Chapter 52#
Twin Birth#
Hua Jin covered his face, recalling the expression Shen Xuanyi had worn when recounting the final part of the story.
The considerate and senior captain hadn’t bluntly pressed for the details of the story between the siblings, but Hua Jin could fully imagine the questions lurking in his heart.
How could this be?
Twins who had grown up together, not estranged or hostile, and with no long-lasting illusion capable of deceiving the heart—how could “Hua Yu” have so perfectly disguised herself as Hua Jin’s younger sister?
To put it more bluntly, how could Hua Jin fail to recognize his own blood sister?
Fortunately, Shen Xuanyi hadn’t asked, because Hua Jin himself couldn’t answer those questions.
Of course, Shen Xuanyi wouldn’t blame him either. Before him, no one had ever suspected that “Hua Yu” was problematic. Even if she wasn’t Hua Jin’s sister, she was still an important companion trusted and cared for by everyone.
After the truth was revealed, Hua Jin’s pain was only multiplied compared to others.
Perhaps, however, he had already sensed it in some inexplicable way. The night before, he had dreamed of his sister—the real one—for the first time in a long while.
A room as white as a hospital ward. A young girl lay on the hospital bed with her eyes closed, her figure thin and her complexion pale, yet her expression was calm.
Beside the bed were various monitors tracking vital signs, silently maintaining a stable frequency.
Hua Yu’s face on the bed had hardly changed, just as Hua Jin had last seen her ten years ago.
Hua Jin stood by the bed for a long time. At the moment the dream ended, he stepped into empty air and fell into an endless abyss.
Even after waking, he still felt a suffocating tightness in his chest, as though he couldn’t breathe properly.
When Shen Xuanyi hesitated to reveal the truth to him, memories buried deep in the distant past suddenly pierced through the thick fog. Only then did he recall, for the first time, what had happened eleven years ago—just before the calamity struck.
Hua Yu had a serious genetic condition. It first flared up at the beginning of high school, causing her to collapse and be rushed to the hospital by school staff.
In the first two years, Hua Yu could still spend most of her time at school, with regular checkups at the hospital. Her condition remained relatively stable.
But during the college entrance exam, she fainted again. After that, she never stood up again. For the next two years, she spent most of her time confined to a hospital bed, accompanied by the pungent smell of disinfectant, her hands covered in countless needle marks.
When her condition improved occasionally, her family could push her wheelchair to the park near the hospital to enjoy the sun, but nowhere farther.
Though everything was moving toward digitalization and informatization, her family still carefully prepared paper photo albums and newspaper clippings, recording distant scenery for her to browse anytime.
Sometimes, with special permission from the nurses, she could use electronic devices for a while and watch videos. But more often, her bedside held piles of physical books.
Hua Jin used his sister’s ID card to get a library card for the city library. Every time he visited her, he would take a detour to the library first, so often that the library staff grew familiar with him.
After hearing his sister’s story, they all showed sympathy and regret without exception.
“What a pity.”
Each time Hua Jin heard that, his heart ached, though he smiled and brushed it off. But he could never truly let it go.
The twin siblings—born one after the other within an hour of each other—had worn matching clothes to visit relatives during childhood. Even then, people often couldn’t tell who was the brother and who was the sister.
Sometimes, when they were playful, they deliberately imitated each other’s voice and speech habits, even fooling their mother.
They played this game tirelessly until childhood ended.
As they entered adolescence, natural gender differences began to appear in their appearances, and people around them could finally tell them apart. But this didn’t weaken their bond, which was far closer than that of ordinary siblings.
Both had firmly claimed there was some special telepathy between them. The farther apart they were, the more frequently they could sense each other’s strong emotions or physical pain.
But before high school ended, they rarely spent much time more than a kilometer apart.
All these details are mentioned to show just how close these twins were.
Yet, for such closely connected twins, one suffered under the torment of illness while the other remained unscathed.
From the moment Hua Yu was first diagnosed, Hua Jin was immediately taken for a full physical examination. The results showed nothing abnormal.
Subsequent regular checkups yielded the same results—so healthy that even the doctor marveled, remarking how rare it was to see such a disciplined young person these days.
The family was, of course, relieved and overjoyed. Upon hearing the news, Hua Yu herself breathed a sigh of relief.
