Chapter 111#
When Ji Yang regained a sliver of superficial consciousness, the first thing his nose registered was the scent of disinfectant.
That distinctly hospital smell—cold, antiseptic cleanliness—mingled with a faint, barely-there trace of something familiar. He didn’t need to open his eyes to know where he was. His right hand was being held. The palm gripping his was dry and warm, the thin callus on the web of the thumb resting against the inside of his wristbone, very light, bringing a steadiness.
Ji Yang moved his numb fingers, and the hand holding his tightened slightly.
“Awake?” Nie Xu’s voice came from the head of the bed, kept low, as though afraid of startling something.
Ji Yang slowly opened his eyes. Above him was a ceiling so white it stung. An indwelling needle was taped to the back of his left hand, and the IV tube hung down from the hook overhead, dripping drop by drop. The curtains of the private hospital room were half-drawn. Outside, the sky was leaden grey, the light dim but clean.
Ji Yang turned his head and saw Nie Xu, red bloodshot threads visible in his eyes. It was the first time he had seen him look so haggard. Even more disheveled than the day he’d come back from the bottom of the laboratory pit. The cuffs and hems of his clothes bore creases, a layer of dark stubble had pushed through along his chin, and his voice was low and hoarse.
Ji Yang asked, “How long have I been out?”
When the question left him, he thought his voice sounded normal. But as soon as he heard it, it was so small he could barely make it out himself.
From the corridor outside, there came muffled voices and footsteps.
Nie Xu turned to take the water glass from the bedside table, propped Ji Yang’s head up a little, and slowly fed him a few sips before speaking. “Two days.”
Ji Yang cooperated, taking two small mouthfuls. The burning dryness in his throat eased somewhat, and then he said, “That long?”
Nie Xu gently laid him back down. “Your fever kept spiking and wouldn’t break—temperatures nearing forty degrees. Combined with prolonged sleep deprivation and the old injury to your right leg, the doctor sedated you.” He set the glass back and slowly filled him in. “You woke up twice in between, but your consciousness wasn’t clear. Fortunately, the fever came down this morning and hasn’t returned.”
The hand that held Ji Yang’s tightened in return.
“You never went back?” Ji Yang asked.
Nie Xu looked at him. “I went back once. Took a shower and changed clothes. The previous outfit was unrecognizable.”
Ji Yang: “And you haven’t slept?”
Nie Xu: “I did sleep.”
Ji Yang’s whole body was left with that soft, boneless weakness that followed a high fever, but he didn’t quite believe Nie Xu’s answer.
From the moment the police began laying their operation, however long Ji Yang had stayed up, Nie Xu had stayed up longer. And in the hospital, with Ji Yang running high fevers throughout, there was no way he had truly managed to rest. Otherwise, with his constitution, he wouldn’t look the way he did now.
Anxious and deeply exhausted—a string pulled taut to its absolute limit.
Ji Yang raised his hand and lightly traced above Nie Xu’s eyelid, shifting slightly to the side. “I’m fine now. Come up here and get some sleep.”
Nie Xu didn’t refuse. He simply reclined against the head of the bed, still fully clothed, and drew Ji Yang into his arms to lean against him.
“Isn’t this just going to make it harder for you to sleep?” Ji Yang tried to move away.
Nie Xu held him steady. “It’s fine. Like this. I couldn’t sleep anyway.”
Ji Yang stopped moving. He lay against Nie Xu’s chest, feeling the steady warmth radiating from the other man’s body. After a while like that, he spoke. “Is it because the follow-up progress hasn’t gone smoothly?”
“No. Everything’s been going smoothly.” Nie Xu ran a hand through his hair, then lowered his head and pressed a soft kiss to the crown of it. “The reason I couldn’t sleep is because, while you were unconscious, the doctor said that although your body was recovering, your own will to wake up wasn’t very strong.”
Nie Xu’s tone carried no emotion when he said this—more like a statement of fact.
But Ji Yang stiffened.
Nie Xu’s hand stroked down his back. “I know you’re too tired. You can keep resting. Rest as long as you need before you wake up. I’ll be right here.”
Ji Yang’s heart, at those words, felt as though it were being unraveled by a ball of warm water, the warmth flowing through every limb and vein, yet carrying with it a deep sense of guilt.
He buried his entire face deeper into Nie Xu’s chest, his voice muffled and indistinct. “I didn’t mean to make you worry. I’m sorry.”
Nie Xu pulled him up and looked at him. “You have nothing to apologize for.”
Ji Yang met his gaze and tried, with effort, to smile. “Maybe it’s just that so many things happened so suddenly over these past few months.”
One thing after another.
Every truth, peeled back layer by layer—it was like having all the blood in his body replaced from head to toe.
He had to re-know himself, re-affirm himself, and then keep moving forward. Until everything finally settled into place. He felt like a camel that had trekked a thousand miles—not crushed by a single straw, but one that had reached the end of the road, having completed this journey carrying a mission.
After all, his motto in life had always been: a miserable life is better than a good death.
But in the instant he collapsed, what he was truly thinking was that it might actually be quite nice, to just keep sleeping like this.
Yet before his eyes closed, he remembered clearly—someone had caught him.
He couldn’t bear to let go.
Ji Yang reached out and wrapped his arms around Nie Xu, burying his head against his ear as he said, “You’ve already walked ninety-eight percent of this road on your own. This whole way, I’ve been lucky to have you. Brother—it’s been hard on you. And… thank you.”
These words were spoken with reverence and complete sincerity.
