The piano lody was desolate and indifferent, like this endless cold night.
A young soul struggled in pain, burned in roaring flas, dragging heavy steps forward.
The slowly rolling notes were like a faltering heartbeat, eventually sinking into a bottomless abyss of pitch-black darkness, devoid of light.
The icy and piercing wind and rain struck him, like the helpless and despairing screams of youth.
Yet his silence seed more like a concession to fate.
The ringing of the bell sounded tirelessly over and over again. In the vastness of heaven and earth, sothing was steadily fading away.
The surveillance caras at the intersection flickered with red indicator lights in the torrential rain, like pairs of eyes silently staring on.
In a warm and spring-like bedroom in Qingzhou, a computer screen displayed the surveillance footage: amid the misty rain, the boy walked alone, indifferent to the fierce blades of rain falling on him, never furrowing his brows.
Facing the cutting wind and striking rain, his expression remained unchanged.
It’s not that he was too strong—it was that he had lost all hope in this world.
Without hope, loss ant nothing. From then on, he faced eternal darkness alone.
Through the grainy resolution of the surveillance cara, Shen You’an looked at the boy, as if through him, he could see the Rong Xianning of his past life.
In that tiline, had he also faced such disappointnt and despair? No matter how unimaginable the effort he exerted, he still felt the inevitable pull into the abyss.
The ignorant public, partial and easily swayed, drowned him with skeptical gazes and venomous insults, suffocating him to the point even breathing seed like a mistake.
Shen You’an’s heart grew heavy—wasn’t that the Shen You’an of his previous life?
But the difference was, Rong Xianning grew through pain, forged himself through hardship, and was ultimately reborn from the ashes, standing atop the highest podium in proud triumph.
Whereas the timid Shen You’an remained forever trapped in that snowy night of that year.
What Rong Xianning had truly gone through during this process, outsiders would never know; only he could understand.
For soone like Shen You’an, who experienced such similar struggles, he could deeply empathize.
It was probably a suffering far greater than any purification of marrow or burning by fire could ever compare to.
With four fewer years of experience, could the boy withstand such blows?
His incoming ringtone was the second movent of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23—Funeral in the Snowy Night.
This was a piece filled with lancholy sorrow.
In truth, sorrow often differs from sorrow. This piano lody wasn’t the kind of sweeping and unabashed sadness; it was the heaviness and repression coiled tightly in the heart.
His inner world was even more agonized and restrained than Shen You’an had imagined.
Shen You’an thought back to the poised, confident Rong Xianning standing on the highest podium later, and felt deeply overwheld upon catching a secret glimpse of his hidden, youthful agony.
How exactly did he manage to walk this path?
At this mont, Shen You’an felt indescribable emotions in his heart.
A kinship rooted in shared suffering? The exhilaration of climbing out of despair to soar high in defiance? Or perhaps the sight of Rong Xianning successfully accomplishing what he himself never could touched a chord deep within her heart?
Shen You’an remained silent for a while. As she raised her head, the wind and rain battered the window, transparent raindrops falling against the glass pane. The pitch-black night resembled the gaping maw of a beast, capable of consuming everything.
There had once been a beam of light that shone on her, brief as a teor flashing across the sky, yet offering warmth nonetheless.
Now, she wanted to be that warmth for the boy.
~
A black sedan erged from the rainstorm, slowly trailing alongside the boy.
The boy seed unaware, numbly continuing to walk through the heavy rain.
Inside the car, Zhao Heng turned his head and glanced at Rong Xianning outside the window with a complex expression.
"I found him," he said.
The signal light on the Bluetooth earpiece in his ear flickered constantly.
Ending the call, Zhao Heng parked the car, retrieved an umbrella, opened it, stepped out, and walked to the boy’s side, shielding him from the fierce onslaught of rain.
The boy finally stopped, turning his head to glance at him.
Zhao Heng was startled.
The pouring rain revealed a youthful, clean, and delicate face. However, his eyes—those eyes that should have been clear and black—seethed with a sharp and chilling intensity. They were like icicles dangling beneath the eaves in deep winter, piercing straight through.
This young boy, just in his teens, how could he possess such a terrifying gaze? It was as though... as though he was soone who had walked to the edge of despair, fearless and unyielding.
Beneath the placid surface was a wild and surging undercurrent, like this prolonged dark night, silently devouring everything.
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