Chapter 44#
Onset of Illness#
The living room was very noisy.
Someone had turned on the TV, only to find the volume was outrageously high, and quickly turned it down until it was quieter than the talking voices.
It was noisy nearby. Luo Wenyun sat at the very back of the sofa, with several figures in front blocking his view, so he couldn’t see the content on the TV clearly. He stood up, wanting to walk to the front of the TV, when Shen Le, sitting to one side, looked up and grabbed the hem of his clothes.
“Brother Luo, how do you play Fight the Landlord? I can never beat them.”
Others laughed, “Teacher Luo, teach him quickly; the person is almost depressed.”
Luo Wenyun was pulled down by them.
He wanted to open his phone, but Shen Le stuffed a handful of cards into his hand, saying pitifully: “Brother Luo, help me quickly, I don’t want to lose anymore.”
Irritability gradually arose.
Luo Wenyun didn’t know why he felt so restless in his heart.
It was as if he had missed something very important.
As for the things said in the news just now, although he hadn’t heard them clearly, he always felt that he should, and must, know what was said just now.
Upstairs, Mo Xuzhi opened the search box to check the weather.
The forecast said there would be rain and snow in some areas from the 13th to the 15th, and Rongcheng had a 90% chance of heavy snow on the 14th.
Exactly two days after the program aired.
He made a call to Wang Zhifeng.
“Add me to the exchange meeting in Rongcheng.”
Some words were said on the other end of the phone. Mo Xuzhi smiled and said, “This is not because I was afraid you’d be lonely on a business trip by yourself, so I’m specifically accompanying you.”
“…Mhm, I saw it too; it will snow in Rongcheng.”
The sparrow outside the window flew back again. The young man sitting on the windowsill looked down and smiled faintly, the sunlight through the shadows of the trees casting dappled light on his face.
“It must be very beautiful.”
Wang Zhifeng still had work to do. After a few sentences, Mo Xuzhi took the initiative to end the topic and hung up the phone.
He and Wang Zhifeng had roughly agreed on the itinerary.
The two of them would take the first flight on the morning of the 14th. After arriving in Rongcheng, Wang Zhifeng would attend the exchange meeting, and he himself would plan his time freely.
Simply put, he was just hitching a ride on the plane.
Leaning against the windowsill with his eyes closed to nap for a while, the noise downstairs subsided, then a burst of cheering suddenly came. Mo Xuzhi opened his eyes and then closed the window.
Along with the sound of closing the window, there was also a knock on the door.
“The door is unlocked, come in.”
The one standing at the door was Luo Wenyun.
The phone he held in his hand was not turned off, the screen still lit, staying on a Weibo interface.
Mo Xuzhi couldn’t see clearly and had no interest in knowing what was written on it. After a quick glance, he looked up and asked: “Is there something the matter?”
Luo Wenyun walked into the room, closed the door behind him, and asked: “On the 14th, what are your plans?”
He remembered Mo Xuzhi saying he was going out to play.
“Not going out,” Mo Xuzhi waved his hand, “Everyone will be shouting for my head then; who would dare to go out. I plan to stay in the room all the time, probably playing games, trying to get from Silver to Gold.”
Luo Wenyun asked: “Can I join you?”
Mo Xuzhi shook his head: “No, I’ve already made plans with a friend.”
The capital was not within the range affected by special weather. In the next half month, it would be sunny or cloudy, with occasional light rain.
Luo Wenyun’s expression was regretful, but more like a sigh of relief, and his whole body completely relaxed. He showed a smile and said, “Have fun.”
Mo Xuzhi also smiled.
He was indeed quite happy.
Lately, there was probably nothing happier than this.
Having obtained the answer he wanted, Mo Xuzhi had no intention of continuing to talk with him. Luo Wenyun stood there for a while and finally intended to leave.
Before leaving, he took one last look at Mo Xuzhi, but out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of an open pillbox on the table.
The pillbox was divided into two areas; one still contained half of the pills, and the other was already empty.
A nerve in his brain jumped. Luo Wenyun asked: “What is this?”
Mo Xuzhi, who had been leaning against the wall waiting for Luo Wenyun to leave, followed his gaze and saw the pillbox he had forgotten to put away after making the call.
“Vitamin C.”
Mo Xuzhi’s expression remained unchanged. He took a pill, threw it into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. During this, his expression didn’t change at all. He picked up the pillbox and handed it toward Luo Wenyun, asking, “Want some?”
“No thanks.”
Luo Wenyun took one last look at the pillbox, then turned and left the room.
Click
The door was closed. Mo Xuzhi lowered his eyes and poured a glass of water.
The bitterness of the medicine lingering in his mouth was barely diluted.
After the program crew’s small meeting ended, filming officially began.
The entire amusement park was booked, with only guests and staff as visitors.
Thinking carefully about these few days, not much had been done. Besides playing various amusement facilities to experience the feeling of a racing heart, the guests seemed to have nothing else to do.
If one didn’t care about the camera or maintaining their persona, these few days could completely be treated as a holiday.
Mo Xuzhi was like this. Except for mandatory collective activities, he rarely followed the main group and often went alone to places others would never go to or didn’t even know about.
The cameraman originally tried to persuade him, but after saying it a few times, he gave up and let him develop freely.
Later, he also found that following Mo Xuzhi seemed to be much easier than following other guests. At least every time they gathered, the other cameramen were covered in sweat, while he had no reaction other than being slightly tired.
