| PN | Heartbroken | 148
Shen Yuxi fell ill again.
On the night his fever had just subsided, it spiked once more.
"People who don't often get sick take longer to recover once they do," Qi Chao used this phrase to comfort Brother Shen, but his heart felt heavy. He gently stroked Shen Yuxi's flushed cheek, pressing his lips together, "You'll get better, Brother Shen."
"Mm, I know."
Shen Yuxi could feel the strength gradually draining from his body, the smile not reaching his eyes.
If it had been last night, he might still have wondered if his discomfort was due to carelessness and catching a cold.
But now, he was sure that his illness was not so simple.
This sudden feeling of losing strength couldn’t be explained by anything other than an external force at play.
Shen Yuxi's eyelashes trembled slightly. After Qi Chao temporarily left, he took out his communicator and sent a message to Chi Yao, who was far away at the trial grounds.
He couldn’t just sit and wait for death.
Shen Yuxi lay on the bed, his breathing hot and labored, his entire body burning. His vision was so blurred that he couldn’t even make out the patterns on the ceiling.
The plan wasn’t finished yet—he couldn’t die now.
Shen Yuxi exhaled a hot breath and closed his eyes, deliberately ignoring the fact that when he thought of death, the first thing that came to his mind wasn’t the so-called plan, but the image of Qi Chao.
When Qi Chao returned to the room, Brother Shen had already fallen asleep out of exhaustion.
He placed his palm on Brother Shen’s forehead, and upon feeling the scorching heat beneath his hand, his deep brown eyes gradually grew heavy with concern.
Several of the puppets stood anxiously outside the room.
Seeing Lan Luo tightly pressing his lips in silence, Li Bai took the initiative to hold Lan Luo’s hand, offering comfort not only to him but also to himself. "Father will be alright, Lan Luo."
Lan Luo forced a small smile, but his gaze remained fixed on Shen Yuxi, unable to look away.
When they saw Qi Chao pick up their father, the puppets outside instinctively made way.
"Dad, where are you taking Father?"
Xiang Yue's tail hung limply behind him, his red eyes fixed on Qi Chao, instinctively wanting to follow.
Although Xiang Yue hadn’t had much interactions with Shen Yuxi, this didn’t mean their relationship was distant. On the contrary, in Xiang Yue's eyes, as his father's partner, Shen Yuxi was the second most important person, right after his dad.
"I’m taking your father to the hospital first. There are too many people there, so it’s not convenient to bring you all along. Stay home and take care of things. Dad will be back soon," Qi Chao explained.
Brother Shen’s temperature had been unstable for two consecutive days. Although the hospital’s treatments for fever were quite basic and straightforward, Qi Chao worried that Shen’s persistent fever might indicate an underlying issue in his body.
Just to be safe, he wanted to have Brother Shen undergo a full-body examination.
"Dad, is Father going to be alright?" Lan Luo took a step forward as he heard mention of the hospital, his lips trembling, his blue eyes brimming with tears, his expression confused and lost.
Why did they have to go to the hospital?
Back then, even when Father had been stabbed seven or eight times by those people at the trial grounds, he didn’t go to the hospital. He had merely sprayed some medicine on his wounds and continued working calmly.
Was this illness really so severe?
Lan Luo felt a wave of panic.
Even Agu, who was usually always smiling, had lost his usual cheerful expression.
Humans were fragile.
However, in Agu’s perception, this fragility had never applied to his father.
But now, his father lay in Qi Chao's arms, his face flushed, lips pale, and brows furrowed in discomfort. This image of vulnerability, weaker than that of a normal human, shattered the perception they had held for so long.
For the first time, they realized that their strong and indifferent father was, after all, just an ordinary human—one without any special abilities, whose fragile life could be threatened by something as simple as a minor illness.
Seeing the expressions on the children's faces, Qi Chao offered a small reassuring smile. "It’s going to be alright. Your father is strong and healthy. Dad is just taking him for a check-up. It’s late now, so all of you should get some sleep. As soon as the hospital checks are done, I’ll send you all a message right away."
