"This is..."
Dumped on the ground, Zhou Lian opened his bleary eyes.
He knelt on the ground and looked up. Seeing Ellin and Hu Tao before him, he was startled at first, but his surprise was soon buried beneath despair.
"Oh, it's the Fairy and Director Hu..."
"Thank you for saving me, but you really shouldn't have."
"I have nothing left to live for."
"All I want now is to end it, find my mother, and stay by her side."
"So please, leave me alone. Let me die!"
Zhou Lian's words were steeped in exhaustion and dejection.
Several days of neglect had left his face greasy and dotted with scraggly stubble. Though barely in his twenties, he looked over thirty.
His eyes were lifeless, his gaze unfocused.
These were the signs of someone who had lost the will to live and given up on himself.
He struggled to push himself up, intending to turn and leave.
But suddenly!
Smack!
A loud slap rang out.
Ellin stepped straight up and slapped Zhou Lian across the face.
The slap left Zhou Lian stunned.
He stared at Ellin in bewilderment, clearly unable to understand why she had hit him.
Ellin, however, seemed to have misread his expression.
She curled her lip in annoyance, then shook out her hand.
"Sorry, but I don't care for slapping people to vent my feelings, like they always do in palace dramas and novels for women. It feels too petty."
"With my usual style, that would've been a brick hitting your face."
But the moment Ellin finished speaking-
"Why are you stopping me?!"
It seemed his pent-up emotions had finally erupted.
His face twisted as Zhou Lian screamed at Ellin at the top of his lungs!
"Why are you stopping me?"
**"What did I do wrong? Why do