Once receiving the call, they immediately went on a trip to the hospital.
"Where is Ma Jianyu!?" Mo Aini asked when he saw the crestfallen She Haoran sitting in one of the benches with his hand over his forehead.
"He's..... He's in the ER....." She Haoran sighed. "It's all my fault. I should have watched over him more."
"What exactly happened?" Hu Chuntian frowned. "We just came back from our honeymoon and now we suddenly receive a call that Ma Jianyu fell from the rooftop of Qu-yeye's retirement home. Can things be any more sudden than that?"
"It was one of the grandpa's birthday. I think it was the half-British one, the one named Jack." She Haoran said. "They were having a small party."
"Were you there?" Mo Aini asked, sitting down the bench too. Hu Chuntian sat on the other side.
"No..." The usually calm and composed president rubbed his face hand over his face anxiously. "I wish I could have. But I was busy with taking care of matters for my college degree. School is about to start."
"He said he won't be able to go to college anymore, you know?" He sadly smiled. "Said he don't have any money for it. I offered to lend him some but he wouldn't let me."
Hu Chuntian opened his mouth, then closed it, then hesitantly asked anyway. "Did they say it was an accident or..."
"Nobody goes to the rooftop. The celebration was inside." She Haoran had been so unnerved that his once perfectly arranged hair and clothes were in disarray now. "He excused himself for a minute, they assumed he must have gone to the bathroom and.... They just heard a loud noise outside."
(That's horrible.) Mo Aini thought.
"How did you know? Did lao yeye or the mistress of the retirement home call you?" He asked, patting She Haoran's back to calm him down.
"No...." She Haoran push his hand away. "No, I already told you, it was my fault."
He held his head back, trying not to cry. "It was all my fault..."
Hu Chuntian had bought some water from the vending machine nearby, and brought it just in time. "What do you mean that it's your fault?"
"I was....." She Haoran strengthen his resolve not to cry, and just drown back down the tears with water. "I was on a video call with him that time, you see."
"I saw everything that happened."
This left the couple dumbfounded, not knowing what to say. Maybe it's best they let She Haoran continue first, since he would not be easily consoled after such an experience.
"He started telling me a few weeks ago how he's becoming more confident not taking anti-hallucinatory medicine. The doctor at the home referred him to a possible psychiatrist that can give him more conversational therapy and the likes of CBT." She Haoran sipped a few more from his bottle. "I congratulated him, he truly seems to be showing progress. We have been talking about using psychological methods to trigger the memories you said we have lost."
"Was it effective?" Mo Aini asked.
"By only a relatively small amount. I get glimpses, and he said certain words I say gives him a feeling of deja vu. But nothing too extraordinary." He rubbed his temples. "I'm inclined to believe you both. I always trust logic before anything else, but..... this is the first time that I let myself be led by my intuition, and follow where it goes. Still, there really is nothing else besides that. But we kept trying."
"Anyway....." She Haoran proceeded to explain what happened last night. "He seemed to be in a good mood. He had not been off medication for too long, just for about two weeks. He was telling me how fun the party was, just idle talk, and I told him about how my day was going as well. But then he suddenly... Said he heard singing."
"I did hear singing, which was the old folks singing 'Happy Birthday', but I should have guessed that it's a different type of song. Because he soon said he needed to follow it.... and just walked around the house, not talking to me. I can't see his face, he must be holding his phone down when it happened."
She Haoran has been recalling the experience so far better than anyone else, yet it was obvious that he was rattled by it. "I keep calling out to him several times yet he wouldn't listen. All I know is that the call ended right after... a loud, cracking noise."
"I immediately contacted an ambulance over to the retirement home's address." She Haoran leaned on the wall, looking very tired due to bottling up his emotions for so long just not to cry. "They said he hit his head on a rock. The fall is not that high, so it did not bring any more damages besides bruises and shock injuries that are not fatal..... but the head wound..."
Hu Chuntian can guess already. "What are his chances?"
She Haoran said, his voice cracking a little. "50/50."
The couple looked down. Things are looking grave.
"I don't understand. This should be a Good Ending since he had earned enough points, right?" Mo Aini gripped on his hair.
Hu Chuntian rubbed his chin. "But then again, he is not around the MC, Da Ge. So perhaps that is why it automatically became.... a Bad Ending."
