Chapter 288: A World Without Me

Chen Mo had seemed perfectly normal when he arrived for class, but the atmosphere in the room immediately told him something was wrong.

As he curiously made his way to his seat, a figure suddenly threw herself into his arms and hugged him tightly.

Chen Mo looked down in surprise at Zhao Yuanyuan, who was already crying her eyes out, her body wracked with uncontrollable sobs.

An immense sense of unease instantly rose within him!

“Yuanyuan, what’s wrong?” Like a big brother comforting his little sister, Chen Mo gently stroked Zhao Yuanyuan’s head, his expression full of concern.

“Brother Mo… *hic… sob… sob…*”

Zhao Yuanyuan tried to speak, but she was so overcome with grief that she could only manage choked sobs, as if she were about to stop breathing entirely.

She couldn’t get a single word out.

Seeing Zhao Yuanyuan so heartbroken over her own death, Su Yuqing couldn’t help but feel a pang of sorrow.

She reached out to comfort Zhao Yuanyuan, but her hand passed through empty air.

While gently holding Zhao Yuanyuan, who was crying so hard she could barely stand, Chen Mo looked over at Huang Mao, whose expression was just as grim. “What’s happened to her?”

Huang Mao glanced at Chen Mo and opened his mouth to say something, but he couldn’t bring himself to speak.

“Damn it, Yellow Hair, cat got your tongue?” Chen Mo snapped, looking exasperatedly at Huang Mao after helping Zhao Yuanyuan back to her seat.

With a look of resignation, Huang Mao turned his head toward Su Yuqing’s empty seat. He sighed mournfully. “Something’s happened to Su Yuqing…”

“What happened to her?” Chen Mo asked in a flash.

Huang Mao sighed. “The word is… she was killed in the old district during an attempted rape…”

“What!?”

The moment he said it, Su Yuqing saw that the look on Chen Mo’s face wasn’t shock, but immense sorrow.

Chen Mo had a bad feeling the moment he entered the classroom and felt the strange atmosphere. After seeing Zhao Yuanyuan crying so hard, his mind had instantly jumped to Su Yuqing.

So when he heard what happened to Su Yuqing, he wasn’t so much shocked as he was heartbroken. He never could have imagined that his refusal to let her stay with him would ultimately lead to this.

He simply couldn’t accept it.

For a moment, his body swayed, and he nearly collapsed. Luckily, Huang Mao’s quick reflexes kicked in, and he reached out to steady him.

Su Yuqing, standing beside them, also reached out to catch him.

The instant she saw something was wrong with Chen Mo, she moved to support him, but as she reached out, she remembered—she was just an observer here.

“Old Mo, are you okay?”

Huang Mao glanced at Chen Mo in alarm. Chen Mo was swaying violently, and Huang Mao had to use all his strength to force his heavy frame back into the seat.

He slumped into the chair like a soulless statue, all the color instantly draining from his face, leaving it a ghastly, horrifying white.

His eyes, which usually held a lazy glint, were now wide and hollow. They were fixed on Su Yuqing’s empty seat, as if his gaze alone could burn through the cold desk and chair.

In that moment, it felt as if an invisible hand had seized Su Yuqing’s heart, squeezing it, crushing it.

She had never seen Chen Mo like this.

In her world, he was the mountain, the sea, the unshakable wall that could always pull her back from the abyss of despair.

He might get tired or sick, but the resilience and life force in his very bones had never once flickered out.

But in the Chen Mo before her now, all the light had been extinguished, leaving only an endless, cold, deathly stillness.

He was like a searing-hot branding iron suddenly plunged into ice, going from fiery to frigid in a single instant.

He couldn’t even form a complete sentence. All that came from his throat were broken, rasping gasps.

“Old Mo! Old Mo, say something! Don’t scare me!” Huang Mao shook his shoulders forcefully, his voice laced with a panic he’d never shown before.

Zhao Yuanyuan’s sobs hitched at the sudden turn of events. She stared at Chen Mo through her tears, her eyes filled with fear and an even deeper sadness.

“Brother Mo… *sob… sob…*”

She scrambled up, rushed to Chen Mo’s side, and threw herself onto him. Half-sprawled on the floor, she wrapped her arms around his waist, buried her face in his lap, and began to sob convulsively.

At that moment, Zhao Yuanyuan’s heart ached with grief for Su Yuqing’s death and with pain for Chen Mo’s devastating, abnormal state.

Her tears were a cocktail of too many emotions.

‘So my death… was really this much of a blow to him?’

Su Yuqing stood beside Chen Mo as tears streamed from her eyes, yet she felt no wetness—only the searing pain of her soul being torn apart.

She reached out a hand, trying in vain to touch his icy cheek, to smooth away the lines of despair etched so deeply between his brows.

“Chen Mo… I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…” she whispered through sobs, knowing he couldn’t hear but unable to suppress the guilt welling up inside her.

‘If the me in the story hadn’t refused when Chen Mo offered to walk me home, maybe this tragedy would never have happened.’

‘She had never imagined that her death would blast such an enormous void in his heart.’

‘This heavy, profound emotion was far beyond anything she had ever imagined.’

‘Even if only for his sake, I should have kept myself safe…’

In reality, Chen Mo had fallen asleep with his head pillowed on Su Yuqing’s lap, his arms wrapped around her soft waist. Thus, his body was touching the Dream-Seeking Jade through her clothing.

What Su Yuqing didn’t know was that within this startling dreamscape, another Chen Mo was standing right beside her, watching.

“Why? Why did you have to let her see this cruel world?”

The moment that rainy night scene appeared and Chen Mo realized something was wrong, he had wanted to pull Su Yuqing out of this world that was neither dream nor reality.

He didn’t want Su Yuqing to see a world so cruel.

But to his surprise, he couldn’t touch Su Yuqing at all.

It was as if the original world existed on one layer, Su Yuqing on a second, and he on a third.

None of them could touch or communicate with the others.

Chen Mo couldn’t take Su Yuqing away from this world even if he wanted to.

All he could do was silently follow Su Yuqing and watch everything that happened in this desperate world unfold all over again.

This time, however, his gaze never left Su Yuqing.

He tried to feel what was going through her mind as she learned that such a world existed.

When he saw her grieving over her mother’s madness, he wanted to pull her into a comforting embrace, but he couldn’t.

And now, hearing the two apologies escape her lips, Chen Mo felt his own heart shatter.

Even when drenched in all the world’s malice, her heart remained pure.