Until the blonde girl disappeared into the distance, Black Dog and Iris finally breathed a sigh of relief, almost collapsing to the ground.
"Is that..." Black Dog stammered, "the Dark Gold Rose?"
The three words 'luminous prism grade' instilled too much awe in them. For ordinary people like them, luminous prism grade fixers mostly existed only in legends—beings capable of annihilating an entire hive city single-handedly.
Just facing such an existence, an unspeakable oppressive feeling, like giant hands, fiercely gripped their hearts.
If the director had truly fought such a person here, not to mention what would happen to the director herself, they, at least, would surely be buried forever beneath the ruins, just like everyone else here.
"Senior Katina..." Iris quietly approached, seeing the woman's pale face.
Katina gave a wry smile and pressed her hand to her forehead: "Forget it. I'm too old to be impulsive over such minor things." She glanced at the horribly disfigured bodies in the ruins. "Even if the Dark Gold Rose hadn't made a move, these people would have been unlikely to survive if we hadn't arrived in time."
"If we had arrived just a little bit sooner, this wouldn't have happened," Black Dog complained, still shaken.
"The Dark Gold Rose is so powerful, surely she had the ability to protect these people..." Iris whispered.
"Perhaps their cries annoyed her," Katina said, her eyes dimming as she gave a self-deprecating laugh.
"Forget it, I'm not qualified to criticize others. Haven't I done enough by turning a blind eye?"
"Just like most people, I've watched this city decay, watched more people struggle in its rotting mire."
"Four resurrections in a single month... just thinking about the future is exhausting. If not for the Dark Gold Rose's intervention this time, many more would have perished in this disaster."
"Let the rescue team handle the deceased. Let's go and see if anyone is still alive beneath the rubble."
It wasn't until several hours after the disaster erupted that news of the events in the Keyboard District reached Life Daybreak. Most ordinary citizens in the Star of Art were unaware of what had transpired across the river.
Apparently, under the tacit coordination of various factions, news of this disaster was suppressed. Only in the late hours of the night, under pressure from the Human Rights Association, did Life Daybreak's medical centers symbolically dispatch a few rescue teams to the disaster site. While unconscious, Tang Xin vaguely felt someone embrace her—a familiar and warm hug, like waves lapping at the seashore. Dimly, she glimpsed strands of hazy golden hair.
As the sound of the sea receded, children's laughter floated like a dream in her ears. She saw neat, bright classrooms, heard children reciting in unison, and saw many carefree, smiling faces. The bubble burst into cold reality, and piercing cries shattered the deep, cold night.
Tang Xin awoke from her stupor, her conductor's string sword clutched tightly in her hand. Around her lay a wreckage of steel, thick rebar piercing concrete walls, twisted into grotesque shapes. Collapsed fan-shaped slabs of stone blocked the passageway, and at the end of the narrow darkness came the sound of crying.
Following the children's wails, she crawled a distance through the single-person wide ruin passage. Scattered gravel on the ground scraped her knees, and tiny splinters pricked her wounds, but Tang Xin merely frowned slightly.
Compared to the gruesomely deceased people around her, she hadn't suffered much in this disaster. What truly concerned her was the dream-like reality she had glimpsed while unconscious.
As the children's cries grew closer, Tang Xin strained to push away a large stone blocking her path. Behind it lay a dark, not-so-spacious area. The sound of the falling stone slab echoed clearly in the silence, and the children's crying ceased.
In the darkness, a dozen dusty little faces uniformly looked at Tang Xin, huddled in the small space. Confusion, helplessness, and terror spread across their faces.
"Big Sister Tang?" one of them tentatively asked.
"It's me," Tang Xin said. "Are you hurt?"
Soon, many children came forward and burst into tears around the blue-haired girl, releasing their long-suppressed grief.
"Big Sister Tang, Brother Archer... Sister Yulina and they're all dead, Little Rio too... What should we do?"
Apart from them, most of the children had perished. The familiar preschool teachers and orphanage staff had also died in the disaster, as had Director Aerylia.
