Chapter 29 : Nine Hours of Vigil

So dark… so heavy…

Christine’s body was wrapped in dense darkness.

Her consciousness kept sinking downward.

It was as if she had fallen into an unfathomably deep ocean trench.

Her body couldn’t move.

She could only feel herself continuously falling into that bottomless abyss.

So suffocating… so unbearable…

Tears slid from Christine’s eyes.

Just when she felt an overwhelming sense of cold and despair—

A trace of warmth slowly entered her body from her right hand.

In that pitch-black world where one couldn’t see a hand in front of them…

A glimmer of light gradually began to shine into Christine’s world.

That light dispelled the darkness and despair surrounding her.

Guided by that light of salvation, Christine reignited the hope in her heart.

She began to struggle upward with all her strength.

Who knows how much time passed…

She finally broke through the surface!

And at the exact moment she surfaced—

Christine’s consciousness returned to the real world!

“Ugh…”

Christine let out a pained groan and slowly opened her eyes.

At that moment, she was lying on a hospital bed.

A steady warmth was flowing into her body from her right hand.

Christine weakly lifted her head.

She saw—

Li Yiming was resting his head on the edge of her bed, And his left hand was tightly holding Christine’s right hand.

That warmth—it was coming from Li Yiming’s hand.

Just as she wanted to pull her hand away from his— A sharp, piercing pain shot through her brain!

It was like a drill boring relentlessly into her skull.

“Ugh…”

Christine let out a soft cry of pain.

Her whimper immediately woke up the dozing Li Yiming by the bed.

Seeing Christine nearly fall off the hospital bed from the pain, Li Yiming instantly activated the ice-element crystal core in both of their palms!

Under the effect of the ice crystal core, Christine’s pain was relieved significantly.

Seeing her expression ease slightly, Li Yiming then picked up a towel from beside the bed with his right hand and gently wiped the sweat from her forehead.

“How about that—my care for you is way better than how you treated me, huh?”

As he wiped her sweat, Li Yiming couldn’t help but tease Christine.

Back when he had passed out, Christine had cuffed him without hesitation!

Hearing Li Yiming’s sarcastic comment, Christine—who had just been deeply moved—was instantly so annoyed she wanted to sit up and kick him.

Who talks to a girl like that!?

But her body was too weak.

All she could do was glare at him from the bed.

“What… what happened to me? Why do I feel so awful?”

Christine asked weakly.

“You’re asking me? I want to ask you!”

After wiping her sweat, Li Yiming angrily hung the towel around his neck.

“How did you even know about the ability overdrive technique—something that’s basically a suicide move?”

Li Yiming asked in frustration.

In the comic, this technique was a last resort for ability users!

According to the comic, This wasn’t some kind of backup energy trick.

It wasn’t something just any small fry could use.

At the early stages of the apocalypse when people were still exploring powers,The number of people who could pull off an ability overdrive was extremely few!

Christine had only recently awakened her power.

How could she possibly know how to use such a self-destructive move?

Faced with Li Yiming’s annoyed questioning, Christine’s face was full of confusion.

“I… I don’t know.”

“At the time, I just felt so frustrated that I couldn’t help at all…”

“After you were knocked away by the Licker, one of them came after me.”

“In the midst of fear, despair, and frustration… somehow, my power just went berserk…”

As Christine tried to recall the blurry memories, she rubbed her temples in frustration.

Even she had only a vague memory of how she managed to trigger an ability overdrive.

Li Yiming let out a long sigh as he listened.

This was probably one of those cases where sheer willpower triggers a hidden potential.

But the price of unleashing that potential… was clearly very steep.

If Li Yiming hadn’t had an ice-element zombie crystal core in his hand—

And if he hadn’t stayed by her side the entire time, helping her absorb the core while she was unconscious—

Christine might already be gone by now.

“This isn’t a good skill. Don’t use it again,”

Li Yiming said with a long sigh, his tone calm.

“Okay…”

Christine nodded obediently and answered softly.

She never wanted to experience that terrifying sensation of unconsciousness again.

That feeling… it was even worse than drowning.

“What time is it now?”

Christine glanced at the hand Li Yiming was still holding, and asked quietly.

“Umm… it’s 3:15 a.m.,”

Li Yiming replied after looking down at the watch on his wrist.

“3:15? I was unconscious for more than nine hours?”

Christine was stunned by his answer.

A faint blush rose on her snowy-white cheeks.

“Yeah, what’s the problem?”

“Only nine hours. You should be glad it wasn’t longer,”

Li Yiming rolled his eyes.

Clearly, he didn’t quite catch what Christine was implying.

“No, that’s not it… You sat there holding my hand… for nine straight hours?”

Christine asked, her face even redder, clearly a little flustered.

Just imagining a man holding her hand for that long while she was unconscious…

It made her incredibly shy just picturing him watching over her so carefully.

Even her own father had never shown her that kind of tenderness.

“Eh?”

Seeing Christine’s flustered expression, Li Yiming stood up.

He stared directly at Christine’s blushing face, making her even more embarrassed.

She reflexively slapped her cheeks with her hands.

“W-What are you looking at?”

Seeing Christine’s red face, The corner of Li Yiming’s lips curled upward slightly.

“Oh? Recovering pretty fast, aren’t you?”

“Already got some color back in your cheeks. Not bad~!”

Li Yiming nodded in satisfaction.

“In that case, you should try absorbing the crystal core on your own now.”

“I’m going to go clean up the battlefield.”

Before Christine could respond, Li Yiming let go of her soft little hand and, humming a tune, walked away from the hospital bed.

Christine looked down at her suddenly empty palm and touched the ice-element crystal core that was still warm from Li Yiming’s hand.

Then she looked at him busying himself in the lab.

Christine pouted and muttered under her breath:

“Idiot.”

What she didn’t notice was – When Li Yiming turned to leave just now, His face, too, had a faint blush.