Total loss

Title meaning: Chinese idiom, originally referring to a crucial mistake in chess that leads to overall defeat.
m1zushi: get your tissues ready bcs these chapters are sad af :blobsob:
turns out i skipped chapter 50, i’ll be translating it ;w;

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The electromagnetic stove was turned back to life
. After a few quick tosses, the golden egg mixture, cooked until perfect tenderness, was plated.

Yu Chen opened a bottle of fine wine to accompany the meal.

Taking a small sip of wine followed by a bite of the eggs, he slowly chewed it, elevating the simple tomato and egg stir-fry to the elegance and enjoyment of a three-star Michelin dish.

When the food was gone, he even used a piece of bread to wipe the plate clean, ensuring not a single drop of sauce remained
.

“Thank you for the hospitality. The eggs were delicious.” Yu Chen picked up a napkin embroidered with bluebell flowers and slowly wiped his lips, making no effort to hide the deep satisfaction in his eyes.

“Ah… you’re welcome.” Bai Ling snapped out of his daze, realizing he had been spacing out.

Sensing the hesitation in his voice, Yu Chen turned his deep gaze toward him and quietly said:

“You seem distracted today. Besides the egg, is there something else on your mind?”

Faced with the merman’s inquiry, Bai Ling was suddenly seized by an inexplicable sense of trepidation.

He stared at the messy streaks of sauce left on the plate, but what flashed through his mind wasn’t sweet and sour tomatoes, but…

Blood-stained glass. A shattered windowsill. A deep orange-red sunset spinning, inverting, and falling within his pupils…

This scene replayed in his mind like a loop, leaving him in a daze. By the time he regained a semblance of clarity, he found himself sitting in the bathtub; the water had already turned ice-cold.

He had no memory of what Yu Chen had just asked, or even how he had gotten to the bathroom.

This sort of thing had happened once before, when he was deathly drunk in the plaza.

It seems his mental disorder followed his tattered soul into this lifetime.

Like a maggot clinging to a bone.

Bai Ling braced himself against his numb legs and stood up, stepping out of the tub and bending over to wipe down his sluggish body with a towel.

He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror.

The person in the reflection was pale, with bluish lips and a curved spine where the vertebrae protruded one by one, looking like a hunched skeleton. That gaze held a familiar desolation, yet the features were so young they felt foreign.

He was momentarily stunned and almost couldn’t recognize his nineteen-year-old self.

One couldn’t blame him.

In the last twenty years of his previous life, Bai Ling was much more accustomed to seeing a different face in the mirror.

A face marred by scars, at one point even desfigured.

The battlefield’s cannons had no eyes. Explosions were frequent, and trips to the ICU were constant. Survival itself was a miracle; no one cared how many indelible scars marked a face or neck.

Captured enemy alphas would often tremble at the sight of him, shrieking in terror, “You hideous demon!”

By his final two years, his organs were failing. His innards felt like they twisted and turned in agony, and he survived on handfuls of painkillers, looking more haggard than a ghost.

People on the street avoided him like the plague, terrified he was carrying some contagious disease.

Unlike now.

Bai Ling touched his face.

He’s now young and clean. The reason those alphas at the arena flocked to him was likely because of this face.

The merman couldn’t see this outward appearance, nor had he ever pointedly asked about his looks.

Bai Ling’s lips unconsciously curled into a slight smile.

Yu Chen was likely the only person who would kiss him without reservation, without even asking what he looked like.

Wait…

A blurry image flashed in his mind.

It seems there was someone else.

His breath hitched. He seemed to see a silhouette against the light, feeling a breath gradually drawing closer to his nose, until finally, amidst a panicked tremor, he felt a cherished kiss land on the corner of his eye.

Who was that?

A seizure-like sting flared beneath his cerebral cortex, forcing him to stop recalling.

But his body still wouldn’t warm up.

So, clutching a pillow, he kicked open the door to the master bedroom and threw himself into the merman’s bed.

“I’m cold. I want to get warmer,” he said matter-of-factly.

The merman understood. He reached for two tissues from the nightstand, asked Bai Ling to turn around, and embraced him from behind, beginning a gentle and long-lasting comfort.

That night, Bai Ling’s nerves were so taut that he was never able to find release.

It was his problem, not Yu Chen’s.

