At two in the morning, the city was silent.
Ye Siyu was jolted awake by the insistent ringing of her phone. She groggily fumbled for it on her nightstand and answered without looking, her voice thick with sleep. "Hello?"
It wasn't a voice she recognized. The background was a mess of chaotic noise and a stranger's frantic shouts. "Hello? Is this Ye Siyuan's sister?"
Ye Siyu was wide awake in an instant. "Yes, this is she. What's happened to my brother?"
"He got into a fight! At the Blue Star Internet Cafe! You need to get here now! He's bleeding from his head!"
"What?!" Ye Siyu's heart plummeted. All traces of sleep vanished as she threw off her blankets and scrambled out of bed, losing a slipper in her haste.
She pounded on her parents' door, her voice trembling. "Dad! Mom! Wake up! Siyuan's in trouble!"
Ye Qiwen and Li Wanhua rushed out, their faces etched with panic. "What is it? What's wrong with Siyuan?"
"His classmate just called. He said Siyuan got into a fight at the internet cafe, and he's hurt badly!"
Li Wanhua's face went white. She grabbed her husband's arm, her voice shaking. "What are we waiting for? Let's go!"
They didn't even have time to change, rushing downstairs in their pajamas. The autumn night air was frigid, sending a shiver through Ye Siyu's thin clothes, but she barely felt the cold. Her heart was a tight knot of fear.
Ye Qiwen drove with a desperate urgency. In the passenger seat, Li Wanhua was a mess of tears, muttering, "That boy... why can't he ever stay out of trouble..."
Ye Siyu sat in the back, clutching her phone, dialing her brother's number again and again. It just kept ringing, unanswered.
The car flew through the empty streets, streetlights casting long shadows that stretched and disappeared behind them into the darkness. The silence in the car was suffocating.
As they shot through an intersection, everything changed.
A massive dump truck, like a beast emerging from the shadows, appeared out of nowhere. Its headlights were off, and it was moving at an impossible speed, barreling straight for them.
Ye Siyu only had time to register the massive, menacing shape before a scream caught in her throat.
"Look out!" Ye Qiwen yelled, wrenching the steering wheel hard to the left.
The screech of tires tore through the silent night.
But it was too late.
**CRASH!**
A deafening roar of impact ripped the world apart. Ye Siyu felt herself thrown by an unstoppable force, her body slamming against the car door. The seatbelt bit into her chest with excruciating pain, and she felt a sickening crack. The car crumpled around them, twisting and rolling under the immense force. The sound of shattering glass and groaning metal was sharp and final.
The world spun.
Ye Siyu's head slammed against the window, and everything went black. In the last second before she lost consciousness, she thought she saw the blurry, blood-soaked figures of her parents and heard her mother's faint, desperate call.
"Siyu..."
Then, the world plunged into an endless, silent darkness.
...
After what felt like an eternity, Ye Siyu drifted back to consciousness. Her entire body was a symphony of pain. She tried to open her eyes, but her eyelids felt as heavy as lead.
The sound of frantic voices and the piercing wail of an ambulance grew louder. The thick smell of blood and gasoline filled the air, making her want to vomit.
"There's another one here! Hurry!"
"It's a young girl, and she's badly injured!"
Someone carefully unbuckled her seatbelt and pulled her from the mangled wreckage. As they moved her, a fresh wave of agony shot through her limbs, and a pained moan escaped her lips.
"Dad... Mom..." she managed to force out, her voice a raw whisper.
But no one answered.
She was placed on a stretcher and covered with a blanket. Through her blurred vision, she saw her family's car—now just a heap of scrap metal—bathed in the cold, flashing red and blue lights of the emergency vehicles. Paramedics were rushing around, some on their phones, others performing CPR.
Then she saw it: a stretcher covered with a white sheet.
*White sheet...*
An invisible hand seemed to clench around Ye Siyu's heart, squeezing so tight she could barely breathe.
*No, it can't be.*
She tried to struggle, to crawl over and see for herself, but her body wouldn't obey. A nurse noticed her stirring and quickly held her down, whispering, "Don't move. You're seriously injured. We're taking you to the hospital right now."
"My parents... my parents..."
The nurse's eyes darted away. She didn't answer, instead urging her colleague, "Hurry! The patient is losing too much blood and is going into shock!"
The stretcher was loaded into the ambulance. As the doors closed, Ye Siyu's gaze swept over the chaotic scene one last time. She saw another stretcher, and on it, a limp, lifeless hand peeking out from under the sheet.