"Then I need to change it." She Haoran said. "You said that I changed my ending back on my route. I need to figure out how that happened, how I did that quickly. It's all up to me."
The three continued brainstorming on the bench near the hospital's emergency room, nurses and patients and visitors passing by the hallway back and forth. The clock did not wait for them to arrive at a conclusion. Its cruel hands continued turning and turning, until it was 11 pm already, and they have found no solution.
"Is there any object that you found yourself suddenly in possession of yet don't remember receiving before?" Mo Aini prodded. "Come on, there's gotta be something!"
"I don't think so... I always make note of my possessions, remember? Nothing is amiss."
"Then what about Ma Jianyu?" Hu Chuntian added. "You always name your stuff, so he might have received something with your name on it."
"He doesn't have one either, or if he did, he hasn't shown me."
They were completely stumped. Hu Chuntian has already bought soda and chips for his Da Ge, and were grabbed some to munch on frustratedly. "We can't possibly ask him now either."
Mo Aini thought about it. "Those glimpses you have... what exactly are they?"
"Something about... talking about fairytales like Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, Rapunzel...." She Haoran frowned. "That's all. They're all practically useless."
"What about the things that gives him deja vu?" Hu Chuntian asked.
"Whenever I say the word 'curse', like when I said that ' "May you live in interesting times." is not even a Chinese curse, yet Americans think so anyway.' ", he had this strange look on his face. He asked to say 'curse' again, since it was reminding him of something that at was at the tip of his tongue yet he just can't say what."
"Curse.... fairytales...." Mo Aini mumbled.
"A lot of fairytales have curses." Hu Chuntian said. "Like Sleeping Beauty's curse---"
"That's it!" Mo Aini clapped his hand. "That's exactly what I was thinking yet I just can't remember the title. We're you two talking about Sleeping Beauty when you got out of the AVR after the documentary film viewing?"
She Haoran's eyes widened. "...It is..... It is."
The memory immediately came rushing back to him.....
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"Sir Haoran!" He suddenly heard a voice calling him. "Sir Haoran!"
He turned around from the railing of the rooftop where he was gathering his thoughts, and saw that it was a familiar face. He immediately changed his expression. "Yes, Mr. Ma? What brings you here?"
"Er, I was quested to do so." Ma Jianyu said. "I was looking for you."
"Looking for me?" He blinked in surprise. "Who told you to look for me? And why?"
"Well... The one who beseeched me is not important. It feels irksome to admit that I took orders from such a person." He scowled at whoever he was thinking about in his mind. "However, I truly do worry about you, and so I followed the request despite my disposition to the giver. Something look amiss."
He leaned in the railing with him. "What is it? Why did you suddenly leave the AVR?"
She Haoran just sighed. "It's..... Wait, how long have you been looking for me?"
"Not long. I scouted the whole building starting from the lowest floor all the way to the top for five minutes."
"That fast?" She Haoran was amused, a good distraction from his turbulent emotions.
"Yes. I should have gotten here faster if I wasn't a little distracted with coming up with possible reasons why you are here." He placed a hand on the school council president's shoulder. "You have a thousand-yard stare, my friend. So it must be something truly troubling."
"A thousand-yard stare?"
"It's an English expression. They use it to describe how war veterans just stare off to the distance from the emotional recollection of all their misfortune on the battlefield." Ma Jianyu explained. "My grandfather told me about it. You are not a veteran, but you seem to be having your own internal war. It will ease if you tell a friend."
"Hmm. I see." She Haoran grinned, crossing his arms. "So you will help me in this fight?"
"Even to the death, if you want to. I'm a valiant soul." Ma Jianyu said.
There is just something that She Haoran likes with Ma Jianyu's extravagant and often nonsensical way of words. Unlike him, who often speaks straight to the point, in a formal business-like manner, Ma Jianyu can easily come up with things like this that you would mostly found in cheesy adventure movies or TV series. Most people find it annoying or too eccentric..... but there's something endearing about it.
Because for once, She Haoran can take his time just talking and talking meaningless words, without worrying if he got his point across or said everything in the perfect way.
"This grandfather of yours, tell me more about him. How come he knows of that term? Have he experienced something that caused him a thousand-yard stare himself?"
