"Yueyao..." He called her but she didn’t look at him, but rather looked at the man in front of her, her eyes glazed.
"Is it really you? No... No.... It’s a dream... It’s a dream..." She heavily shook her head taking a step back.
In her dreams, this was the exact man, then she recalls how she had chosen him but still woke up in the sa bed.
"You are not real! You are not!" She shook her head frantically as tears went down her cheeks. He left her behind and in the sa place after she chose him!
Jin Shuren didn’t correct her, not yet.
He simply watched, letting her eyes search his mask as though she might find sothing familiar beneath the jade, "Whether it’s a dream or not," his voice was low, steady, "I’m right here. And I’m not leaving you again."
Her breath hitched, an involuntary tremor passing through her. The chains were gone, but she still stood as if she expected them to snap back around her wrists at any mont.
Shen Xiao stepped forward again, ignoring the operatives who subtly shifted to block his path. "You are confusing her, she’s sick! She doesn’t even know what she’s saying!"
The guns shifted and pointed at him. Jin Shuren wasn’t in any hurry. Bai Zhi was feeling bad, but Shen Xiao hadn’t given her any attention. Had he fallen in love with Yueyao?
"Yueyao, let’s go and find Shen Xuan... He is waiting for you!" Nothing was greater than a mother’s love for her child.
"Shen Xuan? Who is that?" She frowned, her gaze fixed on the masked man before her.
He felt familiar... so achingly familiar... but she couldn’t place where. Then it struck her: the man who had rescued her from the brothel had worn this sa mask.
The air around him was different from anyone else’s, thick, and dangerous. A faint scent clung to him, one that didn’t belong to clean streets or sunlit courtyards.
It was the bite of cold tal, the sharp tang of gun oil, and the lingering musk of smoke from cheap cigars, layered with sothing darker, older, like blood washed away but never truly gone.
It was the scent of a man who lived in the shadows, whose hands had touched both money and murder.
That...
It wasn’t unpleasant, no, it was intoxicating in its own way, a warning and a pull all at once.
She got closer and couldn’t stop etching forward for that familiar scent.
His scent reached her before his touch did, warm cedarwood laced with a trace of dark spice, the kind that clung to a man who had walked through smoke and shadows.
Now thinking even further, she felt like she had slled this scent a few tis; she couldn’t recall, but she could rember that scent very well, when she had given birth, he was there.
"You said, you know where my little girl is! Where is she? You told !" She suddenly recalled what he promised her... He did...
She couldn’t see any baby in his arms... Her emotions were all over the place and ntally unstable...
"You also lied to ... You lied to ...." She was frustrated, but in reality, she didn’t know what her imagination was; that was a miscarriage and a fetus gone before it could see any daylight.
Jin Shuren signaled Jin Zhou who brought a little girl over and had woken up from the commotion.
She was roughly punching his chest, and he let her. Her condition seed to be more severe than he had thought... He had to be careful with her emotions..
"Look here she is... Don’t scare her.... Calm down... Mnnh!" His voice was soft, endearing, and calm. He held her hands, trying to stop her, and she actually didn’t withdraw her hands and didn’t overreact.
When she heard him, she turned around and saw the little girl dressed in a peach coloured princess dress and a beautiful heavy overcoat keeping her warm.
"Yueqin.... My Yueqin...." She hurriedly snatched the girl away from Jin Zhou and almost stumbled back, almost falling, but Jin Shuren stretched his hands first and shielded her as she stabilized her footing.
The little girl blinked at her suddenly tight embrace, her small hands pressing against Yueyao’s arms as if to gauge whether she was real.
"Mother?" Her voice was soft, uncertain, but carried a hint of warmth.
Yueyao’s eyes brimd with tears, spilling before she could stop them. "It’s you... It’s really you..." Her fingers trembled as they traced the curve of the girl’s cheek, committing every detail to mory, terrified that if she blinked, she’d wake up and it would all vanish.
This was the sa girl she saw in her nightmare, but wait, if she had gotten a surgery to remove the ectopic pregnancy, where did this baby co from?
She began doubting while looking at the girl, was she her kid? But she could feel the heavy protective maternal instincts kicking in. She felt like it was her little baby, her little princess...
Jin Shuren stayed close, not touching her now, but ready to catch her if her knees gave out again.
His masked gaze lingered on the two of them, an image he would move worlds to make possible, yet there was no softness in his posture.
This mont had to be steady, contained. Her emotions were already teetering on the edge, and one wrong word could send her spiraling.
Shen Xiao stood frozen a few steps away, confusion flickering across his face. "Yueqin...?" The na caught in his throat. He looked at the girl but couldn’t see her face and couldn’t tell what she looked like, but this was the sa na she had been calling for!
Yueyao didn’t even glance at him. Cradling the little girl in her arms, she shifted her weight so she could hold the child closer, brushing away a stray lock of hair from her forehead. "I missed you every day," she whispered.
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