Li Shaoling’s voice was as mild as the way he looked at Ji Weixi.

 But she had never seen that look.

 Quickly lowering her head, she grunted in agreement and followed him.

 She finally realized why Li Shaoling’s attitude towards her changed so dramatically after he survived the bombing incident.

 He had regained his memories.

 It must have been utter anguish to learn that he had fallen in love with the child of her mother’s murderer.

  Ji Weixi was more upset the more she thought about it, and she suddenly hurried into her room with a quick ‘goodnight’, slamming the door behind her.

 Inside, she leaned on the door and slid down feebly, sitting on the floor as she sobbed quietly.

 Outside, Li Shaoling stared at the tightly shut door before sighing silently and turning to leave.

 1It was only drizzling now, and Li Shaoling went to the edge of the roof and lit a cigarette, allowing the wind to ruffle his short black hair as much as it wished.

 As he held the cigarette between his fingers and lifting it to his lips, the smoke shrouding his distant gaze.

 By sheer coincidence, he had been looking for Ji Weixi when he found out that she had gone to Ji Xiandong’s ward. There, just outside the door, he stumbled upon the truth.

 Li Shaoling remembered meeting Ji Weixi when he was nine.

 She was six-years-old then, three years younger than him and was still Yu Chuqing.

 She was dressed in a powder-pink princess dress with her hair tied into two ponytails as she held a cloth doll then. Her eyes were large and dewy over her charming little face as she called him Brother Ling in her babyish voice.

 She was the beloved granddaughter of the Yu family when she was six.

 He was the embarrassment that the Li family would never admit under any abuse when he was nine.

 But there are times when fate is decided.

 Yu Chuqing was attending a prestigious school, while Li Shaoling’s school was the opposite.

 She would give him cotton candy every day after school, and let him play her favorite cloth doll.

 Li Shaoling found her too cute then.

 Eventually, the Yu family and the Li family forcefully pried them apart when they learned that they were meeting.

 They did not meet for a year until both families decided to work together when they met a crisis in Europe, and it was as if the two children had regained the treasure of their lives.

 Li Shaoling remembered how Yu Chuqing had held him and cried for a long time. “I hate my family, Brother Ling,” she said then. “Mommy doesn’t even look at me, and daddy always beats me when he sees me. You might not see me if not for my grandfather…”

 “Let’s run away.” Li Shaoling replied.

 1Yu Chuqing looked at him blankly. “Where should we run? We don’t have money—we’ll starve. Forget it, I’ll stay.”

 Li Shaoling smiled. Even so, she didn’t know that he had really wanted to take her away then.

 And very much so.

 Later, Wan Mei brought her to the Yu’s residence.

 He never expected the fire.

 Both Yu Xiaoxiao and Wan Mei died right in front of his eyes, and Chen Bin’s ruthless visage would leave anyone shaking in fear.

 He knew that Chen Bin would kill him—he was driven into bloodlust by murder.

 “Brother Ling, run!”

 Yu Chuqing pushed him to the blue skies outside. Li Shaoling watched as everything was burnt into ash, screaming as hard as he could.

 After Chen Bin, Yu Xiaoxiao, and Wan Mei’s death, it appeared that the grievances of the last generation were burnt out too.

 Eventually, Li Shaoling was brought into the Li family by Old Madam Li as Li Shaogan’s puppet and chess piece.

 1He did not say a word in that one year, because Yu Chuqing had been the light of his life.

 Now that the light had died, there’s no meaning to living.

 Later, however, he unwittingly learned about a girl named Ji Weixi who bore a strong resemblance to the Yu Chuqing of his memories.

 His little girl had changed names.

 Even so, he was not brave enough to appear before her. He discreetly observed her wellbeing, even if she had long forgotten about him.

 And the truth that she wasn’t living well.

 Therefore, he had thought about taking her away many times, but his heart hurts whenever he remembered that she wouldn’t recognize him.

 ***

 There was a photo album in a certain room within the Li family’s residence.

 Inside were the photos of a girl since his childhood, each showing her smile as bright as a ray of sunshine.

 Since Li Shaoling was twelve, he knew that the girl was special to him.

 He thought that he had gone crazy enough to fall in love with the daughter of a sworn enemy.

 But, so what? The grievances of generations past were tiresome, and he would not any tragedy repeating itself.

 Even so, as countless days and nights passed, the screams of his mother in his nightmares of her undeserved death compelled him to admit that he had made an irreversible mistake.

 He hence lived his days under that torment, many a time disregarding his thoughts of Ji Weixi…

 Until she became an adult, in the year of her graduation night.

 When he went up stage at her school and gave a testimonial, she was below the stage, clapping for a person she was unfamiliar with.

 But when it was over, he wanted to greet her, only to find her stumbling unusually.

 She was drugged: her breathing was hot—scorching, even.

 In her drunkenness, she offered her first kiss willingly. Li Shaoling tried to maintain his rationality more than once, but in the end it all went to dust from one of her mutterings.

 “Brother Ling…”

 He wanted her—to marry her and have her be his.

 But he had a moment of weakness and realized that he didn’t know how to face her.

 He was also afraid that she would look upon him as a stranger, that she would hate him.

 He only resolved himself when her stomach was swelling, to find her and settle things.

 He almost lost his life to Old Madam Li’s machinations and lost his memory.

 Then, four years later, things transpired and he met Ji Weixi once again.

 ***

 The next day.

 Ji Weixi’s sleep was terrible. She was aching all over when she woke up, and she was feeling groggy.

 She washed her face after waking up and simply tied her hair.

 Someone seemed to be arguing outside, and quite violently so.

 Ji Weixi opened the door to find a woman bashing a man with a bat, throwing some curses about a mistress.

 The man was shielding a dainty white lotus who looked like a university student, retorting that there was no way he would let her get hurt.

 Ji Weixi had no heart to enjoy the show. All she wanted was to get to the water dispenser for some warm water.

 But when she walked over, the woman was incidentally swinging her bat at the man again when he quickly evaded it with the white lotus in his arms. The bat hence ended up precisely and heavily on Ji Weixi’s head.

 There was a loud bang and everyone froze.

 Thud—

 Ji Weixi’s thermoflask dropped to the ground. She felt as if her head would split and had to crouch, holding her head as her eyes bulged.

 The woman who hit her was frightened. But when she was about to check on Ji Weixi, a man had arrived, taking Ji Weixi in his arms and looked up with rolling killing intent, and the woman flinched in terror.

 “S-sorry…”

 Li Shaoling withdrew his gaze. He went to pick up Ji Weixi when he saw that her head was bleeding.

 However, Ji Weixi had both hands pressed on the floor as she gasped difficulty for mouthfuls of air.

 Her eyes slowly closed as scattered black and white images flashed in her mind and before her eyes.