On that hand was her mother's favorite jade bracelet.
Ye Siyu's vision narrowed, and her mind went blank.
Something inside her shattered.
...
**Hospital.**
The sterile smell of disinfectant filled her nostrils. When Ye Siyu woke up again, she was in a hospital bed with an IV in her arm, a cold liquid slowly seeping into her veins. Her head throbbed as if it were about to split open. She shifted slightly, and her entire body screamed in protest.
The ward was quiet, save for the steady beeping of the medical equipment. She turned her head and saw someone sitting by her bed.
It was Gu Jingshen.
He was dressed in black, with dark circles under his eyes and stubble on his chin. He looked haggard and exhausted, a stark contrast to the handsome, composed man she knew. When he saw she was awake, a flicker of light appeared in his eyes, but it was quickly swallowed by an overwhelming sadness.
He took her hand. It was cold and trembling.
"You're awake," he said, his voice hoarse. "Does it hurt? The doctor said you have a concussion and several fractures. You need to rest."
Ye Siyu didn't answer. She just stared at him, her eyes unblinking, like a puppet whose strings had been cut. She mustered all her strength to ask the question she dreaded most.
"Where are my parents?"
Gu Jingshen's body went rigid. The color drained from his face, and his lips trembled, but no words came out.
His silence was the cruelest answer.
Ye Siyu's heart grew colder and colder, plunging into a bottomless abyss.
"What about Siyuan?" she heard her own voice, distant and unfamiliar. "Is he... gone too?"
Gu Jingshen finally spoke, each word seeming to cost him everything. "Siyuan... I'm so sorry." Two tears rolled down his bloodshot eyes. "Your aunt and uncle... they were gone at the scene... And Siyuan... the police found him in an alley near the internet cafe. He..."
Gu Jingshen couldn't go on.
Her world collapsed. His words were a poison seeping into her, turning her heart to stone.
*No.*
*This isn't real.*
*It has to be a nightmare.*
"You're lying," she said, her eyes vacant, repeating the words stubbornly. "You're all lying to me."
She suddenly ripped the IV needle from her arm, threw off the blanket, and tried to get out of bed. "I want to go home! My parents are waiting for me! Siyuan is there too!"
"Siyu!" Gu Jingshen lunged forward, grabbing her and holding her tight. "Calm down! Please, you have to listen to me!"
"I won't listen! I don't want to hear it!" she shrieked, struggling wildly in his arms, pounding his chest with her fists. "Let me go! I want to go home!"
Her strength was astonishing, like a cornered animal in its final, desperate struggle. But she was too injured. The movement sent waves of agony through her, and she gasped, the fight draining out of her in an instant. She went limp in his arms, her body as heavy as a rag doll.
Then, a suppressed, heart-wrenching sob, torn from the depths of her soul, broke the silence of the ward. It was followed by a raw, desperate cry.
"Aaaah!"
Her cry was a torrent of disbelief, despair, and a soul-crushing pain.
*Why did I go to that party?*
*Why did he have to go to that internet cafe?*
*If we had all just stayed home, would any of this have happened?*
Her father, her mother, her mischievous but protective younger brother... they were all gone. Just a few hours ago, they had been sitting together, laughing and dreaming of the future.
Now, she was all alone.
Her sobs grew louder, more desperate, eventually turning into hoarse, incoherent wails that seemed to echo through the entire hospital floor. Gu Jingshen just held her, letting her tears soak his shirt, repeating over and over, "I'm sorry... Siyu... I'm so sorry..."
By the time she had cried herself out, her voice was gone. The tears stopped, but she continued to stare blankly at the ceiling, her eyes hollow. Her world had once been so bright and warm, filled with laughter and joy.
Now, it was nothing but a cold, lifeless pile of ashes.
She couldn't feel pain or sorrow anymore. Her heart was just... empty. A gaping hole where something used to be, with a cold wind whistling through the void.
*What's the point of living anymore?*
The thought, like a poisonous weed, took root in her barren heart and began to grow.
Her consciousness started to fade. Just before she plunged back into darkness, she saw it again—that early autumn evening. Her mother, carrying a bowl of hot soup from the kitchen. Her father, smiling and telling her to be home early. Her brother, grabbing a piece of sweet and sour pork ribs, his face smeared with grease.
The warm, yellow light bathed their faces in a gentle glow.
It was so beautiful.
If only time could have frozen forever in that moment.