The ultimate blue sea

Chapter 12-Pursuit

Su Qing thought that his consciousness was like a sea. Normally it was calm and tranquil, as long as the wind didn't rise. If it did, the slightest movement could induce a boundless hurricane. Then, hints of the enormous black hole hiding under that mirror-like stillness would faintly appear.

How much sadness could one person bear in a lifetime?

Sometimes Su Qing thought that the painful events in the past hadn't truly passed. It was only that with the passage of time, the memories were no longer fresh. They had all become yellowed old photographs, pressed beneath the numerous and complicated activities of his consciousness. Otherwise, why would all his former feelings be so vivid in his mind when stimulated by a single touch?

He could feel something like a faint electric current passing through his whole body, not painful, only slightly numbing. And he felt once again that sense of emptiness, like that day he had lain on the ice-cold instrument, as if he had shed his body and entered a half-sleeping, half-waking state. Something was constantly attacking his brain, as though it was clogging his body with all its might.

Gradually, Su Qing felt the pain Cheng Weizhi had spoken off. His eyes were open, but he couldn't see anything clearly. With his remaining awareness, he couldn't tell whether he was crying. He only felt extremely pained and extremely sad.

He wanted to cry aloud, but his body wouldn't take orders. Despair, like a shoot, grew from his heart, dyeing all his memories a boundless dim grey.

An indistinct voice sounded in his ears, calling his name: "Su Qing, Mama's little fellow..."

A door seemed to appear before his eyes, dismal white. Su Qing hesitantly reached out to push it open and saw that once-beautiful woman, her head bald from the chemo, looking at him yearningly. Her neck was very thin, as though it couldn't hold her head up anymore. She tried desperately to raise her head from the pillow and failed time after time. Her body was stuck full of transparent tubes, as though her life was tied in place. The tubes couldn't be undone, or else her life would scatter.

The woman beckoned to him: "Come, come to Mama."

A pair of hands dropped lightly on his shoulders. Su Qing turned to look. It was Su Chengde. He seemed to have shrunk, returning to his cowardly and confused youth. He hesitated, then walked step by step to the side of the hospital bed.

Su Qing remembered, this was the last time he had seen his mom—

The woman raised a skinny hand. Su Qing immediately bent down, took her hand, and put it on his head. She smiled softly and laboriously. "Eat well and grow tall, like your dad..."

These were her last words.

Su Qing began to cry, but the sound of crying seemed to come from other mouths. It was all around, crowding his mind. The whole world of his consciousness echoed with bitter cries rising and falling in succession, keener and keener, more and more resonant, scraping his mind and body like an inexorable tornado. Su Qing felt that the young self in his consciousness was going to be torn apart by the wind.

In that moment, a strange voice suddenly rose in his heart, saying to him, "Don't get confused."

Don't get confused...about what?

Don't get confused about these voices, these feelings. They belong to others. If you can't withstand them, you'll be assimilated by them and become worthless.

"Eat well and grow tall, like your dad..."

"It's all right. Mom is gone, but Dad loves you."

"Get the hell out of here! Get out! I have no son like you. I make no claims of kinship on you. Starting today, you can call whoever the fuck you want your dad—call a dog your father if it pleases you. I, Su Chengde, have no son like you!"