251 THE WOMAN AND THE BOY
Note: this chapter contains a flashback scene.
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[“Please open your eyes, ChenChen! Mother is here, so please wake up!”
Bai Chen could hear a woman’s voice, and the woman also said that she was his mother. He still remembered that he had a mother before he transmigrated into this strange world, but he was sure that his mother didn’t sound like the woman who had just spoken.
What’s more, how that woman had just called him “ChenChen” was also proof that she was indeed not his mother from his previous life as his mother used to call him “Ah Chen.” His mother knew that he hated being called “ChenChen,” and that was why his family rarely called him that if they didn’t purposely tease him.
Just now he could hear how the woman called him by a nickname that sounded ridiculous to his ears, but Bai Chen couldn’t even open his eyes to see the person who somehow sounded very worried and panicked in his ears.
There was darkness all around him, and that was why Bai Chen couldn’t see anything. He wanted to open his eyes and also move his body, but he couldn’t because he could only lie on the ground helplessly.
.....
Yes, he could feel that he was lying on a surface covered in gravel which made his back feel uncomfortable, but he couldn’t even get up from that position.
‘This is strange. Why can’t I get up from my position? I can’t even move my body and open my eyes. And even if I try to open my mouth to speak, I can’t do it either,’ Bai Chen had many questions in his head, but he couldn’t even voice them out because he just lay there unable to do anything.
“W-what happened to the kid, Auntie? Why doesn’t he open his eyes?”
Suddenly, Bai Chen heard another voice that didn’t belong to the woman, and this time, it sounded like it belonged to a child, and it seemed like it was a little boy who had just spoken.
A boy and a woman? Why were they near Bai Chen when he couldn’t even open his eyes to look around him? He just lay there, but then he noticed some strangeness in the conversation between the two people.
‘The woman knows how to call me, but the boy doesn’t sound like he knows anything about me because he didn’t even say my name. The woman may know me, but maybe the boy doesn’t, does he?’ Bai Chen was once again curious, but of course, he didn’t get an answer to his question as he still couldn’t move his mouth to spit out a few words.
“Why are you asking me?” The woman’s voice could be heard again, and Bai Chen knew that the woman was talking to the boy who had just asked the question. “You were the one who was with my ChenChen before I arrived at this place, and you should know what happened to him, right?”
It seemed that the woman was crying when she questioned the boy, and Bai Chen really wanted to know what was going on here. He only remembered how he was talking to Wu Jinhai, but then he suddenly fell unconscious, and when he once again regained consciousness, he couldn’t even open his eyes to see what was going on.
“I’m sorry, Auntie,” the boy suddenly apologized, and even if Bai Chen couldn’t see the boy’s expression, he could somehow sense that the boy sounded guilty. “I... I thought my life was useless, and then I decided to jump into the river. I heard that my mother died in this river too after some bad people kidnapped her, and I thought I would be able to meet her if I also died in the river.”
Bai Chen was dumbfounded when he heard the boy’s answer. The answer came out so innocently, and he assumed that the boy was probably only eight or nine years old judging by his voice and his words.
And after hearing how the boy answered the woman’s question, Bai Chen was suddenly able to guess where he was currently lying. His ears suddenly caught the sound of water flowing over a surface that might have been covered by rocks, and he concluded that he was lying next to the river now.
Suddenly, Bai Chen’s slow brain finally managed to grasp the situation. ‘So, I’m now lying by the river, right? Was this what happened after the real Bai Chen tried to save the child who nearly drowned in the river? As far as I remember, Bai Chen fainted after he accidentally lost his Power Crystal, and maybe what I’m now experiencing is indeed what happened when Bai Chen was unconscious?’
Fortunately, Bai Chen’s brain wasn’t too late to come up with some theories, and he was somehow certain that he had come up with an accurate theory by now.
After he heard the boy answer the woman’s question, Bai Chen no longer heard any voice, and he couldn’t even confirm that the two people were still there with him because he still couldn’t open his eyes to look around him.
“So, you wanted to kill yourself by jumping into the river?” The woman suddenly spoke again, and it reassured Bai Chen that the two people were still near his body now.
“...” However, he didn’t hear the boy answer the woman even after the woman questioned him again.
“It’s a pity you lost your mother in this river, and I also feel bad about it,” the woman spoke again even though she got no response from the boy. “But what you did ended up hurting my son. He was the one who saved you when you almost drowned in the river, right? He can’t even open his eyes now, and do you know the reason why he can’t even open his eyes and move his body now? He lost his consciousness because he accidentally gave his Power Crystal to you, and that’s why you came back to life even if you died earlier.”]