Li Yao opened her eyes, she still felt a bit dazed.
“How are you feeling? Still unwell?” Tao Fangyi asked from beside her.
Li Yao glanced at Tao Fangyi by the bed, then used both hands to rub her face. “I don’t have a fever anymore. I feel pretty good.”
After speaking, she looked around the room and noticed Wang was still there, but her father had not appeared.
Tao Fangyi saw her confusion. “Your father will come pick you up at midnight, just like in a fairy tale.”
“You can treat everything before that as a dream. Begin a gentle farewell.” As Tao Fangyi spoke, he laboriously grabbed onto Li Yao’s clothes and climbed up to her shoulder, then rubbed her head. “Shed your restraints. Let’s begin!”
Li Yao took a deep breath. She steadied herself, then abruptly rose. Tao Fangyi nearly tumbled off her shoulder.
After midnight, everything would be over. She no longer needed any pretense now.
Li Yao opened her phone, searched for recipes, and opened a food delivery app.
She wanted to leave behind something good at the very end. She wanted a farewell that wasn’t so utterly heart-wrenching.
Humming a tune, she cleaned the entire house. Then, timing it perfectly with Yang Hongling’s return from work, she used the ingredients at home to prepare a full table of dishes.
【This state of abnormal euphoria is definitely not right.】 Wang said. 【She shows not the slightest nostalgia for this world. It looks like she plans to say goodbye to this world for good once she finishes this.】
【Will it really be like that?】 Tao Fangyi didn’t understand.
【Absolutely!】 Wang felt Li Yao was already completely prepared to kick the bucket.
Tao Fangyi was noncommittal.
When Yang Hongling opened the door and smelled the aroma of food, she was stunned for a moment. Then Li Yao rushed out, hugged her tightly, and cried out “Mom.”
【Oh~ Look at them. So heartwarming.】 Tao Fangyi was very moved.
【This is even creepier, even more abnormal!】
【But look, she’s already opened her heart to her mother, talking about her own mental journey.】 Tao Fangyi was peeking from behind the crack in the door.
A little while later, Ren Ying led Ren Xinxin back home.
Recently, Ren Xinxin had switched to a new kindergarten, while the adults were still locked in a dispute with the old one.
They claimed they were going to sue, but this was most likely just a threat. After all, neither of the couple had any free time.
【Look! She’s even chatting with Ren Ying!】 Tao Fangyi excitedly patted the door with his cotton hand. He didn’t have to worry about making noise.
“Tao Fangyi!” Wang stopped communicating with Tao Fangyi telepathically.
Tao Fangyi looked up at Wang. A moment later, Wang grabbed him. “Are you really stupid or just pretending? This child has long since lost all connection to her present life. She can’t feel anything around her anymore.”
“Even if an occasional flashback lets her see her surroundings clearly, it only treats the symptoms, not the root cause.” Wang kneaded Tao Fangyi’s doll face. “Right now, she knows she’s going to die. That’s the only reason she’s seriously looking at what’s around her, expressing the last remnants of feeling within her body. Do you understand?”
The smile on the doll’s face was inherent. Wang waited for Tao Fangyi’s response.
Then he saw Tao Fangyi reach out a hand and slowly scratch his head.
Right. He didn’t understand.
“You’ve seen so many people. Among all those people, there had to be suicides.” Wang tried to make Tao Fangyi see that things weren’t developing in a good direction at all.
【There were.】 Tao Fangyi had seen quite a few people commit suicide.
“You didn’t notice how abnormally they acted before dying?” Wang asked.
【Did they? I feel like they were abnormal their entire lives.】
That was actually a fair point.
Wang pressed the spot between his eyebrows. Except that spot was completely flat.
【Do you even have a glabella?】 Tao Fangyi was very curious.
“That’s not the point!”
【Fine.】
“I thought you were confident about this.” Like that time Wang had assumed Tao Fangyi sensed the Ghostly Aura but was simply holding back and biding his time.
【I do indeed think she won’t die.】 Tao Fangyi said.
“And your reasoning?” Wang asked.
Tao Fangyi thought for a moment, then used his round hand to circle his temple: 【Sixth sense~】
“I’ll definitely remember next time that you’re an unreliable piece of wood.” Wang covered his face.
【Speaking of wood, do you know how I used to help that Puppet Family take care of their children back in the day?】 Hearing the word “wood” suddenly gave Tao Fangyi a small sense of intimacy. It had been many years since anyone called him a piece of wood. 【I would pretend to be a human, and then bang on my own body, just to startle them.】
Wang used two fingers to pinch Tao Fangyi’s mouth shut.
Tao Fangyi: 【But I can still talk, you know.】 He didn’t speak with his mouth anyway.
“Shh~” Wang turned Tao Fangyi’s face toward the crack in the door. “Take one last look at this child. This is as old as she’ll ever get.”
【She’s sharing cake with her family.】 Tao Fangyi said.
“That’s a cake for her fourteenth year. She invited these three people to celebrate with her.”
【She even invited Ren Xinxin to watch an animated movie.】 Tao Fangyi continued.
