The pain across her limbs and bones came to an abrupt halt. Shattered, protruding bone fragments slowly mended and reconnected, and cooled, congealed blood flowed through her body once more. Her pulse beat on and on, becoming the only call in a silent world.
Heyue, wake up.
With a sharp gasp, Heyue snapped her eyes open to find herself sitting on the cold ground, facing a serene, pristine white corridor.
"Am I dead?"
Heyue's head throbbed with a dull ache. The moment she closed her eyes, the last images she saw were Lin Xialing racing toward her beneath a blood-red moon and Luo Yilan, dressed in a sacred wedding gown, collapsing against the window.
Heyue never expected their reunion to be a final farewell.
Slowly, Heyue lifted her gaze. This place looked very much like heaven; it was nothing but white. The corridor in front of her stretched out almost endlessly, as if an angel would appear bathed in golden light at any second.
Yet Heyue waited for quite a while, and no angel appeared. Only then did she laboriously push herself up from the floor.
The red moon, the speeding car, the running Lin Xialing, and the weeping Luo Yilan all slashed through her mind like shards of glass. The physical pain made her raise a hand to clutch her head, leaning against the wall and bending over to gasp for breath. Veins thudded at her temples, and a tear slid straight from the corner of her eye. It hurt too much.
After catching her breath, Heyue steadied herself against the wall, gritting her teeth as she forced herself to walk forward—to walk toward her next life and leave all of this behind.
Just as she stumbled toward the end of the corridor, she vaguely heard a faint sound coming from one side. Heyue stopped in her tracks, slowly turning her head to look through the ajar gap of a nearby door.
Could there be singing in heaven, too?
Heyue tilted her ear to listen. Intermittent singing drifted out through the crack in the door, and this voice made her realize that this place... perhaps wasn't heaven after all.
She wasn't dead!
The truth lay just behind a single door. Without hesitation, Heyue raised her hand and pushed it open. What met her eyes was a flood of sunlight.
The room was exceptionally tidy. The quilt on the bed was folded into a neat square block, the floor was swept spotless, and a thriving, unidentifiable green plant sat on the windowsill.
The owner of the room was barefoot on the floor, holding a cassette player with a look of blissful happiness as she softly chimed along with the music in the room: "...I believe I am who I am, I believe tomorrow..."
The girl's voice was gentle, yet Heyue could not help frowning, for she felt utterly out of place in this tidy room.
The girl's loose hair was draped over her shoulders, looking as though it had been chewed on by a dog. It was long and short, completely uneven—done by who knows who, and whoever cut it had even nicked her ear, leaving a scab of dried blood behind.
A lingering sense of unease rose in her chest, and Heyue decided she should leave quickly. But just as she took a step back, the girl, who had been singing with total concentration, suddenly turned around and clearly noticed her.
She blinked her eyes and gave a shy, tentative wave. "Hi, I don't think I've seen you before."
Heyue smiled awkwardly, at a loss for how to introduce herself. She didn't even know if she was still Heyue, since she had just been bludgeoned to death by her thirty-eight-year-old self...
Seeing that Heyue didn't know how to answer, the girl didn't make things difficult for her. She simply beckoned to her, motioning for her to come inside.
"Do you want an apple?" The girl put the cassette player aside and, treating it like a precious treasure, pulled two bright red apples out of a storage box under the bed, looking at Heyue with bright, expectant eyes.
Meeting her gaze, Heyue unconsciously walked over to her.
The cassette player finished playing a round of "I Believe" and started singing from the beginning once more.
Seeing Heyue glance at the player, the girl looked a little embarrassed. "I'm memorizing the lyrics. I can never remember the words to this song." At that, she seemed somewhat annoyed, rapping forcefully against her head. "I'm so stupid."
Heyue hurriedly took the girl's hand and asked for her name.
"Wang Xiuya." The girl offered a gentle, faint smile. "My name is Wang Xiuya."
