[Mission: Find the Meaning of Life for Ye Xiqiu]
[Reward: Extend Onee-san Form Transformation Duration to Two Hours, LV3 Experience Card x1]
***
The afternoon sky was a washed-out, clear light blue.
On an unnamed rooftop in Haicheng, a girl with cyan hair stood.
No, that couldn’t really be called standing.
She struggled to stand from her wheelchair using a crutch, then gripped the low rooftop railing and looked down at the street below.
A few white doves stood on the railing of a distant balcony.
Cars came and went, their honking making one’s head ache.
But the girl’s face showed no trace of impatience.
She only gazed at all of it with longing—everything familiar or unfamiliar, beloved or hated—and carved every bit of it into her soul.
If it were possible, she really didn’t want to leave this world.
But the girl’s life had already become the sigh of autumn.
She could no longer see any hope.
Before leaving home today, she had sat in front of the mirror for half an hour.
She curled her hair strand by strand with a curling iron, trimmed her bangs to exactly eyebrow level, applied oil to the ends so they shone with a healthy luster.
She filled in her brows, curled her lashes, and applied a thin layer of dusky rose lipstick.
Her pink dress was ironed smooth, with a small bow tied at the collar.
Her legs were useless, but her love for beauty remained.
Every day she made sure to clean herself up nicely—maybe it was the only thing left that reminded her she was still a young girl.
After waking from the car accident half a year ago, her first reaction was to touch her legs.
No sensation.
She didn’t believe it.
She pinched them again.
Still nothing.
Later she learned a word—paraplegia—which, in plain language, meant she would never stand again for the rest of her life.
Her mother cried outside the hospital room door all night long.
Her father sat silently on the corridor bench, smoking one cigarette after another.
She heard it all clearly through the door.
Back then, she didn’t want to die yet.
She just realized that in the saddest moments, you can’t even cry.
After being discharged, she began to get used to many things.
Getting used to being carried onto the wheelchair every morning.
Getting used to needing help to use the restroom.
Getting used to sitting on a special chair while bathing, watching her once-long legs float and sink in the water like two lifeless logs.
Getting used to the stares when she went out—children would gape until their parents pulled them away; adults would glance quickly, then look elsewhere, pretending they hadn’t seen anything.
She was grateful to those who came to push her wheelchair, but after the gratitude came a deeper self-loathing.
Sometimes Ye Xiqiu thought: ‘If only I had a bad temper.’
She could throw things, curse, cry and scream, asking why it had to be her.
But she wasn’t like that.
She was too mature—so mature that even her pain felt like an imposition on others.
She started refusing to go out, refusing visits from friends, refusing to let her mother brush her hair.
She couldn’t bear to see anyone anymore.
The girl who could run eight hundred meters on the track, who could practice for a whole afternoon in the dance studio facing the mirror, who could jump up and catch leaves—that girl was gone.
Sometimes she dreamed of the past.
She dreamed of running laps on the track in sneakers, of sprinting home in the rain without an umbrella, of hiking up a mountain with friends and standing at the peak in the wind, looking down at the entire city beneath her feet.
When she woke, she would lie in bed, staring motionless at the ceiling.
Those dreams were so real—so real that she felt if she opened her eyes hard enough, everything would return to normal.
Every time she woke, she had to get reacquainted with her body.
Reaching her fingertips to her knees—no feeling.
Pressing her palm against her thigh—no feeling.
Digging her nails in—still no feeling.
Then she knew: this wasn’t a dream.
The days when she could run and jump—those were.
She began planning to end her life.
There was no dramatic reason.
Not because she hated anyone, not because she had been abandoned.
She was just too tired—not the physical kind, but an exhaustion that seeped from the marrow of her bones, an unshakable weariness.
She knew her parents loved her.
She knew her friends cared.
She knew the doctors had done their best.
But none of that helped, because what she hated wasn’t the world—it was herself.
She hated the way she looked sitting in the wheelchair.
She hated her unsteady hands that couldn’t even hold a glass of water.
