Fei Chuan woke up, crying.
He wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes. A lingering sorrow and emptiness remained in his chest, as if his heart had been hollowed out.
That strange dream again.
And for whatever reason, it had made him cry in his sleep.
Fei Chuan sat up, frowning. Not only did he have a severe headache from drinking all night, but the dream also weighed heavily on his mind. He wasn’t the type to cry—yet here he was, weeping in his sleep like a child.
Was it because the man... looked like him? Was that why he felt an unfamiliar sense of empathy?
His gaze fell on the bedside table, where a glass of water and a bowl of warm soup sat. Feeling groggy and hungover, he reached for the soup, but then he paused.
It wasn’t his favorite dish.
Still, he forced himself to eat. Today, he wasn’t going to stay indoors and drink. Four days of confusion and lanting over the past were enough. He should stop looking back. He had avenged himself and cut her off—just as he was supposed to. There was nothing to grieve.
This was what he had been telling himself for the past four days. And this ti, he would surely stop thinking about it.
After finishing the soup, Fei Chuan picked up a pen from his desk and started drawing. His sketchbook was already filled with several drawings of the graveyard he had seen in his dreams.
Every night, the dream returned. And every morning, the details slipped away, fading from his mory. Yet the emotions, the sorrow, and the emptiness remained.
So as soon as he woke up, he drew whatever he could rember—like the graveyard, the man who looked like him, and the fragnts of scenes that lingered in his mind.
When he finished drawing, he looked through his past sketches. The pages were filled with images of the sa graveyard in different seasons. The more he stared, the clearer the picture beca in his mind.
He rembered the rain—the biting cold wind during the rainy season, the pools of water forming beneath his shoes. In the fall, leaves drifted down, covering the grave he always stood beside. He could picture himself kneeling, brushing them away.
He rembered the nights he ca drunk, sitting by the grave and rambling about everything...
The scenes were fragnted, incomplete, and made no sense. Yet they felt so vivid, as if he had truly lived them.
Absentmindedly, Fei Chuan reached for the necklace beside him. His fingers traced the smooth surface of the blue gem as he fell into deep thought. Suddenly, he froze. His gaze locked onto the necklace.
There was sothing familiar about it.
It felt as though... it had appeared in his dream as well. But when? In what scene?
Fei Chuan tried to recall, but the harder he thought, the worse his headache beca. He prided himself on his sharp mory, yet the details of the dream remained frustratingly out of reach.
Sighing, he gave up and picked up his phone.
He scrolled past countless emails seeking his attention and finally arrived at one from his intel team.
There was an attached file.
Fei Chuan opened it, scanning the lengthy report on the necklace. His eyes moved quickly through the text—until they abruptly stopped on a familiar phrase.
"...It ca from the sa set as the ’Tears of the rmaid,’ along with a pair of earrings."
"...The earrings appeared at the Prince Auction House in Year 20XX and were purchased by William Jas."
Fei Chuan glanced at the necklace in his hand. No wonder it felt familiar. The small gems in the earrings and the large gem in the necklace were crafted from the sa material, sharing the sa striking color. They belonged to the sa set.
He continued reading.
His team had successfully traced the history of the ’Tears of the rmaid’—the necklace and the earrings together. The set had been passed down through generations of queens before vanishing during warti. It later surfaced in ruins, purchased by a wealthy collector, and changed hands multiple tis.
Eventually, it reappeared at the renowned Prince Auction House. However, when it was presented to the world again, only the earrings remained.
"...According to our intel, the Prince Auction House originally acquired the set. But at the auction, only the earrings were put up for sale. Upon investigating, we confird that the necklace had indeed been purchased along with the earrings. However, while in storage, it mysteriously disappeared."
Fei Chuan paused.
Disappeared?
Was it stolen?
His intel team seed to anticipate his thoughts and had added a note:
"...We found no evidence that it was stolen or smuggled out. It was as if the necklace vanished into thin air."
Fei Chuan frowned.
How could sothing disappear from Princeton’s Auction House—the most secure auction house in the world?
And if it had truly vanished, why had there been no news about it?
More importantly, how did a necklace that supposedly disappeared without a trace end up in Lin Fei’s hands?
The inconsistencies in the story only deepened his curiosity about the necklace’s origins.
He continued reading, reaching the section where his team had traced the artifact’s history. Their conclusion was startling—
"...Due to the lack of records from the Before Common Era (BCE), we were unable to determine the exact year the necklace was crafted. However, based on our research, it is estimated to have existed well beyond BCE."
"...The first queen to na the set ’Tears of the rmaid’ associated it with the legendary myth of the ’Cry of the rmaid,’ which was well-known in ancient tis. According to historical accounts, the queen accidentally fell asleep wearing the necklace and earrings—and that night, she had an unusual dream."
"She claid to have dread of rmaids. From that night onward, she beca deeply fascinated with rmaid legends, to the point that stories about them spread widely throughout the empire. Every envoy knew of her obsession, and they would bring rmaid-related tales from their lands to present to her."
"One particular envoy from a distant land received a grand reward after sharing a story with the queen. That story was the legendary ’Cry of the rmaid’—a tale that soon consud her thoughts."
"However, the queen’s obsession took a toll on her health. She grew ill, and the king blad the myth, believing it had bewitched her. In response, he ordered all rmaid-related records to be burned and erased. He also forbade anyone from speaking of the ’Cry of the rmaid’ ever again."
Fei Chuan’s gaze deepend as he read.
The necklace... and dreams.
It sounded absurd, yet the queen’s condition—didn’t it resemble his own?
Now that he thought about it, his dreams had started again the mont he received the necklace.
Could the dreams truly be connected to it?
Was the necklace...cursed?
No.
Fei Chuan exhaled, shaking off the thought. Maybe he was overanalyzing, drawing connections where there were none. It could all just be coincidence. After all, he had that strange dream back in high school before Lin Fei gave him the necklace.
Pushing aside his doubts, he skipped over so of the historical details and went straight to the myth itself.
’Cry of the rmaid.’
The room fell into silence as he read. Ti slipped away unnoticed.
Fei Chuan finally put down his phone, his gaze drifting toward the horizon.
Outside, the heavy rain had stopped. The dark clouds that had lood over the sky for the past week slowly dispersed, allowing beams of sunlight to pierce through. Droplets of water clung to the leaves, falling rhythmically into the shallow pools below, creating ripples in the stillness.
Fei Chuan had never been fond of stories, nor was he the type to be affected by them. But for so reason, this one stirred sothing deep inside him.
No wonder the queen had been obsessed with it.
He held the necklace tightly, then stepped toward the window. He stood there for a long ti, lost in thought.
When his emotions finally settled, he picked up his phone again and dialed a number.
The call connected.
"I want you to look into a place for ," Fei Chuan said, his voice hoarse.
His gaze fell on his sketches, and he hesitated. The person on the other end assud the call had cut off, but just as they were about to speak, Fei Chuan continued.
"I’ll send you the picture. Comb through the entire country—or even around the world, I don’t care. Just find it as soon as possible."
Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps he was overthinking everything.
But... if this place- the graveyard that appears in his dreams- truly existed, then maybe—just maybe—there were extraordinary things in this world beyond his comprehension.
And maybe... just maybe... he could understand her.
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