A kidnapping leaves the elder sister, Su Qingyue, dead, while the younger sister, Su Qingyuan, survives.
Ling Chenyuan turns all his love and guilt into a consuming hatred for Su Qingyuan. He is convinced that his fragile sister-in-law traded his elder sister’s life for her own survival.
“Su Qingyuan, you owe Qingyue. You’ll spend the rest of your life making it up to her.”
The cold villa becomes her prison. Scarlet syringes, bone-deep humiliation, and endless torment are his idea of “atonement.” Again and again, she cries and pleads her innocence, saying the kidnappers separated them, but he never believes her. The scent of cedar, once a source of comfort, has become a deathly curse. Every time he comes near, it brings searing pain.
She begs him meekly, and he is disgusted; she gives in to despair, but he still refuses to let her go. Only when she is covered in wounds and barely breathing, when the truth hidden behind the necklace treated as “evidence of her guilt” finally comes to light, does he realize that he had mistaken innocence for sin all along, and personally pushed the only person who cared about him into hell.
Only when Su Qingyuan’s breathing stops for good does Ling Chenyuan realize that the feelings buried beneath his hatred had long since taken root in his heart.
“Qingyuan, I was wrong...”
