Lewis patted his shoulder, his words earnest, sounding like both a plea and an exhortation.

"If Rowan really committed a crime, ten years of self-imposed imprisonment should be enough. One has to keep living and looking forward, don't they?"

Caleb gripped the medicine bottle, saying nothing.

Just then, a sharp siren pierced the silence.

Caleb locked eyes with Lewis, and out of reflex, he sprinted out of the conference room.

In the detention block, screams and howls echoed back and forth. His colleagues on duty were all rushing toward the source.

"What’s happening!?"

Pushing through the crowd, Caleb saw his colleagues pinning a blonde man with a demonic Buddha tattooed on his chest to the floor!

The blonde man’s veins were bulging as he struggled frantically, shouting vicious threats.

"Her father ruined my family, so why does she get to live so freely!? Father—I’ve avenged you!"

And the woman he was cursing lay there, a spring-loaded knife buried in her chest, all her blood seeming to gush toward that gaping wound.

Caleb’s entire world faded into gray. Only the bright, piercing red of the blood flowing from Rowan’s chest remained.

Chapter 8

Caleb’s breathing seemed to stop in an instant, a ringing sound echoing in his ears.

He had never felt so panicked in his life.

He rushed over and pressed his hand against Rowan’s chest to keep the blood from spilling out further.

With a hoarse voice, he shouted at the crowd: "Where is the ambulance? When is it coming..."

A sense of helpless exhaustion swept over him.

He was powerless, able only to watch, helpless, as the blood continued to flow, staining his navy blue shirt red.

Just like ten years ago, watching Ezra’s vital signs flatline into a single line.

Rowan, held in his arms, was weak, pale, and so fragile she seemed like she would shatter at the slightest touch.

She opened her eyes a slit. Seeing it was him, she seemed to use all her strength to squeeze a voice out of her throat.

He leaned his ear to her lips, just barely catching what she said.

"Caleb, what I owed you... I’ve paid back with my life..."

Then, her hand fell limply.

That sentence felt like a dagger, plunged straight down from the top of Caleb’s head.

He furrowed his brows and shouted at her: "Rowan, what do you think you are?"

"Do you think your life is enough to pay off what you owe me? That would be letting you off too easy..."

"I want you to live! To live in perpetual suffering!"

"You owe me! It can never be paid off..."

No matter how harsh his words were, the person in his arms remained still.

Then, he heard the faint, approaching sound of an ambulance.

...

Outside the operating room.

Lewis gripped the surgeon’s hand tightly: "Doctor, no matter how expensive the medicine or the equipment, you must save her!"

"You must!"

This man, usually so elegant and steady, had lost his composure for the first time.

Rowan was the only relic left behind by her mother in this world.

If she died, how could he face her mother in the afterlife?

"I will do my best."

After the surgeon finished speaking, the heavy operating room doors slammed shut.

The "In Operation" light turned green.

The winter that year was exceptionally cold. It was only the beginning of the season, but the cold winds of Riverside whistled outside the windows, and the hospital heating seemed to do little to help.

Caleb felt every ounce of his strength being drained away.

He leaned against the wall, his mind blank, lighting one cigarette after another. The world seemed to go silent.

Lewis walked over to him, took a deep breath, and spoke with difficulty.

"Captain, you tell me—how could Rowan's life be so tragic?"

Lewis’s voice couldn't stop trembling, but he forced himself to continue, enduring the pain.

"Captain, do you know? She had just been sent abroad by her mother when she was robbed in a strange, foreign land."

"A little princess who had once been pampered and had never suffered a grievance was reduced to working as a dishwasher abroad. At her poorest, she could only scavenge for the leftovers others had discarded."

"At that time, both her parents had passed away, and her best friend had followed them. She blamed herself, consumed by regret, wondering why it wasn't her who died."

"During the worst of her depression, she couldn't even afford medicine. She could only use chains to tie her own hands so she wouldn't self-harm."

As Lewis spoke, he opened his phone and showed him a photo.

In the photo, the pale wrist was covered in bloodied scars; the blood had dried and turned black.

The cigarette in Caleb’s hand burned his own wrist, but he didn't even notice.

He struggled to suppress the tremor in his voice.

He said, "Then why didn't she call back?"

For ten years, he had sent countless messages, all of which sank into the sea without a trace.

A bitter smile spread across Lewis’s lips: "I asked Rowan that very question."

"But she said that back then, she couldn't even guarantee she would be alive the next day."

"At that time, trapped in the mud and the darkness, none of us could have saved her—only she could save herself."

The middle-aged man gripped the Buddhist prayer beads on his wrist, twisting them one by one.

He lowered his head helplessly and murmured: "Everything was supposed to be getting better. Why did it have to end like this..."

Caleb turned around in silence.

He walked to the window, reached into his pocket, and felt a letter.

Chapter 9

It was the confession letter from when he was eighteen, the one he had personally retrieved from the Rowan family's mailbox.

Back then, Ezra had also written one, addressed to Claire ten years into the future.

Caleb stood by the window, letting the cold wind lash against his face as he stroked the letter.

Yet, he only felt ridiculous.

When he had taken this letter, he had actually harbored a ridiculous thought for a fleeting moment.

If he hadn't taken it, what would Rowan's reaction have been if she had seen it?

For some reason, hearing about Rowan's past brought him more self-mockery than heartache.

He mocked himself for waiting ten years for someone who had never had him in her heart.

For those ten years, he hadn't changed his phone number, his QQ account, or even his online forum avatar.

He stayed in Lanyang, living on Wutong Lane.

He stayed just so that if she ever returned, she would be able to find him immediately.

But even when she was barely clinging to life, she had never once thought of coming to find him.

In her heart, what exactly was he?

He pressed his back hard against the wall, his eyes bloodshot, the redness filling his entire field of vision.

The next moment, the operating room door opened.

The doctor said heavily, "I’m sorry, we did our best."

Caleb’s face turned deathly pale in an instant.

Lewis rushed forward: "Did your best... what does that mean?"

The doctor said, "The surgery was a success, but... the patient's will to live is very weak. Whether she wakes up or not depends entirely on her."

The will to live is very weak.

Or perhaps, she herself never intended to wake up.

The doctor walked away with his head bowed.

The physician's assistant following behind sounded heartbroken: "This girl is so pitiful. Her body is covered in dense, crisscrossing scars. I don't know what she has been through..."

When Rowan was wheeled out, she was hooked up to an oxygen tube.

The oversized hospital gown hung loosely on her frame; she was perfectly still, as if she were merely asleep.

Caleb saw the scars on Rowan’s collarbone.

They were jagged, ugly, and stitched together.

Caleb went speechless for a moment, his throat tight.

What had she experienced in those ten years? How much more was there that he didn't know?

Just then, a nurse walked over.

"The patient is temporarily out of immediate danger and will be transferred back to the intensive care unit. You need to talk to her more—talk about the past, about things she cared about. It would be best if her family could stay by her side twenty-four hours a day to ignite her will to live."

Caleb followed them back to the ward in silence.

He looked at Rowan on the hospital bed; she was horrifyingly thin.

She was devoid of vitality, like a flower struggling to bloom until the very end, barely hanging on by a single breath.

How could this be Rowan?

He couldn't seem to remember the Rowan from before—the one in Wutong Lane who tried to learn to ride a bike, fell on her backside, and then threw a tantrum: "Caleb, I can't learn it, you carry me every day from now on!"