They all said it was wonderful that Hua Jin was fine.
But from then on, a thorn lodged itself in Hua Jin’s heart. Sometimes, when thoughts consumed him, he would twist those heartfelt words into something deeper: that their relief meant it was fortunate only Hua Yu was sick.
Hua Jin knew this was a completely distorted, obsessive way of thinking. But sometimes, human thoughts escape the control of reason.
In the dead of night, he would cruelly repeat those twisted words to himself, letting himself drown in endless guilt and shame.
Come daylight, he would revert to being the sensible, intelligent student and the gentle, caring older brother.
But sometimes, sitting by his sister’s bedside, seeing her hesitant expression, he often felt an embarrassing sense of being seen through. Fortunately, his sister always tactfully kept silent.
This delicate balance lasted until about a month before the calamity.
The attending doctor brought good news to the Hua family: an overseas expert team had developed a new drug for the condition. It had passed clinical trials and was about to be released. While it couldn’t cure the disease, it could help patients gradually return to normal life. Perhaps Hua Yu could even go back to school.
The family wept tears of joy and could barely wait, counting the days until the medication would be available.
With renewed hope for treatment, Hua Jin shed his gloom and felt greatly relieved.
The family had suffered too long and now clung to hope; naturally, they saw only that hope. Hua Yu, however, remained more anxious, but in that atmosphere, her feelings were inadvertently overlooked.
No one anticipated the coming disaster.
Hua Jin’s excessive excitement displeased his sister somehow. One day during a visit, they had a big fight. Shortly after, Hua Jin couldn’t even remember what started it.
It was more like pent-up feelings finally erupting. Words he had never dared to say before spilled out like water from a broken dam.
Hua Jin only remembered the sentence that slipped from his lips: that he wished, every moment, that he were the one lying in that hospital bed, not his sister.
If only it were me who got sick.
That way, he wouldn’t have to watch helplessly as his sister suffered, unable to ease the heavy guilt in his heart no matter how considerate he tried to be.
Even though it wasn’t his fault.
His sister stared at him, wide-eyed, and asked word by word, “Am I causing you pain?”
Hua Jin came to his senses, realizing he had said something inappropriate.
But at that moment, he couldn’t utter a single word of explanation.
They seemed to be deliberately poking at each other’s sensitive nerves. The argument ended in discord. As Hua Jin stormed out, Hua Yu shouted after him, “You’re too conceited! I never want to see you again!”
He didn’t look back.
They wouldn’t truly become enemies over something like this. The so-called “telepathy” they had joked about wasn’t a complete fabrication. Even when they said one thing, deep down they each knew the other’s true feelings.
Hua Jin sulked for a month. The first few days, he was just angry, digging up old grievances in his mind. Later, he thought only about apologizing “tomorrow.” But one day led to another.
A teenager on the cusp of adulthood, he still cared, consciously or not, about “saving face.”
What he feared even more subconsciously was facing the fact that he had hurt his sister.
Then, one day, his parents called suddenly, saying his sister had fallen into a coma again and had just been taken into surgery.
Hua Jin immediately abandoned all his scruples. But just as he was about to leave the school gate, the calamity struck without warning.
He was trapped in the school for a long time.
By the time the surviving teachers and students finally accepted the calamity and began cautiously venturing outside, Hua Jin rushed to his sister’s hospital as fast as he could.
All that remained was rubble.
The hospital walls were covered with traces of monster bites and collisions. The ground was cracked. Several earthquakes had occurred.
The broken cross sign tottered and crashed in front of Hua Jin, raising a cloud of dust.
From that day on, the ruins became Hua Jin’s recurring nightmare.
What finally helped him rise again was the call of his companions. They dug at the edge of the ruins, and beneath what should have been a crowded ward block, there was only empty space.
No human remains. No smell of blood.
It was as though the entire hospital population had vanished into thin air the moment the building collapsed.
Perhaps they had escaped, moved to a safe place.
They must still be alive.
Later, in one of the game worlds, he saw another team’s “Hua Yu.”
She recognized him at once and said, “You look just like my brother.”
