The night before the promotion

Chapter 89: Son of the Stars
It was almost evening when Zhou Si finally finished dealing with the relevant matters and walked out of the hospital slowly.

Due to physical weakness and mental fatigue, even such a stubborn Zhou Si had to use a cane to try to make his walking more "steady".

Li Weiyu and others did not come out with him. The destruction of Yunzhong City caused a large-scale chain reaction. Even though Li Weiyu had just recovered from a serious illness, he still returned to the Supervisory Bureau with Xiang Ji and Song Qiliang without stopping to start a new round of work.

In the slightly empty parking lot, only Ruan Linrui followed Zhou Si steadily. From her hesitant look, it seemed that she wanted to support Zhou Si and show some kindness, but she didn't want to appear too humble, so she tried to leave it alone.

Zhou Si naturally noticed Ruan Linrui's little thoughts. As her ex-boyfriend, Zhou Si knew her very well, even better than she knew herself.

Feeling the fatigue of the body, the faint groaning of every inch of muscle, and the images that flashed back in the mind from time to time... the image of Ruan Linrui dying tragically in a pool of blood.

Zhou Si wasn't sure whether his thoughts had changed or he wasn't as strong as he thought.

He sighed and asked Ruan Linrui behind him, "Can you help me?"

Ruan Linrui paused for a moment, her eyes showing a hint of joy at first, and then disgust, but even so, she still followed obediently, holding Zhou Si's arm.

She said with a hint of rebuke, "I don't understand. You are in this state. Why don't you take a rest for a while?"

“I hate taking breaks.”

Zhou Si replied calmly, "To be precise, I don't like to stop myself."

"Huh?" Ruan Linrui said disdainfully, "Why weren't you so diligent when we were living together?"

"Because I didn't feel the pain then."

Zhou Si’s words made Ruan Linrui stunned for a moment. It was obviously a simple sentence, but it seemed to contain a lot of information, which caught her off guard.

"How to describe it?"

Zhou Si looked into the distance, the densely packed buildings cut the sunset into pieces.

"Since the Immortal Falls incident, I have been in a subtle pain. It is not strong, but hard to ignore. It is like a ghost, a number that extends infinitely after the decimal point."

Although he was talking about a sad story, Zhou Si sounded nonchalant.

"Once I'm alone and calm, it's hard to stop my mind from thinking about those things, so the pain comes out of it, but as long as I'm busy with something, I can escape."

Ruan Linrui asked cautiously, "What about the skills you learned in spiritual training?"

Zhou Si smiled helplessly, "The technique is useful, but it is not omnipotent."

Ruan Linrui wanted to say something, but looking at Zhou Si's expression, she felt like she couldn't say anything.

Zhou Si stood in front of the car door for a moment. The golden sunlight swept across the earth. There was no cloud in the sky, but as night approached, it became a dim dark blue.

"It's quite emotional," Zhou Si was surprised at the turn of events. "In the blink of an eye, the terrifying typhoon disappeared, as if it had never existed."

Typhoon Linjiang, Ucchusma, the City in the Clouds... everything that was like a nightmare disappeared just like that, and I woke up from the dream.

Zhou Si sat in the passenger seat, while Ruan Linrui beside him had fastened her seat belt.

She said with concern, "Just as I just said in the hospital, although the Elysium has been disintegrated, they still have a large number of remnants that have not been arrested. With the madness of this group of people, plus the terrorist attacks you mentioned, no one can be sure what crazy things they will do."

The car started to move slowly, and the scenery outside the window receded.

Ruan Linrui continued, "Before everything is settled, you need to live in the safe house we prepared for you... You don't want to be captured again, do you?"

"of course."

Zhou Si smiled bitterly. No matter how useful the mental training was, he didn't want to go through the torture in the paradise again. What's more, if he was caught by the remnants of the paradise again, what would be waiting for him would be real, physical revenge.

"So, what are you sad about, Zhou Si?"

Suddenly, Ruan Linrui asked Zhou Si a question deep in his heart.

Zhou Si was not at all flustered, but asked in return, "Why do you suddenly care about me so much?"

