I asked you to write a light novel, but you wrote about living?

"Excuse me, what can I do for you?"

The woman's lips trembled upon hearing this.

She seemed not to hear Yu Wen's question, her gaze still passing over the wheelchair and landing on Yu Yin.

Yu Yin felt uneasy under her gaze, but she didn't move away; she simply stood quietly behind her brother.

After a long while, the woman finally looked away.

I have a daughter.

She suddenly said.

The voice was very soft, as if answering Yu Wen, or as if speaking to oneself.

"She's not even ten years old yet, about the same age as her..."

The woman glanced at Yu Yin again, tears streaming down her face.

"She was very thin. She loved to run when she was little, but she got sick and could only lie in the hospital."

"She has many tubes inserted into her body, can't eat, and can't get out of bed. She's awake for shorter and shorter periods each day. Sometimes I sit by her side all day, and she only opens her eyes for a short while."

She speaks incoherently.

It seemed that she had repeated these words countless times in her mind in order to find Yu Wen, but when she actually saw him, all the prepared sentences were in disarray.

Yu Wen did not interrupt her.

The woman lowered her head, looking at her slightly trembling mechanical hand.

"That day, the poster on the public projector in the ward suddenly changed."

"There is a patch of yellow earth, a cow, and an old man."

"There are two large characters written in the middle."

She raised her intact eye and looked at Yu Wen.

"To Live"

Yu Wen paused slightly.

The woman seemed to have finally found a way to continue speaking, and her pace gradually quickened.

"After she saw it, she asked me what it was."

I told her it was a book called "To Live".

She said she wanted to hear it and asked me to read it to her.

At this point, a brief smile appeared on the woman's face.

But that smile was quickly washed away by tears.

"At the time, I thought it was a good name."

"She lay in the hospital bed every day, and she must have been scared. So I thought I'd read her a book called 'To Live,' hoping that after listening to it, she would have a little more strength and a little more hope..."

"At first, she actually smiled."

There was a hint of nostalgia in the woman's voice.

"When she read about how Fugui's father was old and even had difficulty defecating, she laughed so hard she coughed for a long time. I was afraid the tube in her chest would come loose, so I quickly closed the book. But she still asked me if her father would become like that when he got old."

The woman paused when she said the word "father".

She didn't explain further, but simply took a deep breath.

"Later, I continued reading to her."

"As I read, the characters in the book started to disappear one by one."

"Youqing lost so much blood at the hospital that he couldn't even be saved."

"My hands were shaking when I read that part."

"I dare not read any further."

The woman's cheap prosthetic eye suddenly flickered, and its grayish-white pupil contracted several times in succession.

She raised her mechanical arm and stiffly wiped the tears from her face.

I told her that the book was bad.

"I'm not listening anymore, let's tell a lighter story."

"But she refused."

"She usually doesn't have much energy to speak, but that day she kept looking at me and told me to keep reading."

The woman's voice grew increasingly hoarse.

"Jiazhen is gone."

"Fengxia is gone."

"Erxi is gone too."

"Even Kugen died in the end."

"At that time, I wondered, what kind of person could write a book like this?"

She looked at Yu Wen, her eyes filled not with resentment, but with a pain that had been building up for too long and was now indistinguishable.

"The book is clearly called 'To Live,' so why do so many characters in it fail to survive?"

"She's already so sick, why make her hear all this?"

Yu Yin's hand had somehow ended up on the armrest of the wheelchair.

She looked at the woman in front of her, the doubt on her face gradually disappearing, leaving only silence.

Yu Wen remained silent.

He knew the woman wasn't asking him for answers.

She may have asked herself those questions countless times before.

But she insisted on listening.

The woman said in a low voice:

"She was in particularly good spirits that day."

"She usually falls asleep after listening for only a few minutes, but that day, she stayed awake the whole time."

"She heard everything I read."

"She coughed many times during the process, and the machine beeped a few times, but every time she recovered, her first words were to tell me to continue."

The woman's body trembled more and more violently.

The security personnel stood aside and did not urge her to leave.

People passed by the entrance of the residential area from time to time, but they all slowed down after seeing this scene.

"Finally, I finished reading the whole book..."

The woman looked up, her vision blurred by tears.

Yu Wen looked at her, somewhat surprised.

It turns out she was a reader of "To Live".

To be precise, it was that little girl lying in the hospital bed who listened to the entire book "To Live".

But listening to the woman's intermittent words, his doubts not only did not disappear, but deepened.

Why would a woman go to such lengths to find him?

Yu Wen's gaze involuntarily fell on her.

An old electronic prosthetic eye.

The left arm is covered by a cheap metal shell.

And that mechanical leg that walks noticeably slowly.

Such prosthetic bodies are not uncommon in the Lower City.

Many people who are injured cannot afford medical treatment and can only pick out some barely usable second-hand items from the abandoned prosthetics market.

But the alterations on the woman in front of me didn't seem to be the result of an accident.

The interfaces are not all the same age, indicating that they were replaced at different times.

A guess suddenly popped into Yu Wen's mind.

Could it be that she sold her healthy organs and limbs to pay for her daughter's medical treatment, and then used these cheap prosthetics to make a living?

If that's the case, then she might be contacting him now because she needs money for her daughter's treatment.

Yu Wen remained silent for a moment before asking:

"Did you come to me because of your daughter's medical expenses?"

The woman paused for a moment.

Yu Wen looked at her, trying his best to make his tone more tactful.

"If you want to borrow money from me, I need to know exactly how much you need first."

"My legs are also preparing for treatment soon, and the initial cell culture and subsequent surgery will cost a lot of money."

"My sister and I have just moved to the central district, and our schooling and daily expenses are quite high."

He did not refuse outright.

However, the woman in front of them was of unknown origin, and this was their first meeting.

Even if the story she told was related to "To Live", Yu Wen would not immediately agree to a loan of an unknown amount based on just a few words.

As the woman listened to his words, her expression gradually changed.

She stood there blankly for a moment, then shook her head vigorously.

"no."

Her voice was very soft.

"I'm not here to borrow money."

Yu Wen paused slightly.

If it wasn't for her daughter's medical expenses, then why did she drag her broken body through all that trouble to find this place?

His gaze shifted from the woman and he subconsciously looked towards the door.

The place was empty; there was no one else in sight.

A thought suddenly popped into Yu Wen's mind.

Could it be that her daughter's condition had become so serious that she was unable to come in person, which is why she sent her mother to find her first?

Do I want to meet the author of "To Live" before I die?

Thinking of this, Yu Wen's voice softened a little.

"So...is it your daughter who wants to see me?"

The woman's body trembled slightly.

She lowered her head and remained silent for a long time.

My daughter is gone.