He didn't follow her back. He couldn't.
He sat behind the fence for a long time, the world a gray, meaningless haze. The coldness... it
was not just suspicion. It was a fact.
Jiao. Sun Xiao. Zhang. Me.
He was just another name on her list. But... a different kind of list. He wasn't a threat to be
neutralized. He was a... a possession to be protected. The cage he'd felt... it was real. Its bars
were made of her "kindness," her "clumsiness," her "help."
He walked back to his hovel. The sun was setting. The air was cold.
She was there, humming a small, tuneless song as she mended one of his robes. She looked
up as he entered, her face breaking into that familiar, gentle, adoring smile. "Ren Wei! You're
back! Did you find the...?"
Her voice trailed off.
He was just standing in the doorway, his face in the shadow. He was perfectly still.
"Ren... Wei?" she asked, her smile faltering, her "concerned" mask snapping into place.
"What's... what's wrong? You look so pale. Did... did something happen?"
"I didn't go to the library," he said. His voice was flat. Dead.
"What?"
"I didn't go. I... I felt sicker. I... I rested." He was lying. Testing her.
"Oh," she said, her relief palpable. "Oh, good. You should rest. I... I'll get you some—"
"I saw you, Mei," he said, cutting her off.
She froze. Her hand, holding the needle, stopped mid-air. "What... what do you mean, Ren Wei?
You... you're not making sense."
He stepped into the hovel, into the meager light. His face was a mask of cold, analytical calm.
He was a psychologist again. This was a subject.
"I saw you at Zhang's hovel. With the lye."
The color drained from her face. She dropped the robe. "I... I... I don't... I was... I was lost!" she
stammered, her eyes filling, instantly, with tears. It was the "Jiao" defense. "I... I was looking
for... for herbs! And I... I thought I saw... I was... I was confused..."
"Stop," he said. The word was not loud, but it had the force of a slap.
The tears... stopped. Not... they didn't trail off. They ceased. Instantly.
His blood ran cold.
"You poisoned Zhang," he stated. "It wasn't food poisoning. It was the waterskin. The one you
gave me. The one you panicked about when he offered me his."
She said nothing.
"You ruined Sun Xiao's herbs. You broke her sword. You used me to drive her away, with your
lies about her being a 'user.' And Jiao... that wasn't 'karma,' was it? That was you."
He was laying out the case file. He was being logical. He was in control.
She just... watched him. Her face was pale, her expression unreadable.
He had to get through. He had to fix this. This... this illness.
He took a step closer, and his voice, his entire strategy, shifted. He went from prosecutor to
therapist.
"Mei," he said, and his voice was softer now. Pained. "This... this isn't you. This is... this is fear.
I... I see it." He was making the single greatest mistake of his life. "You're... you're terrified. Of
being alone. Of being... abandoned. I... I get it."
He was pleading now, trying to find the "helper" girl he'd kissed. "You... you don't have to do this.
You don't have to 'protect' me by... by hurting people. I... I'm here. I... I won't leave you. You... terrified.
He just... understood.
Li Mei looked at him. She looked at this kind, brilliant, good man. This man who, instead of
running, instead of calling her a monster, had... analyzed her.
He had peeled back her every layer. He had seen the ugly, rotten, terrified core of her.
And he had stayed.
A single, slow tear rolled down her cheek. But it was not a tear of "remorse." It was a tear of
pure, ecstatic, profound joy.
The mask did not just drop. It shattered.
The shy, gentle, trembling mouse was gone. The girl who looked back at him was a stranger.
Her eyes were as cold, as still, and as ancient as the bottom of a well. And they were filled with
a possessive, terrifying adoration that was a thousand times more intimate than their kiss.
Her voice, when she spoke, was not the soft, breathy whisper he knew. It was flat, clear, and
cold.
"You're right," she said.
His breath hitched.
"I am afraid," she said, her voice un trembling. "All my life. But not anymore."
She took a step toward him.
"You... you see me, Ren Wei," she whispered. The awe in her voice was real. "All those...
stupid, blind... cattle... they just saw the mask. But you... you looked right through it."
She was close now. She reached up, not to cup his face, but to trace the line of his jaw with
one, cold, trembling finger.
"You're the only one," she breathed, her eyes shining with a light that looked like madness. "The
only one in the world smart enough to find me."
She smiled. A slow, radiant, terrifying smile.
"And now..." she said, her voice dropping into a possessive, sibilant purr. "...you can never, ever
leave."
Ren Wei felt it then. A sharp, cold, pang deep in his soul. A... a wrongness. A... a thread.
He'd thought their "Harmonious Resonance" was a partnership. He realized, with a dawning,
sinking horror, that she had never stopped. She had been weaving her 'Silken Heart' art into
him, night after night, for months.
He wasn't her partner. He was her project.
He wasn't the psychologist. He was the patient.
And he had just, with his own "brilliant" mind, locked himself in the asylum.