For program effects, other guests liked to challenge various large-scale amusement facilities and would participate in some strange activities. They played until they were tired, and the cameramen were also tired.
But Mo Xuzhi seemed uninterested in these; he liked to go to some small game stalls or take a walk in a small grove, then stare at an ordinary tree in a daze, sitting for one or two hours at a time.
His level of activity could already be considered extremely minimal. He went to bed early and woke up early every day, living a more regular life than other guests, but conversely, his spirit became worse day by day.
The cameraman asked: “Why does your spirit look so poor today?”
Mo Xuzhi replied, “These past few days have been too boring.”
Meaning he wasn’t interested in the things in the amusement park, felt bored, and therefore couldn’t muster his spirits.
Mo Xuzhi found a bench and sat down, catching his breath.
Lately, the cancer buff had become more and more obvious.
Since the day before yesterday, he had been taking medicine during the day. Although the medicine wasn’t very useful anymore, it was better than nothing. He didn’t take medicine at night, and combined with all senses being infinitely magnified in the dark and quiet, that bone-chilling burning pain would come from time to time; he had almost no real sleep time at night.
Since yesterday, he had been able to clearly feel a sense of swelling in his lungs, and breathing gradually became difficult.
The hospital doctor had been calling him lately, wanting him to return to the hospital for an inspection in time.
He hadn’t agreed. The doctor thought he didn’t know the seriousness of this matter and analyzed cancer-related knowledge for him for a long time, trying to make him aware of this.
Mo Xuzhi didn’t want the other party to worry too much about this, so he made an appointment to return to the hospital for a re-examination.
March 15th.
—The first day after his death.
By then, someone should have already notified the doctor that the patient who caused him so much worry had gone and no longer needed his concern.
Taking another breath, Mo Xuzhi stood up and said: “Let’s go.”
The cameraman asked: “Where to?”
He replied: “Walk around; maybe I’ll come across something fun.”
He couldn’t sit here all the time.
So the two of them wandered aimlessly around the amusement park.
Walking near a game hall, as they passed a small shop, Mo Xuzhi’s steps stopped.
He tilted his head and looked at the item in the glass cabinet.
“Is something wrong?” The cameraman stopped with him and looked in the direction of his gaze, seeing the items displayed in the cabinet.
The most eye-catching thing was the DSLR in the cabinet labeled “First Prize” at the front. DSLRs were expensive to begin with, and the one in the cabinet was a rare silver-white model; at one glance, it was full of the smell of money.
The cameraman asked: “Want it?”
Mo Xuzhi nodded: “I want it.”
Neither of them noticed that their gazes had missed each other.
Mo Xuzhi asked the shop owner who was sitting in the shop playing on his phone, saying: “Can the items inside be bought?”
The shop owner was currently pushing a tower, a moment of extreme urgency, and couldn’t care less about customers. Without looking up, he said:
“No, dear, these can only be obtained through playing games.” On the horizontal board in front of the shop were three very realistic-looking guns, and several targets were hanging inside. The red dot in the very center of the target was small to an incredible degree.
“Thirty for one round, ten bullets, no need to cock, it’s loaded with bullets and can fire continuously. The score is determined by the rings, and the ones next to it are all prizes.”
Mo Xuzhi scanned thirty for him.
Picking up the gun on the table, he turned off the safety, aimed, fired, and hit, the entire process being incredibly smooth.
The bullet with a special mark hit the bullseye.
The youth’s finger, so white that the pale blue veins beneath could be seen, formed a great impact with the black gun body.
Although the cameraman didn’t understand, he was greatly shaken.
Mo Xuzhi opened his eyes with some surprise.
“So it’s a toy gun.”
Then he lowered his eyes, “That makes sense.”
Originally, when he picked up the gun, he felt the weight was a bit wrong, and now he finally realized.
The security at the Academy of Sciences and the accompanying personnel arranged by the higher-ups when going out to attend activities, as well as the security at the venue, all carried guns. He saw them frequently, and it had become a habit; he hadn’t switched over all of a sudden.
The cameraman’s brow twitched as he listened on one side.
What else could it be if not a toy gun?
A few more sounds.
The shop owner failed to push someone else’s tower and was pushed by them instead. He put down his phone and looked up, seeing that Mo Xuzhi had just finished firing the last bullet.
The bullseye of a target was filled with long-shaped bullets. Afterward, probably because the center could no longer hold more, the subsequent bullets all hit the ninth ring.
The shop owner was dazed for a moment.
He just played a game; what exactly happened?
The shop owner opened the top glass cabinet belonging to the first prize with a pair of dead fish eyes.
He had never thought someone could really shoot like this. This DSLR was his; he knew no one could take it, so he specifically brought it here to attract customers and incidentally show it off.
He didn’t expect to have his plans foiled today.
“Not that one,” Mo Xuzhi stopped him in time and pointed to the bottom cabinet, saying, “I want this one.”
Mo Xuzhi was referring to an ordinary fifth prize, which was two sleep masks, one Spongebob and one Patrick Star.
Spongebob and Patrick Star were both miniature versions; one sleep mask was all yellow and the other was all pink.
Seeing the shop owner’s movement was hesitant and suspicious, Mo Xuzhi repeated once more, saying, “I want this one.”
This should be quite suitable when resting in the laboratory.
The laboratory lights were always very bright. When he closed his eyes, he felt like there was a sun above his head, and even his eyelids couldn’t block the light.
He wanted Spongebob and would give the extra Patrick Star to Wang Zhifeng.