Su Muqing, with her eyes tightly shut, kept fumbling at her collar. Yet, the suffocating sensation, as if she were being haunted, wouldn't release its grip!
"So stuffy, so hot, let me out, I'm suffocating, I can't breathe..." Large beads of sweat trickled down Su Muqing's forehead.
Her mouth gaped open, gasping for air in large gulps. Her throat emitted a wheezing sound, but there was no relief. She could feel herself exhaling, but couldn't draw in a single breath of oxygen...
Su Muqing released her hands from her collar and instead began to choke herself. She was attempting to awaken herself from the nightmare through this method.
...
After trying for a long time, the pain showed no improvement. Despair filled Su Muqing's heart; she wanted to give up...
"Let it be! Anyway, she's the only one left now. Even if she dies, no one will be sad, right?"
Slowly, Su Muqing stopped struggling. Her body trembled and convulsed uncontrollably. She tried to calm herself down, accepting her impending death. Indeed, the pain seemed to lessen slightly!
...
Su Muqing was sweet and cute in appearance, with a cheerful and lively personality. Her academic performance was also decent. She was just an ordinary third-year medical student. As an only child, she had been showered with endless love by her parents since childhood.
Two months ago, on her 19th birthday, her parents closed their supermarket business and drove all the way from their hometown to celebrate her birthday. Unfortunately, they got into an accident on the road and both perished!
When she received the news, Su Muqing felt a wave of dizziness. Her world instantly collapsed!
Her relatives helped her apply for a long leave of absence and took her back to handle her parents' funeral arrangements. After everything was settled, she rested at home for over a month and was preparing to return to school today.
Su Muqing, holding her suitcase with one hand and her parents' birthday gift with the other, stood outside her family's supermarket waiting for the minibus.
Her gift was a gold necklace with a pendant of an antique-style jade Ruyi. At the time of the accident, the small box was in Su Fu's jacket pocket, close to his heart!
After receiving the necklace, Su Muqing wound it around her wrist a few times and then clutched the pendant in her hand.
Standing by the roadside, Su Muqing shook her head. Ever since her parents' accident, she had been spacing out! She would often recall them unconsciously, feeling as if they were right beside her, and she would often talk to them.
In this state of fluctuating between hallucinations and reality, Su Muqing's attention became increasingly unfocused, and she spoke less.
Her relatives all thought she was overcome with grief. After accompanying her for a while, they believed that time would heal everything, so no one noticed her deteriorating mental state!
In a daze, Su Muqing seemed to see the green pedestrian light on the crosswalk flashing continuously. The vehicles on the road were honking incessantly, urging pedestrians forward, the sounds exceptionally piercing.
Yet, the people around her were all engrossed in conversation, as if they couldn't see the green light or hear the honking.
Su Muqing looked around. She felt as if her eyes were covered by a layer of mist; everything around her was blurry and indistinct.
Moreover, the people nearby seemed not to see her at all. But she could clearly hear the curses from the drivers inside the cars.
"Daughter, don't walk any further, hurry home!" Suddenly, a familiar shout rang out, momentarily clearing Su Muqing's dazed mind. Did she hear her father's voice again?
Su Muqing turned her head, trying to locate the source of the sound. Suddenly! Her pupils contracted sharply, and a flash of white light appeared before her eyes, so bright it forced her to raise her hand to cover them.
Sensing the approaching danger, a wave of panic surged through Su Muqing! She instinctively tried to run back in the direction of her home, but her feet felt as if they weighed a thousand pounds.
With a "boom," screams erupted from all around, filling Su Muqing's ears.
Su Muqing felt herself floating in mid-air. A splash of red mist flashed before her eyes, and then she plunged into utter chaos.
The sudden accident caused a brief moment of silence in the surroundings. After recovering their senses, some immediately called the police, while others called for an ambulance.
The young girl was flung several meters away, landing on her side near the guardrail, her hair spread out. Her suitcase had been knocked into the central green belt.
A few brave neighbors stepped forward. Seeing the person lying in a pool of blood, their faces were filled with pity and regret. The Su family was truly too tragic. In just two months, the entire family had met with misfortune!
As Su Muqing was thrown, the jade Ruyi she was tightly clutching fell from her palm and landed under her wrist.
As the pendant touched the blood, it began to emit a faint glow, which gradually intensified! The pendant, originally a vibrant green jade, now seemed to swell like a blood-red leech that had absorbed its fill of blood.
Because she had fallen on her side, people dared not get too close to see, thus blocking part of the view. Furthermore, the blood splattered on the ground also attracted most of the attention.
At this moment, the pendant pressed under her wrist, as if it had come alive, slowly burrowed into Su Muqing's wrist. Finally, it embedded itself entirely into her wrist, as if it were a birthmark that had always been there.
...
"Daughter, don't sleep, get up quickly! Today is your birthday, you can't sleep in!"
"Qingqing, hurry and get up! Lazy girl! You can't even open your eyes, what will become of you if you continue like this!"
"What nonsense are you talking about? My girl isn't lazy at all, she's the most obedient. Look! She's waking up now! She's already opening her eyes!"
...
In her hazy consciousness, Su Muqing seemed to hear her parents' voices again. Her mother's tone was tinged with displeasure, while her father's voice was, as always, gentle and filled with laughter.
They kept calling her to wake up, to open her eyes. They even reached out as if to pull her!
Amidst her parents' incessant calls, Su Muqing held her breath fiercely and clenched her teeth. As she desperately opened her eyes, she forcefully threw her head backward.
The entire process was suppressed and painful. It was like a drowning person, hovering on the brink of death, being pulled up, only to be pushed back into the water when they thought they were saved.
Just as Su Muqing felt she was about to suffocate to death, finally! Her left hand emitted a piercing pain, causing her to cry out loudly.
"Ah—"
The moment she opened her eyes, large tears slid down from the corners of her eyes. She instinctively gasped for air. This feeling of being able to breathe again was incredibly exhilarating.
Su Muqing's eyeballs darted around. She squeezed out the excess moisture from her eyes and looked around for a while before realizing that the surroundings were pitch black, with a strong sense of oppression.
Where was this? Was she in emergency resuscitation at the hospital? Why wasn't there a single light? And the strange smell that tickled her nose wasn't like hospital air at all!
She had clearly been hit by a car and flung away. Why did she now feel that, apart from slightly labored breathing, a dry and sore throat, and overall weakness, there were no other discomforts?
Could it be that she wasn't seriously injured? Or was this just a bad dream?
No! Those repeated near-death experiences were too vivid.
Su Muqing tried to move her limbs but found herself in a very small space. With great effort, she managed to move her hands in front of her.
Without time to ponder the strange circumstances, she was more anxious about her current environment!
Was she locked in a box? She reached out and felt the covering on her body.
It felt somewhat like grass, strand by strand, with clear gaps in between. It was also somewhat like the sleeping mats they used in the summer! But it was softer and drier than a sleeping mat!