Chapter 90: Is he really that good

Beep.

Beep, beep—

Xu Lin slowly opened his eyes. All he saw was pure white. The mechanical beeping sounded in his ears. He turned his head and realized he seemed to be in a hospital room. He was alone.

It was very quiet.

Was this a hospital?

How did he get here?

Then it hit him.

He sat up abruptly, too fast, and the room spun. He instinctively held his head. A faint sting came from his right hand—an IV was in his arm, and blood had backed up into the tube.

He was about to throw off the covers when he noticed something in his left hand.

His grip was tight, his fingers clenched. Someone must have tried to pry them open, but without success.

When he finally uncurled his palm, his fingers were stiff from staying in that position for so long. They trembled as he slowly opened his hand.

In his palm lay a silver chain with two rings attached.

The rings were reflected in his dilated pupils.

He saw it again… The collapsed building, and Ji Jinxuan standing at the window, covered in blood, drifting farther and farther away.

Without a second thought, Xu Lin ripped out the IV and got out of bed.

His ankle screamed in pain the moment he put weight on it. A brace was strapped around his foot. He ignored it, barely limping on one foot, and rushed out of the room without shoes.

The door flew open. The two people in the hallway turned to look at him, which was Li Mu and a doctor.

Li Mu saw Xu Lin’s bleeding hand and frowned. “When did you wake up? Why are you out of bed?” He grabbed Xu Lin’s arm. “Get back in.”

Xu Lin wouldn’t budge. His voice was hoarse, barely audible. “How is he?”

He looked at Li Mu, anxiously waiting for an answer.

Li Mu knew who he meant. He avoided Xu Lin’s gaze. “Come inside first. I’ll get you some water.”

Xu Lin followed him back into the room. Li Mu poured him a glass of hot water, his back turned. “You’ve been out for two days. The doctor said you fainted from emotional shock. Your foot’s broken. You need to rest.”

That wasn’t what Xu Lin had asked. He asked again, “How is he?”

Li Mu poured two pills from a bottle and handed them to Xu Lin with the water. “Take these first.”

Xu Lin swallowed them dry, not even bothering with the water, and opened his mouth to ask again. The same question.

Li Mu knew he couldn’t hide it. He sighed, his voice soft. “They didn’t find him.”

Xu Lin’s breath caught. He was frozen for a long moment. “…What?”

“He’s not there. They couldn’t find him.”

Xu Lin’s face went blank, his muscles paralyzed.

Li Mu couldn’t bear to see him like that. He turned away, grabbed some iodine and cotton swabs, and sat Xu Lin on the bed to clean the blood from his hand.

Xu Lin stared at his hand, but his eyes were unfocused, fixed on nothing.

“For two days, they’ve had hundreds of people searching day and night, but…” Li Mu paused. “They haven’t found Ji Jinxuan.”

Xu Lin listened, his eyes unblinking. The room was deathly silent.

After a long time, Xu Lin finally spoke. His voice was barely a whisper. “Is he dead?”

Li Mu didn’t answer.

Xu Lin grabbed Li Mu’s sleeve, his voice rising. “Take me there. I want to see.”

“Your foot is hurt. What can you do there?” Li Mu said. “They’re still searching. They’ll find him. Don’t worry.” But his words lacked conviction.

Xu Lin stood up, ready to leave.

Li Mu grabbed his arm. “Don’t move!”

Xu Lin spun around, his eyes red-rimmed. He didn’t speak, didn’t move. He just stared at Li Mu in silence.

Li Mu held his gaze for a second, then looked away.

In the end, Li Mu drove him to the site.

It was exactly as he’d described, a heap of rubble.

Rescue vehicles lined the perimeter. Workers swarmed the ruins like ants, carrying equipment and search dogs.

With so many people searching day and night, how could they not find him? Maybe he was trapped somewhere, unable to call out. Maybe he was unconscious. He had been so badly injured, lost so much blood. And now two days had passed.

Xu Lin cut off that line of thought before it could fully form. He couldn’t even bear to consider it.

Nearby, a few rescue workers were on break. Dirty and exhausted, they sat on the ground, eating boxed lunches.

“Think we’ll find him?”

