"...Teacher?"
Early in the morning, outside the office door, Yuan Yuan stared at the figure in the chair in astonishment. "Are you... all right?"
"Hm?"
Huai Shi turned around. "What's wrong? Don't I look fine?"
"..."
Yuan Yuan said nothing. She had no response.
Under the faint morning sunlight, that lonely figure sat in his chair, gazing into the distance amid the sparse dust as though admiring the view outside the window. Yet his eyes had no focus, fixed instead on some empty, distant place.
They had not seen each other for merely one night, yet he seemed to have weathered countless hardships.
When he turned back and forced a smile, Yuan Yuan could feel the grief and melancholy in his heart, and her own heart twisted into a knot.
In just two days, her teacher seemed to have suffered one blow after another, changing from a spirited leader into his current state.
How could she, as his student, not feel distressed?
"Did something happen?" Yuan Yuan asked uneasily.
"Yes, many things happened. So many..."
Huai Shi shook his head and wiped at the reddened corners of his eyes. "And some things, once lost, can never be recovered."
Muddy tears were no longer clear.
Just as the days of youth would never return.
That innocent young man who had kept himself pure had died in the silent darkness of the night. From then on, all that remained was a difficult life, toyed with in the palm of a black-hearted woman's hand.
Amid sighs and lamentations, he could not help imagining his miserable future.
Perhaps very soon, Tong Ji would tear away her gentle disguise, unleash her beastly nature, and reach her sinful claws toward him. Then he would be locked away and made to do all sorts of unspeakable things,