Bai Ling gently pushed the merman’s hand away, turned back, and nestled himself into the man’s embrace, clinging to the beautiful giant with both hands and feet.

“So clingy,” the merman whispered, his tone tinged with helplessness.

The lights were out, and the room was cast in dim, grey shadows.

Bai Ling looked up; the merman’s sharp features were shrouded in a blur of darkness, yet they were hauntingly familiar.

From the first time he met Yu Chen, kissing that cheek in the terrace’s dim light, he’d had a similar illusion.

In truth, he wasn’t the type to easily kiss a stranger.

Bai Ling’s heart rate accelerated for no reason. A faint gasp escaped his throat as he started to ask something, then stopped abruptly.

Only to make a strange movement.

He slowly took Yu Chen’s chin, turning it to a specific angle. Like a damaged videotape or a skipping frame, he tried to make the image overlap with a certain memory, bit by bit…

Yu Chen suddenly caught his wrist, sat up, and switched on the small wall lamp.

The warm light spilled down instantly. Bai Ling blinked in confusion, his grey pupils shrinking into needles like those of a cat that hadn’t quite woken up.

“What’s wrong?” Yu Chen gently stroked his forehead, smoothing back a few stray hairs.

Bai Ling looked up at him. The golden hair flowed down in a brilliant glow, like a dream from a bygone era.

A dream that, in his previous life, he wouldn’t have dared to covet even for a second.

Click. He switched off the wall lamp. Hooking his arm around the merman’s neck, Bai Ling pressed his cold lips against the man’s Adam’s apple, his mouth moving almost soundlessly:

“Kiss my eyes.”

They were so close that Bai Ling could feel the instantaneous tremor in the merman’s body.

The merman didn’t answer. Instead, with a hint of urgency, he pressed Bai Ling down against the pillow, pulled up the blanket to seal them both in that narrow, private space, and responded to the request with a long, lingering, deep kiss.

Bai Ling’s eyes shifted slightly. Through the gaps in the merman’s hair, he blankly stared at the shadows dancing on the ceiling.

No matter what I ask for, he always gives more…

This thought suddenly popped up.

---

Bai Ling slept until noon.

The room was filled with a faint floral scent. Rubbing his eyes, he turned his head and, in his daze, saw a single jasmine bud about to bloom on his pillow.

Jasmine was one of the few flowers he could name. It symbolized innocence, simplicity, and faithful love.

He was familiar with it not for any romantic reason, but for a practical one.

In the past, the room he rented was damp and the smell of mildew never dissipated throughout the year. If you smelled it for too long, you’d start to wonder if you were dead too—if mold was growing on you and your corpse had long been forgotten.

Back then, all the comrades he could actually talk to were dead. He had no outlet for the trivialities of life, so he would occasionally tell Mr. D. about them.

He’d type slowly, saying things that would be hard for an ordinary person to understand.

[Lodestar]: I think I’m getting moldy. Mushrooms are growing in my throat.

About a week later, the other person replied.

[Desserped]: Why not buy some air fresheners? Perhaps it will make you feel better.

It was a very rational response.

Bai Ling froze for a long while, staring at that line of text as a vast hole opened in his heart.

He didn’t realize back then that the strange things he said when his nerves were frayed were merely a plea for a single word of… empathetic comfort.

Bai Ling nodded numbly. Perhaps the other person was right; this really was just an illusion caused by a bad mood.

In his desperation, he found a reason for his helplessness.

He couldn’t wait to scrounge through all his pockets, scraping together three credits before heading to the small shop run by a smuggler.

Rotating his swollen, aching eyes with effort and bracing his wooden leg, he half-squatted before the shelf in an extremely awkward posture, just to see where the cheapest price tag was.

The jasmine-scented air freshener was the cheapest. It was eight credits.

He didn’t have enough money.

He limped back, and when he returned, he was carrying a chessboard under his arm.

The gang-run pawnshop was very familiar with him. As soon as they saw him, they called out, “Hey, peg-leg cripple! Finally decided to sell that medal of yours?”

He shook his head and said, “I’m not selling the medal. I’m pawning the chessboard. I only want five credits.”

“Five credits? What kind of pipe dream are you having? This thing is too trashy even for a junkyard. We won’t take it. Take it and get out.”

He didn’t leave. He just stood at the counter and repeated softly: “I only want five credits.”

After speaking, he bent over double in a violent fit of coughing.