“Who knows. With the explosion, smoke, and being buried so deep, an ordinary person wouldn’t survive any one of those. If we’re lucky, maybe. If not…”

They fell silent. They all shared the same unspoken suspicion. Despite all their efforts, no trace of Ji Jinxuan had been found. He couldn’t have just vanished. So if they were unlucky, what they’d find would be a body or fragments.

Li Mu noticed Xu Lin’s pallor and quickly pulled him away, helping him into the car.

Xu Lin sat in the passenger seat, head bowed, hands clasped on his knees. He was picking at his nails, drawing blood, but he seemed to feel nothing.

Li Mu took his hands and dabbed at the blood with a tissue.

“…We’ll wait a little longer,” Li Mu said.

Wait a little longer.

Wait a little longer.

Xu Lin stared blankly at his bleeding fingers, unable to speak, as if he’d lost the strength even to open his mouth.

They stayed until nightfall, then Li Mu drove him back to the hospital.

As they left the institute, their car passed a Bentley. In the back seat, Zong Xi’s face flashed by.

Xu Lin, head down, didn’t see him.

The days that followed were monotonous, like a grinding daily quest in a game.

Xu Lin was hospitalized, hooked to an IV every day. Afterward, he’d go back to the ruins and stay until night, when Li Mu would take him back to the hospital. The next morning, they’d start again.

But day by day, the number of rescue workers at the site dwindled. The vehicles departed one by one.

It was as if they already knew the answer and had stopped wasting their efforts.

They’d given up.

A month later, the site was cleared. Only a fenced-off pile of debris remained.

Ji Jinxuan had not been found.

In Xu Lin’s pocket was the necklace Ji Jinxuan had slipped him before pushing him out the window. The larger ring, the one that had belonged to Ji Jinxuan, still had bloodstains on its feathers.

Ji Jinxuan’s blood.

No matter how hard Xu Lin tried, he couldn’t scrub it clean.

Xu Lin lost over ten pounds.

He grew silent and withdrawn, shutting himself off from others. He’d just stare into the distance, lost in thought.

Li Mu couldn’t stand it and forced him to eat, but Xu Lin would throw it all back up until he was retching bile.

He couldn’t keep anything down.

He started having trouble sleeping. The few times he managed to rest were thanks to sleeping pills, but he’d wake up from nightmares within hours.

One day, Li Mu was talking to a doctor when he heard a loud crash from Xu Lin’s room. He rushed in and found Xu Lin on the floor, kneeling, unable to get up.

“What happened? Are you okay?!” Li Mu helped him up.

Xu Lin’s face was pale, covered in cold sweat, dark circles under his eyes. He was still dazed. “I had a dream…”

Li Mu guided him back to bed. “It was just a nightmare. It’s over.”

Xu Lin’s body was cold. Li Mu wrapped the blanket around him, hoping to warm him up. Then he heard Xu Lin murmur.

“I dreamed… I stabbed him in the hand, hit him in the head, and he was covered in blood. I heard myself tell him to die…” Xu Lin’s voice broke. “Is it because I said that… that he died?”

Li Mu froze for a moment, then continued wrapping the blanket. His heart ached. “That’s not true. Don’t think that way.”

Xu Lin closed his eyes, burying half his face in the blanket. He didn’t speak again.

Li Mu sat on the edge of the bed, gently patting him through the blanket.

He watched Xu Lin’s face and lowered his gaze.

Xu Lin had told him he’d once loved an Alpha for six years. Li Mu had suspected it, but now he was sure—that Alpha was Ji Jinxuan.

The tension between them, the way Ji Jinxuan looked at Xu Lin, Xu Lin’s unusual reactions—it all confirmed that they’d shared something hidden.

Li Mu had tried to convince himself that even if they had six years, they’d broken up. There was no chance. Maybe he himself had a tiny possibility. But when the building collapsed and Xu Lin chose to go back for Ji Jinxuan knowing it could be a one-way trip, Li Mu understood.

“Is he really that good?” Li Mu whispered, wiping the dampness from Xu Lin’s eyes. “You say you hate him, so why does it hurt?  If he were really that good, he wouldn’t have left you alone.

“Didn’t he know that the one left behind suffers the most?”