Irreversible - Chapter 47

Chapter 47: The Little Wretched One Grows Taller (Part 1)

Past events are like quicksand, slipping through the palm of one’s hand, never to be chased again.

The high fever and torment of the rut caused Gu Xizhou to lock herself in her room, weeping bitterly for several days. It wasn’t until the morning of the fourth day that she ended her monthly suffering. She emerged from her room and, with bloodshot eyes, entered the research laboratory.

Seeing her arrive, Lin Shi immediately rushed over with a tense expression. “Boss, has your fever broken? Why not sleep and rest a bit longer?”

Gu Xizhou waved her hand and walked straight toward the pod. “No need. Link me up. Let’s continue.”

More than rest, she needed to see Su Zhiyi right now.

Lin Shi had no choice but to assist her into the pod, helping her enter that other world.

The young Gu Xizhou woke up to a violent spasm in her leg. Curled into a ball, she clutched her calf and let out a hiss of pain.

Gu Jing entered the hospital room carrying takeout and immediately saw her daughter clutching her legs, hissing in pain on the bed. Her heart tightened, and she ran over, hands full of bags. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

Gu Jing set the items on the nightstand and reached out with her slender hands to hover over Gu Xizhou, wanting to hold her but not daring to.

Gu Xizhou shrank back, tears pricking her eyes from the pain. “Leg… leg cramp.”

Gu Jing breathed a sigh of relief. She placed one hand on her daughter’s thin back and the other on her calf, soothing her gently. “Relax, relax… slowly let it down. It’ll stop hurting in a moment.”

Gu Xizhou inhaled sharply and followed her instructions, slowly relaxing her leg muscles. After stretching, the pain indeed subsided significantly.

She sat on the bed and let out a long breath. Beside her, Gu Jing patted her shoulder and gave a reassuring smile. “It’s nothing major. Just growth-period muscle spasms. It’s very normal.”

The doctor had already briefed Gu Jing on what to watch for: after the second differentiation, an Alpha’s bodily functions undergo earth-shattering changes. Because the body is growing, it requires a vast amount of nutrients; during this year, the child must be supplemented with plenty of high-quality protein.

Gu Jing stood up, opened the takeout, and said to Gu Xizhou, “Since you’re finally awake, eat something first.”

“I bought pork bone porridge. It’s very good.”

Having had a high fever for four days, Gu Xizhou had been surviving on nutritional fluids. Now that she was awake, she was famished. However, the high temperature had also caused her to lose her memory of recent surroundings. She sat on the bed, staring blankly at Gu Jing’s busy back, feeling somewhat confused. “Mom, why are we here?”

Gu Jing turned her head and gave her a strange look. “You don’t remember?”

Gu Xizhou shook her head; her mind was a complete blank regarding this place. Her gaze swept over the room, her expression bewildered. “Is this… a hospital?”

Why was she in the hospital?

Seeing her daughter’s expression and recalling the side effects of second differentiation the doctor had mentioned, Gu Jing understood. Her daughter truly didn’t remember how she got here.

Gu Jing sighed, clicked open the small table attached to the hospital bed, set it in front of Gu Xizhou, and placed the porridge on it. “You’ve had your second differentiation.”

Gu Xizhou looked lost. “Second differentiation?”

Gu Jing dragged a small chair over to sit down, opened her own bowl of pig’s trotter rice, poked the chopsticks out of the packaging, and explained: “It means you’ve differentiated again. You’re going to grow much taller.”

“Your legs will hurt quite a bit during this time. Once you get through it, you’ll be fine.”

“Oh…”

Gu Xizhou nodded and took a spoonful of porridge. Internally, she felt a small spark of joy: Growing taller is a good thing.

Gu Jing picked up a piece of roast duck from her bowl and placed it on the lid of the porridge container, talking to Gu Xizhou with a mouthful of rice. “The doctor said you can’t do any strenuous exercise this month, so don’t go to military training.”

“Your bones are quite fragile during the growth phase. It’s best to stay in the hospital for two weeks.”

Gu Xizhou nodded, answering with a single word: “Mhm.”

She didn’t say much, so Gu Jing continued to chatter beside her. “I’ve spoken with a nurse sister; she’ll bring you food in the morning and at noon. I’ll come see you in the evening.”

Gu Xizhou thought for a moment and turned to ask, “Won’t that be very exhausting for you?”

Gu Jing sighed, her tone somewhat helpless. “It’s a bit tiring, but someone has to look after you.”

Gu Xizhou fell silent. She took a few more sips of porridge and said after a while, “Actually, I can be in the hospital by myself. You can just come on the weekends.”

Gu Jing narrowed her eyes and smiled, not answering the question directly. “Eat the roast duck. Eat more meat so you grow taller.”

After the meal, Gu Jing had the doctor come in to examine Gu Xizhou. The doctor prescribed several supplements and warned her not to move around too much.

Lying in bed that night, Gu Xizhou felt the aching pains of the growth phase, yet she felt a faint sense of happiness. In a way, while being alone in the hospital wasn’t great, having a quiet place to reflect on her mother’s recent attitude and her gains at school allowed her to feel a rare sense of comfort.

She just wondered… how was Su Zhiyi doing?

When this thought arose in the silence of the night, she startled herself. But soon, the voice of 0820 appeared in her mind, sounding quite surprised: “Why are you in the hospital?”

