Free Web NovelChapter 383: She is still here
And then they saw her.
Hua Jing lay inside the coffin as though the earth had already claimed her. Her body was unnaturally still, pressed against the narrow wooden confines that had offered her no mercy. Her face was drained of all color, so pale it almost blended with the dull grain of the timber beneath her. Beads of sweat clung stubbornly to her temples and upper lip, leaving her skin sticky and cold under the faint forest light filtering down through the trees. Her lips were slightly parted, cracked from lack of air, as though she had been fighting for one last breath that never quite came.
Her hands told the cruelest story.
They were curled upward toward the lid, fingers bent at painful angles, as if she had clawed desperately at the coffin in a frantic attempt to escape. Small splinters of wood were embedded beneath her nails, and the delicate skin around her fingertips had torn open. Thin lines of dried blood streaked across her knuckles, mingling with soil. The space had been too small. The air too thin. The darkness too absolute.
For one terrifying instant, she looked dead.
That single thought shattered something inside Fu Jing Rong.
A raw, animal sound escaped his throat before he even realized he had made it. He dropped into the shallow pit without hesitation, his knee pressing against the edge of the coffin as he leaned in. Carefully, almost reverently, he slid his arms beneath her fragile frame and lifted her from that suffocating box. Soil crumbled away from her clothes as he drew her against him, her body limp in his grasp.
He shifted his position, bracing one knee against the coffin for support while lowering her gently against it so he could see her face clearly.
"Hua Jing," he called, his voice already breaking. "Hua Jing, wake up."
There was no response.
He cupped her face in his hands, his thumbs brushing frantically over her cheeks as if warmth might return under his touch. "Wake up. Please wake up," he begged, the composure he carried so effortlessly in every other aspect of his life completely gone now. "Baby, don’t do this. Don’t scare me like this. Open your eyes."
His fingers trembled violently as he moved to her neck, searching for a pulse. He pressed gently at first, then harder, shifting his touch as if he feared he had missed it. The silence stretched too long. His breathing became uneven, almost panicked.
He checked again.
And again.
The fear rising in his chest was suffocating. This was the woman he loved. The woman he had envisioned standing beside him for the rest of his life. The one who had quietly given him purpose when everything else felt like obligation. His father lay in a hospital bed fighting his own battle, suspended between strength and fragility. If Hua Jing slipped away too— frёeωebɳovel.com
The thought was unbearable.
"Please," he whispered hoarsely, shaking her gently. "Please don’t leave me. You promised you wouldn’t leave me. Wake up."
Desperation overtook restraint. He tilted her chin upward and pressed his lips to hers, breathing air into her lungs with trembling urgency. Once. Twice. He pulled back, searching her face for any sign, any flicker. He pressed his ear close to her mouth, hoping to feel the faint brush of breath against his skin. freёwebnovel.com
Nothing obvious came.
The guards stood around them in stunned silence, watching their unshakable boss unravel before their eyes. They had seen Fu Jing Rong ruthless in business, cold in negotiations, immovable in crisis. But this—this was a man clutching the entirety of his world in his arms, on his knees in the dirt of Silian Forest, begging the universe not to take her.
The forest air felt cruelly indifferent. The nearest hospital was miles away. Even with the helicopter waiting above, no one could guarantee she would survive the journey if her body had already given up.
Fu Jing Rong pressed two fingers once more against the side of her neck, refusing to surrender. This time, beneath the fragile stillness of her skin, he felt it—a faint, almost imperceptible flutter. It was weak, dangerously weak, but it was there. The pulse brushed against his fingertips like a fragile thread, threatening to disappear at any second, yet undeniably present. That slight rhythm was enough to ignite hope in the middle of his terror.
"She’s still here," he murmured, half to himself, half to the heavens. "You’re still here."
He held her closer, his forehead resting briefly against hers as he continued whispering, his voice softer now, almost childlike in its vulnerability. "Come back to me. Please come back to me. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere."
...
Inside the darkness of her fading consciousness, Hua Jing felt none of the soil or the suffocation anymore.
Instead, she felt light.
It was soft at first, like dawn breaking through a distant horizon. A warm glow spread gently around her, dissolving the heaviness that had wrapped around her chest. The fear, the desperation, the pain in her fingertips—all of it seemed to drift away as though it belonged to someone else.
She realized she was standing.
But her steps were small.
Too small.
When she looked down, her hands were tiny, her fingers unscarred and delicate. Her body felt lighter, shorter. The world around her seemed larger.
She had become a child again.
Ahead of her stood a figure bathed in that warm light. The outline was familiar, so deeply familiar that it tugged at something in her soul. Her heart began to race—not with fear, but with longing.
She took a hesitant step forward.
"Mom?"
she called softly, her voice small and trembling.
The woman turned.
Her face was exactly as Hua Jing remembered it—gentle eyes filled with warmth, lips curved in the soft smile that had once chased away every childhood nightmare. The years had not touched her here. She looked radiant, peaceful.
When she heard the tiny voice call her, she knelt down immediately, arms opening wide.
"My little Jing has grown up so much," her mother said tenderly, her voice carrying that familiar cadence that Hua Jing had missed for years. "How did I miss all of this?"
