Chapter 542: Loneliness
"Xia, look, I got my name tattooed," Yu Nian'an said.
"Where?"
Yu Nian'an extended her index finger. On the side near her thumb, there were three beautifully styled letters.
"YNA."
"Pretty, right? Quick, read it with me!" She happily pointed to the three letters and slowly enunciated, "Yu—Nian—An!"
"Alright, alright." Qi Xia nodded with a smile. "When you get old and can't remember who you are, I'll just point to it for you."
...
"You're lying to me?" Qi Xia's eyes flickered slightly as he looked at the Yan Zhichun before him. "How could you possibly never have heard the name 'Yu Nian'an'?"
"What?" Yan Zhichun was also taken aback. "Why would I have to know this Yu Nian'an? And this is our first meeting—what reason would I have to lie to you?"
Qi Xia shook his head forcefully, feeling a cacophony of noise ringing in his ears.
Something had to be wrong with all of this...
He stepped forward and grabbed Yan Zhichun's wrist. This startled the other two nearby, who immediately came over to pull him back.
"Hey! What the hell are you doing?!" Old Sun shouted. "Kid, if you've got something to say, say it proper—no need for hands."
"I should have realized long ago..." Qi Xia gritted his teeth. "You're from the 'Jidao'... How many truthful words can you possibly have?"
"What the hell?!" Old Sun was baffled. "So what if we're 'Jidao'? Have we hit you or cursed you?"
Qi Xia ignored Old Sun, instead holding Yan Zhichun's arm and forcefully bringing her hand close to his eyes to carefully examine the three letters.
"YNA."
He had seen the font and the strokes of those three letters countless times. There was absolutely no way he could be mistaken.
They were identical to the tattoo on Yu Nian'an's finger.
If he had only borrowed Yan Zhichun's "body" to fabricate memories, why would even the details be so vividly clear?
"Your name is Yan Zhichun... yet you have 'YNA' tattooed on the side of your finger..." Qi Xia's lips trembled as he spoke. "How do you explain that?"
"My name is Yan Zhichun. What necessary connection does that have to what letters I have tattooed on my finger?" Yan Zhichun said impatiently. "You really are crazy, aren't you? And here I thought you were a smart guy..."
"Yes... I feel like I'm about to go mad... What's left in this place that's real?"
Yan Zhichun frowned and lightly moved her fingers. Qi Xia immediately released her arm and mimicked her exact gesture.
"Qi Xia, I treated you with courtesy because I thought you were clever. But do you want to die that badly?"
Yan Zhichun reached up to smooth her hair, and at the same moment, Qi Xia also reached up to smooth his non-existent long hair.
Under normal circumstances, when Yan Zhichun used her "Heart-Seizing Soul," her uncanny ability would inevitably leave her opponent staring in shock.
But Qi Xia here was different.
He didn't care at all about the strange changes happening to his body, nor did he care what was controlling him. His eyes remained fixed on Yan Zhichun's finger.
"What exactly is wrong with you?" Seeing that the man before her showed no hostility, Yan Zhichun withdrew her "Echo," but Qi Xia still didn't move.
"No... I..." Qi Xia felt his mind once again clogged, and quickly corrected himself, "This question really matters to me... If I scared you, I apologize in advance... But that tattoo..."
Yan Zhichun rubbed her slightly sore wrist and looked at Qi Xia with renewed curiosity. Old Sun and Old Deng next to her were also confused.
The man before them seemed half mad, yet kept doing strange things.
"You think I tattooed 'Yu Nian'an'?" Yan Zhichun frowned. "What an absurd deduction. Who is Yu Nian'an to you?"
"She's my wife..." Qi Xia said in a low voice. "I'm looking for my wife... On her finger, she had a tattoo exactly like yours."
"Exactly like mine?" Yan Zhichun was stunned. She also looked down at the tattoo on her own finger. "Are you sure?"
Now she too felt something was off. She didn't even know Qi Xia, let alone his wife.
Although she had met many people in the "Land of the End," she couldn't recall anyone with a tattoo identical to hers on their finger.
"My tattoo has nothing to do with 'Yu Nian'an,'" Yan Zhichun replied. "I suspect your memory is messed up."
"Then your 'YNA'..."
"It's English," Yan Zhichun said. "Short for 'You're Not Alone.' I got it to comfort myself."
"'You're Not Alone'..." Hearing those four words, Qi Xia's eyes went blank. Yu Nian'an's voice echoed incessantly in his ears.
"Xia, you have me. You're not alone."
"Xia, without me, how lonely would you be?"
Yu Nian'an.
Yu Nian was always hard to find peace.
And I have always been alone.
Yes. Yan Zhichun getting an English abbreviation tattooed on her finger made much more sense than Yu Nian'an's motive.
Who would tattoo their own name's abbreviation on their finger...?
"Why does it always come to this..." Qi Xia said, his whole body trembling. "Every time I seek an answer, this is what I get... Damn it... I don't have a single path left... Not even..."
Qi Xia felt a splitting headache, as if he was about to collapse again.
But this time was clearly different from before. If he fell here, there was no hope of survival. The three people before him were not Qiao Jiajin or Chen Junnan; they had no reason to save him.
"Zhi Chun," Old Sun called. "We should get going. Time's almost up."
Yan Zhichun nodded. The three of them ignored Qi Xia, who was wracked with pain, walked to the back door, pushed it open, and left.
Qi Xia grabbed his hair, waiting for the violent headache to pass.
Now he could clearly hear a rustling sound behind his ears, as if those black threads had already begun cutting cracks in the heavy door and were now creeping into the room.
"I can't die yet..." Qi Xia struggled to his feet. Without even looking back, he ran toward the back door.
Fortunately, the back door of this building led to a relatively wide alley, which had a little light.
After roughly determining his direction, Qi Xia started running down the road again.
But if you looked closely, his expression was ashen.
Why was he still here?
Why was he trying to escape?
Why was he running for his life?
What was the point of it all?
Would being neatly sliced in half by those black lines make any difference from dying horribly in some game or annihilation a few days later?
"My 'Echo Trigger' is gone..." he muttered in despair.
As soon as the words left his mouth, Qi Xia felt his breathing grow uneven. A sharp pain stabbed between his ribs, and his pace slowed.
"Damn..."
He dragged his steps with difficulty, moving to the side of the main road, but he could clearly feel the threads behind him closing in.
Qi Xia raised his head, his expression grim. "If you don't show yourself now, I'm really going to die..."
As soon as he finished speaking, the roar of a car engine echoed from the intersection in the distance.