The guests in the banquet hall heard the noise and rushed out onto the balcony, cheering.
"Mommy, look! The fireworks are so pretty!"
"Who set them off? They're gorgeous."
They really were beautiful. Shen Luoluo's eyes curved with delight as she looked at the boy beside her, who was gazing up at the sky. Perhaps her stare was too obvious, because he turned, and their eyes met.
Fireworks glimmered in his eyes as he smiled at her. "Do you like them?"
Shen Luoluo's heart skipped a beat.
The mood had been perfect until a deafening wail suddenly erupted nearby.
They turned toward the sound and saw a girl about their age in a white slip dress, draped over the castle railing and sobbing her heart out.
"Who did this? You did it on purpose, didn't you? Setting off fireworks now just to make fun of me!"
"Couldn't you think about the people who aren't happy before setting off fireworks? The whole world's happy, and I'm the only one who's miserable!"
"Waaah! My life is already awful, and now someone's setting off fireworks to mock me. I don't want to live anymore."
The girl tried to climb onto the railing. "Waaah! I really don't want to live anymore."
Even as she sobbed, she kept glancing back at them. When none of them moved to stop her, she cried even louder.
"You're awful! You see me like this, and you don't even try to talk me down?"
Only then did everyone seem to snap out of it. Chen Jiashu was the first to speak. "D-don't do anything rash! You're still so young. There's so much you can do with your life!"
They could hardly be blamed. The girl had appeared out of nowhere and immediately started crying and shouting. She had startled