He recalled what Xiang Ji had said to him before, "Also, I heard that after I was captured, you seemed very nervous. Even Director Dong Yuan was scolded by you."

Ruan Linrui was so angry that she laughed, "Care about you? We've broken up, okay? I'm just concerned about whether the truth can be found out in this case. After all, the immortality plan promised by Zuo Zhi is really tempting."

Zhou Si knew that Ruan Linrui didn't care about any immortality plan.

"Haha."

Zhou Si pretended to laugh awkwardly twice, leaning his head against the car window, feeling the slight vibration of the car body.

"Actually, I'm not sad, but more of a...disappointed?"

Zhou Si was brewing his words. He almost never mentioned these things to anyone. Even when discussing this with Ruan Linrui, because of their past close relationship, Zhou Si was a little less resistant.

"I am very disappointed. Humans do not have so-called souls. Similarly, we do not have so-called free will. Everything is just a cruel truth interwoven by cold reality. When I think of this, I find it very boring."

Zhou Si revealed a little bit of his inner thoughts, "I try to imagine those beautiful and innocent things, but these things are often unrealistic. But when I think about it from a realistic perspective, my thoughts can't help but slide into the abyss of pessimism, and I can't help but think about the bad side of things."

After a pause, Zhou Si said sadly from the bottom of his heart, "I don't even dare to be too happy."

"continue."

Ruan Linrui's eyes were focused on the road in front of her, but her mind was wandering around Zhou Si, lingering on him.

"The reason is simple. Happiness is good, but the loneliness after happiness makes me feel miserable. Not to mention, it is difficult for me to be interested in most things, let alone feel happy."

Zhou Si took a deep breath and said defensively, "Well, I seem to be complaining for no reason. I'm not like this normally."

"It's nothing, Zhou Si. Pain is pain. There's no need to distinguish between big and small."

As if the roles were reversed, Ruan Linrui became extremely rational and commented, "If you say that my pain is greater than yours, so your pain is nothing, this kind of logic is too stupid."

Zhou Si laughed twice, and after a moment, he said, "Thank you."

"Thank you for what?"

"Thank you for caring about me, even though we had all that happened," Zhou Si thought for a moment and then said, "I'm sorry."

Hearing "sorry", Ruan Linrui couldn't help but grip the steering wheel tightly, a feeling of irritation arising from her heart.

She slammed the steering wheel hard and a shrill horn sounded.

"Zhou Si, this is what I hate most about you."

"what happened?"

"You keep saying sorry, sorry, sorry," Ruan Linrui scolded mercilessly, "You look so humble and put yourself on the moral high ground... but I'm the one who was broken up with!" Zhou Si was speechless for a moment, and Ruan Linrui took advantage of the time when they were waiting for the red light to punch Zhou Si on the shoulder.

"pain!"

"It hurts!"

After venting her anger, Ruan Linrui's expression was still angry. She stared at the car in front of her, as if she was about to step on the accelerator in the next second and give the driver of the car in front a push on his back.

"Do you know what you look like in my eyes?"

Ruan Linrui took a deep breath and calmed herself down.

"A bad ex-boyfriend?" Zhou Si guessed, "Or a doctor with some brain problems?"

"No, you are a prisoner in your own chains."

Ruan Linrui tried to imagine and use metaphors. She was not very good at rhetoric. "You are like being locked in a cell. The gap between the iron bars is wide enough for you to walk out. You don't even need to pull in your stomach or turn sideways."

"But you just stayed obediently in the shadow of the cell. Even though you were not chained and could get out by just taking two steps, you were still willing to stay there, imprisoning yourself in a ridiculous way."

Ruan Linrui said she was addicted and cursed, "Do you think you are an ascetic? Tempering your heart, or are you performing some kind of self-harming show to try to gain sympathy from certain people? But you don't even seem to understand who you are performing for."

"Damn it, you bastard," Ruan Linrui became more and more angry. "Why should I worry about you? It's obvious that I have nothing to do with you anymore, right?"

