The Jilted Second Young Master (53)

Lin Yitian connected the camera to the wide TV screen, and he quickly clicked on the most recent video. This was the video that Wang Han recorded on his birthday. It seemed that it was only a few weeks ago, but the people on the screen seemed to have already become unfamiliar to him.

The video began with the sight of Song Jia standing with her back to the camera, busy with cooking.

Wang Han's voice was then heard in the video, "Miss Su, is this the cake you want to bake for the second young master?"

Song Jia turned around and flashed a smile, nodding her head.

Then Wang Han went to the living room and filmed the maids putting a birthday banner on the wall.

"Second young master, happy..."

"Don't say it!"

"Yitian, happy birthday."

"Jia's the first one to greet me, I'm so happy."

...

The depths of Lin Yitian's nose gave a prickly ache, and he felt the tears gather in his eyes again. He blinked quickly, and gripped Song Jia's hand on the bed.

This was no good, he was going to cry again. Showing such an ugly face to Jia, once she recovered, what if she didn't want him anymore?

"Jia, wait for a little while longer, after your body heals, we'll go on dates all over the city. The doctors said your body will get worse before it gets better, you have to trust their words."

In fact, although the doctors didn't say anything, Lin Yitian could tell by the grim expression on their faces that Song Jia's life was hanging by a thread.

"They say that the the cure for your disease is almost finished, it won't be long now."

The research department had tried everything, but all of their experimental trials had failed.

Lin Yitian also knew he was spiralling out of control. With the continuous arrival of bad news, the certainty that Song Jia was going to leave him had started to become his heart demon. He knew a lot about computers, but not much about the human body. However, even though he knew this, he could not sit still and just watch Song Jia die before him.

Lin Yitian kept it a secret from everybody else, but aside from managing the companies inside his study, he was also beginning to do his research on whole brain emulation. It was the hypothetical process of mind uploading in which the salient features of a person's brain would be scanned and mapped, and then copy and transfer that information state into a computer system. During this process, it was estimated that the biological brain would not survive.

The simulated mind would then be stored within a virtual reality or simulated world, supported by an anatomic 3D body. Lin Yitian was very efficient. He was already halfway into his research, having studied computational neuroscience before. For other people, this might be impossible, but for Lin Yitian who had unsurpassable talent in computers, this was only to be expected.

"Jia, you have to hang on, I will definitely save you."

Lin Yitian planted a gentle kiss on Song Jia's forehead, his eyes landing on the tulips placed in a vase beside her bed.

They were already slightly withered.

...

Wang Han was getting a bit concerned about about Lin Yitian.

He had accidentally overheard from the doctors that Miss Su's illness came too sudden and too fast, that it was hard for them to keep prolonging her life. Even the ALS specialist had admitted that it was hard for him to do anything except make Miss Su more comfortable and lessen her pain.

It was expected that the second young master would be going crazy at this time, but unexpectedly, the second young master was calm. The more calmer he was, the more Wang Han worried for him. Was this the so-called eye of the storm?

Lin Yitian wasn't aware of his butler's thoughts. And even if he was, he wouldn't have paid any attention to it. Wang Han didn't know that Lin Yitian was already on the cusp of breakthrough in his research on whole brain emulation. Even if Song Jia's body deteriorated, he had his ways of keeping her beside him!

"Jia!"

Lin Yitian burst into her room, carrying a bouquet of tulips. He was out of breath and had an excited expression on his face. But when the girl on the bed didn't have any reaction, his breath stopped.

"Jia?" A soft and shaky voice, as if he was afraid of her waking up.

Lin Yitian walked towards the bed and looked down at the girl whose eyes were closed. His hand slowly reached out. His heart felt as if it had been wrenched out of his chest, then crushed. Every day he lived in fear and despair, always checking in on Song Jia for fear that he would be a step too late. This feeling was similar to being buried alive, each day sinking him deeper and deeper into the abyss.

When Lin Yitian felt Song Jia's pulse, his knees weakened with relief, nearly making him collapse on the ground. It was good that she was only asleep. Tears of relief trickled down his cheeks.

Being asleep was fine, just don't leave him.

Lin Yitian replaced the flowers inside the vase and sat next to Song Jia. Maybe because he had been too loud, it wasn't long before her eyelids twitched, and Song Jia's clear eyes met his.

"Jia." Lin Yitian smiled, but Song Jia thought that this smile of his was too ugly. It was too forced, and his eyes were still rimmed in red. Who did he think he was fooling?

Song Jia struggled to make her vocal chords work and said in a near whisper, "Mask."

She wanted him to take off her oxygen mask.

Lin Yitian instantly understood her words. He only hesitated for a while before obediently taking off her oxygen mask.

Song Jia looked at him. Her lips were dry, and she knew that she looked like a starving ghost. But Lin Yitian had never shunned her, and if Song Jia personally didn't know that his eyes had 20/20 vision, she would have thought he was blind. Song Jia knew body language. If he had tried to hide his disgust, she would have known it.

Really...she should have matched a good girl with him before she left. Song Jia regretted it a bit inside her heart.

"Yitian." Her lips barely formed his name. "You should...live a good life."

Lin Yitian's hands trembled. He buried his face in Song Jia's neck. His eyes burned, his body lightly shuddering. He held her tight to him, his lips pressed against her pulse. After a while, he let go of her and smiled.

"Of course I'll live a good life. We'll have Xiao Hua in the future, how could I let you and our daughter suffer? Not only a good life, I'll give you the best of everything. So Jia, hurry up and recover."

Song Jia was silent. She then opened her mouth again and said, "Want you...to read...book."

She was unable to speak more than a couple of words without pausing to inhale, her chest heaving and her throat moving with each gulp.

Lin Yitian hurriedly put the oxygen mask on her again. "You want me to read a book to you? Okay, okay, just wait for me."

Seeing that Song Jia was finally breathing comfortably again, Lin Yitian calmed down the worries in his heart and went to his study to pick up the book she didn't finish reading. He took a glance at his computer, where a program was slowly loading to a hundred percent. He predicted that it would probably be done either tonight or tomorrow.

Song Jia waited until she could no longer hear Lin Yitian's footsteps before she closed her eyes again. She didn't know if it was because she was a transmigrator, or because terminally ill patients could somehow feel that their body wouldn't be able to hold on to life any longer. But Song Jia knew that she was about to die.

When Lin Yitian had called her earlier, she almost felt her soul leaving her body. But she forced herself to stay when she heard him saying her name in a soft voice. It was like a child weakly begging for his loved one not to leave him. Song Jia could not bear to disappoint him.

The slow, barely visible blip ran across the screen of the heart monitor. Footsteps sounded just outside the door, and Lin Yitian's eager voice was heard near the doorway.

"Jia? You fell asleep again?"

The blip faded to a monotonal flatline on the screen, and just before Lin Yitian's voice faded, the shrill, insistent beeps of the machine cut through the silence in the room.