Solflare: The Painter's Secret-Chapter 154: Three Years
Smoke danced in the air as vehicles moved along the street in front of Bastion Hospital.
Patients walked freely at the entrance, the healthy ones exiting the hospital, while the sick and injured ones entered.
Inside the consulting room, Mr. Lee stood by the window, breathing slowly as he fixed his gaze on those walking on the other side of the glass.
Feng sat opposite the doctor, his eyes closed, his fingers tapping on the table, counting.
Beside Feng, Leon stood, his chest rising and falling. "I need to see her."
The doctor shifted her gaze from the movement of Feng’s fingers, then locked her eyes on Leon. "Alright, let me lead you to her."
Inside the female ward, countless ladies—young women who seemed to be between the ages of twenty to forty—lay there, nurses attending to them as Leon and the doctor moved past the door.
Leon paused his steps, then turned to the doctor. "Isn’t my mom in this room?"
"No, she is in a private room on the third floor." The doctor continued walking, her arms placed inside the pockets of her coat.
Stopping in front of a VIP room on the third floor, Leon’s cheeks reddened slightly.
Through the transparent glass door, Li Mei lay on a silver-covered bed, monitors beeping softly around her.
Her pale face pressed against the white pillow, steady air gushing out of her lungs as she breathed slowly.
She turned her head slightly when the door’s screeching sound lanced through the air.
The doctor stood by the door and watched as Leon closed in on his mother. He pulled a chair to her bedside and sat there, his arms trembling as he glanced at the beeping monitor.
For thirty minutes, he just sat there, watching the slow rise and fall of her chest. He swallowed hard when he turned toward the monitor and began scanning the vital signals thoroughly.
’Heart rate: 68. Oxygen: 98%.’ He brushed his hands over his face, then exhaled sharply. "At least she’s alive."
In the darkness behind his eyelids, his father’s disappearance, the golden power he was still learning to control, the creatures that seemed drawn to him, and Longwei’s sacrifice all looped in his head.
’What else don’t I know?’ he whispered in his thoughts as the Anchored Soul Initiative implantation entered his mind.
The room remained calm, the beeping sound taking center stage. But just as another ten minutes flew by, the door behind him opened softly.
Footsteps echoed, but Leon didn’t turn; he simply kept his head cupped in his palms.
As soon as the footsteps stopped, a smaller, warmer hand settled on his shoulder.
"She will be okay, don’t worry." Zoe’s voice moved through the calm air like a breeze.
Chills rolled down Leon’s spine as he cracked his eyes open. For a moment, he allowed her touch to be felt by all his senses, then straightened himself.
Zoe moved around the chair, the tips of her fingers brushing along Leon’s shoulder until she sat on the edge of the bed, facing him.
Her silver-grey eyes locked onto his, reading the exhaustion, the fear, and the anger he was trying so hard to contain.
"I spoke with Mr. Lee and Feng," she said quietly, shifting her gaze from him to Li Mei. "They told me about the implant."
Leon sat there and didn’t say a word.
Zoe shifted her gaze back to him. "Do you want to know what I think about it?"
Leon blinked, his mind going quiet, almost as if waiting for her thoughts.
"I think your mother has been hiding something from you and your sister," Zoe stated, placing her palms over Leon’s palms.
"I think she knew exactly what was in her head and kept it a secret to protect you and your sister."
Leon’s heart began to pound faster as he shifted his gaze from Zoe to his mother’s face.
Zoe kept speaking. "I think whatever woke that implant tonight is connected to what happened at Basalt Mountain. Or maybe, connected to you."
Leon’s jaw tightened. "You think this is my fault?"
"No." She gripped his palms tightly, then raised them slightly. "I think you’re the reason she’s still alive. Whatever that implant was doing, whatever it was trying to become, got stopped because of you."
"How?" Leon’s voice echoed in fractured parts.
"You being here, you fighting the creatures, you existing, might have been the only thing that kept her from being consumed entirely."
Leon’s throat went dry as he stood up and closed the slight distance between him and the bed. "How can you possibly know that?"
"I don’t." She smiled faintly, wetting her lips. "But I know you. And I know that since the moment I met you, you’ve been surviving things no normal human should."