Cough… cough cough cough…

Perhaps because he found the coughing too disruptive to business at the door, an alpha walked out and tossed him a five-credit bill.

Bai Ling picked up the money and silently placed the chessboard on the counter. The man, a cigarette dangling from his lips, spared him a glance and accepted the trade. As he walked out the door, Bai Ling heard the shop clerk call out to the man:

“Boss Kunan…”

After that, a faint scent of jasmine clung to him, masking the terrible smell of mildew.

People seemed less repulsed by him; when they took flyers from his hand, they didn’t immediately hurl them to the ground.

For a while, he actually believed his life might get a little better.

He even fantasized that if he ever recovered, and went to meet Mr. D, he would definitely buy a real jasmine flower to give him.

It wasn’t about romance; it was simply a heartfelt expression of gratitude.

However, life never gave him a complete hope; it always offered half, then shattered the other half right in front of him.

Before long, he was frequently coughing up blood, often jolted awake by the sensation of his impending death.

Bai Ling soon realized he might not survive that spring.

His rent was only paid through April. In that final week of the month, could he still wait for hope?

[Desserped]: Sorry for the late reply. How have you been lately?

[Lodestar]: I’m doing great. I have air freshener now. Everything is fine.

He had become an expert at lying.

The air freshener had run out long ago; he kept the empty bottle hidden next to his pillow, in a place he could reach just by stretching out his hand.

Rattlesnake had rusted away by the roadside, his last bits of money were gone, the fridge was empty, and luxuries like air freshener were no longer an option.

[Desserped]: You mentioned you were preparing to move. Have you found a place?

[Lodestar]: Found one. I might move back to an old spot.

In the damp and rainy plum rain season, he moded back to a tent under the square sculpture, hoping to survive a little longer.

If he could last until summer, maybe he could even save enough money to eat a watermelon.

Life always gets better.

[Desserped]: A game of chess?

[Lodestar]: Let’s play.

[Desserped]: We’ve played 26,871 times. You haven’t won once.

[Lodestar]: I’ll win the next one.

[Desserped]: When is the next one?

[Lodestar]: I don’t know. Maybe… the next time you’re online.

The other side fell silent for a long time. Finally, the status changed to Typing…

[Desserped]: Start the game.

Bai Ling’s vision blurred as he stared at the date in the top right corner of the terminal, hesitating to press the start button.

April 28th, 6:08 PM.

Two days left.

[Lodestar]: I want to make an unreasonable request.

[Desserped]: What request?

[Lodestar]: If I win, I want to meet you
.

[Desserped]: Deal.

Bai Ling thought: He really is an easy person to talk to.

In that game of chess, Mr. D played abnormally, losing the entire board.

Bai Ling won, as expected.

Both men understood without saying a word, each harboring different thoughts, looking forward to tomorrow’s meeting.

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Author’s note: Little bird, little bird, needs lots of love to heal.

 

jjwxc’s comments

jjwxc comments:

1: What’s sad is probably the tragedy of heroes at their end, beauties in their twilight, and acquaintances who never meet, or meet but fail to recognize each other. Meeting the right person at the wrong time, the little bird met the merman, clearly the right person, yet at the completely wrong time. They clearly liked each other, but due to their own issues, their love was never spoken outloud.

In that first lifetime, the little bird and the merman were like two hedgehogs trying to warm each other, both clearly in need of warmth, yet pushed apart by their own spikes. When the merman came to watch the little bird, he must have been forcing himself too, right? He had liked the little bird since he was small, allowing him to exist as a special exception, persisting all along. But by the time the little bird grew up and wanted to protect the merman’s kingdom, that kingdom had already vanished. The little bird still joined the military, only to lose his chance to continue serving because of a trashy swordfish alpha. He also lost a leg, became malnourished—one could even say that during that period, the little bird was utterly broken.

During the little bird’s revolution, no one emerged victorious. spoilers for heinz x sava. The little bird’s revolution failed too; all his comrades he could talk to died. The little bird’s mecha rusted—that was Rattlesnake, a mecha AI who loved beauty. Playing chess with the merman became the little bird’s last pillar of support.

Before their meeting, the little bird poured out his heart to the merman, but received only rational responses. Perhaps from that moment, the little bird’s mental state began to crumble. He pawned his chessboard for five dollars, five dollars given by Boss Kunan. Maybe at this moment, Boss Kunan was thinking of spoilers for third pairing?

