Chapter 290: A World Without Me

In a flash, it was already high school graduation.

Zhao Yuanyuan slowly emerged from the shadow of Su Yuqing’s death.

Li Fengzhi no longer needed to be hospitalized and was taken home by Li Gang to recover.

But she remained in a dazed, catatonic state. She just wasn’t as bad as before, when she would periodically scream at nothing.

Everyone gradually began to move on from the shadow of Su Yuqing’s death.

Except for one person, who only sank deeper and deeper.

Though the scenes before her flashed by, Su Yuqing could still see the state Chen Mo had been in all this time.

His pain, his struggles, and his feelings.

The death of a mere classmate shouldn’t have dealt Chen Mo such a devastating blow.

Su Yuqing could sense Chen Mo’s feelings for her.

Though they had never been that close, their interactions had always been colored by a restrained, mutual affection.

Bit by bit, Su Yuqing watched Chen Mo transform from an average student into a frenzied top achiever.

When a person dedicates their entire life to a single, focused task, it becomes difficult for them to fail.

After Chen Mo shut himself away, he became withdrawn, but he also developed a level of intense focus rarely seen in someone his age.

He could study without a single distraction, frantically absorbing knowledge.

The same was true for his physical training.

With a will of steel and extraordinary focus, Chen Mo’s physical fitness and academic performance both skyrocketed.

But the cost was clear: he had given up all entertainment, socializing, and even himself.

Clearly, a person like that couldn’t be in a healthy state of mind.

Watching Chen Mo’s near-frenzied self-torment, Su Yuqing’s heart ached for him.

And during this process, Su Yuqing saw another version of herself.

An illusory, floating version of herself.

She would appear from time to time, her face filled with heartache as she watched Chen Mo from the sidelines.

Every scene was tinged with an unsettling strangeness.

「Time flew, and soon it was college.」

After starting college, Chen Mo’s life didn’t change much.

As if pulled by invisible threads, Su Yuqing followed Chen Mo like a shadow, a forced spectator. In this world without her, she watched the boy who once wore a lazy smile sink step by step into a cold abyss of self-recrimination.

Upon entering college, Chen Mo’s choices, much like the trajectory of his life, all pointed to a single beacon of light: the truth.

He dove headfirst into criminal investigation, criminal psychology, forensic science, and rigorous police combat and marksmanship training.

The library became his second home. He was always the first one in when it opened and the last one to be reluctantly escorted out by the staff at closing time.

His books became dog-eared and yellowed. His notes were as dense as a cipher, yet his handwriting was almost unnaturally neat—a testament to the mental strain of his intense concentration.

In class, he was a silent sponge, his sharp gaze absorbing every case detail, every investigative technique, and every legal statute the professors lectured on.

He no longer studied for exams, but for the truth of what happened in that alley on that rainy night.

The training grounds were his execution grounds.

Every blow he took in sparring, every punch he threw until his muscles seized, every physical limit he shattered—it was all a merciless trial for his own flesh.

Sweat drenched his training gear and scars littered his skin. He seemed to feel no pain. Or perhaps, he needed the pain to prove he was still "alive," that he could still do something for the one who was gone.

His eyes were especially frightening during training. A cold flame burned in their vacant depths, making both instructors and fellow students subconsciously keep their distance.

He completely cut ties with his high school classmates and remained a solitary figure in college.

The dorm room was merely a place for him to sleep. His roommates gradually grew accustomed to his silence and his habit of leaving early and returning late.

Any gesture of goodwill—invitations to eat, requests to partner on projects, even simple pleasantries—was deflected by the invisible wall of ice that surrounded him.

It wasn’t that he was cold; he had welded shut every emotional pathway, leaving only a one-way street leading to "solving the case."

Chen Mo began to study criminal investigation, police combat techniques, and other related subjects with a demonic fervor.

Su Yuqing watched with her own eyes as he poured his blood and sweat into his efforts... successfully graduating, passing the grueling police entrance exams, and, just as he’d planned, joining a local precinct.

But this wasn’t his final destination; it was a stepping stone to the criminal investigation division.

After joining the precinct, Chen Mo threw himself into his work, determined to build a strong enough record to get into the criminal investigation division as quickly as possible.

Because his ultimate goal was to investigate Su Yuqing’s case.

"Daredevil" was the nickname his colleagues privately gave him.

He volunteered for the hardest, most exhausting, and most dangerous jobs: late-night patrols, long stakeouts, and arresting armed suspects.

Wherever there was a call, he was the first one on the scene, leading the charge.

His hawk-like eyes could always spot the faintest of clues in a reporting party’s chaotic account or at a seemingly mundane scene.

Injuries became his medals of honor.

His arm was slashed by a broken bottle while arresting a drunk. He scraped off a large patch of skin after falling from his motorcycle while chasing a thief. When a knife-wielding psychiatric patient took a hostage, he dove in front of the blade without a second thought; the sharp edge left a long gash across his groin.

Each time he was injured, he would silently accept treatment and refuse to rest, as if the pain were the lashes of his atonement.

Su Yuqing watched him, his uniform blood-stained and his face pale, and her very soul trembled with heartache.

Her eyes were filled with nothing but pity and affection.

She felt that in this world, Chen Mo’s life was just too hard.

So hard that she could barely stand to watch.

The moment he fell, wounded while saving a little girl from a psychiatric patient, she instinctively lunged forward to press down on his gushing wound. The two of them should have been unable to touch, but for a split second, Su Yuqing thought she felt a faint warmth from Chen Mo’s blood on her fingertips. In that same instant, the bleeding from his wound seemed to slow.

Su Yuqing wasn’t sure if she had imagined it, because other officers quickly administered first aid and bandaged Chen Mo’s wound.

Seeing the slightly relaxed expression on Chen Mo’s face now that he was injured, Su Yuqing felt that he was simply torturing himself.

Atoning for his sins through pain.

As the scenes continued to play out, everything Chen Mo did—every theft, brawl, and fraud case he cracked—steadily built up his list of achievements. He earned recognition and drew ever closer to the criminal investigation division.