He is the returning light

Since then, Xie Qingcheng has been carrying out these experiments ...... as if only by doing so could he keep his peace of mind.

It is only then that he can feel that his life has not been completely destroyed and that it still has value.

But the problem is, constantly experimenting with your own body, even the perfect reformer of RN-13, sometimes can't withstand that kind of physical pain.

Although the mental Ai Bola senses are more numb than normal, the pain is so intense that you can't stand it.

Xie Qingcheng has been conducting these experiments behind Qin Ciyan's back.

This self-destructive scientific behavior was not discovered until one day, when he was testing a burn drug on his own arm and Qin Ciyan, who had accidentally come in to get something, stumbled upon him.

Qin Ciyan was furious and immediately stopped his studies at the institute.

He asked Xie Qingcheng: "Is your life not a life? Who are you torturing with this behavior?"

"I don't feel any pain."

"The people who obtained the results of these experiments will feel the pain!"

Qin Ciyan said angrily.

"Do you know why I turned down my American friends? Do you know why I didn't get involved in developing RN13? This drug obviously saves lives, obviously has saved some subjects, but I don't think that's a good thing, do you know why?!"

"Because no medical experiment will be more important than human life. Saving lives is one of the meanings of scientific research, but that's not based on the blood of the living!"

Xie Qingcheng wrapped the gauze around himself and slowly lowered his snow-white sleeve, then he got up and looked into Qin Ciyan's eyes, "But teacher. This is the only thing I can do now."

"Ever since I got sick, it's like I've been a wreck. Things I used to be able to do easily, I can't do anymore."

"Can you understand the feeling of powerlessness that comes with the passing of power that cannot be grasped? Like facing time, facing gravity, facing all that cannot be resisted."

"I tried to get used to it, but I couldn't ...... My body healed, but my heart seemed to have rotted away long ago in the car accident that should have killed me. I wake up from time to time dreaming, feeling like my chest is empty ...... I'm tempted to take a knife and cut my chest open to see what's really left inside."

"I feel like I'm just a body on borrowed time. Living in this world, I no longer serve any purpose other than to take care of my family ......"

Xie Qingcheng said here and closed his eyes.

"I can't even take care of my family. My sister, childlike, has told me more than once that she thinks I've changed."

"She thinks that I ......" Xie Qingcheng voice condensed and stiffened for a while before speaking with difficulty, "She thinks that I ...... is not her big brother."

His eyes reddened as he spoke, despite holding back.

The one thing that initially kept him going and alive was that young little sister.

But even his sister said that about him - and the girl was five years old and had no twisted mind, she would say whatever she felt.

The accusation was not intentional, but rather a hard and disturbing one from a young child's heart.

Xie Qingcheng often felt that he was covered in blood, his body was covered with invisible viruses, and he gradually dared not even hug her.

He sat up in bed at night, watching the tiny creature in the hazy moonlight.

She loves him.

That's why her words can hurt him the most.

He felt like his body had been pierced in that car accident, and it was hard to pick up a heart from the blood, and he held that heart, sewing and gluing the broken remains together, like sewing together a tattered Muppet bear, trying to get back to the girl, even if it was in tatters.

The Muppet Bear, clumsy, dirty, covered in messes, with thread marks, from the garbage can, back home, he opened his big hands and waved a slow pendulum to that little girl he cherished so much.

No one knew how much it had cost him to get this one lumbering beckoning to her.

But she said, you're not him.

She looked at her worn-out rag doll and said, "You're not a brother.

Look, you've got threads, you're broken.

I want my brother ......

Brother is intact, brother would not have such hideous and horrible wounds.

Brother doesn't scare me.

"I feel like I'm back, from the netherworld. But then I seem to have lost myself."

Xie Qingcheng said softly.

"I didn't used to be like this."

"I never used to snap at her. I never used to not have the strength to carry her all the way home. I used to ......"

Xie Qingcheng hadn't been wearing much of an expression when he said those words.

It would seem to make it seem as if he was heartless. He has no emotions.

But when he said that, he couldn't go on.

The mouth of my throat was so astringent.

Qin Ciyan knew that it was not that he was without sorrow, but that he had been deprived of even the joys and sorrows of being born in order to return from the gates of hell.

He had to stay calm all the time in order to survive.

