The downpour kept soaking the cigarette that had only just caught fire between her lips. The acrid smell of scorched tobacco and dampness rushed into Chang Nian's nostrils, choking her until she grew dizzy and nearly fell into the mud.
She had always asked why Tong Guan loved cigarettes so much when the smoke was so harsh.
Even now, sitting before the grave she had dug for him herself, she had asked Fang Shenyan for a cigarette and imitated Tong Guan's movements, yet she still could not understand its appeal.
Just as, three days earlier, she had been unable to understand that so-called repayment of a debt, and could only accept it.
If Chang Nian could still feel anything at that moment, perhaps she still wanted to ask whether Tong Guan truly thought it had been worth giving up everything for the obsession in his heart...
But none of that mattered anymore, and there would never be an answer.
The sky grew darker and darker. Far away on the horizon, a streak of scarlet wind rose, as though a new storm were gathering there.
But none of it had anything to do with her.
The whole world drifted farther and farther away, growing increasingly unreal. Chang Nian could feel nothing.
She simply flicked the lighter again and again in the torrential rain, stubbornly trying to light a cigarette that was completely soaked and could no longer burn.
It proved her helplessness, and showed her refusal to give in.
Even though the graves had been dug, in the two cities Tong Guan had cared about and could not let go of, in life or in death, Chang Nian still could not accept that decision—or this reality.
Her body grew colder and colder, yet her arms were unusually warm.
Tong Guan's severed