After AFK for five years, I returned to be number one in the entire server.

Only a few wall lamps were lit in the corridor outside the ICU, and the benches were empty except for Shen Yi, who was sitting there alone.

Lin bought two bottles of water from the vending machine downstairs and handed one to her.

"Thank you." Her voice was terribly hoarse.

Lin sat down next to her.

Shen Yi looked at the white wall opposite her, as if speaking to Lin Ye, or perhaps to herself: "My father passed away very early, when I was only in elementary school. My mother worked two jobs, but later her health deteriorated, so she had to give up the other one. She wasn't very capable or smart. I studied hard because I wanted to take her away from that quagmire-like place."

"I thought that as long as I got into Ningchuan University and I could graduate in a few more years, she would be able to live a good life."

Her fingers tightened little by little, and the plastic basin made a slight squeaking sound.

"But those people in town, they can't stand to see others do well. They're rotting in the mud themselves, and they want to drag everyone else down with them." An uncontrollable hatred surged in Shen Yi's eyes, a hatred that almost set her frail body ablaze.

2:40 a.m.

The heavy door to the ICU was suddenly pushed open from the inside, and hurried footsteps broke the deathly silence.

Two nurses rushed in, pushing a trolley loaded with emergency medications.

Shen Yi stood up as if startled. Through the glass door, she could see several figures surrounding the hospital bed, and the electrocardiogram monitor was emitting a sharp and continuous alarm.

"Defibrillator ready!"

"Inject adrenaline!"

More than ten minutes later.

The piercing alarm sound turned into a flat, long tone.

The door opened again, and the previous emergency room doctor came out. He looked at Shen Yi, whose face was pale, and said, "I'm sorry, the patient suffered a massive myocardial infarction complicated by ventricular fibrillation. We did our best."

Shen Yi stood there blankly, without any heart-wrenching cries. Her eyes were completely empty at this moment, all the brilliance and hatred completely drained away.

Only an empty shell remains.

"Go in and take one last look." The doctor stepped aside.

Shen Yi walked into the ward like a lost soul.

On the hospital bed, Shen's mother lay quietly, her body covered with tubes.

Her face was withered, and deep wrinkles concealed a lifetime of suffering, but at this moment, those sufferings finally came to an end.

Shen Yi walked to the bedside and slowly knelt down.

She reached out, her fingertips trembling as she touched the back of her mother's still-warm hand.

"mom……"

The call was very soft, as if afraid of waking someone who was fast asleep.

She pressed her face against her mother's palm, and tears finally broke free, silently flowing out and soaking the white sheets.

In this world, she truly became a person.

Lin also stood outside the ward door, watching everything that was happening inside.

He could sense some changes in Shen Yi. The people of Changshui Town had joined forces to kill that woman who had been weak all her life, and they had also killed the last bit of warmth Shen Yi had for the world.

For the next two days, she became very silent, her expression frozen into a coldness.

She did not transport her mother's body back to Changshui Town for the funeral. She did not want her mother to be laughed at by those people after her death, and she did not want to see those dirty faces.

She wandered between the various service windows like a soulless shell, handling death certificates, canceling household registrations, and settling hospital bills.

Because Shen's mother only stayed in the ICU for a short time, Lin also got back most of the 50,000 yuan deposit he had paid. However, more than 10,000 yuan was still deducted for the initial emergency green channel fees and rescue supplies.

When Shen Yi received the refund, she handed it all over to Lin Ye.

On a barren hillside west of Changshui Town lies the burial place of Shen Yi's father.

Holding the urn, Shen Yi walked up the hillside step by step and dug a pit next to her father's grave with a shovel.

She placed the urn inside and filled it with soil, one stroke at a time.

After the new graves were built, Shen Yi stood there, the cold wind blowing, she was like a statue, looking at the two closely adjacent graves.

Lin Ye stood a few steps away from her the whole time. After Shen Yi's mother left, she hadn't eaten anything on her own. It was only when Lin Ye put food in front of her that she reluctantly ate a little.

At this moment, Shen Yi's vitality was draining away at an alarming rate.

He had only ever seen that feeling of death in people who were determined to jump off tall buildings or were about to cut their own wrists.

She wanted to commit suicide.

Lin looked at the girl who seemed ready to turn to ashes at any moment and said, "You still owe me 16,000 yuan."

Shen Yi stood in the wind for a long time before slowly turning around.

The mountain breeze ruffled her long black hair, with a few soft strands falling across her pale cheeks.

The successive blows did not destroy her stunning beauty; instead, they pushed the sense of brokenness in her to the extreme.

Her skin was so white it was almost translucent, and the corners of her eyes had a faint blush. Her eyes were like a bottomless pool of autumn water, exuding a pitiful beauty that evoked pity.

Her body was thin and frail; when the wind blew, she appeared as if she might break at any moment.

She looked at Lin Ye quietly and asked, "Am I pretty?"

Lin looked at her face, which was flawless even in dire circumstances, and nodded, giving an objective assessment: "Beautiful."

"Who's prettier, you or Su Nian?" she asked softly.

Lin didn't expect her to ask this, and Su Nian's image came to mind.

Looking at the face before him, he gave a very objective answer: "More or less."

"This is all I have left." Her voice was calm and even.

Her expression was equally blank; her eyes were fixed on him, her pupils reflecting the pale light of the sky.

Those eyes held no allure, no pleading, no self-pity, but rather a calm acceptance laid bare on the table.

The wind blew across the barren hillside, swirling up a few withered yellow blades of grass.

"Sorry, I only accept cash."

Shen Yi was stunned for a moment.

She took one last look at her mother's grave, and then Lin led her down the mountain.

The path down the mountain was difficult to walk on; the soil was loose and full of gravel and dead branches.

Because Shen Yi had been eating very little these past two days, coupled with her prolonged grief, her steps were very unsteady.

Several times I stepped on slippery stones and almost fell due to loss of balance.

The two of them walked slowly back to the station at the foot of the mountain, one after the other.

"Where to?" Lin also turned to ask her.

"Go home and pack your things," she said.

Back in that small courtyard, she only took a few changes of her underwear and neatly packed her ID card, household registration book, and her mother's death certificate into her luggage.

She took one last look at the place outside, the place where she had lived for eighteen years, a place of joy and sorrow, which was about to come to a complete end in her life.

She reached out and grabbed the two large doors, slamming them shut with a bang. She then locked them with the slightly rusty iron padlock, turned the key, and the sound of the lock clicking shut was particularly clear in the alley.