Bo Wang glanced in the rearview mirror, his gaze narrowing as he watched the scene in the backseat. Lu Zhiling was white-knuckled, her fingers clamped around Gu Na’s wrist in a desperate, futile attempt to plug the life leaking out of her.
But her own hands were already dyed a slick, visceral crimson.
She seemed completely detached from her own body, oblivious to the gore staining her skin. With her free hand, she fumbled for her phone, her voice unnervingly steady as she spoke into the receiver. “Grandma, forgive me for waking you. A friend has… she’s cut her wrists. We’re seven minutes out from Haizhou Hospital. Please, arrange everything. Her blood type is B.”
She was forcing herself into a state of Lengjing [a focused, icy calmness], ensuring every syllable reached Ding Yujun clearly. On the other end of the line sensing the jagged edge of panic beneath the girl’s voice, the elder agreed immediately.
Hung up, Lu Zhiling’s facade of composure began to crack. She realized there was nothing left to do but hold on. She gripped Gu Na’s wrist tighter, the blood pulsing between her fingers, turning darker and more viscous with every passing second.
Thump.
The car jolted over a series of speed bumps. Lu Zhiling instinctively curled her body around the dying woman, shielding her as if her own flesh could provide a sanctuary.
“Ugh…”
A low, jagged groan vibrated from the woman in her lap. Gu Na’s brow furrowed, her features twisting in a mask of agony.
“Director Gu! Gu Na, wake up… look at me. It’s Xiao Qi [Little Seven, a term of endearment for the seventh child or a younger sibling figure]. It’s Lu Jingcheng’s sister.”
At the mention of that name, Gu Na’s eyelids fluttered. She forced them open, her gaze glassy and unfocused. Her voice was a mere ghost of a sound, pale and hollow. “How is it… you again…?”
Always you, her eyes seemed to say. Always pulling me back from the edge.
“Maybe my brother’s Zai Tian Zhi Ling [spirit in heaven] sent me to find you,” Lu Zhiling whispered, forcing a smile that felt like it was tearing her face apart. She tried to sound light, even as the scent of iron filled the car. “Don’t be afraid. The doctors are waiting. You’re going to be fine.”
Gu Na drifted, her pupils dilating as she stared into the void. Seeing those eyelids droop, Lu Zhiling’s heart plummeted. “Don’t sleep! Saozi [Sister-in-law], stay with me! Talk to me, please, we’re almost there!”
The word seemed to act like a physical jolt. Gu Na’s eyes flickered with a spark of shock. “You… what did you call me?”
“You are the one my brother chose. You are my Saozi,” Lu Zhiling urged, her voice trembling with an agonizing sweetness. “Hang in there. I know it hurts, but you’ve always been so brave. Just a little longer…”
Tears pooled in Gu Na’s eyes, spilling over her waxen cheeks. “I… I waited… why…”
The sentence trailed off into a wheeze, but Lu Zhiling felt the weight of the unspoken question: Why did you only call me that now?
“My brother is gone. I didn’t want to use that title to chain you to a ghost. I wanted you to be free to let go,” Lu Zhiling confessed, her smile finally shattering into a jagged sob. “But I was wrong. I should never have let you stay in this city. I shouldn’t have put you in this path… it’s my fault. I’m the one who broke you.”
“No… this is what I wanted…” Gu Na’s fingers twitched, a feeble attempt at movement. “Xiao Qi… let me… touch your face.”
Lu Zhiling grabbed the woman’s blood-soaked hand, pressing it hard against her own cheek. The blood was warm and sticky, a horrific contrast to Gu Na’s fingers, which were already as cold as Bing Jiao [ice cellar].
“Don’t… blame yourself,” Gu Na whispered, a hauntingly beautiful smile touching her lips. “Knowing your brother still… had me in his heart… I don’t want to live anymore.”
It was a tragic, feminine logic. Hating him had given her the strength to survive; knowing he loved her made the world without him unbearable.
“No!” Lu Zhiling shook her head, her tears mingling with the blood on her face. “Sister-in-law, you’re the only family I have left. For his sake… stay with me. Just stay.” Her voice broke into a choked, guttural wail. She had lost too many people; she couldn’t watch another one vanish into the dark.
Bo Wang, driving with one hand, watched the reflection of her shattered face in the mirror. He felt a strange, cold pressure in his chest. What the hell is this girl made of?
“Xiao Qi,” Gu Na’s voice grew fainter, a mere wisp of breath. “You are braver than me. I can’t do it. The living… they are the ones who suffer… I don’t want to be the one left behind anymore.”
“No—”
“I’m sorry,” Gu Na’s eyes were wet, sparkling with a final, terminal light. “I promised… I’d go back to Jiangnan [the lush, poetic region south of the Yangtze River] with you. I can’t. Xiao Qi… you must live well… and enjoy… all the pampering…”
The word Chong Ai [to be spoiled/pampered] died on her lips. Her eyes closed. The final tear slid down her temple, still warm.
The car screeched to a halt at the hospital entrance. The strobe-like flash of red and blue ambulance lights danced across the interior. Medical staff rushed forward, stretchers clattering, but as the door swung open, the entire team froze in horror.
Lu Zhiling sat like a marble statue, Gu Na’s dead hand still pressed against her face. She was drenched in blood—on her clothes, her skin, her hair—looking like a vengeful spirit or a sacrificial lamb.
Bo Wang turned his head. He looked at the stillness of the woman in the back. He knew. “Hand her over,” he said, his voice deep and vibrating with a dark authority. “Let them see if she did this to herself or if someone helped her.”
Lu Zhiling didn’t blink. She looked through the doctors, her eyes vacant, a terrifying emptiness where her soul used to be. When a doctor reached in to take the body, Lu Zhiling’s instincts flared. She pulled Gu Na closer, baring her teeth in a silent, predatory glare, guarding the corpse like a dragon over its last treasure.
The doctor recoiled, paralyzed by the sheer intensity of her grief-driven madness.
“She’s dead,” Bo Wang said, his voice cutting through the air like a blade. “Holding her will only let her rot in your arms. Do you want her to stink on you?”
It was a cruel, clinical truth intended to shock her back to reality. Lu Zhiling’s butterfly-wing eyelashes trembled.
Bo Wang shot a lethal glance at the medical team. Taking the hint, the doctors mustered their courage and physically pried Gu Na from her grasp. Lu Zhiling sat stiffly, her arms remaining in a hollow circle, watching as the only person who connected her to her brother was wheeled away.
The red and blue lights flickered over Gu Na’s pale dress one last time before she disappeared into the sterile white halls of the hospital.
She was gone. The connection was severed.
The car doors hissed shut. Without a word, Bo Wang slammed the car into gear, tires screaming as he sped away from the hospital, leaving the ghost of the Lu family behind in the dust.