Chapter 546: So You Were My Despair All Along

"Faster, a little faster!" The silver-gray elevator doors slowly closed, narrowing my line of sight. In the pitch-black hospital corridor, the water-stained shoe prints picked up speed, rushing straight for the elevator.

Watching the shoe prints rapidly manifest one after another across the clean floor, I gritted my teeth. "Just a little faster!"

Ten centimeters. Five. When the two silver-gray doors were barely three or four centimeters from sealing shut, my heart finally settled back into my chest.

Two centimeters. One!

"Safe for now." I hadn't even fully let out the breath I was holding when the doors suddenly jammed! Less than a centimeter of space remained between them. There was clearly nothing there, yet it looked exactly as if someone had wedged their fingers into the gap.

'Crap!' Just as the thought crossed my mind, the elevator doors were violently pried open. I looked down. Half a water-stained shoe print had already appeared inside the cabin!

'He got in!' The moment the thought registered, an invisible force clamped down on my throat. It felt as if someone with strength far greater than my own was strangling me. I couldn't make a sound. My face flushed a violent red, and my head felt like a balloon on the verge of popping.

"Help..." I couldn't force the words out. My eyes bulged from their sockets, and my neck twisted out of shape.

All of this happened in a fraction of a second. Tie Ningxiang, standing right behind me, didn't even seem to realize anything was wrong. The only person I could rely on was myself.

A person pushed to the brink always erupts with boundless potential. As long as the sheer will to live remains, miracles—whether great or small—will always manifest.

The whites of my eyes rolled back. Just as I was about to pass out completely, a memory flashed through my mind: the hearse livestream at Bridge No. 3 Crematorium, the moment I resorted to inviting spirits into my body and drawing a talisman with my own blood.

The memory was hazy, but caught between life and death, I had no other choice. I reached up, gouging my fingers into the flesh of my chest, and used my heart's blood to draw a talisman in thin air.

Bizarre, blood-red characters materialized in the air, refusing to dissipate. I couldn't tell if someone was secretly helping me from the shadows, or if my body had simply memorized the entire process.

The entire process went flawlessly. The moment my last drop of heart's blood flowed into the floating crimson characters, the Blood Fox Tattoo on my chest flared with brilliant light. A fierce roar echoed throughout the hospital, and nine towering fox tails swept outward!

"Xue Zhuo taints the mortal realm! Nine tails part the heavens!"

The entity strangling me was instantly sent flying, and no new shoe prints appeared inside the elevator cabin.

"Let's go..." My surgical wounds hadn't healed, yet I had just expended my heart's blood to imitate the Blood Fox and draw a talisman in thin air. The moment the talisman was finished, I felt as if all my lifespan and energy had been completely drained away.

Even with Tie Ningxiang supporting me, I could barely stand. More than half my weight slumped against her, and the blood bursting from my torn wounds stained her police uniform red. "Senior Sister, we have to leave Jiangcheng. I can't ever come back."

I didn't know if the Underworld Live Show existed in other cities, but right now, all I wanted was to get as far away as possible. The Live Show's relentless pursuit was crushing me under unprecedented pressure.

"Leave Jiangcheng? You're too severely injured right now. If we don't get you treated, you'll die." Tie Ningxiang knew the situation was critical. Her voice trembled as she pulled out her phone to call for backup.

"If we don't leave, I'll die right now! Let's go! Don't contact anyone else—just the two of us." Blood gushed from my wounds. With every breath, my lungs felt like they were being sliced open by knives. My lips were soaked in my own blood, but I gritted my teeth, refusing to give up hope of escaping.

"Just the two of us? Gao Jian, who exactly did you piss off? Let me call in the other officers from the city bureau. There's strength in numbers." Tie Ningxiang held her phone, but hadn't dialed yet.

"It doesn't matter how many ordinary people you bring—it's useless. The thing trying to kill me is an absolute terror. Its power is too massive. I've struggled against it for so long, yet I still can't see the full picture. It's like staring into a boundless, pitch-black night." I gasped for air. Every time I spoke, blood choked my throat. The agony was immense.

"Then I'll call those friends of yours. There are capable people with extraordinary skills among them; they should be able to help. Your condition right now is truly critical."

"Friends?" The figures of Blind Liu, Mr. Gu, and Er Gou flashed through my mind. But at the exact same time, I recalled Xia Chi's warning: someone from the Underworld Live Show was hiding right by my side.

I weakly shook my head. "We can't contact them... we can't..."