Before meeting the mermanhe seemed full of hope for life while simultaneously losing faith. The little bird hoped to see the merman, wanting to repay him with himself or something precious. The little bird didn’t know the merman couldn’t see; he only knew that when the merman came, he carried flowers, so the mermaid must like flowers. The little bird used that twenty credits to redeem the chessboard and bought a bouquet of the only flowers he knew, jasmine, only to see the merman recording a video.

The little bird retreated.

The little bird’s hope collapsed.

The little bird committed suicide. He tidied everything up, leaving only the chessboard and jasmine preserved in the refrigerator. Actually, the little bird had also been looking forward to tomorrow’s meeting, but lost faith due to that misunderstanding with the video. The merman gave the little bird a kiss, igniting hope within him, but to the merman, the little bird was just a cunning veteran. The merman’s indifference was the final snowflake that crushed the little bird.

The merman didn’t know how important the little bird was to him, or rather, the merman had never considered the little bird’s place in his heart. The merman was the former emperor; he could rightfully look down from on high. His indifference served him well for ruling the empire, but for the little bird, it was poison. Even the AI, after analysis, asked, “Did you two have a fight?” but the merman remained perplexed.

The merman still went to the station, bought flowers, and waited for the little bird, but the little bird never appeared. The merman went to knock on the little bird’s door. If he had broken the door down when no one answered the next day, the merman might have still seen the little bird one last time. But the merman thought, waiting a bit longer wouldn’t hurt. Not until the very end did the merman learn of the little bird’s suicide, and his heart ached with bitterness.

The merman took the chessboard and flowers from the refrigerator, still not understanding. Only the AI asked, “Did you two make up?” When the merman opened the video he had recorded, his heart trembled. At that moment of opening the video, perhaps he finally recognized his own indifference, or the harm he had unintentionally caused the little bird.

Finally, the newspaper clippings drifting out from the chessboard were suffocating. The little bird had written in his own handwritting, “See you next time,” yet committed suicide on the eve of dawn. Countless misunderstandings and missed connections weave together into tragedy.

Just my own random thoughts… not much logic. Please go easy on the criticism. [Puts on helmet and runs away]

2: The old fish and the little bird are like two strange, sharp gears, slowly and discordantly running in the empire. If you don’t find a perfect fit, you will continue to wear and tear and change your shape like in the past, and finally fall, inconspicuous but ruined to the core. If you find the other half that meshes with each other, the huge machine will usher in a change.

3: Woowoo, I feel sorry for the bird, he should have been the most dazzling, proud and dashing one, but he ended up so miserably, what was the ending of this country in the previous life? The bird is living so miserably, this country should also be declining

4: Actually, I am somewhat stimulated by the little bird’s pain. There’s this kind of neural excitement mixed with heartache and tangled emotions.

The way the author intersperses the past really does step on my heart, again and again.

Seeing Rattlesnake rusting away by the roadside, seeing the little bird’s internal organs cramping and bleeding from pain—I admit, my nerves really were stimulated.

It feels very much like a rusty thin wire piercing straight through my heart.

Seeing these images, I unconsciously project that little bird who was raised so well by the old merman.

But just for a second, I also see that little bird cupping eight dollars in his chapped, festering fingers to buy the jasmine-scented air freshener. The little bird who was raised well, the little bird gasping his last breath in decay, the little bird holding his head high with spirit, and that little bird whose memories were so tangled by trauma he could no longer grasp the light—they all overlap.

I always, inexplicably, see them overlapping.

The span of two lifetimes seems to have stagnated within that little white head, as if never changing.

I am, in fact, so grateful that the little bird can’t clearly remember things during that final stretch of his previous life.

Memories this bitter cannot be brought into a new life.

His stability value is very low; he is easily triggered; he is very good at internalizing pain. So, when I view his past life from an omniscient perspective, I really don’t want the now-vibrant little bird to be tainted by that old bitterness. Although I really love a certain sense of déjà vu about the little bird (“even if his whole body is rotten and broken, his heart is still striving to stay warm,” the sense that if he could just live a little longer, hold out until summer, he could save up and eat a watermelon)—I still, truly, hope the little bird can forever be a soft, healthy little fluff puff.

