113: When the world says I'm crazy, I use blood as ink to write about you

Blue Star · Huaguo · Municipal Mental Health Center · Ward 3

White.

Everything within sight was a sickening white.

White walls, white bedsheets, white ceiling.

Even the air was thick with an unshakeable scent of disinfectant and tranquilizers.

Sword River Fish lay on the bed, his eyes vacant, staring at the slightly yellowed light tube on the ceiling, a result of disrepair over the years.

He had been confined here for three days.

Three days, seventy-two hours.

He no longer argued, no longer made a fuss, and no longer screamed “I’m not sick” at the doctors and nurses in white coats like a madman.

He learned to “cooperate.”

When the nurse told him to take his medicine, he obediently opened his mouth and swallowed the colorful pills with warm water.

When the doctor asked him questions, he answered them in the calmest tone, adhering to the logic of a “normal person,” questions that he found ridiculously stupid.

“How do you feel today?”

“Very good.”

“Still having nightmares at night?”

“Not anymore.”

“Can you still hear those ‘voices’?”

“Not anymore.”

Whenever he answered this way, he could see a hint of satisfied approval in the eyes of the doctors and nurses.

As if he were a wild beast that could finally be tamed.

Only Sword River Fish himself knew.

He wasn’t tamed.

He was just acting.

He was using all his “acting skills” to portray a mental patient who was “recovering.”

Because he knew that only this way could he leave this “white cage,” which was more terrifying than any hell he had ever written about.

“Dinner time! Everyone out to queue!”

Outside the corridor, the rough shout of an orderly could be heard.

Sword River Fish, expressionless, sat up from the bed and followed the crowd towards the dining hall.

The dining hall was also all white.

White tables, white chairs, and the equally bland “white” meal served on white plates.

He found a corner to sit in and silently scooped rice into his mouth.

“Brother, new here?”

A slightly aged voice sounded from across from him.

Sword River Fish looked up, his vision beginning to focus.

He saw a thin, white-haired old man wearing a “dragon robe” cut from a bedsheet.

“Seeing your extraordinary physique and bright complexion, you must be a dragon among men.”

The old man lowered his voice, his eyes gleaming with a sharpness unsuited to his age.

“To be honest, I am Qin Shi Huang!”

“I didn’t die! I’m just waiting for my million-strong army to come and take me back!”

“As long as you V me 50 now, once I unite the Six States, I’ll directly appoint you as a great general!”

The old man spoke with great enthusiasm, his eyes filled with infinite anticipation for the future.

Sword River Fish watched him, saying nothing.

He simply picked up the only piece of fatty meat from his plate and placed it in the old man’s bowl.

“Thank you, brother!”

The old man paused, then was overjoyed, performing a clumsy gesture of respect to Sword River Fish that he himself didn’t know which dynasty it belonged to.

Sword River Fish ignored him.

He was just thinking.

In this place, everyone had their own “real” world.

The old man who claimed to be Qin Shi Huang, his world was one of war and a million soldiers.

The woman who cried and laughed every day, holding a pillow, her world was that “child” who perhaps never existed.

And he, Sword River Fish’s world… was the World of Evil, being devoured by the Lord of the End, filled with despair and lament.

They were all madmen.

I am also a madman.

The only difference is… he looked up at the silently turning clock on the dining hall wall.

—I know I’m not sick, this world is crazy… Night fell.

The entire ward was plunged into a deathly silence.

In the corridor, only the dim yellow light of the nurse’s station was still on.

The heavy and monotonous footsteps of the night orderly echoed.

Sword River Fish lay on the bed, his eyes wide open.

He was waiting.

Waiting for the footsteps to fade away.

Waiting for the entire world to fall into its deepest sleep.

Finally, when the hands of the clock pointed to two in the morning.

He acted.

He quietly got out of bed, like the most agile civet, without making a sound.

Then, he put his right thumb into his mouth.

And bit down with all his might!

“Mmm!”

He bit his lip tightly, not allowing himself to make a sound.

A sharp, stinging pain, accompanied by a strong metallic taste, spread through his mouth.

Crimson blood beads slowly seeped from his fingertip.

Pain.

It hurt so much.

But he couldn’t give up.

Chen Yuan was still waiting for him.