The searing pain nearly caused me to black out. Thankfully, Tie Ningxiang caught me in time. She was using almost all her strength just to keep me upright, and I could feel the reassuring warmth of her body.

"Leave Jiangcheng. Leaving is our only chance at survival." I watched the numbers on the elevator display steadily tick downward. Hope began to swell in my chest once again. Unless it was truly the bitter end, I refused to surrender to despair!

Fifth floor. Third floor. First floor...

When the display finally ticked down to the first floor, the corners of my mouth twitched upward. Even my breathing smoothed out a little, and I began rapidly mapping out an escape route in my head.

But a split second later, a wave of sheer terror washed over me. The elevator doors didn't open!

"How is this possible?" Tie Ningxiang was blocking the control panel with her body, so I couldn't see the buttons. I could only watch helplessly as the floor display slowly dropped past one, ticking down to negative one... then negative two!

Only when it hit basement level three did the doors finally slide open.

"Basement level three of the Central Hospital? I think I've been down here before. Isn't this the morgue?" My voice faltered. Suddenly, my brain felt so sluggish that thinking felt like a meaningless endeavor.

"Yes, the morgue." Tie Ningxiang shoved me out into the boundless darkness. "The soundproofing down here is excellent."

I didn't turn around. I slumped to my knees in the hallway outside the morgue like a walking corpse. Suddenly, a cold piece of metal pressed against the back of my head. It felt exactly like the barrel of a gun.

"I don't want to kill you, but I have no choice." Tie Ningxiang swept her hair up, revealing a plum blossom brand on the back of her neck.

"Why does it have to be you?"

"Why?!"

Never in my life had I lost control like this. I screamed over and over as blood splattered across the floor, yet the gun barrel pressed against the back of my skull didn't waver an inch.

Suddenly, the last shred of my desire to fight completely vanished. It was a bizarre feeling. It wasn't pain, anger, or resentment. I couldn't even name the emotion—I just felt the pillar that had always supported me shatter into dust.

Only at this moment did I finally understand what true despair was. Despair wasn't being chased by some horrifying monster while scrambling blindly with nowhere to run. It wasn't contracting a terminal illness and wasting away in solitude. It certainly wasn't burning in flames, watching your own flesh turn to ash while experiencing the absolute limits of physical agony.

True despair was staking every last ounce of your hope on someone, treating them as your sole pillar of faith, only to turn around and find them pointing a standard-issue Type 92 police pistol right at your head.

I turned my head and looked at Tie Ningxiang. I stared into that pitch-black muzzle, my eyes dead and hollow. I had a thousand things I wanted to say, but I couldn't voice a single word.

"Goodbye." The trigger was pulled. A gunshot echoed through the morgue.

I kept my eyes locked onto the muzzle right up until the end. I watched the standard 5.8-millimeter bullet pierce straight through my forehead and plunge into my brain, ripping all of my memories to shreds.

"Bang!"

...

The world before me shattered into pieces like a fractured mirror. I violently snapped my eyes open, only to be greeted by the sight of a charred, foul-smelling room with shattered glass scattered across the floor.

'Wait, this isn't right! Why am I still in the Deep Dream Layer? Didn't I just succumb to despair and give up on fighting back? Shouldn't I be dead?!' I reached up to touch my forehead. There was no bullet wound, only a thick layer of cold sweat. 'That was all a dream! It was an illusion concocted by the Despair District using my own memories! But that still doesn't make any sense. Once I sank into true despair, I should have ended up just like those scorched, mummified corpses—stripped of all self-awareness and left as a wandering husk. Who saved me at the last possible second?'

I reached into my jacket. I hadn't brought many physical items with me into the dream, so it didn't take long to make a discovery.

The little paper figure Sakurako had drawn for me before I entered the dream had been torn to shreds. After hastily piecing the scraps back together, I noticed a very distinct hole right through the center of the paper figure's head. It was exactly 5.8 millimeters in diameter!

'Did this little paper figure Sakurako drew take the bullet for me?'

An artifact capable of taking your place in death within a dream was undeniably a priceless treasure. Unfortunately, it seemed to be a one-time-use item.

I pushed myself up off the floor, feeling my body return to its peak physical condition. As I glanced down at the shattered glass scattered around the room, I slowly clenched my fists. Every detail of that horrifying nightmare was permanently burned into my mind.

"So that was my deepest fear all along? You certainly live up to your name, Despair District." A faint smile curled upon my lips as a torrent of boundless killing intent surged into my eyes. "To ensure that nightmare never becomes a reality... Chen Jiuge, you die today!"