After that night of utter humiliation, Shen Zhe had drifted into a feverish, delirious sleep. When he finally stirred awake, Lin Yan was nowhere to be seen. The room was eerily silent—no crazed laughter, no twisted whispers.
He struggled to push himself up, searching for something, anything, to use for self-defense, when the door swung open.
Lin Yan stepped in, but the aura of a victor had vanished. Clad in a frail white dress, her face was deathly pale, and her eyes were swollen raw from excessive crying. In her hands, she held not a tray of filth, but a small wooden box.
She knelt silently by his bedside, her head bowed low like a sinner awaiting a final verdict.
"Zhe... I'm sorry." Her voice was a mere ghost of a sound, meant for his ears only.
Shen Zhe recoiled, his guard up. "What kind of game are you playing now?"
Lin Yan didn't answer. She slowly opened the wooden box. Inside lay a fruit knife, its blade polished to a lethal, cold gleam under the dim light. He held his breath, muscles tensing, bracing for a struggle. But instead, she gripped the handle, turned the point toward her own heart, and offered it to him.
"Last night... I saw the look in your eyes when you ate that soup." She looked up at him, tears spilling over. "That look made me realize... I have truly murdered the man I love most. I thought possessing your body was enough, but I was wrong. I've turned you into a soulless corpse."
She seized Shen Zhe's trembling hand, forcing his fingers around the hilt.
"If you hate me that much, then end it. Right here." She pressed the tip of the blade against her left breast, where her heart hammered erratically. "I can't let you go, but I can't bear to see you live in shame because of me. Dying by your hand is my only salvation."
Shen Zhe was stunned. He saw genuine despair in her eyes. This didn't feel like an act—or at the very least, she had performed it so intensely that she believed it was real. The knife in his hand shook violently. With just a slight thrust, he would be free. He could finally walk out of this room.
But... he couldn't do it.
At his core, Shen Zhe was a man of integrity—one who could never strike down a defenseless person, let alone a woman kneeling at his feet begging for death.
"Let go..." he rasped through gritted teeth.
"No! Strike! Why won't you do it?" Lin Yan shrieked, lunging herself forward onto the blade.
Blood began to seep out, blooming a stark, crimson red against her pristine white dress. A haunting, vivid stain.
Panicked, Shen Zhe hurled the knife aside and grabbed her shoulders, staunching the wound with his hands. "You're insane! Lin Yan, stop this right now!"
Lin Yan collapsed into his arms, sobbing uncontrollably like a broken child. "What am I supposed to do? Zhe, tell me, how do I make you stop hating me? I'd rather you kill me than have you look at me with such coldness..."
In that moment, the burning hatred in Shen Zhe's heart was muffled by a strange, overwhelming wave of pity. He looked at the woman trembling from blood loss, crying because she loved him to the point of madness, and wondered: Had I been too cruel? Was her love simply so vast that it led her astray?
He had no way of knowing that the knife had been sharpened only at the tip; the rest of the edge had been filed dull. The wound looked terrifying, but it was nowhere near vital.
Lin Yan buried her face in his chest, concealing the satisfied smirk that began to surface. She knew she had won. She had used her own blood to wash away the stain of last night's soup. From this moment on, he wouldn't look at her as a kidnapper, but as a "pitiful lover in need of redemption."
Shen Zhe exhaled a heavy sigh, his hand instinctively patting her back to comfort her. It was the first caress that hadn't been forced.