Because every dramatic emotional up and down induces psychosis, and each episode of this psychosis is more severe than the last.

Xie Qingcheng paused for a long time before saying numbly, "I don't think I have a point to live anymore."

"I can't make her feel happy nor can I bring any value to anyone else. I don't want to be a burden to anyone, nor do I want to come to this world on a trip to leave anything meaningful behind."

"I was really desperate for a while. Until you brought me to the laboratory. Until I realized ...... that my mind, my body ...... could withstand abnormal stress, and that in some areas of disease research, I could go farther than others with this numb body."

"I'm really not in pain, Sensei. Blood and sickness are nothing, the worst thing is that the heart is dead, the worst thing is that I can't do anything, that I'm alive but a complete waste, and I don't want that."

He raised his eyes and looked at Qin Ciyan, and those peach blossom eyes looked like they were fragmented with large swaths of wither.

"Teacher, I feel so much pain. I don't want others to feel the same pain as I. I met a child with brain cancer in front of the institute over the weekend, very young, looking seven or eight years old, and his parents were so sad but didn't give up hope....... People can't beat the disease, but just because you can't beat it doesn't mean that it doesn't go down without a fight."

"I don't want to give in to suffering either, maybe my life is kind of over, but I can at least do what normal people can't do in those unseen, battles with disease."

"I think that's probably what I'm living for...the next twenty years or so of my life."

"I'll die standing up. I'll die doing something I was meant to do."

"Sensei. This is what I live for."

His blood was oozing out from under the gauze.

"I'm sorry I've been hiding it from you."

Qin Ciyan can't tell you how he felt at the time.

Anger? Heartache?

None of it seems to fully encapsulate what's going on inside of him.

He wondered what life really was.

What exactly is the kernel that supports every human being to live.

It's presence, it's value.

It's what you've done and how much heat you've put into it.

Life is never about getting. Getting is just a kind of sustenance that makes one live better. But no matter how much has been gained, when death comes with a song, death will take away everything you have along with your tattered and broken corpse.

And the things that will remain on this earth, the things that will help you overcome death, will always be those things that you give.

They are separated from you by life and death, and because you have unselfishly given them to the world, they are born of you and no longer belong to you. Not even death can take them away.

That's the most powerful thing that tiny humans can do.

Xie Qingcheng had always taken this point very clearly, so when someone like him realized that he had become a worthless piece of trash, unable to do anything, unable to take on anything, he would suffer exceptionally. That kind of pain was far better than cutting him into a thousand pieces. To kill his heart and his life.

That's why he was soaking up the institute like this long after he found out what he was only worth, using his body to light that one light in the darkness of the night.

He's the one who took himself to those experiments.

Qin Ciyan sighed long, through the thick lens, Xie Qingcheng saw the doctor's eyes are filled with wet tears.

"...... What about your parents?"

Qin Ciyan looked at him tenderly and sadly.

"You said you didn't want to see the parents of that child with brain cancer in pain, and you didn't want to see anyone else feel as bad as you did."

"Then Xie Qingcheng."

"Those two pairs of eyes in the sky, can't you see them?"

"......"

"You're not an orphan, your parents left, but they loved you that way once."

"You treat yourself like this, and I'm not talking about me. And how sad do you think they'll be?"

The doctor walks up to his student, this relationship that no one knows about, this conversation that no one hears.

In the cold lab, the warmth and sinking mercifully melted away.

Qin Ciyan raised his hand and touched the teenager Xie Qingcheng's hair.

"Do you know why I did what I did, ignored the rules, ignored the danger, ignored everything to save you?"

"........."

"I never told you that, did I."

"I had a son at one time in addition to a daughter."

"Died in a car accident."

"The last thing he said to me before he left was Dad, I don't want to die."

"......"

Qin Ciyan closed his eyes, "I will never forget those words, those eyes."

"If I could, even if it was a vegetable, even if he had a change of temperament, I would do anything to have him back. There is nothing more painful than watching your loved ones pass away. ...... Xiao Xie, your parents had no choice and left the world, but you have a choice, you shouldn't be so cheap, you live well, feel the world's spring and fall, all things wither and flourish, is also a kind of meaning of life."

"Xie Xue is still young, she doesn't understand anything to say something like that. A child's words are unpolished and pure, but they may not express themselves perfectly."