Zhou Si tilted his head, looked out the window, and said nothing.

"Say something, Zhou Si!"

Ruan Linrui continued her complaint, "Your silence makes my speech ridiculous."

"I just don't know what to say."

"Then talk to me and take out all the bad thoughts in your heart."

Zhou Si's eyes were a little dazed, like a bird flying among the cities, gradually disappearing into the sky.

"I don't like to talk," Zhou Si said. "No matter how much I talk, no one can truly understand another person. Besides, I am also afraid of bothering others."

“When a question is asked a thousand times, even the closest people will feel bored and troubled by the endless and repetitive questions.”

"But you didn't even try, Zhou Si. You just left without a sound and locked yourself in a cell."

Ruan Linrui's emotions were a little out of control. She parked the car on the side of the road and forced herself to calm down. Zhou Si didn't look at her, but just looked out the window as if escaping, even though there was no scenery.

"Zhou Si, we had a happy time together. I can even say that you have become a part of my life in a certain sense."

Ruan Linrui murmured, "Your leaving is like cutting a piece off of me. The huge emptiness almost swallowed me up completely, and there is no way to fill it."

"Later, I got used to this feeling of emptiness, or maybe I became numb to it. I thought I was recovering from it, but you, the bastard, appeared in my sight again."

Ruan Linrui took her hands off the steering wheel and leaned her head against the car door. She felt inexplicably tired, as if she had lost all her strength after a hysterical shout.

"I still love you, but I don't like you now. I really, really don't like you now."

Ruan Linrui said softly, "Similarly, I don't want you to die. If you die, I won't even have a phantom to rely on."

Human nature is so complex, sometimes it seems exceptionally noble, and sometimes it seems full of bad deeds.

Ruan Linrui loves Zhou Si, but also hates him. However, she also understands that nothing in the world is eternal. Everything is changing, let alone people. They may have made an ironclad vow between them, but that was only limited to that moment in the past and had nothing to do with the present.

After a long silence, Zhou Si responded.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

Zhou Si looked up at the sky. It was gradually getting darker and the stars were twinkling faintly in the darkness.

"I read a passage. I can't remember the specific content, but the general idea is that the birth of human beings is very interesting. Not only did it take hundreds of millions of years of evolution, but the elements that make up our bodies also came from the violent collision between celestial bodies during the Big Bang."

Zhou Si tried to make his voice more optimistic and positive, "That is to say, we, such mortal and cowardly beings, are actually the children of the stars."

"It's quite romantic."

"Yes."

Zhou Si narrowed his eyes. The city lights lit up as night fell, colorful and filling his field of vision.

He whispered like a hymn.

"I am a soul, enclosed in bones made of calcium, wrapped in a skin made of stars. We ride on a boulder called Earth, speeding towards the unknown in the endless void called the universe."

Ruan Linrui started the car again, and the two of them merged into the traffic and walked into the hustle and bustle of the world.

She said, “I’m sorry, I lost control of myself.”

Zhou Si replied, "It's okay. There's no need to apologize between us."

"Sometimes I feel very confused, Zhou Si."

Ruan Linrui looked at the road ahead and felt an inexplicable peace in her heart. "I feel that life is too broad, so broad that I have no idea where to go."

"If it had just been a straight road, telling me firmly that I should go in this direction, I would have felt much more at ease."

"These are two completely opposite ideas," Zhou Si said. "Most people feel that their lives are stuck in an alley, unable to move left or right."

“Some people desire freedom, others seek bondage.”

Personal emotions were gradually smoothed out by reason, like the receding tide, gradually drying up in the hearts of the two.

Ruan Linrui asked, "When do you plan to go to Stone Castle? I'll make an appointment for you."

"As soon as possible."

"Is your body okay?" Ruan Linrui glanced at him worriedly. "Even if you can move, you are not healthy."

"It's okay. I don't want to drag things out for too long," Zhou Si hesitated, "I'm afraid some unknown changes will happen."

If possible, Zhou Si really wished there was a heavy hammer that could smash down violently and put an end to all the unsolved cases.

(End of this chapter)