Too Late to Regret, Uncle: The Embers Can’t Warm Li

Regret Came Too Late: Ashes That Could Never Be Warmed

Pei Jinze’s first regret came in the third year after Mo Li left.

That day, while clearing out his study, he found a dust-covered stuffed rabbit. It was the one Mo Li had clutched in her arms all those years ago when, eyes red, she asked him, “Uncle, do you really hate me?”

Only then did he remember the bandage on her elbow, still seeping blood, when he angrily called her “a mere accessory” at the birthday banquet. He remembered how, when she was burning with fever and barely conscious, he turned away to pick up Su Wan, while Mo Li watched his retreating back with a gaze as cold as snow on a winter night. He remembered her leaving with her suitcase, her steps so light it was as if she had never stayed in the old mansion at all.

Later, when Su Wan’s schemes were exposed, he drove her out of the Pei family home, then searched the world for Mo Li like a madman.

But when Mo Li finally returned, there was no trace left in her eyes of the fiery girl she had once been. She raised her glass to him with a poised, distant smile and called him “Mr. Pei.” She never again called him “Uncle,” the word that now haunted his dreams each night and left him aching as if he could not breathe.

Realizing the truth too late was colder than frost. He had put out with his own hands the one light that had ever shone for him. Now this quest to win her back was a punishment of his own making, every step a fresh wound, with no way home.