Her arm suddenly tightened as Zhang Jingchan pulled her into his embrace. She whimpered: “What are you doing?”

Zhang Jingchan didn’t say a word. Li Weiyi’s vision gradually blurred. She raised her hand to touch her face, only to discover she had been crying profusely without knowing when it started.

No wonder… the two of them both had those expressions. An invisible, stagnant, dull pain lodged from her chest all the way to her throat. She opened her mouth but couldn’t make a single sound.

Li Weiyi just stood there in a daze, not knowing how long she stood. Zhang Jingchan stuffed her into the passenger seat of the car.

The car merged onto the highway. She gradually came to her senses, and her tears also stopped. She turned her head to look at Zhang Jingchan. His expression was still that terrible. She thought he must have noticed her gaze, yet he had no reaction whatsoever.

Li Weiyi wanted to say something but had nothing to say. She silently turned her head, looking ahead, her heart feeling utterly empty.

She had slept too poorly last night. After crying so hard, she was mentally exhausted to the extreme. Without realizing it, she fell asleep.

Li Weiyi had a very, very long dream.

So long it felt like half a lifetime.

She dreamed of the day she got together with Xu Yi.

It was the winter two years ago, on a completely ordinary evening. Xu Yi had invited her to dinner. The location was at a restaurant near his company.

Li Weiyi arrived early. He hadn’t come yet. She knew he was extremely, extremely busy, so she didn’t rush him. She walked alone on the sidewalk outside the restaurant.

It was already dark then, with heavy traffic and pedestrians weaving through. The weather was a bit cold. Walking alone, she suddenly felt very lonely.

For so many years, that loneliness, present yet elusive, lingered persistently. She thought that in her subconscious, she was always waiting for something—perhaps a person, perhaps for something to happen. So even though Xu Yi had pursued her for many years, it hadn’t made her, someone so tenderhearted, soften her heart toward him. She always had a strange feeling that once she made a commitment to Xu Yi, there would come a day when she would lose control of herself.

Muddled and vaguely, she had persisted like this for so many years.

But what about Xu Yi? She didn’t know either.

In college, the one who indulged her gently like an older brother was him; after graduation, the one who guided her as both teacher and friend was him; all these years, no matter big or small matters, the first person to rush over was always him.

She had never dated anyone else because, guarded by him, all opportunities were cut off. More than once, when a boy showed interest in pursuing her, within a few days, he would automatically distance himself from her. She knew it was Xu Yi’s doing.

Today, he clearly had very important clients to receive, supposedly involving a hundred-million-yuan collaboration. Yet because she happened to be nearby viewing an art exhibition, he insisted on having dinner with her.

Li Weiyi took a deep breath, hands in her pockets, looked up at the starry sky, and slowly walked forward. Without realizing it, she walked to the base of Muchen Group’s headquarters building. It was brightly lit, resplendent and magnificent. Two luxury cars drove up and stopped in front of the lobby. A group of people got out.

Li Weiyi stood still and watched. Xu Yi walked in the center. Although still tall, lean, and handsome as before, his brows now carried weathered restraint. He smiled and shook hands with the other party one by one in farewell, watching the guests leave. An assistant behind him brought over his coat. He put it on in a few movements, glanced down at his watch, said a few words to the assistant, then strode toward the restaurant’s direction.

Li Weiyi was across the street, following him step by step forward. She watched him look left and right at the intersection, just like an ordinary young man, then cross the street, no longer resembling that tycoon who commanded the winds and rains in the business world. She watched him take out his phone, his long fingers dancing. Her phone vibrated in her pocket. He said: “Have you arrived? Sorry for the delay. I’ll be there in 3 minutes.”

Li Weiyi watched him finish sending the text, his steps quickening even more, his brows and eyes open and forthright. Her eyes suddenly moistened.

Just then, Li Weiyi in the dream switched to stand opposite her past self, becoming an observer, seeing clearly and distinctly that Li Weiyi’s expression.

