Zheng Zhuxi's unusual double pupils looked as though half a candle flame had appeared in her sharply defined black-and-white eyes. As she gazed at Ding Songyan, both the starlight and the candle flame seemed veiled in mist.
"Why did you tell me this..." the girl murmured, her expression bewildered.
Ding Songyan looked at Zheng Zhuxi and, after a silence, said:
"If it had been anyone else, I certainly wouldn't have said anything. After some time had passed, I'd have found a good excuse to comfort myself and stopped agonizing over it.
"In fact, when I was tracing the Devil Lord's hidden arrangements recently, aside from wanting to uncover the truth, I also hoped to convince myself that the enemy had simply been too formidable. I kept trying to make excuses in my heart. I'd rather-I'd rather my judgment had been wrong, that I lacked experience, that I wasn't clever enough. Unfortunately, every judgment I made was right."
Zheng Zhuxi shook her head in confusion.
"I don't know what to say. I-I can't sort it out."
A trace of pain entered her expression.
Before Ding Songyan could respond, the girl stepped back twice and said quickly:
"I-I'll go back and think it over."
Watching Zheng Zhuxi's retreating figure hurry away and vanish through the doorway, Ding Songyan stood lost in thought for a long while before walking into the courtyard and sitting beside the stone table.
He gazed up at the horizon, watching the clear sky, washed clean and bright with sunshine; watching the layered clouds turn red and the sunset glow sink low; watching the heavens burn like fire and the sky overhead turn gray-blue; watching the different shades of red gradually swallowed by darkness; watching stars adorn the night.
Suddenly, someone pushed open the half-closed courtyard gate.
Zheng Zhuxi