A wrench ripped my soul out.
The world spun, blurring out of focus, dissolving into unreality, a dream too bright to hold.
The world went quiet.
Then, as if the fog had been peeled away, my hearing returned first.
I heard that familiar, rhythmic beeping.
Hospital monitors.
The sharp sting of antiseptic hit my nose. I moved my fingers, leaden, then with great effort, managed to lift my hand.
"She’s awake. She’s awake."
"Doctor, the patient’s awake."
Suddenly the world was a flurry faces and hands rushing into my field of vision as reality returned to me.
My mother clung to me, sobbing. Even my stoic father was wiping away tears at my bedside.
I’d been a comatose patient for two years. Now, I’d woken with no warning.
The doctors called it a miracle.
Noticing my sway, Mom stroked my hair, soothing, "It’s all right, sweetheart.
The doctors say, as long as we work hard in rehab, you’ll be walking again before too long."
I’d been in bed so long my legs refused to hold me up.
But that wasn’t why my heart hurt.
I could never explain to them that, during my coma, their daughter had lived a love story so deep, so scarring, that it still haunted her dreams.
I forced myself to leave that mission world behind to focus on real life.
I never regretted choosing to come back to my family.
But part of me would always regret betraying Jin Xuan.
Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I’d dream of him.
Those dreams always felt older, deeper even more vivid than memories of our time together.
Across four missions, I’d always remembered the pain of failure. The System erased the faces of the people I’d met, to protect me from confusion.
Only I remembered the emotions, not their features.
But suddenly, Jin Xuan’s face was clear in my dreams, the bullied teenager, the struggling student, the ambitious young man. Through every world, no matter the role, it was always him.
According to the System, every time I failed a world, time would reset for another chosen host to try again.
Jin Xuan, as a world-target, should never have kept those memories. He should have forgotten me each time.
But in that snowy winter night, when he died in my arms, I suddenly felt maybe just maybe he remembered it all.
That he knew, all along, what I’d come to do.
And still, he chose to let me go.
I shut my eyes, trying to convince myself: he was just a character, not real, don’t dwell, don’t sink into it.
But the harder I tried, the clearer the memories became.
I awoke again, properly, in the spring.
Months of focused rehab, and I could finally walk again without a cane. The doctors marveled few could stand after two years of coma, and certainly not so quickly.
But I knew. That, too, must have been a parting gift from the System.
Though I still walked a little awkwardly, I was alive, grateful, and learning to move on.
One cold morning in the hospital courtyard, a chill wind swept by. I hugged my coat tighter, feeling a sudden, icy tickle at my nose.
Puzzled, I looked up.
It was snowing the first real snowfall of the year.
I was planning to propose to you on the first snowfall.
That memory superimposed itself over the swirling snow in the hospital garden, tearing open that old scar in my heart once more.
I couldn’t bear to think about it could only focus on escaping, running from the past and these relentless memories.
But I’d overestimated my own mobility. The more desperate I was to get away, the more unsteady my steps became.
Just as I tripped on a stone hidden beneath the snow, bracing myself for a fall and, perversely, ready to let my parents think my tears were from the pain, the expected impact never came.
Instead, I slammed right into someone’s solid chest.
"I always thought you weren’t the clumsy type."
That familiar voice sounded above me, and I froze, numb with shock, daring neither to look nor breathe.
Was this a dream? Or was it really him this time?
A hand gently patted my back.
"What’s wrong can’t believe I actually chased you down? Are you that scared?"
Carefully, not quite trusting reality, I looked up into the falling snow. Powdery flakes clung to his dark lashes.
"Jin Xuan?"
His mouth curled into a faint smile, reining in his emotions. "At least you remembered me this time."
"You... why are you here?"
Jin Xuan searched my face. "Are you happy to see me? Or just shocked?"
"Of course I’m happy." The sense of losing and regaining something precious overwhelmed me.
I threw my arms around his neck in a tight hug.
A real, sure smile broke out on Jin Xuan’s lips.
"I’m here to keep my promise."
"What?"
Abruptly, he knelt on one knee in the snow, taking my right hand with both of his. For once, his gaze was wholly reverent.
"Yanyan, will you marry me?"
That simple question made my eyes burn.
Through my tears, I sputtered a little laugh, "What? This is so sudden asking without even a ring?"
But Jin Xuan was already reaching into his pocket, pulling out a small black velvet box.
"How about something this big?" he said, flipping it open to show a diamond the size of a pigeon egg.
I grinned and leaned down, stealing a kiss.
He looked startled for a moment, then cupped the back of my head and kissed me back, deeper, fiercer.
The snow fell and fell, covering rooftops, trees, and roads.
And this time, we both knew it wasn’t going to melt away so easily.
Extra
Jin Xuan had gone to school for a few years, at least.
The story that had left the deepest impression on him was one about a fisherman and a demon in a bottle.
The demon, freed after centuries of captivity, promised riches to anyone who released him in the second hundred years.
"I’ll give you a fortune if you save me."
But after four centuries, all that hope curdled into hatred.
And by the fourth hundred year, the demon declared, "Whoever lets me out now, I will kill them."
Jin Xuan always thought he was a lot like that demon.
So on that evening in the banquet hall, the moment he recognized Liu Yanyan, there was only one thought in his mind.
He was going to destroy her.
Jin Xuan had always sensed that something was off with this world.
Back in middle school, there was that strange transfer student. On her very first day, she kicked his desk over and dumped his backpack in the sink.
He hadn’t reacted, just numbly collected his battered books from the water.
Born in a public restroom, Jin Xuan had no parents, and the bullying was relentless. But he’d grown used to it.
Still, he’d never encountered anyone like that girl one day, tormenting him; the next, tossing a brand-new backpack and a set of fresh textbooks onto his desk.
With a sneer, she’d bark, "You ought to be grateful, you poor thing. You could never afford this stuff, see? Humiliating, isn’t it?"
Jin Xuan just ignored her and fished out the stale bun wrapped in a plastic bag from his desk, massaging his aching, hungry stomach.
But she grabbed his lunch and stomped it into the dirt.
That was all he had for the day.
His stomach howled, but just as he was about to pick the bun off the filthy floor, she shoved a soft, sweet roll into his mouth.
His brain screamed to spit it out, but his throat reflexively swallowed.
She watched him, chin in hand, eyes sparkling. "Even leftovers make you so happy, huh?"
Jin Xuan looked at her for the first time.
He would never forget the taste of that bread something he’d never had in his entire life.
"What’s your name?" he asked, almost inaudibly.
Chapter 06
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