Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios

Xia Qingyi looked at him, and carefully looked at her own hand. She then used her hand to touch her face, saying nothing.

“Are you alright? Do you feel unwell?” Han Liang carefully pulled at her arm.

Xia Qingyi finally returned to her senses and glanced at Han Liang, looking back to normal. “Nothing, I was thinking of something just now.”

“What are you thinking of?”

“Thinking… of going out to get fish for you,” Xia Qingyi seemed to be muttering to herself.

Han Liang felt less worried. “How about you go another day, you don’t look well today.”

“No… I want to go…” Her tone was firm.

Since she was going to buy fish for him, Han Liang thought that she was preparing to settle down in the rhythm of their everyday life and decided to go along with her wish. “Then go, we’ll wait for you at home, come back soon.”

When Xia Qingyi walked out of the apartment building, she was still not sure why she wanted to leave. From the moment she had found out the truth, she felt as though she was in a daze. The sudden intake of a huge amount of information made her alarmed all of a sudden. She had even forgotten to go and question Han Liang and her mother. To ask them why they would hide something so big from her.

But she did not dare to ask, afraid that she would be unable to handle the truth when it was in front of her face.

She thought of a thousand possibilities, but had never thought of this. This was rather unbelievable after all.

She had been a coward once and chosen to escape. She thought that she was probably unable to peacefully walk back into this house and get along with them as usual in the short term.

Walking away from her house on the road that she had just passed earlier, she thought of where to go and what she should do next.

But it seemed like she could not think of anything, and she did not know what to do. Her mother, Han Liang, her uncle, everyone was working together to keep the truth from her, all of them were lying to themselves everyday. They were constantly drawing an imaginary protective circle around themselves, and she was trapped inside, unable to move.

She had finally walked out of the circle now and seen the reality in this world. Yet there was no one to tell her what was the next step she should take and to lead her in the correct direction.

Xia Qingyi walked at the roadside, feeling helpless. She kept telling herself repeatedly to keep calm, keep calm, but both of her hands still trembled.

Just like that, she did not know why, but when she raised her head, she saw that she had arrived at the bus station.

She went back to S City.

It was midnight, and Mo Han forced himself to settle down and finish up his work for the day. But this was far from his usual work efficiency, and even the staff from his company could see that he was different. Mo Han knew that deep down in their hearts, they were suspecting that their boss had fallen sick and had become muddled. Their boss would never let his mind wander when reading a civil judgment book in the past. And he would never break off in the middle of his speech during a video conference and stop to think about what he had to say. And he definitely would not have insomnia.

Ever since he returned from F City, he was unable to sleep for the entire night. Once he closed his eyes, his mind would be filled with shadows of Xia Qingyi, her last expression he had seen that day, and how she would be looking at Han Liang obediently.

He thought, he had become just like Xia Qingyi probably as punishment for the words he had said that day.

They would not owe anything to each other in this way. She could not fall asleep, and neither could he, even if he wanted to.

But luckily, there was a way to cure his insomnia. He just had to lie on Xia Qingyi’s bed, smell her scent on it and he would unknowingly fall asleep.

He had never told anyone about this. He did nothing more other than to call Bai Yu at two A.M and ask him to come over and accompany him to drink for the one night when he was simply no longer able to bear it. Bai Yu was sure that Mo Han definitely had something on his mind, and wanted to trick him into saying it, asking him how he was lately. Bai Yu even said that if Mo Han revealed it, he was willing to pull in some big clients for Mo Han’s law firm.

But Mo Han still did not speak, and only continued to drink.

When he was a little tipsy, he had to restrain himself from giving in to reckless thoughts of calling Xia Qingyi, and told himself that he could not stray down the wrong path. Not a step out of place.

He could not disrupt her life and drag himself to hell for it.

He had been enduring it like this.

Until Han Liang called.

“Hello? Did you say something to Nian Nian today?” His voice sounded rather anxious.

Mo Han smiled. “Why are you so sure that I was the one who said something to her?”

“Who else could it be but you! Who else does she know? I felt that there was something not right about her when she came back today. Did you say something to her on the phone?”

“Can you stop bothering me about things between the two of you?!” Just hearing Han Liang talk made Mo Han want to hang up immediately. “She has nothing more to do with me. Isn’t that exactly how you wanted it to be?”

“Did you really not contact her?” His voice sounded disappointed. “Then what happened to her? Why would she become like that all of a sudden?” Han Liang remembered her sorrowful and soulless eyes from when she stood at the doorway again.

“What happened to her?” Mo Han felt that something was wrong.

