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Join the ServerLin Qingxue’s head began to hurt.
Not the kind of dull, ignorable pain.
The kind that felt like someone driving an awl into her temple, spreading from her forehead to the back of her skull, her whole head about to split open.
She let go of Su Yutao’s hand, clutched her head, and swayed.
Something in her brain churned and stirred, like a pot of boiling porridge.
The memories of the day and the memories of the night mixed together, the sheer volume of knowledge pounding in her head.
Normally, when she read memories, she only got the gist, not this level of detail.
She felt the consciousness from the daytime, that other awareness, beginning to wake.
Like two different minds in the same body, their memories merging.
She shook her head, gritted her teeth, and thought:
‘No, I have to take medicine. The pain is too much.’
‘I’ve been coming out too often lately, altering too many memories, and I haven’t been taking my pills.’
‘No, I can’t keep taking them.’
‘If I do, Lin Qingxue will really disappear soon.’
As she suffered, flashes of memories she’d never seen but felt familiar and painful flickered through her mind.
Like a lantern show.
Then she felt as if another consciousness was being forced into her brain.
Like two drops of ink falling into the same glass of water, slowly spreading, boundaries blurring, colors fading, until they became a new shade of gray.
She didn’t know which was the daytime ‘her’ and which was the nighttime ‘her.’
All she knew was, a memory was rising from somewhere very deep, like a drowning person finally breaking the surface.
She had never seen that memory before.
Strange, yet carrying a hint of inexplicable familiarity.
She saw herself become a little girl.
Very young, maybe five or six, with tiny hands and feet, wearing a white dress.
Someone was holding her hand, leading her forward.
That hand was noticeably smaller than hers, but felt very warm, pulling her toward an unfamiliar place.
She looked up to see the person’s face, but couldn’t, the sunlight was too bright, the person was backlit, face lost in a white halo, only a blurry outline visible.
She looked back. Behind her was darkness like an abyss, swallowing toward her.
But for some reason, she wasn’t afraid. She felt safe, warm, as if as long as this hand held hers, she could go anywhere.
Then the image began to warp.
Like the static snow on a TV with a bad signal, like a watercolor painting soaked until blurry.
The white dress became a white hospital gown. The warm hand was gone.
In its place, blue stripes on the sleeves.
The sunlight was gone, replaced by harsh white light, piercing and cold, shining down from above, making it impossible to open her eyes.
She saw a dark gun muzzle aimed at her.
Very close. Close enough to see the rifling inside the barrel.
She wanted to step back, to dodge, but her body couldn’t move, as if nailed to the ground.
She heard a voice, distant and near, as if through a layer of water, saying something she couldn’t make out.
Then, “Bang.”
The gunshot.
Not the sharp sound from movies. It was muffled, like a fist hitting a pillow.
She thought she would feel pain, but she didn’t.
She looked down and saw a little girl lying at her feet.
White hospital gown, red blood spreading from the chest, like a slowly blooming flower.
The girl’s hands were covered in blood, fingers still twitching. In her other hand was the gun, the one that had been pointed at her.
The girl’s face was down, features hidden, black hair splayed on the ground like shattered cracks on a vase.
Her white gown was stained red, from chest to hem, painfully bright.
She crouched down, wanting to touch the girl’s face.
Her hand reached out, and touched only air.
Before she could touch, the girl began to blur, like ink dissolving in water, like mist dispersing in sunlight.
She heard a voice, from very far away, like wind, like a sigh:
“…Don’t forget me…”
Then her vision began to blur.
Not from tears, it was as if someone had draped a veil over her eyes.
She couldn’t see anything clearly, only a blur of light, and that patch of red.
The red grew fainter and fainter, until it became white.
Harsh, blinding white, like an operating room light, like a hospital ceiling.
She snapped her eyes open.
She was lying on the bedroom floor, forehead pressed against the cold tiles, drenched in sweat, her back soaked through, clothes sticking to her skin.
Her fingers were still tangled in her hair. Two fingernails had broken, blood seeping out.
She gasped for breath, as if just pulled from the water.
That memory was still there, like a brand from a hot iron, hot, painful, indelible.
She saw herself as a little girl, being led by the hand.
She saw a gun aimed at her.
She heard the “bang.”
She saw a little girl lying at her feet, white hair, white clothes, red blood.
She didn’t know who that girl was, or if that memory was real or false.
But that feeling, the feeling of losing something important, stuck in her heart like a thorn she couldn’t pull out.
Who was that person? Ever since I stopped taking the medicine, why has this person been in my head all the time? Who is she? Could it be…
Who is she? Could that person be…
Su Yutao felt the hand gripping hers loosen. She flopped onto the bed, rolled, and curled up in the corner.
She heard Lin Qingxue make a pained sound, not the cold tone of hitting someone, not the flatness of threatening.
It was a suppressed grunt squeezed from deep in her throat, as if something was tearing inside.
Su Yutao tugged at Qiansui’s two wings and shouted in her mind:
‘Qiansui! Wake up! What just happened?!’
‘This violent maniac grabbed me and shook me, now she’s screaming and seems in pain. She’s not gonna die from a stroke because she bullied me too much, right?’
Qiansui’s groggy voice came through Su Yutao’s mind:
‘Uh… let me see.’
A second of silence.
‘Wait, why is everything blurry when I look through your mind’s perspective?’
Su Yutao panicked:
‘Don’t worry about blurry! What’s wrong with her?! Is she going to kill me in a fit?’
Qiansui muttered:
‘Wasn’t I taught by Qianxia for nothing…’
Then another silence.
After a moment, the soft voice came from the penguin, Qiansui had returned to it.
It watched Lin Qingxue crouch on the ground, clutching her head, trembling all over, face covered in sweat, lips pale.
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