Chapter 248: Why Is It Like This…
After the trip ended, he and Ding Ning went to many tourist attractions with the tour group. Despite the crowds, he could still feel the beauty.
Without jumping visuals, there was a complex aroma among the crowded people, and they also went to see the sunrise at dawn.
The cold wind on the mountain during the summer night stung his skin.
He draped his clothes over Ding Ning’s shoulders, holding her warm hand.
Different from another Ding Ning, this little Ding Ning’s hand was warm, with a touch of temperature, unlike Ning from the other world, always cold without ever feeling the warmth that belongs to her.
"Ning, if this world is fake, will you remember me?"
"Why do you keep saying such things? Do you think I’m fake?" Ding Ning turned her head to look at him, feeling he was talking nonsense all day.
Always talking about true and false, she secretly pinched herself. It hurt, and she wasn’t dreaming, so how could it be fake?
"You’re not fake, I just feel like I’m fake." Jiang Che saw her little secret pinch movement, and his heart ached.
He was already firmly believing that Red Pearl Mental Hospital was real, and this side was fake, but everything here felt too real to him.
"Then don’t worry about what’s true or false, as long as I’m here, you’re here. If you disappear, I’ll disappear with you." Ding Ning lightly touched his lips.
Different from previous light kisses, this one carried the unique scent of student books.
Whether in taste or temperature, it made Jiang Che feel incredibly real.
In the following years, Jiang Che still couldn’t find any exit. He never dreamt of anything about Red Pearl Mental Hospital again. Occasionally, he’d say something about what was true or false, and his family took him to see a psychiatrist.
But the doctors all said there was absolutely nothing wrong with him.
After a few years, Jiang Che had completely fused into this world. Sometimes he even forgot about things over there.
Forgot what he had come to do.
"Jiang Che, I’m pregnant." Before graduation, Ding Ning whispered into Jiang Che’s ear.
Her eyes couldn’t hide her excitement. For the two of them, a child wasn’t a burden.
Jiang Che was stunned. He just felt that something that had always constrained him was now gripping him tightly.
They hadn’t graduated yet, but the idea flashed in his mind, "Let’s get married, right now."
Getting married as a university student wasn’t considered unusual anymore, and they were about to graduate soon.
"Jiang Che, I’m so happy to be with you." Ding Ning snuggled against Jiang Che’s chest. She had already accepted Jiang Che’s parents as her own.
Jiang Che’s mind was a bit chaotic, not because he didn’t like Ding Ning, but he felt a segment of his memory was being quickly wound up, focusing on everything about the Red Pearl Mental Hospital, little by little, turning into a cocoon, confined and hidden deep in his brain.
From that day on, throughout ten months of pregnancy, he never mentioned anything about the world’s reality again.
The passage to the world had never opened, and he even began to doubt whether that world was real or fake.
Perhaps it was just as the early doctors had said, it was just a case of hysteria.
Outside the operating room, Jiang Che paced restlessly. Just in a day, stubble had started to sprout on his lips.
"Stop pacing, you’re making me dizzy!" His old father glared at him irritably.
"Isn’t it because I’m worried about Ning, sigh." His mother anxiously pounded her palm.
"You haven’t mentioned true or false for a long time. Once we have the child, don’t bring it up again." His father glared at him again.
Jiang Che nodded, he knew.
Jiang Che was in a daze. This scene was what he imagined. His life wasn’t particularly successful, just ordinary. But unlike ordinary people, he married his lover right after graduation.
He tried hard to find a way out, but he never did. It seemed he might really live out his life in this little world.
Jiang Che had begun to give up struggling.
But just then, a loud cry of a baby came from the delivery room, a sharp cry that seemed to cut through space.
Jiang Che’s spirits lifted, and he ran excitedly to the operating room door, wanting to ask the doctor for the latest news, wanting to see his child.
"Tuantuan, symbolizing reunion, it’s a really nice name." His father muttered next to him about the child’s name.
Jiang Che didn’t speak. It was the name he had agreed upon with Ding Ning.
The operating room door opened, and a doctor in a white coat came out, looking at the three anxious people waiting outside, then looking at Jiang Che.
"Do you choose to leave this world and return to reality?"
The doctor’s appearance beneath the mask gradually transformed into Hua’s face. She looked at Jiang Che expressionlessly, starting to offer him the choice to leave the world.
Jiang Che stood as if struck by lightning, staring at the doctor in front, "You..."
"Son, it’s a girl, she’s already taken to the nursery, let’s hurry to see." His mother and father’s urging came from behind, they didn’t seem to hear what the doctor had said to him.
Jiang Che was speechless, he looked back at them, his parents eagerly urging him on, their steps became chaotic, anxiously heading to the nursery.
A hospital bed was pushed out next to the doctor, with Ding Ning lying pale on it, a nurse anxiously looking around for family, "Family member, please come over to take care of her, the woman is very weak now, talk to her and let her rest a bit."
Jiang Che wanted to speak, but couldn’t.
He wanted to take care of Ding Ning, wanted to see the child yet to be seen, although this child might look just like Tuantuan, he wanted to see them.
Yet his feet couldn’t move an inch, nor could he utter a sound, he had to look at Hua in front of him.
"Do you choose to leave this world and return to reality?" Hua repeated the question once more.
"Why... why now..." Jiang Che’s voice was hoarse. He looked back with difficulty, looking at the hospital bed being gradually pushed further away, Ding Ning was being sent to the ward, the nurse calling out for family members all around.
"Do you choose to leave this world and return to reality?" Hua’s mechanical voice came again.
"If I choose no, can I still go back in the future?" Jiang Che’s throat felt clogged, speaking was very difficult.
"If you choose no, the memory of the previous world will be erased. Perhaps you’ll recall it occasionally, but it’ll just be a fleeting image, like a dream." Hua no longer mechanically answered, looking at Jiang Che with a hint of pity in her eyes.
"Wanting to return later won’t be as simple." Hua’s voice was light, she seriously told Jiang Che the pros and cons.
"Why, why is it such a trial..."