Qi Chao didn’t want the children to worry too much. However, he knew well that the puppets at home were all quite clever. No matter how casually or lightly he phrased things, their concern wouldn’t be eased completely.
All he could do was try to reassure them as best as he could.
With this thought in mind, Qi Chao walked over to the always-silent Moss and patted him on the shoulder. “Moss, you’re the eldest among the children here. You have to take good care of your younger siblings, alright?”
Moss had been unusually quiet ever since their father fell ill. The doll he held in his arms had disheveled hair, mirroring the chaotic mess within his own heart—confused, aimless, and unsure of how to react.
Among the puppets, it seemed that this incident with their father's illness had been the hardest blow for Moss.
Moss was usually steady, calm, and composed, but only when both his father and dad were safe and sound. If anything were to happen to them, Moss would likely be the first to break down. He was more attached to his father and dad than any other puppet in the family.
Upon hearing Qi Chao’s instructions, Moss snapped out of his daze. He glanced at his father, then nodded lightly. His voice was hoarse as he replied, “Understood, Dad.”
Father would recover. Moss looked at the reassuring smile in Qi Chao’s eyes and tightened his grip on the doll in his arms.
“You all head back to your rooms and sleep. If anything happens, find your brother Moss, alright?” Qi Chao, noticing that Moss had regained some of his composure, smiled faintly and turned to remind the other children in the household.
“Okay,”
The puppets didn’t want to delay their father’s recovery, so they quickly nodded in agreement.
However, once Qi Chao left, instead of going back to their rooms to sleep as he had instructed, Li Bai and the others stayed in the living room, waiting for Qi Chao and Shen Yuxi to return.
No matter how strong the puppets were, they were still just children only a few years old. Until they confirmed their guardians’ safety, the idea of sleep didn’t cross their minds.
On the other side, Qi Chao was piloting a spacecraft towards the largest hospital in Ganfen District. Throughout the journey, Shen Yuxi kept clutching Qi Chao’s clothes tightly, his face flushed with a sickly redness, and his breathing faint and shallow, as if it might stop at any moment.
Noticing this, Qi Chao switched the vehicle to autopilot mode and grasped Brother Shen’s burning left hand, feeding him a vial of medication.
It’s going to be alright.
Qi Chao reassured himself. It’s just a fever. With how advanced interstellar medical technology was, Brother Shen would surely be fine.
Qi Chao touched Brother Shen’s forehead and noticed that the temperature had gone down a bit, feeling a slight relief. If the fever was dropping, it meant that the medication from Blue Star was working.
Of course, Qi Chao was unaware that small clusters of green light were floating around him.
These light clusters slowly drifted towards Shen Yuxi, following the connection between their intertwined hands. As the clusters seeped into Shen Yuxi's skin, his body temperature decreased further.
Meanwhile, in the trial grounds, Chi Yao and Ayu received the message from their father. The two puppets exchanged a glance before immediately rushing towards the cave where the transmigrators, Qiao Sheng and Lu Chen, were hiding.
Ayu hadn’t set up surveillance in the villa, so neither of the puppets was aware that their father had fallen gravely ill.
"Father said everything is fine as long as they are still breathing," Ayu repeated.
This task felt a little unusual.
Their father rarely issued such targeted missions, almost as if he were angry.
“Summon the deformed puppets. We’ll handle this together,” Ayu instructed, glancing up at the sky. “Father mentioned that in the upcoming tasks, we must be vigilant of our surroundings. I’ll keep watch nearby, but you and the deformed puppets must be extra cautious.”
Chi Yao nodded in acknowledgment, the large blade resting on her shoulder gleaming ominously in the darkness as if thirsting for blood. She turned and sprinted towards the depths of the cave.
Behind her followed hundreds of deformed puppets, crawling like spiders, clinging to the rocky surfaces as they trailed the red figure.
Meanwhile, the transmigrators and Lu Chen’s team were tending to their injuries within the cave.
When they felt the ground begin to tremble, a sense of resignation appeared in their eyes, almost as if they were getting used to it.
“He really wants us dead,” Qiao Sheng sighed, running a hand through his hair in frustration, feeling at a loss about the situation.
