Shen Xiao stood still, letting her words lash out like cold, stinging rain. His jaw tightened, but his eyes remained unreadable, just that sa maddening calmness that made her want to scream and scratch him all over to vent her heart out.
"Bai Zhi..." His voice was quieter now, nearly drowned by her sobs. "That condition... it wasn’t ant to destroy you. It was the only way I could keep you alive. You knew the price when you agreed to it."
Her chest heaved, but her lips curled into a bitter, trembling smile.
"Don’t you dare," she hissed, "don’t you dare say you kept alive. I’m the one who ruined myself. I made the decision myself, I let them use , let them change , because I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you Shen Xiao."
She looked at him now, not with love, but with the hollow ache of soone who had been burned alive by it. Her voice cracked, thick with self-loathing. "I gave up everything, Shen Xiao, my body, my future, and my soul, to save you, Shen Xiao. It was because I loved you more than I feared death. And now I’m paying for it every single day. You know, staying far from you ans every night I have to go through pain. How could you be this selfish?"
"You were never ant to suffer for...."
"But I am suffering, Shen Xiao!" she snapped, tears blurring her vision. "Every damn day I wake up, I rember our son we couldn’t hold! And now, I can’t even have peaceful days!"
Shen Xiao’s face paled slightly, but she kept going.
"I can’t have children anymore, Shen Xiao. I can’t even leave you, because my life is still tied to yours through that cursed blood. I’m bound to you, and yet sohow, I’m the one being cast aside."
He moved toward her instinctively, but she stepped back like his nearness burned her.
"I didn’t do it for the glory, Shen Xiao," she whispered. "I did it because I thought you would never leave . I thought being your first love... your fiancée... ant sothing to you, but I still have to pay for those choices..."
Her voice dropped to a brittle murmur.
"But I see now. I see who you smile for. Who do you protect? Who are you trying to keep away from?"
He opened his mouth, but no words ca out, that silence was sharp and unforgiving, cut deeper than anything.
She took one final look at him. "If it had been her in my place... would you have let her do what I did? Would you have watched her go through it?"
Again, silence.
"I thought so too," she said quietly.
"Shen Xiao, I don’t want to continue living this kind of life with pain! It’s my fault that I chose to save you!"
Her hands trembled as she took a step back, pressing a palm against her abdon as if trying to hold in everything that was breaking loose inside her.
"If I had known... if I had known that saving you ant dying like this, slowly, painfully, every day, I would have chosen the grave instead. At least the pain would have ended."
"Bai Zhi," Shen Xiao stepped forward, his voice low and firm. "Don’t say things you can’t take back."
She laughed, a hollow, broken sound. "Can’t take it back? Shen Xiao, there’s nothing to take back! I already gave you my blood. I already lost the child, our only child I would have ever given birth to. I already beca this... thing tethered to you like a shadow with no light."
Without warning, she spun around and reached for the heavy antique letter opener lying on the mahogany desk, its silver blade glinting under the warm lamplight.
Shen Xiao’s eyes widened the mont he recognized it. It wasn’t just any desk trinket; it was the sa blade she’d used years ago, when she had slit her palm to begin the cursed binding that tethered their lives together.
"Bai Zhi!" His voice cracked like thunder, but her grip had already tightened around the handle, the edge grazing her skin with terrifying familiarity.
"Don’t co any closer," she warned, eyes glassy, feral. "You want to disappear? Fine. Let make it easier for both of us."
Shen Xiao’s breath hitched. "Put it down. You know what will happen."
She gave a shaky laugh, one so hollow it sounded like it echoed from a grave. "That’s the point, Shen Xiao. Maybe if I die, you’ll finally understand what it costs to keep you breathing."
"Don’t do this," he said hoarsely, stepping forward, but she raised the blade to her neck, her hand trembling.
"If I bleed, you bleed too," she whispered. "Isn’t that how the curse works? So if you don’t want to die, maybe you should finally care whether I live."
His face paled, a flicker of panic flashing through his composure for the first ti.
"Bai Zhi, listen to . Please.... don’t. I never ant for it to co to this."
Her lips quivered. "But it has. And this ti, I’m not begging you to love or care about my life. I’m asking if you are ready to die with ."
Her grip on the letter opener tightened.
Shen Xiao took a cautious step forward, his voice low and taut. "You don’t have to do this, Bai Zhi."
"I already did," she softly murmured lost. And then, without another word, she dragged the sharp edge across the inside of her arm in one clean, shallow slice.
Blood welled instantly.
Shen Xiao hissed through his teeth, staggering back a step as a searing pain flared along his own arm, in the exact sa place. His hand flew to the invisible wound, fingers trembling.
"Stop....!" he barked, voice breaking. "Stop it now."
But she was already holding her bleeding arm out toward him like an accusation.
"Do you feel it now?"
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