He continued going on this strange whimsical exchange with Ma Jianyu. He asked about several topics, learning more about this person. That he was an orphan, raised by old people in a home. That he loved fiction and Shakespeare more than anything else, and that he wished to go to England someday.
"Why don't you visit along with your Jack-yeye whenever he does?" She Haoran asked. "Perhaps his English side of the family will be hospitable towards you."
"I don't think so. In truth, I'm not confident in my English. I only learn through books and reading them aloud, memorizing even the whole dusty fairytale collection on our shelf... yet I do not have someone to critique over my pronunciation." Ma Jianyu admitted. "So I'd rather hone my diction and fluency in the language before attempting to take foot on the land of the Bard himself."
"I am sure it is not that bad. Tell you what....." She Haoran smiled. "You can practice with me."
"Really? Are you fluent in English, Sir Haoran?"
"I am confident in my skills." She Haoran answered in English. "And sometimes, confidence is the key. So go on, give me your best shot!"
Ma Jianyu smiled from ear to ear. "My, you have a really good accent! It sounds native even!"
"You should try too. Tell me once of those fairytale stories you've read with the best English accent you can emulate."
"Alright." Ma Jianyu spoke in English too, clearing his throat. "There was once a maiden called Sleeping Beauty, who was named that way because she was curse with eternal sleep.... that could only be solved by true love's kiss."
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"True love's kiss...." She Haoran mumbled.
"Huh?" The couple was just confused of him mumbling such a thing, and so he went to explain.
"That's seriously all your talked about? No excitement or tension?" Hu Chuntian raised an eyebrow. "Lame."
Mo Aini elbowed him. "Don't be rude. No matter how meaningless it is to us, this conversation means a lot to them."
"But I'm telling the truth, Da Ge! I expected something like 'And after telling me the story of the Sleeping Beauty, I also wanted to wake up from this curse of being asleep on the truths of the world, of what I truly feel for Mo Jiagei, and if there really is one. And so, I asked Ma Jianyu to try lifting my curse with the same solution as in the fairytale.....'." Hu Chuntian made his two hands 'smooch' each other. "Something like that, very sweet and BL-like!"
The two just stared at him like he just wore red at a funeral*.
"What? I'm just suggesting something." He shrugged." Don't you see? If that memory of Sleeping Beauty matters that much to you both, then it could also matter in our present situation! There's a Sleeping Donkey in the ER waiting for you right now!"
She Haoran blinked. "You're suggesting that I....?"
"Well..... It wouldn't hurt to try." Mo Aini nodded.
"But..... I don't even know if I 'love' Ma Jianyu just yet...." She Haoran looked far away, like he really was seeing hundreds of miles even when he is confined in such a small hospital.
"Still." He stood up, brushing his clothes. "I don't want to lose him. I want him to be always around me, to never leave me. So that must count as something."
They watched as he did put the fairytale curse-lifter to the test.
"I hope this works." Mo Aini said, checking his phone. Seeing the numbers, he felt a pain in his chest.
Just 7 minutes left.
Now or never.
Time passed. He waited. Hu Chuntian waited. Then...
She Haoran came out, his face overjoyed.
"I.... I did it." He still couldn't believe what happened, for the first time looking so baffled and confused out of his own mind. "I did it!"
"I knew it!" Hu Chuntian high five his Da Ge. "Da Ge, you owe me 100 yuan!"
"Hey, I don't remember making bets with you!" Mo Aini grinned. "What are you talking about?"
"But you looked like you don't believe it would work either. I just want a price for proving you wrong." Hu Chuntian grinned back, pursing his lips. "True love's kiss would do."
Mo Aini was too happy to mind the Tiger Emperor's brattiness. He delivered the truly loving kiss, and they laughed, all three of them.
Finally, they have achieved the Good Ending—
The world faded to black.
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This is the last of the free chapters, but I hope you would still continue reading and supporting me! The story is faaaaaaaarrrr from finished. Please continue this journey with me and consider using Fast Passes or coins to unlock the next chapters. I will be publishing everyday once the Premium is approved by the editors and set, and the bribe list still stands, so that means you can experience having double updates in a day or triple or quadruple even! Look forward to that, and thank you for supporting me so far!