He wanted so badly to live but couldn’t. That really breaks me.

The milk delivery truck from childhood, the “I love you” from childhood—those were probably the lights living inside the little bird’s heart.

The little bird must have needed many, many such warm lights. But later, he couldn’t grasp them anymore.

Only some things remained in his heart, just a tiny bit.

Yet the little bird really, really wanted to hold onto them.

So he wanted to live a little longer? Remember a little longer?

As for the little bird who later couldn’t hold on and died, I don’t want to think about the reasons. I’m scared. I’m scared that the last little bit of warmth in his heart was pierced, that it ran away, and so the little bird’s heart just burned out.

Such a bad environment, cold and damp. The little bird was so cold and in so much pain in that small rented room, and so he died.

I really think I’m overthinking it. Actually, even if it were schemes and conspiracies, it would be better than dying from an illness like this.

But it seems that once I start thinking, it’s hard to stop. The past was really too bitter. Bitter for so long, that even though it’s sweet now, it has been short. The sweet water hasn’t yet washed away the bitterness of the little bird’s past life.

So the little bird probably feels it’s unreal, is very sensitive, and occasionally, when memories overlap with the past, it hurts.

Every time I see these fragments, I feel so pained. I’m really strange. I feel like I’m even a bit melodramatic.

Without noticing, I’ve rambled on and typed all this.

Anyway, this time, little bird, you definitely, DEFINITELY, must soak and grow in the old merman-brand sugar jar!

Eat sweet watermelon in summer, huddle on the old merman’s warm and toasty abs for warmth in winter, be able to hold jasmine picked for him by the old merman anytime! Not just jasmine! Many, many fragrant flowers!

Tuck one into his feathers, wuwuwuwuwu, tuck flowers all over his head!

Reply: It really hurts, the bird’s past and present life are really painful. There is glass slag in this sugar.

5: After reading this chapter, I went back to the other chapter and looked at the merman perspective again, so I was successfully stabbed twice, and the knife was so painful (dead)

6: Pain…… The pain that penetratesdeep into the bone marrow, I couldn’t imagine what he had experienced in his previous life, the defects of the sequelae of the injury itself, the psychological pressure, the external environment without a friend, no one who could accompany him, even the last glimmer of hope had to leave him, after he left, it was like the last snowflake before the avalanche

7: I know these two are a couple, but the fact that the merman provided milk for the little bird when he was small, combined with the little bird’s current attachment and love for him, gives them a double buff of both “male mother raising a child” and “daddy boyfriend raising a partner.” It’s absolutely delicious, prprpr! Can anyone understand this?!

Reply: The past life is the most delicious! Merman Emperor is the beautiful, strong, and tragic type, but also wealthy—full marks in money, power, and status.

Dark, paranoid, and controlling—but these attributes are utterly fragile and useless against his “male mother” side!

A tyrant who gives extra milk to a little fledgling isn’t even a real dark personality! (Outrageous claim)

I want the male mother dynamic, I want it!

The little bird is the textbook definition of beautiful, strong, tragic, and poor (this is the first time I’ve seen a character this tragic).

Beautiful, strong, and tragic is already delicious, but if that beautiful, strong, tragic character hides a “white moonlight” in their heart, it becomes even more delicious!

The little bird, precisely in his childhood, was struck by the milk care of the Merman Emperor and later experienced the dark period under the new emperor’s rule.

The stark contrast before and after, plus the buff of a “chick imprinting complex”—the author wrote it superbly.

Although the little bird’s body grew up in his past life, in his heart he remained that little chick, wailing throughout his life.

He hoped that Merman Emperor who once said “goodnight, darling” to him when he was young, would hear the little fledgling’s cries again, would come with the milk truck and hold the little bird protectively in his arms.

So he rebelled against the new emperor, never got involved in relationships, never laid an egg.

Of course, a little birdwouldn’t lay eggs; a little bird only hoped his guardian would bring him a glass of milk.

Unfortunately, they ultimately missed each other. The male mother’s love came too late. The past life’s little bird struggled and wailed his whole life, finally transforming into a blurry dream, reminding Merman Emperor: this little bird loves you very much. Remember to seize him, to raise him well.

PS: The above is purely my personal understanding. Any resemblance to anything is purely coincidental. If there are any mistakes, please turn a blind eye. I don’t care, what I ship is the most delicious! Like!