Bone-Deep Heartache: Her Revenge and His Eternal Grief

Shen Qingqiu wakes again from the same nightmare.

In the dream, she is always falling. In her ears, Gu Yanzhi screams in madness and pain: “Why couldn’t it have been you who died?! Give me back my Weiwei!”

And there is the cold contract that drags her straight into hell: “Sign it. From now on, you are Lin Wei.”

Cold sweat soaks her silk nightgown, and her heart pounds as if it might shatter her ribs. She jerks upright and instinctively touches her face. It is warm and whole.

But the next moment, her fingertips go still.

A hardcover copy of European Architectural History lies beside her pillow, with an elegant feather bookmark tucked between its pages. It is Lin Wei’s bedtime reading, Lin Wei’s habit. And she, Shen Qingqiu, a girl who might once have loved comics and mystery novels, must now look at these unfamiliar things and feign a sense of “familiarity and nostalgia.”

A vast wave of grief and absurdity surges over her, nearly drowning her. Who is she?

“Bad dream?” The man beside her wakes. His voice is sleepy and impatient, yet his arm instinctively wraps around her and pulls her against him. The gesture seems intimate, but is really a possessive restraint. “Don’t be afraid, Weiwei. I’m here.”

His embrace is warm, his breath brushing her neck with a faint tickle. Once, that brief warmth was the only lifeline she had in the dark. Now all she feels is cold, bone-deep cold.

She lies stiff in his arms like a stone, but forces herself to relax, even snuggling closer and letting out a dependent little whimper like a kitten. “Mm... I dreamed you didn’t want me anymore...”