The meal wasn’t anything like rare delicacies from mountain and sea, but everyone at the table ate in perfect warmth and cheer. The children scrambled for food. Hua Zhaoxue kept placing dishes onto his plate with quiet care. Nie Wangqing watched him with puzzled eyes. Everything felt so natural, so warm.
Gradually, the glow of dusk was replaced by the curtain of night. The last traces of sunset gave way to the brilliance of moonlight. Yet the people around the table still sat around that breathtakingly beautiful boy, chatting and laughing.
But the moment the moon appeared, Tian You’s expression froze slightly. The chopsticks in his hand stopped in midair and didn’t come down for a long while.
“What’s wrong, Tian You?”
“What’s wrong, Brother Tian You?!”
Everyone at the table had been watching him all along, so they noticed his abnormal state at once and asked with concern. But Tian You only shook his head lightly. Then he rose from his seat. Those stunning purple eyes of his had turned unusually hazy.
Step by step, he walked toward the front yard. Facing that exceptionally radiant moon, he came to a quiet stop.
And simply stared at it, lost in a daze...
At that moment, the spring breeze of Huanan brushed gently through the yard. It stirred the willow tree there, stirred Hua Zhaoxue’s vivid red dress, and stirred the boy’s long black hair, dark as night.
Under the moonlight, the boy’s tall and graceful figure was draped in snow-white gauze. His black hair slanted with the soft wind. At that moment, the ethereal, otherworldly aura around him slowly faded. What remained was loneliness and desolation, as if he were the bright moon in the sky with no stars beside it, unable to find direction in the vast night...
Watching that elegant back, as if it had merged with nature itself, everyone gradually fell into a daze.
Nie Wangqing’s feelings were the most complicated of all. By now, he truly could no longer understand what kind of person this boy really was.
If he had truly cast off all emotion, then how was he supposed to explain that lonely back, solitary as the moon?
“Is this... the moon?”
As Tian You looked at the lonely moon in the sky, shining with brilliant silver light, a slight ripple appeared in his eyes for the first time. He didn’t even know what he was feeling right now. He clearly couldn’t remember anything from his past, yet when he saw this scene, he felt a strange sense of familiarity. His emotions were just as tangled and hard to name.
His airy voice echoed softly through the courtyard. Hua Zhaoxue was the first to come back to herself, but her beautiful eyes still rested on Tian You’s graceful back as she answered gently, “Yes... this is the moon. Tian You, did you remember something?”
Tian You shook his head lightly and let out a soft sigh. In the end, he gave the still lonely and radiant moon one last look with those wavering, watery eyes, then turned back and spoke softly to Hua Zhaoxue, whose eyes were misted with a faint watery haze.
“Sister Zhaoxue, I’m a little tired. Could you find a place for me to rest?”
Hearing Tian You’s words, Nie Wangqing quietly left with the group of children. The simple, warm atmosphere vanished at once. Only Hua Zhaoxue and the breathtaking boy bathed in moonlight remained in the courtyard.
This...
Hua Zhaoxue really wanted to agree to the boy’s request. But the last sliver of reason she had left told her that this wasn’t quite appropriate. Before, Tian You had been unconscious. There had been no extra bed in the house, and she had been afraid of delaying his recovery, so she had no choice but to arrange for him to stay in her room. But now that he was awake, the nature of things was a little different...
...
After a fierce struggle in her mind, she still couldn’t bear to refuse him.
With that thought, Hua Zhaoxue bit her lip lightly. A flush spread across her gorgeous face, and she gave Tian You a small nod.
...
Tian You looked at the familiar room and the familiar fragrance. A rare trace of redness appeared on his fair face as well, leaving Hua Zhaoxue staring blankly at him for quite a while. But before Tian You could take a closer look around, a heavy wave of sleepiness hit him. Under that overpowering drowsiness, he didn’t even have time to say anything before following it and collapsing onto the pillow, which carried the scent of a woman’s hair.
Seeing that Tian You had already lain down, Hua Zhaoxue didn’t hurry to leave. She only stood there in a daze, watching his sleeping face. Even asleep, he was still that peerless and unworldly. After a brief silence, Tian You’s faint and steady breathing could be heard. At that, Hua Zhaoxue gave his breathtaking sleeping face one last deep look. Her red lips parted slightly as she took a deep breath. After suppressing the ripples in her heart, she quietly opened the door and left with soft, gentle steps...
...
...Where is this?
This was a white world. As far as the eye could see, there was only endless whiteness. Here, time itself seemed to have no meaning. It was as if the entire world had been swallowed by white, with no end in sight.
Looking at this vast white world, Tian You felt a surge of sorrow and unease for no reason at all. It was as if this place were the nightmare he feared most in the depths of his heart.
“You shouldn’t have come here...”
The voice was incomparably soft, ethereal as if it came from every direction at once, impossible to tell whether it belonged to a man or a woman. Though gentle, it carried a cold indifference that had sunk to freezing point. Like a frigid pool.
In a white space like this, if such a voice suddenly rang out, most people’s first reaction would have been fear and retreat. But what rose in Tian You’s heart was guilt, deep in his bones.
“Who are you... Why does hearing your voice make my heart... hurt this much...?”
After Tian You spoke, that frigid-pool-like voice gave no reply. And just as the world returned once more to empty white, a very soft, very faint sigh seemed to drift through the space.
“Forget it...”
The voice could no longer maintain its earlier coldness.
Just as Tian You anxiously wanted to press further, a powerful wave of dizziness suddenly struck him. He gritted his teeth and tried to hold himself up against it, but in the end, he still couldn’t withstand the intense vertigo and lost consciousness just like that. At the very instant he blacked out, his body vanished from that endless white world.
...