“Because she’s quite fond of this Little Water Buffalo Sister. She wants to spend a little more time with her at the end.” Wang pinched Tao Fangyi’s mouth even tighter, though the action wasn’t very effective.
【But if someone is resolute about dying, does what these people think even matter?】 Tao Fangyi asked.
“It’s a sense of ritual.”
【But death is the end of this life. Whether there’s a sense of ritual or not doesn’t matter. I could have lit the candle just now, and then she could have left. She’s the one who stopped it.】 Tao Fangyi still felt Li Yao didn’t want to die.
“You don’t understand.” Wang had a bit of a headache.
【I thought she wanted to try harder to save herself.】
【Like giving herself a Death Sentence with Reprieve. Good behavior gets it commuted to a life sentence.】
Wang: “…You could put it that way. Are you really an idiot?”
【I never said I’m stupid.】 Tao Fangyi knew he was just a little slow.
When Li Yao and Ren Xinxin went out, they took Tao Fangyi along. It was Li Yao who insisted on bringing him.
Ren Xinxin didn’t notice anything wrong with Li Yao. She only felt that Li Yao was in an especially good mood today, for some reason.
“If this little brat doesn’t notice soon, she won’t have a big sister anymore.” Wang muttered again beside them, though he was leaning down to whisper next to Tao Fangyi’s ear. Li Yao couldn’t hear him.
“Do you like Mom?” Li Yao asked Ren Xinxin.
“Yes!” Ren Xinxin said loudly.
Li Yao smiled. She held the child’s hand as they walked along the street.
This time, the evening breeze seemed to blow right through her body, passing straight through her chest. Nothing would block the path of the wind anymore. She was about to shed this heavy body.
But as she smiled, the corners of her mouth slowly pressed downward. “Xinxin.”
Ren Xinxin bounced along as she responded, “What is it?” She was really looking forward to watching the movie with Li Yao.
Mom and Dad were always so busy. This was her first time going to a movie theater.
“You know I don’t have a dad anymore, right?” Li Yao asked.
Ren Xinxin stopped moving. Her expression suddenly became serious.
After the commotion last time, she now understood what “not having a dad” meant to Li Yao.
“Don’t be so grave. I’m not sad. I’ve already come to terms with it.” Li Yao crouched down in front of Ren Xinxin.
Ren Xinxin was holding the doll in one arm and the Candied Hawthorn Stick Li Yao bought her in the other hand. A red ring circled her mouth, smeared on while eating the hawthorn stick.
“I’m your big sister. I’m older than you.” Li Yao said. “You know, one day I’ll walk ahead of you. Something unexpected might happen to me, just like it did to my dad.”
Ren Xinxin’s eyes widened. “Why?”
“There’s no why. Accidents always come suddenly.” Li Yao said. “If one day something unexpected happens to me, Mom will be very sad. On that day, will you hold Mom tight?”
Ren Xinxin didn’t need to say anything. She just needed to let Mom see that she was still there.
“Why would there be an accident?” Ren Xinxin couldn’t process the words that followed at all. “But you just got here.”
“I’m just giving an example.” Li Yao said.
“I don’t like examples.” Ren Xinxin didn’t know what that meant. “No examples.”
“But there will always be a day like that.”
Ren Xinxin stubbornly took a step back. “No!”
“People can’t live forever.”
Ren Xinxin kept stepping back. “No.”
Li Yao grabbed Ren Xinxin’s arm. “Don’t be angry yet. Listen to me…”
“Why do you have to die?! Because you don’t like me?!” Ren Xinxin no longer wanted to see any animated movie. She yelled the question loudly.
A few passersby noticed the dispute between the two children.
Li Yao quickly pulled Ren Xinxin aside. “Sorry, sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I do like you.”
“It’s just that even though you’re angry now, when that thing actually happens, you’ll become happy again very quickly.” Li Yao said.
“Why?” Ren Xinxin was still asking.
“Because we haven’t spent that much time together.” Li Yao said.
Li Yao could barely remember her own life at four years old. Ren Xinxin would be the one who suffered the least pain from her death.
“It’s already been a long time!” Ren Xinxin’s lips pursed, and tears fell.
The Candied Hawthorn Stick in her hand dropped to the ground.
Li Yao hurriedly picked it up.
“It’s already been a long time! Four whole years!” Ren Xinxin yelled.
“Four years is very, very short in a lifetime.” Li Yao tried to soothe her.
“But I’m only four!” Ren Xinxin felt four years was very, very long. Four years was what people called “a lifetime.”
She had known Li Yao for her entire life.
Li Yao suddenly froze.
Li Yao looked at Ren Xinxin’s resistant face. She saw Ren Xinxin’s features gradually blur, transforming into her own young self.
【Why can all the adults move on? Why can everyone start a new life?】
Everyone had started their own lives. No one had paused for her.
“I’ll be sad!” Ren Xinxin continued.
She was just small. She just hadn’t integrated into the world of the big kids yet. It wasn’t that she didn’t understand anything.
