Lin Yan's small apartment had never felt so much like a "home" until now. The once-cold space was now thick with the scent of home-cooked food, the faint fragrance of pomelo blossoms, and the lingering taste of a fraudulent peace.
The wound on Shen Zhe's leg had begun to scab over, bringing an insistent, irritating itch, but at least he could now move slowly around the cramped room with the help of a cane. The strange thing was, his feet seemed to have lost the instinct to step beyond that front door. The outside world, through Lin Yan's tearful narrations, had become a wasteland—a place of nothing but arrest warrants, family abandonment, and the invisible barrels of police rifles. But here, within these four walls, there was only her unconditional tenderness.
This afternoon, Lin Yan brought home a vibrant bouquet of sunflowers, their golden petals seemingly lighting up the dim room. She meticulously arranged them in a vase, smiling as she watched him sit by the window reading a book—a window that was always shielded by heavy velvet curtains to "avoid the prying eyes of hunters."
"Zhe, look, aren't they beautiful? I think they're just like you... always proudly facing the sun."
Shen Zhe set his book down. The hands that once designed monumental structures now trembled as he took hers. He pulled her into his lap—an act he once considered "annoying" and "repulsive," but which now felt as natural as breathing, as if she were the only oxygen keeping him alive.
"Yan, you've worked so hard. Going to work all day, then coming home to care for a cripple like me."
"Because of you, I never feel tired." Lin Yan leaned her head on his shoulder, her eyes gazing dreamily into the void. "I've managed to save a little money. In a bit more time, when the world out there has completely forgotten the name Shen Zhe, I'll get you a fake passport. We'll go abroad, to a secluded beach where no one knows who we are. I'll open a small flower shop, and you... you'll design beautiful buildings on paper again. Just the two of us, alright?"
Shen Zhe closed his eyes, surrendering to that beautiful vision. An architectural genius who once craved to conquer the highest peaks now only yearned for a life in seclusion like a ghost, as long as she was by his side. She had "broken" him with terrifying perfection.
"I'm sorry... for wasting the last three years treating you so poorly."
Lin Yan let out a soft laugh, a laugh hiding a manic triumph that he would never see. She kissed his jaw lightly and whispered, "It's alright. It was because of those three years that I realized just how much I needed you. Don't ever leave me, okay?"
"I swear it," Shen Zhe murmured, his voice filled with a hollow, sacred devotion.
That evening, they shared a simple meal under the warm yellow light. Lin Yan's cooking was still clumsy; the braised fish had a bitter tang from being charred, but Shen Zhe found it more delicious than any lavish banquet at the Shen mansion. He believed that every bite was infused with the sweat and sacrificial love of the girl who had given up her youth for him.
He had no way of knowing that those sunflowers were bought with the very cash from the wallet he had dropped the night he was assaulted. He didn't know that her "hard work" actually consisted of hours of luxury shopping, beauty treatments, and meetings with her hired thugs to tighten the information noose around him.
As night fell, Shen Zhe slept soundly. He no longer needed high-dose sedatives, for his greatest "addiction" now was Lin Yan's embrace. He curled up in her arms like a child, completely unaware that he was sleeping peacefully atop a grave—a place where his entire future, honor, and soul had been buried.