"You will always be at the forefront of her mind. She'll only really hurt and be at a loss if you ever stop being able to come back to her."

When he saw Xie Qingcheng trying to say something, he shook his head and seemed to have understood what Xie Qingcheng wanted to say.

Qin Ciyan said gently, sadly, but irrefutably, "I feel I am entitled to talk to you like this. I can understand how you feel, in the life we've traveled - you've lost your parents, and I've lost my children."

Xie Qingcheng stood rigidly, and he saw the tears glistening at the corners of Qin Ciyan's wrinkled eyes.

After a while, the tears that the doctor had been holding back finally slid weepily down his no-longer-young face.

"If your parents were alive, they wouldn't want to see you do this."

"Xie. The meaning of life is first and foremost that you live well."

Qin Ciyan would not allow Xie Qingcheng to study at He Jiwei's Biochemical and Pharmaceutical Institute anymore.

He Jiwei was puzzled by this and felt that Xie Qingcheng was a very rare genius and it would be a waste not to cultivate him properly.

But the teenager, Xie Qingcheng, in accordance with Qin Ciyan's intention, finally thanked He Jiwei for his care and left the laboratory.

Qin Ciyan covered up Xie Qingcheng's experiments with the story of the "virtual human", misleading others into thinking that the "First Emperor" was just a computer simulation, and that the First Emperor's data were all calculated data. Since then, Qin Ciyan has paid more attention to him, almost as if he is guarding Xie Qingcheng as the son who will never come back.

Xie Qingcheng's confusion is in his eyes, and once again, he seems to be very lonely and emotionally unstable, having lost his direction.

And Qin Ciyan is soon to return to Yanshou due to another job dispatch.

Before leaving, he took Xie Qingcheng to the Oceanarium.

It was a decision made by Qin Ciyan after a long period of reflection and choice.

Sea creatures are often the most healing.

"That's the nurse shark, that ...... right, the one that's been swimming in the far corner, that one's the lemon shark."

Qin Ciyan, like a doting father with his son, and Xie Qingcheng, each holding a cone of ice cream, walked through the blue Oceanarium.

Maybe he is a loving father.

Standing beside him as the waters shifted and the light hazed and stretched was the child he would never see as an adult again.

The two of them ended up at the Jellyfish Palace.

It was an area of the Oceanarium with crystal clear glass walls in all directions and many glazed columns standing in the middle of the hall.

And floating and sinking behind all that glass are thousands of water sprites.

Xie Qingcheng walked in and slightly widened his eyes.

It was as if he had entered an ancient world, where beings from six hundred and fifty million years ago swam soothingly around him, flaring their crystalline bodies, which were like flotsam, like falling snow, like the first rays of the morning sun in early summer, like the last pools of flowers in twilight spring.

The bloom of spring, summer, fall and winter are all brewing in that life made of water. With the ethereal tinkling of the octave box of the Jellyfish Palace, one's heart sinks into the depths, into the distant Ice Age, and 20,000 leagues under the sea.

Xie Qingcheng walked through the long glass tunnel of sparkling water, and for the first time since her illness, she felt a long-lost peace of mind.

It wasn't the calm he usually forced himself to have.

Rather, it is truly, soothing, releasing, and calming.

"Nice." He whispered as he watched a giant jellyfish float past his eyes like green smoke.

Qin Ciyan looked at him with a smile, "Creatures like jellyfish don't have a mind, a heart, a spine, or eyes ...... Ninety five percent of their body is water. The lifespan isn't very long either, only a few short months, and the longest deep sea jellyfish can only live for a few years."

"......"

"But you see, they live so freely and ethereally that they are a very beautiful sight in themselves. Many people can feel peace like never before just by looking at them."

"You too?"

"When I was young and studying in the US, I used to run to the oceanarium there every month, for no other reason than to find some peace in the midst of my boredom. As soon as I went there, I would head over to the jellyfish section and sit there for an afternoon." Qin Ciyan smiled nostalgically, "So many years have passed since then. ...... The ticket agent at the oceanarium even said that if I couldn't find a wife in the future, I could come to their museum for free to get a jellyfish and get married at home, and that the oceanarium could organize a wedding for me. hahahaha. "

Xie Qingcheng turned to look at him.