The character he had personally created, who embodied all his heroic dreams.

He was still in that desperate world, holding the cold corpse of his disciple, waiting for his “author” to write him new “hope”!

He was Chen Yuan’s “god.”

He was the “creator” of that world.

How could he fall easily here?

He didn’t hesitate.

He knelt on the cold floor, using his finger as a pen and blood as ink.

By the moonlight outside the window, on the pale tiles.

He began to write the next chapter of the World of Evil!

Chapter 112: Hope in Despair, the Three-Colored Flower

He wanted to give Chen Yuan hope.

Hope that would allow him to rise again from the endless grief of losing his beloved disciple!

Countless thoughts flashed through his mind.

The Lord of the End’s divinity suddenly shattered, and Gu Yanci regained consciousness.

The World of Evil was saved.

Ye Ningxue miraculously revived under the light of humanity.

…He wanted to give this story the simplest, most direct “Happy Ending”!

However… the moment his finger touched the wall, it was as if an invisible force had stuck it fast!

He couldn’t write!

Not a single word!

It was as if the “story” itself was resisting him! Laughing at him!

Laughing at his “wild ideas”!

Laughing at his “illogical plot”!

Yes… the Lord of the End, a final boss whose existence had been foreshadowed for dozens of chapters.

How could he just collapse without any reason?

This didn’t fit the logic of the “story.”

This didn’t fit the rules of “creation.”

Even if he was insane now.

But his “instinct” as an “author” still restrained him!

What to do?

What on earth should he do?

Fine beads of cold sweat appeared on Sword River Fish’s forehead.

The wound on his fingertip continued to throb with pain.

The bloodstains on the ground also began to slowly congeal.

He didn’t have much time.

He had to find a reasonable and hopeful “path” for Chen Yuan before dawn, before the nurses made their rounds!

Suddenly!

A flash of inspiration struck his mind!

He remembered a foreshadowing he had laid down a long time ago.

A setting about the “Flower of World’s Beginning.”

A setting that even he himself had almost forgotten!

(Although, he didn’t know that chapter hadn’t been published on the platform as he remembered.)

I’ve got it!

Light rekindled in his eyes!

He re-calibrated his emotions and began to write again!

This time, he wrote with incredible fluency!

His fingertip’s fresh blood rapidly outlined lines of text on the ground, full of power and hope!

Human Realm, Blackrock City, above the altar ruins.

Just as Chen Yuan was about to embrace Ye Ningxue’s corpse and walk with this desperate world into silence.

His tear, mixed with regret, sorrow, and endless love—a ‘Hero’s Tear’—fell upon Ye Ningxue’s brow.

In that instant, a sudden change occurred!

A phantom flower, composed of black, white, and gray, seemingly not existing in this world, slowly bloomed from Ye Ningxue’s brow.

That was the legendary Three-Colored Flower, born at the beginning of the world, containing the great power of ‘Time’ and ‘Destiny’!

An ancient and vast message surged into Chen Yuan’s mind.

—Sacrifice with the blood of ‘Past’ to awaken its ‘Memory.’

—Guide with the tears of ‘Present’ to reshape its ‘Body.’

—Nourish with the light of ‘Future’ to recreate its ‘Soul’!

When the Three-Colored Flower fully blooms.

The departed shall step upon the river of time, reversing cause and effect…

—Return!

After writing the last word.

Sword River Fish collapsed to the ground, relieved.

He looked at the drying bloodstains on the ground, a satisfied smile on his face.

He did it.

He found new hope for Chen Yuan.

He injected a spark, capable of igniting a prairie fire, into this cold and desperate story.

He didn’t forcibly “resurrect” Ye Ningxue.

Instead, he gave Chen Yuan a “mission” that was almost impossible to complete.

To seek the “Past,” “Present,” and “Future.”

Although this was fraught with difficulties and dangers.

Ultimately, there was a glimmer of hope, wasn’t there?

As long as there is hope, people will not truly die.

Characters are the same.

Just then.

A faint sound of footsteps came from outside the corridor.

It was the nurse!

Sword River Fish’s heart jolted, and he quickly used his hands and feet to wipe the bloodstains from the floor.

After doing all this, he scrambled back into bed, pulled the blanket over his head, and pretended to be sound asleep.