Doomsday Wonderland

"...I'm sorry, I failed."

After saying these words, the bathroom fell into silence for a moment, except for the almost imperceptible hum of electricity in the lamp, which was so slight that people thought it was their own illusion.

Sakura Mizugan lowered his head and leaned on the edge of the bathtub, and made no sound for several seconds. He has become even thinner than he was a dozen days ago; the skin on his neck under the black hair is as white and thin as a piece of paper, and the neck bones are slightly raised one by one, disappearing into the slightly opened collar of the black T-shirt. inside.

Qiao Yuansi did not raise her hand to touch him, but after glancing at him, it seemed that her fingertips had touched his hard bones, which made her couldn't help but curl her fingers a few times.

"...Every step of my plan came true, even though it cost more than I imagined."

Sakura Mizugan's speech was still clear, and only his thoughts were scattered and blurred. He didn't know whether it was due to infection or injury - he didn't seem to intend to say what he said so that the person opposite could understand him, he just wanted to say it. , so wherever his thoughts drifted, he said what he said.

"My time is borrowed, and I don't know when I will pay it back." He still buried his head like that. Although he was such a tall man, he was a bit like a child at this time, waiting for someone to open his arms to him. "I...I don't mind my life. It's a good thing that a drama that should have ended long ago is dragging on and the content is uninteresting."

What is he talking about? Qiao Yuansi suddenly became inexplicably irritable.

"However, I never thought that what I paid the price for was a dead end."

He snorted lowly and said self-deprecatingly: "Do you know what the essence of the doomsday world is? It is an endless ridicule. You live, you die, you try your best, you spend all your efforts, you temporarily If you succeed, you will lose everything... No matter what, you know that far away, the laughter is always waiting, and will sound whenever there is an opportunity."

His voice trembled slightly, with a tone that Qiao Yuanji had never heard before. She looked at Sakura Mizugan's hand hanging in the bathtub. It was almost as white as porcelain, and no blood could be seen at all. Although the light blue blood vessels were slightly bulging, it looked like she was trying so hard but in vain.

"I found people and got things, only to realize that I couldn't use the things I paid for with my life." He murmured slowly, as if he had been drunk. "No, to be precise... I can use it, but there is a slight discrepancy, which means it is meaningless for me to use it. It cannot achieve the purpose I want and cannot save the world, so I cannot save you."

So, after he was seriously injured, he still managed to come back all the way - come back - come back for what?

Are you coming back to see her?

This answer was really incomprehensible to Qiao Yuansi, but it was the only answer she could think of. She didn't know when the hunger had receded by more than half, but she actually gathered enough strength to ask: "Why...are you so persistent in saving me?"

Neither she nor the world needed to be saved, so Sakura Mizugan said that he failed, but she didn't take it seriously; but she had indeed been entangled with this problem for more than ten days, and now she blurted it out without thinking. asked.

When Ying Shui'an heard the words and moved slightly and slowly raised his head, it seemed that even the air in the bathroom was stirred up with layers of blood red. He leaned on his arm, tilted his head and looked at her for a while, and said with a sigh: "... It's been five months, and I just figured out one thing."

"What?" Qiao Yuansi couldn't help but ask.

“Absence is presence. And there is no stronger, more constant form of presence than absence.”

Sakura Mizugan suddenly smiled, the light in his eyes and the corners of his mouth softened, as if he had forgotten that he had said that the Qiao Yuanji in front of him at this moment was not the same person as the Qiao Yuanji in the past, and whispered: "You were the same at that time. The same feeling, right?”

Qiao Yuanji was about to say "I don't understand" - but suddenly stopped. She found that she actually understood such words that were obviously inexplicable, and actually knew what he meant.

"There is such a room that always maintains the same permanence, no matter the rotation of morning and dusk, or the changing of seasons." Sakura Shuigan closed her eyes and murmured: "...You only need to walk in and walk out again, no matter how short it is. , then this room will become an empty room from now on."

Yes.

That's it.

When daylight penetrates the curtains, moves around the floor as time goes by, and finally disappears into darkness, then it is a window without daylight, not a window containing the darkness of night.

Warm, smooth, and solid skin touched each other for a moment, and then suddenly separated. From then on, it was just empty skin, trembling slightly as it pressed against the cold bathtub wall alone.

After absence, there will be no return to the original state; the time after absence becomes waiting.

These... seemed to be thoughts that had settled in Qiao Yuansi's memory at some point. Now that she recalled them again, there were some confusing and subtle details that made her feel like she was recalling a messy dream.

In addition to the vague and inexplicable emotions, she couldn't help but be secretly surprised: she didn't expect that the two of them would have similar feelings despite being so far apart for so long.

But what does this have to do with the question she asked? Qiao Yuanji still couldn't understand.

She was originally waiting for Sakura Mizugan to answer something like "Because I fell in love with you", or "I think you should live how you should live, so I will decide for you" - these are all things she can understand now. You can even decide your next action based on such answers.

But now, Qiao Yuansi didn't know what to say.

"Then...then you said you found someone, who did you find?" She couldn't understand those illusory things, so she could only ask questions based on some tangible things, "You said you got something, but what you got was something else. What is it?"

Sakura Mizugan's gaze slowly passed over her face, and UU Kanshu www.uukanshu.net seemed to have replaced her fingers. When he looked at her, Qiao Yuanji suddenly felt a strange feeling, but she couldn't describe it. .

"I settled in that small town called Jide." As a result, Sakura Mizugan's story started from another nowhere. "By chance, I saw some old local newspapers and magazines. . Fortunately, the data and information in this world are all printed on physical objects and preserved... That's why I saw it."

This time, Qiao Yuansi was not irritated, nor was he thinking about how to get out of the bathtub to find something to eat. He just listened silently.

"A year ago, a rumor began to spread among the locals, saying that some people in the local area had turned into monsters with deformed faces, and they still lived in hiding in the small town as normal people. The rumor became more and more intense... …It gradually dissipated again more than half a year ago, as if it never happened.”

In the bloody smell that filled the room, Sakura Mizugan tilted his head slightly, looked at her as if he was not injured and said, "I have searched, but I have never found any records earlier than this. Do you understand its significance?"

Qiao Yuansi looked at him blankly.

"...I accidentally found the place where Patient Zero is."