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Every morning, Luo Li wakes up and is sure that Wang Nuonuo is dead.
Most days, she’s able to calm herself with the reminder that Zhang Lan would probably notify her if something did happen to Wang Nuonuo—her distrust of heroes had been overrun with Wang Nuonuo’s fondness for Luo Li, and Luo Li’s deep dislike of her ex-husband.
This morning, though—she dreams that all the machines keeping Wang Nuonuo alive fail, and that when she turns up for a visit, she finds that Wang Nuonuo is dead and Zhang Lan is staring soundlessly, unseeingly, at her daughter’s dead body. Or in the Ruins, her life simply slips away. It feels real in a way she can’t describe, just like looking at her father’s dead body, so what follows is that she stumbles out of bed, gets dressed fast enough that she doesn’t stop think about what she’s throwing on, and runs.
Her mother calls after her, half-rising from her perpetual position in the corner of the couch, but Luo Li has no time to spare for guilt or worry.
“Nuonuo-jie,” she pants out, clinging to the doorframe, “Nuonuo-jie, is she—”
“Same as always,” Zhang Lan says, giving her a confused once-over. “Did something happen?”
“Nothing,” Luo Li straightens up, stumbling inside the hospital room, “I just…” She doesn’t think she should be telling Zhang Lan that every night she dreams about Wang Nuonuo’s death in increasingly grim and terror-inducing ways when she already has enough to deal with. She debates asking if Ghostblade showed up again, then decides against it.
This is only the third time she herself is visiting Wang Nuonuo, after all. When she thinks about Wang Nuonuo, her chest feels like it’ll open up and drop her heart onto the floor, blood bubbling up her throat and choking her dead with guilt and rage. If only—
“What did the doctors say?” she asks the same question as always, gazing at Wang Nuonuo. That still expression, no life and no joy to it. Her hair cut short. The oxygen mask obscuring her mouth and nose.. Maybe she should ask if it’d be okay for other people to visit. Wang Nuonuo would like to hear Little Johnny’s voice, she thinks.
“Same as always,” Zhang Lan repeats. Her direct manner, her bluntness, is not as daunting as it might’ve been for the Luo Li who thought she could brute-force her way into achieving her dreams. Luo Li wasn’t hoping for anything new. Realizing how tense she’s holding herself, she drops her shoulders, exhaling. “It’s so early in the morning. Go home.”
“I—” Luo Li bites her tongue. She doesn’t feel very hungry, but she’ll go home and eat whatever her mother has made. Guilt is a funny thing. She doesn’t quite want to leave, but staying here, looking at a Wang Nuonuo who won’t wake up soon, a tired, exhausted Zhang Lan who can’t make herself move from her daughter’s bedside, is not particularly appealing either.
The decision’s been made for her, anyway.
“Nuonuo-jie,” she starts, and fails, and nods to Zhang Lan on her way out the door. All she can do is hope, pray, that her nightmares are just that. I couldn’t handle losing you again.