“Did she come and find you?” Han Liang was afraid that she had found out something.

“No.”

His answer worried Han Liang once again. If it was not because of Mo Han, then why had Xia Qingyi suddenly left without even taking her phone with her. The expression that she had when she stood at the doorway before she left had frightened him.

He was afraid that she would not return anymore this time.

“Did the two of you have a fight? Or did you do something that let her down. You said that you would treat her well when you took her away initially, and yet something had already happened when she only left a while ago,” Mo Han asked, gritting his teeth.

“You have to tell me if she contacted you,” Han Liang said in the end.

After he hung up, Mo Han felt unsettled. The clock on the wall showed that it was nearing one in the morning. He pulled opened the curtains and saw that it had started raining sometime ago. There were only the pitter-patter sounds of rain hitting the window in the silence of the night, numerous water droplets on the glass window, separating Mo Han from the dark and blurry world outside.

Mo Han thought about it, and still took his coat and prepared to go out.

But when he opened the door, he glimpsed someone sitting quietly in the corner.

It was a dripping wet Xia Qingyi. Her hair was drenched, and she was sitting quietly with her legs to her chest on the cold floor, the damp ground beneath her clothes making her look as though she was sitting in a puddle of water.

Her eyes were blank, staring ahead at the wall in front of her.

“What are you doing here?” Mo Han asked.

She heard his voice, turned back to look at him, and then slowly stood up using the wall as support and stared at him.

“I’m asking you, why are you here?”

Xia Qingyi only stared at him, not speaking, as though she had used up all her energy.

Mo Han touched her clothes. It was soaked through as though she had fallen into a river. He furrowed his eyebrows. “Don’t you know to bring an umbrella along with you when you leave the house? How did you become like this?”

Xia Qingyi’s voice was trembling. “Can I sleep here?”

Mo Han looked at her for a long time, and then said, “What happened between you two?”

Xia Qingyi shook her head, the cold rain making her shiver. She huddled closer to the wall and did not step forward nor backward. She only stared at Mo Han, her face filled with emotions.

“If the two of you had a fight, I don’t think you should come here to me in the middle of the night. You should go back,” Mo Han also suppressed his own feelings.

“I… just want to stay here for a while,” Xia Qingyi said in a low voice, as though her voice had lost its soul.

In Mo Han’s eyes, this was simply her coming here to seek warmth and comfort after fighting with Han Liang. He did not know that he always lost all reason when it came to Xia Qingyi’s problems.

“Do you know what you are doing?” Mo Han asked.

Xia Qingyi felt extremely tired. “I do.”

“No matter what happened after you walked past this door, you would always go in,” Mo Han asked her.

Xia Qingyi nodded her head, seeming as though she no longer had any energy to answer Mo Han’s questions. She only wanted to rest after she saw him.

Mo Han walked to the front of Xia Qingyi, looked at her eyes, and suddenly pulled her arms towards him. He pulled her into the house, forcefully kicked the door closed and pushed Xia Qingyi up against the door.

“Xia Qingyi, don’t ever think about leaving now that you’ve come in,” Mo Han said into her ear.

Xia Qingyi did not respond. Mo Han could not see her expression with her head lowered.

Mo Han was not satisfied with her current state, thinking that she had reluctantly entered his home. But she had clearly come in herself. She still came in willingly after he had finished speaking. So, to punish her for looking the way she was now, he firmly tipped her chin up with his hand and roughly kissed her lips.

Her lips were still as soft as they were in the past. His tongue easily slid into her mouth, and he greedily savored the sweetness of it. He used his teeth to bit down on her lips, but she did not have a single response.

Mo Han stopped and looked at Xia Qingyi’s expression. Her eyes still looked empty, and she remained unmoving, staring fixedly in the direction behind him. He started to feel scared. The current her was completely different from who she was in the past.

She seemed to have walked through hell and back.

“What happened to you?”

Xia Qingyi blinked her eyes, raised her head to look at Mo Han, and then gently hugged him, her voice clear as water as she spoke while in his embrace, “I want to rest for a while.”

Mo Han was a little flustered, and he touched Xia Qingyi’s forehead. “Are you… ill?”

Xia Qingyi shuddered in his arms, but remained silent.

Mo Han moved her away from his chest, and was surprised to see that her face was full of tears.

She looked distressed, her mouth was wide open, and she looked like a child who had lost her most beloved toy.

“What is it? What happened to you?” Mo Han saw her crying and softened his voice, wiping off the tears on her face a little anxiously.

Xia Qingyi hugged him tightly. “I want to sleep.”