"Stop crying, all of you! The dead are dead. Crying, crying, all you do is cry. Will that bring them back?" a little girl stood up at that moment, loudly silencing the children's sobs, then quickly stepped forward and took Tang Xin's hand.
"Big Sister Tang, come with me."
"There's something more important!"
In the darkness, the little girl's face was covered in thick dust, and Tang Xin didn't recognize her at first. Only after hearing her voice did she softly say the girl's name: "Alice?"
"It's me, Big Sister Tang."
The little girl led Tang Xin to two people, around whom many children were anxiously circling, lost. One of them was buried mostly under the rubble, while the other was in a high fever and unconscious. Compared to her slender body, her highly distended abdomen was spasming, silently portending something...
Tang Xin slowly widened her eyes, turning to Alice beside her. "Quick, go find those books, and collect all the scattered paper on the ground."
Alice nodded repeatedly and organized the children to do so, while Tang Xin knelt beside the other person. Several children gathered around the man, holding damp rags soaked in water to his lips. Ince's cracked lips twitched slightly as they touched the water. Seeing Tang Xin arrive, he gave a wry smile:
"My apologies, Miss, for you to see me in such a wretched state."
Tang Xin shook her head, gently raised her hand, and soft water currents gathered and flowed in the air, lifting the huge stone pressing down on Ince. As he tried to get up, the girl stopped him: "Don't move. Your waist and legs are pierced by rebar. You've been pinned for so long; I need to check if your blood vessels have necrotized."
To remain calm and rational under such circumstances, Ince couldn't help but sigh a few times, no longer struggling, until the water seeped into his skin, silently healing his injuries.
After the children brought books and collected the scattered paper into a small pile, Tang Xin concentrated, her will focused. A tiny, almost imperceptible flame ignited at her fingertips, its light reflected in the girl's eyes.
Stabilizing Ince's vital signs, Tang Xin brought the faint flame to Mel, who was in a high fever. The latter seemed to have woken up, her eyes opening just a slit, recognizing the girl's face.
"Is that you, Sevinah?"
"Don't move," Tang Xin said, propping the woman's body up slightly. "Can you still hold on?"
"What?"
At that moment, Mel's body suddenly trembled violently. Pain caused her abdomen to cramp, and she bit down hard on her pale lips. Blood quickly stained the skirt beneath her. In an instant, both of them realized what was happening.
Mel grabbed Tang Xin's sleeve, her eyes lingering for a moment on the severely damaged and twisted skin on the girl's arm, then she spoke urgently:
"Please, Sevinah, help me. This is Chris's and my child. He's already dead. I just want to see this child once. It's all I wish for."
"I told you not to move," Tang Xin admonished, then began preparing to help Mel give birth. She had, of course, never experienced such a thing, and even though she forced herself to calm down, a flicker of panic and helplessness inevitably crossed her face.
But upon seeing the woman's hopeful eyes, Tang Xin's wavering gaze quickly firmed. The burning pile of books added a touch of warmth to the cold space.
The process of childbirth was destined to be incredibly painful, especially in such a terrible environment. The woman's face was drenched in sweat, her hair matted to her pale face. Enduring the excruciating full-body spasms, Mel looked at Tang Xin by the faint firelight, murmuring:
"I'm sorry... Sevinah, for what I did to you before..."
"I'm sorry... I shouldn't have ganged up with them to exclude you, shouldn't have poured cold water on you, shouldn't have carved nasty words on your desk."
"Do you think saying these things now will atone for your sins and earn my forgiveness?" Tang Xin said.
"Please, you must help me..."
"One thing at a time," Tang Xin's eyes were calm.
The bloodstains beneath the woman grew deeper and deeper, and the firelight in her eyes grew brighter. The greatest maternal instinct burst forth with dazzling light at this moment. The woman's slender body, long suffering from malnutrition, erupted with unimaginable strength.
Later, Sevinah and Alice also rushed over to help, and Mel nearly bit a piece of flesh from Tang Xin's delicate arm.
In desperation, people only prayed for life.
