Two silent tracks of tears slipped from the corners of her eyes, the flow growing faster until she suddenly began to weep, crying like a seven or eight-year-old girl.
“Mama…”
“Mama…”
“Xia Mo! Xia Mo!”
Ou Chen’s heart was in agonizing pain; her sobbing was almost unbearable. In that moment, he wished he could trade everything with Heaven just to take away all her suffering.
“Mama…”
“Xiao Cheng… is going to die…”
Sobbing and choking, she trembled violently. Her large, rolling tears made her look like a bewildered little girl, crying out in terror:
“Save Xiao Cheng… Mama… I beg you… save Xiao Cheng… What will I do without Xiao Cheng… You’re all leaving… just abandoning me here alone… I’m so scared… Mama… please… save Xiao Cheng…”
“Xiao Cheng will not die.”
Her hands gripped him tightly, like a dying person clinging desperately to life. Ou Chen gazed at her distraught, crying face with a heavy heart, his voice husky as he said,
“I promise you! Xiao Cheng will not die.”
“Why are you punishing Xiao Cheng… It’s my fault… Everything wrong—it was all me!…”
Tears spread across her face, her cheeks pale, her cheekbones flushed. Her eyes were chaotic and unfocused. The vast, burning fire, the blinding white mist, her mother’s figure flickering in and out of sight—she desperately reached out for her mother, pleading with her not to go. Only Mama, only Mama could save her!
“…Mama… I did so many, many wrong things… If I had firmly refused to let Father Yin take in Luo Xi… No… If I had kept Luo Xi back then… Xiao Cheng wouldn’t have gotten sick… Wouldn’t have had to go to the hospital… Wouldn’t have had the car accident…”
“…If I hadn’t taken out my anger on Ou Chen… If I hadn’t tried so hard to hurt him… I wouldn’t have been captured… I wouldn’t have let Xiao Cheng stand out in the rain… making his body so terrible…”
“Look… Mama… it’s all my fault… But why… is Xiao Cheng the one being punished… not me… They got it wrong… Mama… I beg you… You’re in Heaven… Please go tell them… I should be the one to die!… Not Xiao Cheng… Not Xiao Cheng…”
“Xia Mo, wake up!”
Ou Chen shakily grasped her wildly trembling shoulders, trying to rouse her. She seemed completely trapped in a nightmare, and the tears streaming wildly down her face drenched the back of his hand. He had never seen Xia Mo like this; under the ravages of the high fever, her composure had utterly shattered. The mask of icy calm had broken, revealing her to be as fragile as a child…
“Xiao Cheng will not die! Do you hear me? I promise you, Xiao Cheng will not die!”
He held her shoulders tightly, shouting repeatedly. Her body was burning hot, and the tears on her cheeks kept flowing down into his neck, startlingly cool. She continued to tremble incessantly, seemingly not hearing a single word he said.
“You…”
Against his shoulder, she suddenly shuddered and whispered:
“Are you dead too…”
Gently pushing him away, she looked at him in a daze, her gaze vacant, yet there was an unusual brilliance in her eyes, as if she were piercing right through his body, looking out toward a place far, far away.
“…I’m sorry… I didn’t know you would commit suicide… I thought… you would hate me… And then… you would forget me…”
“Luo Xi…”
“You’re dead, aren’t you… So… you came to see me one last time… Doesn’t it hurt… Even if you hate me… but doing that… it must have hurt terribly, right…” Bubble Summer III