Ever since they encountered these transmigrators, disaster after disaster had followed.
Although Qiao Sheng had realized through each narrow escape that this world was indeed helping them, it was now evident that the puppets had no intention of letting them go.
Under such relentless attacks, they barely had time to formulate a plan, and even their map had been stolen by the puppets during one of the assaults.
Unless the world's will directly teleported them out or somehow killed this swarm of puppets, there was no way for them to escape.
With this in mind, Qiao Sheng quickly jumped onto Lu Chen's back, making it easier for his friend to carry him while they fled.
But the next moment, from around a corner in the cave, a group of puppets suddenly appeared. One deformed puppet lunged forward and tore through his white coat, causing Qiao Sheng to curse under his breath.
“Shen Yuxi, that lunatic,” he muttered, realizing how determined their pursuers were. They weren’t leaving even the slightest opening for survival.
If this continued, even if they managed to stay alive, their mental state would be severely damaged.
In the hospital, Qi Chao breathed a sigh of relief upon learning that aside from a mild fever, Shen Yuxi's other health indicators were all normal.
"That's great, Brother Shen," he said, smiling brightly.
Shen Yuxi returned the smile. He had been awake since arriving at the hospital and was now lying on the hospital bed, watching Qi Chao escort the doctor out, his eyelashes fluttering slightly.
Shen Yuxi felt much better now. With a clearer mind, he began to understand many things. He realized that perhaps every day from now on, he would have to face such challenges.
According to the trajectory of fate, he would ultimately bring ruin to this world. Given this conclusion, he wouldn’t truly die before reaching the end of the timeline.
His physical discomfort might merely be fate’s way of threatening him, trying to convey that if he didn’t follow the path laid out for him, it could take his life at any moment.
Shen Yuxi was not someone who would easily back down; in fact, he deeply despised the feeling of being coerced. He still held the fate of the protagonist group in his hands.
Until the protagonist group managed to kill him, they couldn’t meet their demise.
If fate really angered him, he wouldn’t hesitate to send the protagonists to their deaths.
The current stalemate was difficult to break. Shen Yuxi pondered, the only strange point being why his illness had improved so quickly this time.
According to his expectations, he should have begun to recover only after the puppets had beaten Qiao Sheng and the others to the brink of death.
The fact that he hadn’t received any news from Chi Yao yet indicated that Qiao Sheng and the others were still alive and kicking.
Had fate softened?
Shen Yuxi found that hard to believe. Just then, he saw Qi Chao enter the room with a smile on his face, and he pushed those thoughts aside.
Leaning his head against Qi Chao's abdomen, he felt as if the fatigue from his long illness had diminished significantly.
“Brother Shen, you’ve worked hard. You should rest for a while. Once you feel better, we’ll head back,” Qi Chao said gently.
Hearing this, Shen Yuxi paused for a moment. He pressed his lips together and, for some reason, voiced his concern, “What if I end up getting sick every day from now on?”
Qi Chao looked down at Brother Shen, noticing that his gaze was somewhat evasive. Analyzing the situation, he figured Brother Shen was likely afraid due to the recent illness.
After thinking it over, Qi Chao smiled and replied, “Then I’ll prepare medicinal baths for you every day, take you to see doctors, and find ways to treat you.”
“What, you won’t work anymore?” Shen Yuxi asked, though he really wanted to say that he didn’t need any treatment.
However, seeing the expression on Qi Chao’s face, he changed his words at the last moment.
As soon as he finished speaking, Qi Chao’s light brain vibrated. He casually tossed it onto the nearby table, maintaining his composure as he said, “How can work be more important than Brother Shen?”
Such sweet words are something most men might say to their lovers, but Shen Yuxi knew that Qi Chao meant every word.
He paused for a moment, his thin lips pressing together slightly. “If I get sick next time, you don’t have to worry about me.”
“How could I not—”
Qi Chao’s words were cut off as Shen Yuxi interrupted him. “I don’t want my illness to affect your work.”
Of course, what Shen Yuxi really wanted to say was that he wished for Qi Chao to like him even more, and he was willing to divert his attention elsewhere to achieve that.
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