"Zi! What's wrong? Wake up, Zi!"
An Qi flung herself against the pure-white bars of light, her trembling hands clutching the cold bars tightly.
When she finally saw the dying man covered in wounds in the center of the cell clearly, the tears brimming in her eyes instantly spilled like a breached dam.
In the neighboring cage, Bai Qinchen, who had been leaning against the wall and watching coldly out of sheer boredom, suddenly froze.
When he saw An Qi's tear-streaked face, its delicate, graceful beauty impossible to conceal, and her fragile figure trembling faintly with grief, Bai Qinchen's eyes instantly lit up.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk..." Bai Qinchen's gaze swept greedily and brazenly over An Qi's slender waist and lovely cheeks. He chuckled. "I didn't expect Tang San and the others to arrange for a beauty to join me in here."
An Qi was already immersed in overwhelming grief. Her heart and eyes were filled with nothing but her gravely wounded, dying husband, leaving her no attention to spare for the gaze from next door.
She pressed her cheek tightly against the cold bars of light, tears tumbling down as she called again and again, "Zi... look at me. It's me, An Qi... Zi, please, open your eyes and look at me..."
It was as though he had heard that most deeply etched bond in the depths of his soul.
On the cell's cold floor, Zi, who had remained in a deep coma, gave an exceedingly faint twitch of the thick fingers hanging at his side.
Amid labored, heavy breaths, Zi finally forced his tightly closed eyes open, slowly and with immense difficulty, into a narrow slit.
His dim, unfocused gaze passed through the pure-white bars of light and gradually focused on that face, like pear blossoms drenched in rain.