Afraid Heyue hadn't heard clearly, she pulled Heyue's palm over and carefully wrote her name on it stroke by stroke. Only then did she raise her head with satisfaction, looking at Heyue with a pair of clear, bright eyes. "Did you remember it?"
Heyue nodded and probed gently, "Xiuya, where is this?"
Hearing Heyue's question, Wang Xiuya looked somewhat puzzled. "You don't know where this is?" She lowered her head with a look of sadness, her fingernails digging deep into the oxidized, yellowed flesh of the apple. "Are you not like me? Different, different..."
Not understanding what Wang Xiuya meant by "different," Heyue hadn't even the chance to ask further when the girl suddenly grabbed her, her expression turning tense. "This isn't a good place. I don't like it here."
Wang Xiuya's tone grew increasingly urgent, only to be abruptly interrupted by a cell phone ringtone coming from Heyue's pocket.
Just as Heyue reached out to feel for her phone, Wang Xiuya suddenly dropped to her knees with a thud, tears bursting from her eyes. She kept her gaze fixed downward on the floor, rubbing her hands together repeatedly. "It's not my phone, really not my phone, I didn't bring a phone!"
The phone kept ringing, sounding to Wang Xiuya like a death knell. She knelt at Heyue's feet, trembling violently.
Panicked as well, Heyue reached out to steady her in a fluster. "Xiuya, what's wrong?"
"It's not me, really not me!"
Wang Xiuya grabbed Heyue's hand with a grip so fierce it felt as though she might crush Heyue's bones, and Heyue couldn't shake her off at all.
Their eyes met, and Wang Xiuya's expression suddenly twisted as she demanded with a fierce glare, "Don't you believe me! Tell me! Don't you believe me!"
"I do believe you!" Heyue shook her head, reaching into her pocket to fish out the phone. "Look, it's my phone ringing, not yours!"
Ignoring Heyue's explanation, Wang Xiuya stood up from the ground and began pacing back and forth around the room, muttering to herself. "Not my phone, not my phone, you don't believe me!"
She shrieked at Heyue, her eyes bloodshot like a volatile wild beast, yet Heyue caught a glimpse of a familiar, desperate agony hidden deep within those eyes.
"Wang Xiuya, calm down."
Yet Wang Xiuya seemed unable to hear Heyue's words. Hell-bent on proving the phone had nothing to do with her, she actually began stripping off her clothes.
The weather was still quite warm, and she was wearing hardly anything to begin with. In a flash, she had nearly stripped herself bare. Panicking, Heyue rushed forward to wrap her arms around her, forcing her to stop. "Wang Xiuya, I believe you. This isn't your phone, just calm down."
Instead, Wang Xiuya burst into tears. Transforming back into her frail, endearing self, she pressed her chin against Heyue's shoulder with a aggrieved look and pleaded in a soft whisper, "Save me."
Heyue froze. How was she supposed to save her?
"You won't?" Wang Xiuya's mood shifted in an instant. Not getting the answer she wanted, she flew into a rage. "Aren't we good friends? I gave you an apple! And I even told you my name!"
With a violent shove, she pushed Heyue away. Caught off guard, Heyue slammed hard against the edge of the bed, sending a wooden clipboard clattering to the floor right beside her feet. Rubbing her aching injury, she glanced down, only to see the medical chart.
Wang Xiuya — Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder...
Before she could even finish reading, Wang Xiuya lunged forward, straddling Heyue without a shred of hesitation and clamping both hands tightly around her neck.
"Wang Xiuya..."
Heyue thrashed against the floor. The oxygen in her chest was steadily draining away, and she could barely breathe.
She tried to pry Wang Xiuya's fingers loose, but Wang Xiuya seemed to feel no pain. Even as Heyue's fingernails scratched open the skin on her hands, it was to no avail; Wang Xiuya refused to let her go.
"Aren't we friends? Why won't you help me?" Wang Xiuya cried out, a single tear falling onto Heyue's face.
Heyue felt somewhat lightheaded, her ears ringing with the muffled, humming strains of "I Believe."
Was she really going to die again?