Country C
The door creaked open with a soft push.
Mo Tianyi stood at the threshold, eyes adjusting to the dim room. The moonlight spilled in through the parted curtains, casting silver lines across the carpet and illuminating the still figure seated by the window.
Lu Jingyan didn't turn. She didn't need to. Her voice, though soft, carried.
"Tianyu sent you, didn't she?"
Tianyi stepped inside, closing the door behind him with a soft click. "She's worried. So am I."
Silence.
"She's a good girl," Jingyan murmured. "She doesn't understand that some wounds don't bleed. They rot."
Tianyi's jaw tensed.
She turned slightly now, just enough for him to see the hollow ache in her eyes. "Is that what happened to me, Tianyi? Did I rot while looking for the truth… only to realize I'd asked the devil for help?"
He stepped closer, arms folded. "No. You asked someone you loved for the truth"
Jingyan laughed bitterly. "I asked the man who destroyed everything I loved… to help me find the culprit. How poetic."
Tianyi remained still, watching her closely. "You're not the fool here. He is."
She glanced at him. "Do you think I can ever look at him again? Do you think I can ever unhear his voice telling me he did it — because of a school complaint?"
Mo Tianyi's eyes darkened. "He protected his sister. But he sacrificed your world to do it. That's not loyalty. That's betrayal."
Jingyan's voice cracked, low. "And still… it hurts."
"I know."
He walked to her side, kneeling so he could face her properly. "But listen to me, Jingyan… you are not broken because of what he did. You are standing in spite of it."
She blinked, a tear slipping down.
"You are Lu Jingyan," he said firmly, "and no one will write your story but you."
A soft knock echoed on the door.
Neither Mo Tianyi nor Lu Jingyan moved. She hastily wiped the tear from her cheek, regaining composure. Tianyi stood as the door cracked open again, revealing *Hua Shu* holding a tray with warm tea and a small porcelain box.
"I thought… you might need something to soothe your chest," Hua Shu said gently, stepping inside.
Jingyan's eyes met hers — tired but grateful.
"I didn't mean to intrude," Hua Shu added, placing the tray carefully on the low table near the couch. Her tone was soft, almost reverent, like one who had walked into a sacred silence. "But Tianyu looked troubled. And when that girl's face turns pale, the heavens worry."
That earned the faintest smile from Jingyan, but it faded quickly.
"I'm sorry you all have to keep worrying about me," she said, voice strained. "I asked for the truth. And I got it. I should be relieved… but I'm not. I feel like someone carved open my chest and left it hollow."
Hua Shu sat beside her slowly, folding her legs. "Relief doesn't come when the truth is a blade."
Mo Tianyi remained by the window, his shadow stretched long in the moonlight. "The truth always demands something. It just never asks politely."
"I wanted justice," Jingyan whispered. "Not vengeance. Not… destruction. But that man—he held my hand through fire, and he was the one pouring the oil behind my back."
"And still, part of you wants to run back," Hua Shu said quietly, not as a judgment, but as an understanding.
Jingyan didn't deny it. Her silence was the loudest confession of all.
Mo Tianyi stepped closer again, his voice gentler this time. "That's what betrayal does. It confuses love with pain until you can't tell where one ends and the other begins."
"Will it ever stop hurting?" she asked.
Hua Shu reached for her hand. "Only when you decide his actions no longer define your worth."
Silence hung again.
Then Mo Tianyi added, "The Lu name may have fallen… but you haven't. You're still standing, Jingyan. And if you ever need it—Mo Tianyu and I, even Xinyan—we'll stand with you. As long as it takes."
Jingyan's voice trembled, but her back straightened. "Then help me stand taller."
Hua Shu smiled softly. "Good. Because the world hasn't seen the real Lu Jingyan yet."