Chapter 10.2 (1/2)

Chapter 10.2

Right when I woke up a streak of lightning flashed across the window, followed by a rumble of thunder . The room was a swath of darkness, and I was no longer holding Yin Li’s hand . Feeling around, I realized that I was alone .

This feeling of abandonment suddenly scared me . Once again, unfamiliar faces began unremittingly flas.h.i.+ng in my mind . My feelings continued to grow, and I felt panicked .

I didn’t want to stay here a moment longer . I climbed out of bed by myself, and feeling my way forwards, I blindly made my way out of the room .

“Yin Li! Yin Li! Yin Li, where are you?” Without even putting on my slippers, I had rushed out . I just wanted to escape from that room of nightmares . But in my frenzy, I forgot to turn on the lights, and I could only wander the dark hallway calling Yin Li’s name . My distressed voice echoed with an eerie vibrato .

Disregarding everything, I called out his name like a despairing traveler lost in the jungle .

“I’m over here . ” Then I finally heard the voice I was waiting for .

Yin Li walked around the corner of the stairs . I stopped him just as he moved to the light switch . “Don’t turn the lights on . ” I didn’t want him to see my face that was currently covered in tears .

“I only left to get a gla.s.s of water . Don’t worry, I’m here . ” Yin Li didn’t make a fuss over my strange behavior, he only tenderly rubbed my head .

I hugged him, leaning against him without a word .

Outside, as sheets of rain poured down from the sky, lightning flashed and thunder rolled . I lay in his lap, breathing in the faint scent of tobacco on his clothes . But I could sense that I was in a dangerous situation . I had already come to depend on Yin Li too much .

I couldn’t discern when this dependence and intimacy had began to take root . Perhaps from the moment I opened my eyes in the hospital . Or perhaps when he had gently scrubbed the kitten’s ears . Or perhaps it was now . Regardless, I knew it was irrational .

Just like my past, Yin Li was impossible to unravel . I didn’t know how much of what was between us was real or fake . I didn’t know whether he was a flawless actor or whether he was showing his true self . I didn’t know anything .

Just like my past, Yin Li was impossible to unravel . I didn’t know how much of what was between us was real or fake . I didn’t know whether he was a flawless actor or whether he was showing his true self . I didn’t know anything .

I had chosen a bad time to develop feelings for someone I shouldn’t have considered . But as I lay in his arms, I somehow felt that this development wasn’t the worst thing to have happened .

In the darkness, Yin Li held my hand and led me through the hallway, through the courtyard, and finally back to my bedroom, where he helped me back in bed .

“Get some sleep, Yan Xiao . ” Yin Li tucked the blankets in for me and then quietly sat by my side .

After the tumultuous events of the evening, I closed my eyes yet couldn’t fall asleep . Upon opening my eyes, I found that Yin Li was silently looking at me with a complicated expression . In the depths of his eyes, there seemed to swim a murderous severity . When he saw that I’d opened my eyes, his eyes flashed and his expression quickly changed back into a warm, harmless one, as if what I’d just witnessed was all merely part of a nightmare I’d now awoken from .