An incredibly long and anxious period of time passed.
The first cry of life was born on the cold ruins.
Before witnessing her child enter this cold world, the woman's gaze dimmed further. Postpartum hemorrhage, coupled with her already weakened body, meant the suffering of life became inevitable under the predetermined trajectory of fate.
Mel grabbed Tang Xin, who was attempting to heal her.
For most injured people, the girl's life force was enough to heal them, but for a mother giving birth in such distress, everything Tang Xin did was but a drop in the ocean.
She was merely overdrawing her own life force into a bottomless pit.
Mel poured all her hopes of survival into her unborn infant, gripping Tang Xin's hand tightly, gently stroking the girl's pale face, wiping blood from the corner of her lips:
"After the ice and snow melt, will spring come?"
"If you have the chance, please tell her for me."
"I love her... I love her..."
"I love her..."
This cold and sorrowful world, which could accommodate so many tragedies, could it accommodate an infant destined to experience hardship and countless suffering from birth?
Watching the woman's hand fall limply,
Watching the dirty little faces around her,
Watching this underground ruin,
Watching this cold and lonely world.
Watching countless lost people trapped within black walls, struggling in solitude, helplessness, and pain.
Tang Xin's final gaze rested on the crying infant. Perhaps she had found the answer to the question that had always plagued her.
Why does life cry?
They face countless hardships and sorrows,
They face the injustice of fate, unable to see their future, perhaps never knowing the meaning of their existence throughout their lives.
Yet they must bravely come into this world, on these cold ruins, and let out life's first cry.
Because,
Life is destined to face this cold and cruel world.
After an unknown period, the tightly sealed wall was broken open from the outside. The rescuers saw the scene inside: a blue-haired girl kneeling amidst the ruins, her long hair spread across the ground.
The girl's dull eyes lifted, looking at them, no trace of lingering clarity visible in her dust-covered gaze.
The children, overjoyed to have survived, hugged each other and cried loudly. Someone from the Life Daybreak rescue team recognized the blue-haired girl in the ruins. Ignoring the injured children, he approached Tang Xin and extended a hand:
"Miss Sevinah."
"This is...?"
The rescuer saw the sleeping infant, then the woman's gradually cooling body on the ground, and realizing what had happened, he tactfully closed his mouth.
Tang Xin shook her head, handing the swaddled infant to the rescuer. "Take her to Life Elegy Hospital, and find a wet nurse for her." "Miss, you..."
The rescuer watched the blue-haired girl's back slowly recede, then looked at the infant in his arms, feeling somewhat helpless.
"I have more important things to do," Tang Xin murmured.
"More important things...?"
News of the incident was never published. Until late into the night, the media was still hyping up the Starry Art Competition scheduled for two days later.
Instead, online discussions about the 'Dark Gold Rose' sparked a new wave. Xu Xiaoyou calmly sipped her tea, watching the threads that were nearly deifying the Dark Gold Rose, almost elevating her to godhood.
This time, the 'Artist' who resurrected was far less powerful than the previous two. She knew this better than anyone. Who would have thought that, after being encountered by Association members before leaving, it was mistakenly rumored that the Dark Gold Rose soloed a world-class urban legend, 'The Artist,' in 3 minutes and 15 seconds.
However, this was a good thing for her. At least the mysterious and powerful image of the 'Dark Gold Rose' was established. In the future, when she appeared as the 'Dark Gold Rose,' people from various factions would have to weigh the cost of provoking her.
Who would have thought that the true identity of the famous 'Dark Gold Rose' was merely an ordinary grade 3 fixer?
Of course, this 'ordinary' was predicated on her being bankrupt.
At this moment, a newly drawn social card caught Xu Xiaoyou's attention.
【Skill Card: Orator】
【Quality: Limited (Purple)】
【Effect: Upon use, permanently gain the 'Natural Orator' effect. 'Natural Orator': Your speeches possess an invisible charm, making them more easily believed. When you stand in the spotlight, you will attract more attention. (Note: This social card can stack with other charm-type social cards.)】
Rate on N.U.
