"You can’t fix this!" she cried, clutching her head as if it would split open. "Not this, not what’s already gone!"
"Then help understand. Was it a dream? A mory? A nightmare? What was it?" His voice turned desperate, the cold mask he wore for the world slipping, revealing the storm beneath.
She stared past him now, wide-eyed and broken, as if caught between two tilines. "She was here... she was in my arms... and then they took her... and everything went quiet..."
The younger maid had begun crying silently, the tray untouched beside her.
Shen Xiao turned to the older maid, voice low. "What is she talking about?"
But the woman only shook her head. "She’s been like this since she woke up."
His throat tightened wondering what he was going to do, "Was she hallucinating?" Because they don’t have a baby girl! Was the pain that unbearable that she suddenly changed the gender of their baby?
"She was coherent at first... but she kept asking about a child that never existed."
Yueyao suddenly let out a wail, the kind that didn’t co from the throat, but from a soul torn in two. "She was so warm... I held her... she had my nose..."
Shen Xiao turned back, shaken, frustrated even more. "Yueyao, listen to . There’s no record...
no one ever told ..."
"No one tells you anything," she snapped with eerie calm, her face going blank, then distant. "They never did. That’s why you always arrive too late."
The quietness of that accusation landed like a stone in his chest.
He sat down slowly beside her bed, afraid that if he moved too fast, she would disappear again.
"...Do you want to stay?" he asked after a pause.
No reply ca.
Just the quiet sound of Yueyao rocking slightly, muttering sothing under her breath.
He leaned closer. Her lips barely moved.
"...She was so tiny..."
He looked up at the maids helplessly, then lowered his eyes. If there had ever been a daughter, no one had told him. And if there hadn’t... then what in God’s na had they done to her?
He stayed by her side in silence, unable to hold her, unable to leave.
The mystery wrapped tighter, not in answers, but in pain too deep for words.
She no longer said anything, just curled up in a protective stance. He was getting overwheld and couldn’t get her to say anything understandable.
The sudden soft clink of porcelain echoed faintly in the quiet room.
He signaled the maids to pass the bowl of porridge over. And they soon passed it over to him.
Shen Xiao sat beside the bed, spoon in hand, holding a bowl of warm millet porridge between them. His voice was low, coaxing, almost tender. "Just one bite, Yueyao. You need your strength."
She turned her face away slowly, not with defiance, but with the vacant exhaustion of soone who no longer had the will to refuse or accept.
Her gaze fixed on the shadowy ceiling, lips parted in silence, throat moving but making no sound.
Shen Xiao hesitated as his fingers tightened on the spoon.
But then, the elder maid stepped forward, her voice hushed and practiced. "Madam... let us."
Surprisingly, Yueyao gave a faint nod. Not to him, but to them.
Shen Xiao’s eyes lingered on her for a mont longer, unreadable, before he quietly set the bowl down on the bedside table and stood. He didn’t leave the room, but he stepped aside, silently watching.
The younger maid gently lifted a spoonful of porridge, cautious and soft. "Miss Yueyao... just a little."
Yueyao’s lips trembled as they parted.
She swallowed one mouthful, then another. The warm porridge slid down her throat like ash. She didn’t taste it and didn’t care.
But she ate.
Not for herself, not out of hunger, but because resistance took energy she no longer had.
By the third spoonful, her body slumped deeper into the pillows. Her breathing slowed. She was fading again.
The tray was set aside. The maids drew the blankets over her carefully, as though covering a fragile porcelain doll.
Then ca the silence.
Evening deepened, shadows curling long against the polished floor.
Shen Xiao stepped closer again, but said nothing. He stood by the side of her bed, watching the slight rise and fall of her chest, hands buried deep in his pockets.
She was calm now. But it was the kind of calm that ca before the collapse.
A distant rustle stirred the silence, just the whisper of fabric as Yueyao shifted under the blankets. Her eyes were open again, but unfocused, and glassy. The kind of stare that didn’t see the world around her, only the ghosts living inside her.
Then, ca a whisper.
"I can still feel her weight..."
The younger maid, kneeling nearby, glanced up, eyes wide, but said nothing.
Shen Xiao crouched again, slowly, cautious not to startle her. "Yueyao," he said quietly, "was it a dream? Sothing they did to you? Sothing... soone hid?"
"No," she said flatly. Not a whisper now. Not hysterical either. Just cold, raw certainty. "She was real. She is real."
His breath caught. "Then tell . Who? When? Where....?"
But she only shook her head, her hair falling across her face, hiding her again. "You are not ant to know. You aren’t worth it!"
The simplicity of the sentence chilled him more than a scream would have.
"You are not ant to know."
Not you don’t but no one does. But you’re not ant to.
"What does that an?" His voice cracked slightly despite himself. "Who decides what I should know? Yueyao, I’m your...."
"Exactly," she said softly.
And that single word silenced him.
The clock ticked sowhere in the distance. A soft breeze slipped through the cracked window, fluttering the sheer curtains, carrying the faint scent of pear from the tray that still had so remaining porridge.
"I want to see my baby," she whispered again. "The little one. The quiet one."
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