Whenever she thought of Taiyuan taking out the jade pendant to admire alone in the cave at night, sitting by himself in that lonely, desolate cave and looking at it, her heart felt as though it were being pierced by needles.
Whenever she thought of Taiyuan watching with his own eyes as the girl he had silently cared for over a month happily left with another boy, how heartbroken he must have been.
"Why? Why didn't you chase after me back then? Why, why? Why didn't you tell me sooner? Why?"
Liu Bing wept bitterly, her right fist repeatedly striking Taiyuan's chest.
"Back then, I simply wasn't qualified to chase after you. You were dressed so beautifully; one look told anyone you were a noble young lady from a great family. And me? I was only an orphan with no father or mother."
"I had nothing. Day after day, I lived like a savage in a jungle teeming with danger, and who knew when I might die in the jaws of a wild beast? How could I have been qualified to chase after you?"
Taiyuan gently patted Liu Bing's back as he softly comforted her.
"To me, nothing mattered more than your safety. As long as you could be happy, that was enough."
"No... no... Do you know how much I missed you? Every time, every time Wang Gou cursed at me, I would remember what happened back then."
"You were so gentle then, so very gentle. There were several times when I even wondered whether that boy back then was really Wang Gou, but reality told me that it was Wang Gou."
"I wanted so badly to ignore him, but he saved me. Do you know how guilty I felt?"
By now, Liu Bing had cried herself into a