She hated how she was growing thinner, more withdrawn, less like a person—yet still had to pretend everything was fine so her parents wouldn’t worry.
She was alive only to drain their already meager energy.
‘If I weren’t here,’ she thought, ‘everyone would be much more at ease.’
The rooftop was quiet.
She set the crutch aside, sat on the railing with both hands bracing the cement edge, and turned to look down.
This was the tenth floor.
The ground looked so far away.
A wind blew from the east, carrying the city’s characteristic heat and dust.
Somewhere in the distance, music was playing—she couldn’t make out the song, only the rhythm of the drums pulsing over and over.
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
When she exhaled, she had made up her mind.
Just then, something caught her eye.
Perched on the stone railing at the edge of the rooftop was a small white cat.
Very small, fluffy, its tail curled into a tiny question mark.
It tilted its head to look at her, its eyes a beautiful sky blue, pupils contracted into thin slits in the sunlight.
When had it arrived?
She didn’t know.
She opened her mouth as if to say something, then swallowed the words.
She looked down at the ground, then turned back to the cat.
The cat was still crouched there, its bushy tail swishing back and forth.
She stared at it for a few seconds, then suddenly noticed—the cat was perched too close to the edge.
The stone railing was only a palm’s width wide.
A gust of wind could send it falling.
She frowned, instinctively leaning forward, then stopped.
‘I’m about to die. Why should I care about a cat?’
She smirked wryly to herself, but slowly crouched down—more accurately, she slid down to the floor, bracing herself against the railing, and used her hands to push herself backward.
The wheelchair was three steps away.
She pulled herself over, grabbed the armrests, and hoisted herself into the seat.
Panting, she pushed the wheelchair slowly toward the cat.
She might as well do one last good deed before she died.
“Kitty?”
She called out, her voice a little hoarse but still unable to hide its naturally pleasant tone.
Calling a cat “Kitty” felt childish, but since no one was watching and she was about to die anyway, it didn’t matter.
The white cat tilted its head and looked at her, not running away.
She scooted forward a little more and reached out.
The white cat stretched lazily in the sunlight, then leaped up and landed right in her arms.
The girl froze.
The warmth against her chest was real.
She could feel the kitten’s heartbeat—thump-thump, fast and strong.
Its fur brushed against her chin, a little ticklish.
She looked down at this cat that had voluntarily jumped into her arms, and suddenly didn’t know what to say.
“You… aren’t you afraid of people?”
she asked softly.
The white cat mewed.
Ye Xiqiu hesitated, then reached out her hand.
The cat placed its paw on her palm and gently pressed, as if shaking hands.
The corner of her mouth twitched.
“You… can understand me?”
The white cat mewed again, softer this time, as if responding.
Ye Xiqiu stared at it for a few seconds, then suddenly laughed.
The smile was light, like a cloud that could disappear at any moment.
“Then… can you listen to me talk?”
Even to a cat, she maintained basic politeness.
Maybe the principle of not causing trouble for others had been carved into her bones.
The white cat didn’t agree, but it didn’t refuse either.
Ye Xiqiu felt she must be crazy—how could a cat refuse?
So she began to talk.
She talked about how she didn’t actually like the pink dress she was wearing, because it was what she wore on the day of the accident.
Her mother had refused to throw it away, saying it was her favorite color.
But her favorite color was blue—the blue of the sky, the blue of the sea.
She talked about growing up in the countryside, lying on the roof in summer nights counting stars until she fell asleep.
The next morning she’d wake up in bed, carried down by her father.
She pretended to be asleep because she didn’t dare open her eyes.
She talked about the meals her mother cooked, the pride she felt when she got a perfect score for the first time, the fights with friends and the making up.
All those trivial, unimportant, unforgettable things.
She talked and talked, so much that she surprised even herself.
Maybe people about to die just liked to ramble, wanting to leave one last trace in the world, even if their only audience was a cat.
As she talked, she suddenly stopped.
She took a deep breath and paused.
“Actually… I wanted to be a singer…”
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