Chapter 289: A World Without Me! (4)

"You silly girl, you haven’t wronged anyone." Chen Mo reached out to caress Su Yuqing’s grief-stricken face.

The gesture mirrored her own, for at that very moment, she was reaching out with pitying affection to caress the "her" in the story.

The air in the classroom froze. Grief, like a tangible, thick fog, was so heavy it was suffocating.

The other students were either shocked, sobbing with their heads bowed, or completely at a loss.

Su Yuqing’s presence in the room was infinitely magnified, yet in the cruelest way imaginable—by her absence.

They were all classmates, after all. Nobody wanted something to happen to one of their own, and everyone would be sad. But Huang Mao sensed that the depth of Chen Mo’s grief was on a completely different level.

Zhao Yuanyuan and Su Yuqing had been as close as sisters, so it was understandable that she was crying her heart out.

But on a normal day, it wasn’t that Chen Mo and Su Yuqing didn’t know each other, but they weren’t particularly close. Their interactions had the formal courtesy of a married couple that keeps a respectful distance.

’They were, at most, classmates who got along. It wasn’t a relationship where you’d expect him to completely fall apart upon hearing she had died.’

Right now, Chen Mo looked as if his very soul had been sucked out of him. He was like a walking corpse, utterly catatonic.

This was the first time Huang Mao had ever seen Chen Mo in such a state.

Their homeroom teacher, He Xiaoyun, walked into the classroom, her eyes also red-rimmed. Clearly, having to publicly announce Su Yuqing’s death was an incredibly painful thing for her to do.

But she still had to announce the tragic news to the students. She also needed to use this as a moment for safety education, hoping the other children could avoid a similar fate.

Chen Mo’s eyes were tearless. He was hollow—nothing but an empty void.

Su Yuqing would have even preferred him to cry right then and there, rather than become this walking corpse.

Seeing him like this made her own heart ache with even greater sorrow.

「The scene quickly shifted to a solemn memorial hall.」

In the black-and-white memorial portrait was her face, wearing a faint, gentle smile. In the cold picture frame, she looked so young, so unreal.

Su Yuqing saw her mother, Li Fengzhi, being held up by two people. She was so thin she was unrecognizable, her eyes were vacant, and she was muttering unintelligible nonsense. Occasionally, she would suddenly struggle and lunge toward the portrait, screaming "Qingqing!" before being firmly held back.

Li Gang sat in a wheelchair with bandages wrapped around his abdomen, his face ashen. As he watched Li Fengzhi, his own eyes reflected the same bottomless pain and despair.

Only he knew what kind of blow Li Fengzhi had suffered.

She had been the one to scold Su Yuqing and send her away that Friday. After that, her daughter was gone forever.

It was as if she had killed her daughter with her own hands.

This was why Li Fengzhi’s grief had driven her to the brink of madness.

She hadn’t just gone mad from grief. It was more that she couldn’t forgive herself, couldn’t escape the undeniable responsibility she felt for her daughter’s death.

She couldn’t forgive herself; she loathed herself. Under such extreme mental torment, it would have been a miracle if she hadn’t gone mad.

Zhao Yuanyuan knelt before the memorial altar, crying to the point of near collapse while being supported by her family.

Her homeroom teacher, He Xiaoyun, stood to one side, red-rimmed eyes and biting her lip, but she kept glancing worriedly toward the silent, grieving figure in the corner.

The figure was Chen Mo. He wore an ill-fitting black suit and stood in the corner farthest from the crowd. His back was ramrod straight, but he looked like a dry twig, ready to snap at any moment.

He wasn’t crying. There was no expression on his face, but his eyes, as vacant as two deep wells, were fixed on her memorial portrait, as if trying to etch the image into his very marrow.

The aura of dead silence and detachment radiating from him made anyone who tried to approach and offer comfort instinctively back away.

Su Yuqing could feel it clearly. ’He’s completely sealed himself off, shutting out the entire world—even the grief itself—leaving nothing but a desolate, frozen wasteland inside.’

’So in a world without me... he died right along with me.’

The realization was a knife through Su Yuqing’s heart.

However, there were people at the funeral who made Su Yuqing frown the moment she saw them.

Namely, Su Chengfeng and Su Yaxi. Lin Shiyu hadn’t even bothered to come.

The only reason Su Yaxi had come was to fish for information.

To see if she had been exposed.

She showed not a shred of reverence for Su Yuqing’s memorial portrait, only the same old look of contempt.

As for her father, Su Chengfeng, Su Yuqing saw him crying, but she couldn’t tell how much of it was genuine.

As the funeral service concluded, Chen Mo left immediately after seeing her off, not even staying for the reception.

She couldn’t bear to watch his lonely figure walk away.

’How I wish I could touch him right now,’ she thought, ’hold him, and comfort him.’

Soon, a montage of different scenes began to play out, pulling Su Yuqing into each one.

Li Fengzhi, dressed in an oversized hospital gown, sat by the window, staring blankly outside. She unconsciously clutched a worn-out cloth doll, mumbling a tuneless lullaby.

Occasionally, she would cry out "Qingqing!" to the empty air, before falling back into a long silence.

Li Gang came to see her every week, bringing the corn and pork rib soup she used to love, but she would only drink it mechanically, her eyes lifeless.

The nurse caring for her sighed softly. "Sigh... when the heart dies, this is what happens."

Su Yuqing knelt beside her mother, calling "Mom" over and over, but received no response. She could only watch helplessly as the once sharp, even somewhat harsh, woman turned into a soulless shell.

The helpless despair threatened to consume her.

Zhao Yuanyuan had also become a different person.

The once lively, cheerful, and chattering girl had become quiet and reserved.

Even when a rare smile appeared, it was always tinged with an unshakable gloom.

She would often go to Su Yuqing’s grave and sit for half the day, silently crying or rambling to the headstone about things at school, as if Su Yuqing were still listening.

Of course, Su Yuqing was listening. Her friend’s devotion was not in vain.

But... watching her friend try so hard to live on while carrying such heavy grief, Su Yuqing’s heart was wrung with anguish.

But the one Su Yuqing was most worried about was Chen Mo.

Ever since she was gone, Chen Mo had been living like a shadow.

Attending class, reading, eating, exercising, sleeping... He followed his routine meticulously, without deviation.

He refused everyone’s attempts to show concern. The light in his eyes was gone, leaving only a deep weariness and an impenetrable gloom.

He would occasionally go to the alley in the old neighborhood where her accident had happened. He would stand there silently for ages, oblivious even when the rain soaked his hair and clothes.

Su Yuqing stood beside him, feeling the chill and loneliness radiating from him—a cold more piercing than the rain.

She watched him live his life like a prisoner.

For Su Yuqing, this was more suffocating than the sight of her own cold corpse.

Meanwhile, Chen Mo, watching all this in silence beside her, felt his heart ache for her. ’This despairing world... she should never have had to see it.’