Air flowed through the slightly open window as she paused.
"Leon," she continued, "...protecting people no one else would protect. Your mother raised you to be the person you’re becoming. She wouldn’t just let go without fighting."
Angry tears of frustration began to fall from Leon’s eyes before he could stop them. They slipped down his cheeks as he held his mother’s hand and Zoe’s hand at the same time.
The room regained its quietness as they sat there, staring at Li Mei’s pale face, the monitor’s beeping taking its place.
Outside the VIP room, other nurses stopped by the door and watched Zoe Qing through the transparent glass.
Each one of them pressed their lips together as they moved away from the door and attended to another patient.
As darkness began to take form in the sky, Lily appeared in the doorway, Min-seo behind her. She didn’t speak; she just walked to Leon’s side and curled herself against him.
Min-seo watched them for a while, then left.
Two days passed like air, and Li Mei remained stable but unconscious.
Doctors ran multiple tests, consulting with higher-ranked specialists who were brought in by Mr. Lee.
But all the results—the ones from the Bastion doctors and those of the specialists—yielded the same detail: the implant.
On the third day of the third week of the second month, Leon gathered his courage and left the hospital, placing Li Mei under the doctor’s care.
Min-seo came by, and every time Lily joined, she refused to leave. At some point, Feng had to carry her to the car, where she slept against Leon’s lap during the drive home.
A new sensation flowed through the mansion whenever they returned from the hospital. The ribbons from his birthday still hung in place, but they looked sadder than Leon’s heart.
Min-ji met them at the door, her face carrying a dreadful stare when she neared Leon.
That night, as every human in Bastion City had fallen asleep, Leon sat alone in the garden. The fountain splashed softly. The branches of the trees rustled in the evening breeze, sending leaves flying around him.
As the night bird’s cry pierced through the dawning air, Leon pulled out the triangular remote controller Hei Yung had given to him on Longwei’s behalf.
The metal warmed his palms as he turned it from his right hand to his left.
Thoughts of the Abyssal Maw Lord retreating into the mountain flashed through his mind as he stopped tossing the controller.
As he locked his gaze on the dotted holes in the controller, he saw something moving out of it in the same pose the creature had entered the mountain.
’Be ready when it comes back.’
A thought that wasn’t his own flagged his mind, echoing with the voices of the Lizard-lady, then the old woman, and the sentinels. ’Grade B before twenty-five. Or the world collapses.’
Leon exhaled deeply, lifting his gaze to the stars in the sky. "Three years to reach a rank that most people spend decades chasing."
He closed his eyes, imagining himself becoming Grade B. There, under the glow of a shooting star, a translucent panel reeled into his imagination.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
Host status update.
================= STATUS =================
Name: Leon Storm
Rank: E
Level: 100
Class: Awakened
Strength: 50
Agility: 45
Speed: 60
Endurance: 40
Intelligence: 30
Willpower: 70
Potential: 1
Durability: 2
Authority: 1
Existential Weight: 2.01 (Calibrating)
Existence Grade: ERROR
Stamina: 9 / 9
Talent Grade: Medium
Growth Rate: Average
[Yes, to proceed to the next grade.]
[No, to remain at Grade E.]
"Yes."
As soon as the word left his lips, he felt something moving within his skin. He could hear his bones reshaping, his heartbeat changing rhythm, and his mind forming new thoughts.
He gripped the remote controller tighter, his jaw clenched, then cracked his eyes open. "Three years."
Behind him, soft footsteps echoed in the same sequence as the fountain’s dripping water, but Leon sat there and didn’t turn.
"Leon," Zoe’s voice echoed like a heavenly whisper. "You should sleep."
"I can’t."
She closed in and sat beside him. Her silver hair looked white under the moonlight, her eyes like pools of mercury.
"Your mother is stable. Lily is safe. For now, that’s enough." She tried to place a hand on his lap but stopped, noticing the tiny gold sparks igniting in his eyes.
Leon paused his breathing, then looked at her.
The two of them stared at each other, the moon’s rays casting a quiet glow around them.
When Leon broke the stare and stood up, Zoe joined him, but grabbed him by the hand.
"Leon," her voice softened. "I stayed to tell you something. Something I should have told you a long time ago."
