Unwan's heart hadn't stopped yet, but it could at any moment. Still, it no longer truly pumped any blood, just kept moving mechanically. The blood inside his body was slowly beginning to solid.
Blood carries oxygen, and the brain is its consumer. If the blood in the brain hardens, that means both death and the shutting down of the brain before death even arrives. In other words, a problem with no solution. Or perhaps, was there one?
Yet in his final moments, something held Unwan's attention something that forced his mind to keep working a little longer. Any ordinary person would have died by now, unable to endure the pain.
But it was as if the threads of fate themselves refused to let him die just yet. What he noticed didn't even need to be said aloud.
And yet, even now, something else was pulling at Unwan's attention. He hadn't drunk a drop of water since leaving the orphanage, and as he neared the fountain, his thirst burned stronger with every step. Each second felt as if his body was dying from dehydration. Perhaps it was because he had lost too much blood. Nearly three-fifths of it, when an ordinary person would've passed out after losing just one.
The fountain's water looked unbearably tempting, its constant ripples dancing before his eyes. But somehow, those very ripples seemed to hide something.
It was hard to see clearly. The water reflected the statue in the fountain's center, as usual. But the inscription beneath the statue's name, the name of the first king, looked entirely different. As if a different message was written there.
The rippling water made it impossible to read. Even on the brink of death, Unwan wanted, no, needed to find an answer to at least one mystery.
"Think, think... how can I see those lines clearly?"
Luckily, the brain cannot feel pain. Otherwise, Unwan's head would have exploded from it. He was somehow forcing his mind to keep functioning, even without oxygen. And so, a thought came to him:
"Wait... what if I make my own wave?"
Unwan tried to move his left hand, but then he realized. It was poisoned up to the elbow. Still, he managed to lift it. The pain was unbearable, and using that arm only worsened it, yet he pushed through, forcing his trembling hand toward the surface of the water. The water felt cool, oddly soft to the touch and his thirst instantly grew tenfold.
"Hold on, Unwan. What's the point of drinking when your future won't last a single minute more?"
Meanwhile, the mechanical guardian beside the fountain tilted slightly toward him, as if ready to strike if he touched a coin. It had no eyes, yet Unwan knew it could somehow sense him.
But he didn't touch the coins. His hand didn't even dip five centimeters below the surface. Instead, holding back his thirst, he placed his hand on the outer edge of the fountain and pushed with all his remaining strength, creating a small wave.
If it had been an ordinary person, that push would've made a wave three times larger. But for someone poisoned, it was already beyond normal.
The wave he made collided with the natural ripples of the fountain, and in that instant, one of the fountain's waves was swallowed by his artificial one. The next moment, that wave consumed two more ripples before disappearing entirely. Within seconds, the fountain's surface became perfectly still.
And then, the inscription became clear. But it showed something entirely different.
"Faith and hope cost no coin."
"What?"
Faith and hope cost no coin? What kind of nonsense was that?
Unwan's thirst was maddening. He could have drunk the whole fountain dry. Sure, no one could guarantee whether the water was clean or full of bacteria. But to him, it didn't matter. To a poisoned man, what harm could bacteria possibly do?
But then another thought crept into his mind.
What if the mechanical guardian was protecting the water too?
And just as that thought came, another voice seemed to whisper inside his head:
"So what if it is? Even if it damages you, would that really matter? Does a dying man fear anything at all?"
Unwan silently agreed. If this was his last moment, then so be it. Let him at least taste water once more.
The street was still alive, carriages passing by, but he noticed none of them. Ripples formed again as the fountain continued to flow. Unwan dipped his hand into the water once more and lifted a handful. For some reason, a faint spark of hope flickered inside his fading mind.
"Maybe... maybe this water could heal me."
He laughed at himself.
– Heal me? My fate's already sealed. I'll die here, that's certain. Besides, how could plain water possibly heal anything? It's probably crawling with millions of bacteria.
He laughed again, a strange laughter before death. But deep inside his poisoned heart, that faint hope didn't die out. His own words might have limited him, but they couldn't erase it.
He drank the water. It was delicious—so good that it felt like the sweetest water he had ever tasted. Or maybe his thirst just made it seem that way.
Ignoring the pain in his hand, he drank greedily again, again and again... seven, maybe eight handfuls in total. Then he stopped. Not because he wanted to, but because his heart had stopped beating.
How ironic. His hand still rested in the fountain as the poison reached his fingertips.
He hadn't once looked at his reflection in the water while drinking or staring at the statue. But now, from his lower lip to the tips of his toes, his entire body had turned blue. His torn clothes covered only part of him.
What a strange, pitiful way to die. Still... at least he got to drink his fill before the end.
No.
The threads of fate still clung tightly around his body. His heart had stopped.
But... Was he truly dead?