She hadn't fallen asleep. She was dead.
Zhu Qiqi realized this belatedly.
Oh. She was dead.
Zhu Qiqi gazed at the bridge for a long time.
Then she heard a voice.
"Xiao Qi..."
Zhu Qiqi shuddered.
The voice was so familiar. So familiar that she thought she was imagining it.
"Xiao Qi, come back."
It was Song Jiuyi.
It was Brother Jiuyi's voice.
Zhu Qiqi whirled around.
A figure was faintly visible through the thick fog.
Dressed in flowing white, with long, ink-black hair, he stood where light met mist, reaching out to her.
"Xiao Qi, come back." The voice sounded again, clearer this time, carrying an urgency and pleading Zhu Qiqi had never heard before. "Come back to Brother Jiuyi."
Zhu Qiqi's eyes suddenly reddened.
She wanted to call out to him, but when she opened her mouth, no sound came out. On the road to the underworld, the living cannot reach the dead with their voices, and the dead cannot reach the living.
But Song Jiuyi seemed to know what she wanted to say.
"I know you can hear me." He took a step forward. The mist churned around him, as if trying to swallow him, but some invisible force held it back. "Xiao Qi, be good. Turn back."
