Setting off always happens in the dark of night. For me, every departure has always been chosen in the chill of early morning—whether hiking, driving, or taking a flight. I enjoy that feeling of brushing past the noses of ghosts, stepping through the lingering fog, listening to the violin's tangled melodies, watching the darkness I fear the most, and walking along the road. <br><br>The devilish night transforms into the most beautiful shade of darkness. It is a different kind of black, one that contains all colors yet breaks them into nothingness, a mother of dazzling origins, and the final resting place of light. <br><br>This is the color I am most obsessed with. It's an invisible color, unseen because there is no light in your eyes. It’s a blackness you feel with your heart. That is why it’s the only color that photographers and painters can never replicate. This beauty drives away my fear. I am addicted to the pleasure of transitioning from fear to hope. <br><br>12:20 AM. The alarm clock hadn’t gone off yet, but I suddenly woke up. Xiahe’s last words to me before she fell unconscious echoed in my ears: “Yichuan, Old Guan is hosting an event tonight, and I’ll be accompanying him. I might be busy until late. I’ve turned off all reminders and alarms on my phone. I just want to wake up naturally.” <br><br>Yesterday afternoon, outside the ICU of the hospital, I pressed the doorbell. A small window opened, revealing a pair of cold, indifferent eyes. I held up the medical record to show the patient’s name and bed number. The eyes scanned it briefly, and the sliding door opened—it led to a reception room connected to the ward. There was another door beyond it. Inside the reception room was a table, a slightly overweight, bald male doctor, and an old man wearing a grayish-brown coat and rubber shoes sitting to the side. <br><br>The doctor didn’t even look at me. He coldly said, “Are you the family of the Patient in Room 9? We notified you to come here now to inform you that, medically speaking, the Patient in Room 9, Xiahe, has suffered an Irreversible Brain Injury. There is no point in attempting resuscitation. Either you sign the papers to voluntarily give up resuscitation and take her back with you, or… By the way, what is your relationship with her? Are you an immediate family member?” <br><br>I had anticipated such a conversation, but I hadn’t prepared a response. All I wanted was to see her. I didn’t cry and asked, “Xiahe, is she dead?” <br><br>The doctor adjusted the frame of his glasses and said, “You could say she is clinically dead.” <br><br>I replied, word by word, “I need to see her. I am her only family.” <br><br>The doctor, busy with his writing, didn’t lift his head as he said, “Visiting hours are at 3 PM.” <br><br>With a resolute tone, I said, “I must see her now to assess her condition before deciding whether to take her away.” <br><br>The doctor suddenly stopped writing, raised his head, and looked at me. He froze for a second, as if evaluating my determination, then said, “Oh, fine, go ahead. Tell the nurse to open the locker for Room 9. There are sterile gowns inside; change into one and go see her.” <br><br>I changed into the gown and shoes, put on a mask, and the nurse opened the door leading to the ward for me. Once again, I entered this place where life and death intertwined. It felt like The Threshold of Death, where wandering souls either weep in sorrow or smile in relief. Perhaps, just at my nose’s tip, I could touch the substance of another world, though I couldn’t see, hear, or step into their two-dimensional or five-dimensional realms. Yet, I could unmistakably sense their existence. I just wanted to roar at them, “Let go of my Xiahe!” <br><br>The hospital beds were lined up, with about half a meter between each bed. Curtains were drawn up around some for privacy. I saw Room 9. This time, she was truly asleep, a sleep of complete unawareness. The monitor displayed a heartbeat of 32, sustained by the pacemaker, with the ventilator maintaining life signs. She lay there alone in the ICU, her body riddled with tubes. <br><br>Her face was almost translucent, the same color as the sheets. Her long eyelashes seemed to tremble faintly. Her lips were cyanotic. Her brows were furrowed, with faint lines of worry etched between them. The nurse lifted her eyelids and shone a flashlight into her eyes. Her pupils had dilated to match the size of her irises. The nurse stated, “No Reaction to Light Stimulus.” It was the same phrase I’d heard another nurse say not long ago, delivered with the same tone and gesture. If this were a movie subtitle, even the punctuation would be identical. <br><br>The nurse pulled back the quilt. Xiahe lay almost entirely bare beneath it, her chest exposed with monitoring equipment attached. The nurse said to me, “The marks on her chest are from the pacemaker shocks.” Her stark white chest bore two patches of purple bruising. Her perfectly firm breasts stood out conspicuously, with pale pink areolas glowing like snow lotus flowers in the midst of this pale land. There were coin-sized bruises on her neck. The nurse remarked, “These bruises were already present when the patient arrived. They don’t look like a skin condition?” Her tone carried a hint of disdain. <br><br>I gazed at this jade-like body, radiant yet icy, and a line of poetry suddenly emerged in my mind: “A Graceful Form Resting Under the Moon, Already Summoning the Zhou Army to Jinyang.” In those days, Consort Feng Xiaolian of the absurd Northern Qi dynasty had her emperor, in his madness, flaunt her unparalleled beauty by having her lay naked in the grand hall for the ministers to feast their eyes upon—so indulgent in their scandalous revelry that they ignored the enemy closing in on Jinyang. Beauty is dreadful, especially when those who behold it are foolish and consumed by desire. <br><br>Xiahe, you’re lying here; do you know that my world is collapsing bit by bit? Get up! Didn’t you promise to accompany me to court? This body—it seems no longer Xiahe but a wax figure. My Xiahe isn’t here. I touched this body—cold and stiff. Is she dead? Has she left too? Unable to control myself, I embraced her, pressing my face against hers, my scalding tears streaming down ceaselessly. <br><br>I pleaded with the nurse, “Could you give me ten minutes? Let me stay with her for ten minutes.” <br><br>The nurse looked at me, sighed, and said, “I don’t know what good it does to be alone with her now. Fine, fine. But hand me your phone; no photos are allowed here. Make it quick.”")