She called herself “Hua Yu” and recounted some past events. She said she had been seriously ill and on the verge of death when she accidentally entered the game world. After barely surviving the first level, the system rewarded her by curing her illness, but at the cost of her memories—almost all of which she could no longer recall clearly.
But the moment she saw Hua Jin, she felt a sense of closeness, and fragments of the past surfaced.
At that time, to others, “Hua Yu” was a good teammate, but as a sister, her identity was full of holes.
But in that moment, Hua Jin didn’t think about any of that. When he saw that familiar face, only one thought filled his mind:
Thank goodness.
Thank goodness she’s still alive.
It was as if a safe, comfortable shell had suddenly appeared from deep within his subconscious. He crawled into it without hesitation.
Who could have known they would one day truly return to reality?
Yet, recalling their first meeting in reality, Hua Jin immediately noticed the most striking evidence supporting Shen Xuanyi’s suspicion:
Hua Yu had never called him “big brother.”
…
By the time Hua Jin finished speaking and closed his eyes to lie down, it was already late at night.
A glance out the window showed a faint glimmer of light at the horizon where sky and earth met.
Chu Chenli had carried Hua Jin to his own room.
Just as he was about to leave after laying Hua Jin down, Hua Jin, half-asleep, grabbed his sleeve again and mumbled with half-closed eyes, “Do you really not know where that passage is?”
Chu Chenli answered him again, “I really don’t know.”
As if he hadn’t heard him, Hua Jin murmured to himself, “I want to go find Xiaoyu…”
Mu Yanshen, who had followed them in, was far less gentle than Chu Chenli. He pried Hua Jin’s hand off and tossed it back onto him, then carelessly pulled the blanket over his head.
“Wouldn’t it be better to just imagine your sister and family living peacefully in another world?”
You’re supposed to be good at deceiving yourself, aren’t you?
Mu Yanshen cursed inwardly but ultimately refrained from saying the cutting remark, especially since Hua Jin couldn’t hear him anyway.
Chu Chenli pulled the blanket down a little from Hua Jin’s head.
Hua Jin’s face emerged from beneath the blanket, already fast asleep.
Mu Yanshen glanced at the bed Hua Jin had taken over and said to Chu Chenli naturally, “Brother Li, go rest in my room.”
Chu Chenli looked at Hua Jin.
Mu Yanshen said, “He’s a grown man. He’s not going to smother himself in his sleep.”
Chu Chenli looked at Mu Yanshen again.
Mu Yanshen quickly changed his tune: “…I think at a time like this, he probably wants to be alone to calm down and process things.”
Chu Chenli nodded.
As they passed through the living room, they couldn’t resist tidying up a bit before opening the door. The sky outside had brightened considerably.
But they had no tasks today, so they could continue resting.
Before they had taken two steps, however, footsteps sounded behind them.
Chu Chenli turned to look. The prematurely gray-haired youth they had become familiar with over the past couple of days was poking his head out from the stairwell. Seeing Chu Chenli slightly disheveled, following Mu Yanshen—he was actually helping Hua Jin, but Luo Yunshu didn’t know that—a look of exaggerated surprise spread across his face.
He had intended to hide, but at a glance from Chu Chenli, he obediently came out instead.
“Ahem.” Luo Yunshu looked up at the ceiling, then spoke rapidly. “If you find the bed uncomfortable, we can help switch to a double bed for free.”
Following Luo Yunshu’s gaze, Mu Yanshen saw the opening of Chu Chenli’s collar. With a dark expression, he reached up and buttoned it for him.
Chu Chenli, accustomed to this, kept his eyes on Luo Yunshu’s face, filtering out the subtext, and replied, “Thank you, but no need for now. Did you come for something?”
Luo Yunshu hadn’t come out of boredom just to be annoying—though his presence did come off that way. He actually had business.
“Oh, the president asked me to tell Brother Chu that a friend of yours has arrived. If you’d like to see him, you can go over now while they’re not too busy.”
Luo Yunshu tore a sticky note from his folder. He had originally planned to just stick it on the door and leave, but now he stuck it directly onto the back of Chu Chenli’s hand.
“This is their dormitory address. Oh, and for easier contact, you two should register and get a communicator as soon as possible.” Luo Yunshu quickly glanced at them and explained, “Honestly, I didn’t want to disturb you at a time like this.”