Yang had a moment of confusion as his perspective dipped. He had collapsed to his knees. Following an unsuccessful attempt to rise to his feet again, he leaned back lightly against the wall and sat where he was. Not my finest hour, he thought, but no longer had the strength even to move. The pool of blood around him grew. Miracle Yang becomes Yang the Bloody, he thought. Even thinking was immensely tiring for him now.
His fingers would not move. His vocal cords were failing. So when he spoke—
“Sorry, Frederica. Sorry, Julian. Sorry, everybody...”
—no one heard it but Yang himself. At least, that was what he himself believed.
Yang closed his eyes. It was his last action in this world. In one corner of the consciousness that now fell down a colorless well, twilight turning to lacquer black, he heard a familiar voice calling his name.
At 0255 on June 1, 800 SE, time stopped for Yang Wen-li. He was thirty-three years old.