They were spoken to twelve-year-old Nie Xu, who had shared a small boat on the night of the Qiming ship disaster.
They were spoken to the Nie Xu who had entrusted him to the butler, turned away alone, and then sounded three whistle blasts deep in that primordial jungle.
And they were spoken all the more to twenty-nine-year-old Nie Xu, who had guarded him every step of the way.
Setting aside all matters of love and romance—this person, to Ji Yang, had been the guiding light on a road through darkness, the one and only star in a sky full of fire. From childhood to youth, from the past to the present—always, always, he had been that.
Those years of antagonism, those times that looked like mutual exploitation—recalling them now, they had all held, hidden deep within, the extraordinary and the tender care of an unexpected encounter.
Until the care overflowed, until love could no longer be concealed.
Nie Xu touched the back of his neck. “Actually, you’ve gone farther than me.”
“Hmm?” Ji Yang didn’t quite understand.
Nie Xu reached for a sealed paper bag resting on the bedside table and opened it together with Ji Yang.
“What is this?” Ji Yang asked.
Nie Xu: “The experiment that Ji Yansong cared so much about does indeed exist. It was the final experiment of the entire Blue Sea Project before the first destruction occurred. E-pi-01—meaning Guixu. What the experiment truly studied was neural memory encoding and index projection.”
Ji Yang furrowed his brow and took the sealed bag, pulling out the documents to examine.
Nie Xu: “The chip has been fully decrypted. Along with all criminal evidence and core experimental data related to the Blue Sea Project, the research institute discovered this—rather incomplete—experimental record.”
Ji Yang: “The experiment failed?”
Nie Xu shook his head. “Do you remember those madmen kept locked in the underground facility at the border laboratory? They are the failed Guixu remains. The Gravekeeper had been trying to locate the core technology your mother took away, precisely because the chip contained technical data that had the potential to succeed. The research simply was never completed. This research was originally directed at neurodegenerative diseases—reconstruction of memory. Later, the founder of the Blue Sea Project, Quade, used stolen methods to attempt transforming human beings into weapons and commodities through experimentation.”
Ji Yang gripped the edge of the sealed bag tightly. Nie Xu, worried he would cut his hand, pried his fingers open and took it away.
Ji Yang’s throat constricted. “My mom…”
Nie Xu: “Forensics is still conducting the final round of evidence collection. After that, we’ll arrange the funeral.” Nie Xu said: “Yu Qin has been following the whole process. He’s been here twice and said we should discuss the specific arrangements once your condition stabilizes.”
Ji Yang nodded.
Nie Xu paused. “There’s one more thing.”
“What?” Ji Yang looked up.
Nie Xu gazed down at him. “Knox, through memory interrogation techniques, questioned Ji Chengyi. He discovered that Ji Chengyi’s memories contain significant distortion and discrepancies—symptoms that bear some similarity to the Guixu experiment.”
Ji Yang frowned in confusion. “You mean—his so-called rebirth was caused by the experiment?”
“What I mean is,” Nie Xu paused here, then took hold of Ji Yang’s hand, slightly cold from the IV, and spoke clearly: “The reason you both carry memories of a past life is very likely because you were both subjected to experimental modification.”
Ji Yang froze.
He truly hadn’t considered this possibility.
He recalled the memory of himself, lying on a cold operating table, a researcher calling out: “Test subject 0710.”
So Ji Chengyi of the previous life had also come into contact with this experiment. He had been reduced to a test subject of the Blue Sea Project, yet was completely unaware of it—hence his persistent insistence that he had been reborn.
Ji Yang: “Then why do I have absolutely no memories of the middle period of this life?”
Nie Xu’s voice slowed and softened. “Because of your mother.”
Hearing this, Ji Yang was no longer as stunned as he’d been at first. He only asked quietly, “What did she do?”
Nie Xu: “She must have foreseen it early on—the result of leaving the chip to you.”
Nie Xu held Ji Yang’s shoulders, conveying this clearly: “Yu Qin said that she didn’t simply plant a memory-retrieval mechanism inside your body. She also understood that bringing you back to the Ji family, while ensuring you survived, would inevitably subject you to pain. Extreme, relentless pain would trigger a cleansing and erasure. At that point, the mechanism would activate—not only making you the key, leading everyone to her location, but also serving as the one and only new life she could leave you.”
They all said she was a prodigy girl.
She had anticipated every possible outcome, and yet probably never imagined that Ji Yang would walk a different path—a life of the ordinary existence she had once hoped for him.
Living two lifetimes, Ji Yang had also wondered—why him, of all people? But as his mother, Yu Fei, in the most extreme of circumstances, had already thought through everything she could think of for him, and done everything she could do.
From the very beginning to the very end, she had protected him.
Even the phantom limb pain that had tormented him day and night since he’d woken up—it no longer felt like regret or suffering. Not in this moment.
From the instant Ji Yang’s mind retrieved her image, until he truly found her, he had never once been overcome with strong emotion. But now, his throat tightened, and in an instant, he could no longer hold back.
He seized Nie Xu’s hand and pressed it over his eyes, unwilling to let his loss of control be seen.
She had hoped he could be reborn through the pain.
Not knowing that he had, in fact, grown into exactly the person she had wished him to become—and had met the one he was always meant to meet.
This world of mortals, through its vast changes, year after year—had, in the end, turned out as she wished.
Perhaps even better than she had ever envisioned.
The sun was bright, the breeze was gentle, and there was nowhere left where light could not reach.