Chapter 381 - Really Like This Book
The astringent scent of disinfectant filled the air in the hospital in which Mo Cheng envisioned himself. It was a crisp white ward, lined with a row of beds on each side of the long room.
The only sources of decoration, if they could be called that, were several cardiac monitors, oxygen tanks, and a small TV that hung from the ceiling. The beds, like everything else, were white, covered in freshly-laundered cotton sheets, matching the sickly pale shade of the walls; everything was lifeless and dull.
There were a few others in the room, children around his age, but he did not recognise their faces. They mattered little to him.
In his mind's eye, he saw the image of his younger self - a bony, frail slip of a child. He peered around from his semi-reclined position on his bed before letting his head fall back onto the pillow with a heavy thump.
Even this small movement was done under extreme hardship, and used more of his energy than it should. He always felt tired and sluggish, and - worse yet - everything just hurt.
A nurse opened the door and slipped quietly into the room. She approached his bedside, pushing a small cart carrying an assortment of syringes, oxygen masks, and other medical equipment. She looked tired and weary, yet still smiled kindly at him.
"How are you feeling today, sweetie?" she asked as she eyed the heart monitor beside his bed.
"Absolutely amazing," Mo Cheng answered, as he did every day. "I think I'm ready to go back home."
The monitor beeped with a slightly inconsistent rhythm. He was doing his best to control his breathing, but his lungs were never willing to cooperate with his wishes, and his heart struggled to keep its strength.
"That's good," the nurse said. "You're getting better, slowly but surely." She smiled at him, but her eyes were filled with pity when she looked at him.
Despite knowing that she meant well, Mo Cheng didn't like the nurse one bit. He did not like being pitied, and he didn't enjoy having his blood taken, and he absolutely hated oxygen masks.
This nurse, through no fault of her own, raised his hackles and irked him to no end.
Propped on his knees was an old, worn-out book; he held it in place, the pages laid open. He was in the middle of reading it before the nurse entered the room.
"You really like this book, don't you?" the nurse asked as she eyed the book on his lap. She connected a plastic tube to one of the syringes and brought it over.
"Yeah, it's a really good story," Mo Cheng answered absentmindedly. He looked around the room, trying to focus on anything but the syringe in the nurse's hand.
The monitor beeped louder and a little faster as his heartbeat sped up.
Mo Cheng was the type of child who didn't have many hobbies. He couldn't go to school with his health the way it was; he couldn't play with the kids outside, and he was obviously too weak for sports as well. Even watching television made him fall asleep. His sole passion was reading, and ever since his uncle gave him this book, it was all he could think about.
How could he lose interest in it so soon? The protagonist of this story had the same name as him!
That was, however, where their similarities came to a soul-crushing end. While Mo Cheng needed to use a piss bucket because he was too weak to walk to the bathroom on his own, the Mo Cheng in the book travelled to a different country, studied martial arts, and battled monsters on a daily basis!
Except for their names, the Mo Cheng in the book was nothing like him. The protagonist was born to a wealthy family, adored by his siblings, fawned over by all the girls and, best of all, he was extremely talented and powerful. Mo Cheng envied him.
"What is this book about, anyway?" the nurse asked, clearly trying to keep him distracted while she drew blood from his skinny arm.
Mo Cheng's small hands were frail and shook like those of an old man, but his eyes brightened with youthful enthusiasm at the prospect of telling someone about his favorite story.
"It's a story about a hero who joins a sect to practise immortality! He makes lots of friends and battles monsters, and triumphs over evil and saves the world from destruction!" he babbled.
"I can see why you'd enjoy a story like that. That sounds like an action type of book. Does the hero also save a damsel in distress?" the nurse asked.
"Oh, he saves a bunch of them, and they all like him, too! It's because he's really handsome, you see." His words made the nurse laugh.
"Now this hero sounds like a troublesome sort of fella," she noted.
Mo Cheng grinned; he found the nurse a little less distasteful now that she was showing interest in the story he loved so much.
"And guess what else?" he asked excitedly. He rushed to explain without waiting for an answer. "He also has the same name as me!"
"Wow, the odds of that happening… what a coincidence!" the nurse wondered, faking enthusiasm as she pressed a cotton pad to his wrist. "Now, we're all done! That didn't hurt at all, did it?"
While Mo Cheng had been talking about his favorite story, the nurse had finished drawing his blood. Mo Cheng had felt the pinprick of the needle, but because he was so engrossed in what he was talking about, he'd barely felt any pain.
"I didn't feel a thing." Mo Cheng attempted to smile. His response seemed to please the nurse, and she gave him a piece of candy for his good behavior. Before leaving, she connected the nearest oxygen tank to a mask and placed the mask over his face, instructing him to leave it on and breathe through it until she returned.
Mo Cheng let out a deep breath through the mask, obeying despite how much he hated it. It always made so much noise, and that disrupted his concentration while he was reading.
Time passed slowly this way, always with the same old routine, day after day.
A year later, his uncle came to visit him in the hospital for his birthday, bringing him a laptop as a birthday present.
"Remember that book I gave you last year?" his uncle asked as he sat beside Mo Cheng and downloaded a program onto the desktop. "It turns out that old book made a comeback in recent years, and a famous game developer took interest in it. A few months ago they released a computer game based on it. It's an RPG-style game with multiple choice endings."
"RPG with multiple endings?" Mo Cheng repeated, his brows scrunched in confusion. What did his uncle mean by that?