In the gentleness of the Sea Moon Aquamarine like the white moon sinking into the ocean, he looked at Qin Ciyan and finally smiled as well.

It was also the first time he had smiled in such a stretched way since his illness.

"Thank you, Old Qin."

"It's okay, kiddo."

Qin Ciyan left and went back to Yanzhou.

But Xie Qingcheng slowly found a way to control his emotions well. It was taught to him by his half-father, and passed on to him as a precious gift.

So he, too, like Qin Ciyan twenty years ago, frequented the Jellyfish Palace to look at these 650 million year old beings.

The teenager Qin Ciyan becomes the teenager Xie Qingcheng, and the figures of the two healers are vaporized and overlapped in the world of countless misty jellyfish.

Whenever Xie Qingcheng felt sicker, his senses were numb, and he was unusually suffocated, he would gaze at the videos of the jellyfish--

No eyes.

Can't see the light.

No heart.

Can't feel the heartache.

No brains.

or non-existent joy and sorrow, is a life far more numb than his.

Yet they remain comfortable, splashing ink on one healing painting after another with ninety-five percent water.

Living well is the meaning of life, says Qin Ciyan.

And these jellyfish are the best explanation for living well.

Day after day, time flew by, and Xie Qingcheng eventually became extremely cool, calm and peaceful by himself.

He became a virtually unknown mental Ai Bola patient of the first order.

"In a way, you've beaten this disease. As long as it stays like this and doesn't come back, you can live peacefully until you're forty."

Qin Ciyan said.

"Even longer."

The reason he says it's been longer is because the Life Lab over in the U.S. has developed a special drug.

Their rn-13 research was later halted by continental legislation, the public marched to protest this non-humanitarian act of using homeless people as human subjects, and under pressure, the Institute destroyed all of their rn-13 medicines and put them into follow-up treatments for those who had already been tested.

And how to extend the life span of rn-13 subjects became their main topic.

Essentially, rn-13 overdraws the body's metabolism, allowing patients to shorten their lives while healing themselves.

So over the years, they eventually developed the extended-release drug, that's a drug that drastically reduces the metabolic cycle.

This drug kills normal people if they take too much of it, but rn-13 subjects can tolerate it and are able to have their lives prolonged because the agent greatly slows down the rate of cell division that follows.

And this time the drug is formally validated by repeated testing.

Qin Ciyan told Xie Qingcheng: "As long as you keep taking it, together with your self-control, then you will be no different from normal people, and you can live to be seventy years old. You may even live longer than me."

The word "normal" touched Xie Qingcheng's heart.

He hadn't felt those three words that close to him in a long time.

Knowing that he took rn-13 that year, he thought he would never have a normal, full life again.

"What about side effects?" He suppressed the soft tremor in his voice.

"You're not stupid." Qin Ciyan sighed, "But the side effects aren't unacceptable ...... Your reflexes, mental clarity, and all those, very much dependent on cellular activation, will be reduced."

"But you yourself are very smart. If you don't take this drug, you'll have a very remarkable build up, and when you take it ...... that is, your abilities become less and less prominent ...... " Qin Ciyan said, "But Shay. Even if this treatment weakens your mind, you can still be a very remarkable psychiatrist. It's just that you can only be a doctor, and it's no longer possible for you to spread your mind to other fields and be a leader in multiple areas at the same time like you used to be."

"Think about it."

At that time, Xie Qingcheng had already enrolled in the University of Medical Sciences to study psychology for eight years.

He had planned to do more than just finish his studies during his time at the university; he had also obtained Qin Ciyan's permission to resume his former biopharmaceutical research.

He's so emotionally stable now that even if there's an occasional moment when he can't control it, he can rely on the jellyfish video to suppress his condition.

As soon as he saw the floating ancient beings, he was able to quickly calm down and stop having strong emotions, a conditioned reflex he had trained into himself.

And he would never again engage in the behavior of using self-inflicted injuries to further the course of his experiments.

Qin Ciyan therefore acceded to his request.

But the advent of cure-alls has once again thrown Xie Qingcheng onto a scale of choices - the

It's to get back to normal, give up research, and settle down to be a doctor from now on.

Or is it a perilous path downward, accomplishing tasks beyond the reach of the common man, and then departing this life at the age of forty?

He had to make a choice.

And just at that moment--

Something happened that had a big impact on Xie Qingcheng.