Everyone said Ran Yining was incredibly lucky to become Shen Yuchuan’s girlfriend. Only she knew that behind this “luck” lay five years of staking everything and burning herself out.
The year they first met, he was a beam of light that suddenly fell into her bleak life, strong and gentle, effortlessly pulling her out of the mire. She thought she had found salvation, never realizing she was merely the “imitation” he had carefully sought out.
He obsessively traced the features of her face, only because her eyes so closely resembled the unattainable white moonlight in his heart.
He showered her with endless affection and protection, yet whenever she began to fall for him, he distanced himself and reminded her to know her place.
For five years, she gave everything she had, striving to become the person he liked, trying to warm a heartless stone with her own body heat. She gave him all her youth, passion, and love, humbly hoping that one day she might truly find a place in his heart.
But all she got in return was his coldness and ridicule, again and again.
When the truth pierced her last remaining illusions like a sharp shard of ice, Ran Yining finally understood that those five years had been nothing but a self-deceiving dream, beautiful yet unreal.
She had exhausted all her strength, yet could never wake someone who was pretending to sleep, much less replace a phantom that would live forever.
With her heart reduced to ashes, she resolutely severed their ties and decided to leave.
Only after losing her did the man who had treated her as a substitute suddenly realize that the warmth he had grown used to had long since seeped into his bones, and the shadow he had deliberately sought had already been completely replaced by the real her.
But a shattered heart can never be made whole again…
