Shen Xiu looked at Liu Qingyan. There was no urging or probing in his violet eyes, only quiet waiting. He could feel Liu Qingyan's heartbeat racing, so fast it seemed ready to leap from her chest. Her fingers clutched tightly at the hem of her clothes, her knuckles white from the force. She was nervous, afraid, yet possessed a resolve to smash the cauldrons and sink the boats.
"Go ahead." Shen Xiu's voice was soft, as though afraid of disturbing something.
Liu Qingyan drew a deep breath, lifted her head, and looked into Shen Xiu's eyes. Those violet eyes had struck her as special from the first time she saw them, and they still felt just as special now. Her lips parted. Countless words surged through her mind, but in the end, they condensed into one simplest sentence.
"Shen Xiu, I like you."
The courtyard was quiet. The branches and needles of the ancient pine swayed gently in the breeze, rustling softly. Sunlight filtered through gaps in the leaves, casting dappled shadows across the ground. From afar came the faint clamor of the marketplace, but it was too distant, like something from another world.
Shen Xiu said nothing. He merely looked at Liu Qingyan, his violet eyes utterly without ripples, as though she had only said something entirely ordinary.
Liu Qingyan's heart sank bit by bit. She knew Shen Xiu might not respond, and she had prepared herself to be rejected. But when the silence truly fell, that suffocating sensation still nearly left her unable to breathe. Her eyes began to redden and her vision blurred, but she bit her lip and refused to let herself cry.
"You know," Shen Xiu finally said, his voice slow, as if weighing every word, "I may not have long to live."
At last,