That version of her was full of tender compassion, ultimately accepting. Li Weiyi understood that in this moment, she had reconciled with the version of herself from the past who had bizarre experiences and absurd premonitions.

Her expression was so peaceful, without the obsession and impulse of falling in love with someone, only deep emotion and tenderness.

She had given up waiting.

Everyone saw Xu Yi’s mature steadiness and inscrutability. Only that version of her saw his childlike stubbornness and longing.

She finally wanted to accompany him, couldn’t bear to make him wait any longer.

And the present Li Weiyi, in her dream, had a sudden enlightenment, her heart cut like a knife.

After that, many, many details buried in memories flashed by rapidly like fleeting images. She saw in that restaurant, Xu Yi embracing her, saying to her: “I love you.” Even after getting in the car, he held her tight without letting go. She saw countless days and nights, the two of them watching movies together, eating together, traveling together, with constant laughter and intimate companionship. She saw him at work while she sat beside him, having drawn for half a day without inspiration, then went to tease him. He held her as they sat together in an executive chair, lifted her finger to press the keyboard: “The startup password is my mother’s birthday…”

Li Weiyi also saw many nights when that version of her drew and drew until, exhausted, she fell asleep. Xu Yi would stay by her side, gently stroking her hair. Afterward, he would smoke alone by the window, eyes slightly closed, expression lazy and indifferent, as if he had become a different person, yet also as if it was his unruly true nature.

She also saw some dusks when only she sat alone in the studio, setting down her paintbrush, the setting sun covering her body. She didn’t know what she had been thinking then, only that there was an indescribable loneliness.

……

Finally, Li Weiyi’s dreamscape became chaotic and fragmented.

One moment, she was seventeen, falling into a pond, and a person whose face she couldn’t see clearly jumped into the water and embraced her. The next moment, it was the car accident—Zhang Jingchan drove and crashed into that hit-and-run vehicle, but in a blink, when the hit-and-run driver raised his head, he had become Zhang Jingchan.

One moment, her sister leaped from a building, and Li Weiyi heard her parents’ hysterical screams. The next moment, it was a room where the lighting couldn’t be seen clearly, a middle-aged man pressed down on the bed by two people, forcibly given medication.

And then Zhang Jingchan, alone in a bottomless room, searching everywhere but unable to find an exit. He was shouting loudly: “Li Weiyi! Li Weiyi! Li Weiyi—”

Li Weiyi panicked, only wanting to run over and answer: “I’m here! I’m right here!”

Finally, she reached him. The person in the black coat turned around and raised his head, but had already transformed into Xu Yi’s face.

Xu Yi gazed deeply at her, saying nothing, standing like a withered tree, only his eyes quietly brimming with tears.

In all these years, Li Weiyi had never seen Xu Yi cry.

Whether it was the collapse of Fu Ming, difficulties starting his business, being rejected by her, or even when his mother died of illness, he had only reddened his eyes, never shedding tears in front of others.

Li Weiyi’s heart was filled with great sorrow.

She shouted: “Xu Yi! I’m sorry! I’m truly sorry! I don’t want to make you sad, but I, but I…”

I’m ultimately not her.

This parallel line reborn through time reversal paused at the very instant I returned to this world.

She no longer exists.

The person you love—she has been covered over by me.

……

The person beside her was crying out loud in her dream.

Zhang Jingchan, who had been driving with a face like ice the entire time, finally seemed unable to endure it any longer. He turned his head to look at her.

Li Weiyi’s eyes were tightly closed, tears brimming on her lashes. Her hands resting in front of her were clenched into fists, her body trembling slightly.

“Xu Yi… Xu Yi…”

She was crying bitterly in her dream. She was repeatedly murmuring another man’s name in her dream.

Zhang Jingchan watched her quietly for a moment, then turned to look ahead and never glanced at her again.