Hearing a voice suddenly appear in her head in the middle of the night—even though she was used to 0820, it still gave Gu Xizhou a fright. Her startle caused her calf to twitch, and she hissed in pain while clutching her leg.

0820 quickly read her current situation from her brainwaves and sounded delighted: “Not bad at all! Congratulations! Muscle spasms mean you’re about to grow taller.”

“Mhm,” Gu Xizhou replied irritably. “Why are you still here?”

0820 laughed and spoke nonchalantly, “I’m your guardian angel. Of course I’ll always be by your side.”

Fine. This time it’s a ‘guardian angel’ instead of a ‘system.’

Truly not a normal system. What kind of system says such human-like things?

While Gu Xizhou was grumbling, 0820 took the time to skim her brainwave data and said with surprise, “You’ve had your second differentiation?”

The young Gu Xizhou was in significant pain and couldn’t help but be sarcastic: “Aren’t you my guardian angel? How did you not even know I’d have a second differentiation? Why are you acting so surprised?”

0820 was a master of drama; lies and excuses came naturally: “Every world has different developments.”

“Do you know about Schrödinger’s cat?”

Gu Xizhou didn’t understand why the topic jumped so fast, but she answered honestly, “I know.”

0820 said, “Then that makes things easy.” She began to bluff the child: “When I came to your world, your world became different from the ‘predicted future’ I could access. While the general direction—like floods, earthquakes, or plane crashes—won’t change, for a tiny individual like you, it can bring about significant alterations.”

Gu Xizhou looked thoughtful. 0820 pressed on, sounding deeply philosophical: “A single person’s destiny is such a tiny yet monumental thing.”

“Oh,” Gu Xizhou grunted, pulling the blanket over her head. “I’m going to sleep. I’m not talking to you anymore.”

But 0820 didn’t want to let her off. “It’s not even 11:00 PM. Why sleep? Don’t you miss your little Zhiyi? It’s been four days. Is it that hard to send her a message?”

“You’re going to be staying here for a month.”

Hearing that name, Gu Xizhou poked her head out from under the covers, feeling very awkward. “Why should I message her?”

0820 pointed out the situation bluntly: “You miss her. If you miss her, you should go find her.”

Gu Xizhou admitted she was tempted, but suddenly messaging Su Zhiyi seemed very strange. She thought about it, took her phone out from under her pillow, and opened WeChat. In the dark of the night, the faint glow of the screen illuminated the young, boyish face of the Alpha. She stared at that silent profile picture, hesitating for a long time without clicking on it.

0820 offered advice from the side: “Click on it. Send her a message asking what you should eat tomorrow. If she replies, just say your hand slipped.”

Gu Xizhou thought it was a terrible idea, but her hand moved uncontrollably. She clicked on Su Zhiyi’s profile and typed a line: “I want to eat sweet and sour ribs for lunch tomorrow.”

After hitting send quickly, she gripped the phone, her eyes wide and her breath held as she waited for Su Zhiyi to reply. At this hour, Su Zhiyi should have just finished military training and returned to the dorm. If she had her phone, she would definitely see the message.

Gu Xizhou waited for several minutes before finally getting a reply: “??????”

“Gu Xizhou??????”

In the dormitory, Su Zhiyi had finished washing up and was sitting on her bed in her pajamas playing with her phone. Looking at the message, she was confused: “Are you better now?”

On the other end of the phone, Gu Xizhou’s eyes widened, and her heart nearly stopped.

0820 coached her: “Don’t reply yet! Wait a bit!”

“Wait a moment, then tell her you sent it to the wrong person.”

Gu Xizhou counted twenty seconds in her head before typing: “Ah, sorry, I sent that to the wrong person. I meant to send it to my mom.”

Su Zhiyi smiled and replied: “I figured. So, is your body feeling any better?”

Four days after that embarrassing incident, the students were still discussing Gu Xizhou’s “heroic” feat. Now the entire grade was buzzing with rumors that she and Gu Xizhou had a thing. Not long ago, Su Nanfeng had even called from the hospital to interrogate her about her relationship with Gu Xizhou. Su Nanfeng was furious, wishing she could leap out of the hospital bed to give Gu Xizhou a beating.

Aside from the initial embarrassment, Su Zhiyi had eventually learned to be accepting and calm. It had already happened; after all, the one who suffered “social death” was Gu Xizhou, not her. Besides, the way Gu Xizhou had cried and begged to hold her looked more like a child looking for its mother than an Alpha looking for an Omega. It was hard for her not to be open-minded about it.

However, she didn’t know if Gu Xizhou herself would find the matter too difficult to face, so she hadn’t felt right proactively asking about her condition over the last few days. Since Gu Xizhou had “delivered herself to the door” today, she could show some appropriate concern.

Gu Xizhou replied very quickly: “I’m fine now.”

Su Zhiyi asked her: “Then when are you coming back?”

Gu Xizhou replied: “Next month.”

“?”

Gu Xizhou explained: “The doctor says I’m having a second differentiation. My bones are fragile, so I shouldn’t do strenuous exercise.”

Su Zhiyi understood: “Then rest well and recover. See you next month.”

Gu Xizhou: “Mhm mhm mhm.”

Su Zhiyi thought for a moment and added: “The growth period after second differentiation should be quite uncomfortable. You should sleep more. Sleep early, I’m going to bed too. Goodnight.”

Gu Xizhou felt satisfied and replied: “Goodnight, Su Zhiyi.”