July 14, 2014.

The morning after young girl Li Weiyi was rushed to the hospital for emergency treatment.

Her head was still wrapped in bandages. She sat on the bed, her face pale, thin and frail.

Ding Chenmo sat across from her with a disciple, his expression grave, his brow tightly furrowed.

The young girl lowered her head, her ten fingers on the blanket clenched so tightly they seemed ready to squeeze out water. She said: “I don’t remember. What happened last night—I don’t remember any of it.”

A teardrop slid from the corner of her eye.

Ding Chenmo exchanged glances with his disciple. Ultimately helpless, they left at the doctor’s urging.

Her sister Li Xiaoyi walked in carrying a food container, looking at her younger sister’s restless appearance. She sighed inwardly and said gently: “Eat something. Mom got up early this morning to make you soup. They’ve been up all night. I told them to sleep a bit before coming over.”

“I can’t eat.”

Li Xiaoyi touched her forehead: “The doctor said this is an aftereffect of the concussion. It will get better in a few days.”

Li Weiyi said: “It’s not because of that.”

It’s just… it’s just…

I always feel like I’ve forgotten very important people and things. I know “she” and “he” must have done something, but this feeling of complete ignorance and confused panic is truly terrible.

Li Xiaoyi was silent for a long while, but ultimately made up her mind. She pulled out a folded note from her pocket and handed it to her: “These are words he left for you before he lost consciousness. None of us opened it to look. But… after you read it, don’t do anything foolish.”

Li Weiyi took the note, opened it and looked at it. She didn’t move for a long time.

Actually, it was only three sentences, but she read each word for a very long time, as if only then understanding them.

“Don’t be with anyone else.

Zhang Jingchan is the person you should wait for in this life.

Don’t make him sad again.”

“Are you… okay?” Li Xiaoyi looked at her worriedly.

Li Weiyi lowered her head, refolded the note, carefully and meticulously placed it in her pocket, then looked up at her sister and smiled gently: “I’m fine.”

Li Xiaoyi looked at the tears filling her younger sister’s eyes and her calm gaze, feeling a needle-like pain in her heart. She had a strange feeling that perhaps from this moment on, something about her sister had already changed.

“You really… don’t do anything foolish,” her sister said.

“I won’t do anything foolish.” Li Weiyi nodded obediently. “Sister, where is he?”

One question made Li Xiaoyi’s eyes redden. She bit her lip and said: “Yesterday at dawn, at the same moment you woke up, Achan lost consciousness. He’s still in the ICU. You can’t go in either.”

“Did the doctor say when he could wake up?”

“The doctor said… he’s currently in a vegetative state. No one knows why. The doctors can’t figure it out either.”

Li Weiyi froze. After a while, she nodded: “I understand.”

Li Weiyi didn’t say she had no appetite again and obediently ate all the food her sister brought. The doctor came to check on her again, saying that after another week, once the wound on the back of her head healed and there were no other symptoms, she could be discharged.

Near noon, Li Xiaoyi went to pay fees. Li Weiyi stayed alone in the single-patient room and received another visitor.

Xu Yi wore a suit and tie, travel-worn, head covered in sweat beads, standing at the door looking at the pale and sickly young girl on the hospital bed.

His voice was also dry: “I… could have come back with the chairman last night originally, but because I had to handle some remaining matters, I just flew back this morning… Are you okay? Does your wound hurt? When I heard you had an accident, I couldn’t sleep all night…”

Li Weiyi smiled, her eyes gentle and bright as always. She said: “Brother Xu Yi, thank you for your concern. Please sit.”

Just one sentence made the twenty-six-year-old man’s heart skip a beat with a “thump.” Xu Yi sat down with composed eyes, understanding in his heart that his girl had returned.

Three days had passed.

However, Li Weiyi’s next words shocked Xu Yi to his core.

She said: “You should never spend any more effort on me, because I will never accept you.”

After that, no matter how Xu Yi coaxed or expressed his feelings, she was no longer like before—shy or confused or unable to handle him. She remained calm and resolute throughout.

So Xu Yi understood it wasn’t that the young girl had matured overnight to the point of being able to handle a man like him, but that she had truly made up her mind.

Such a pure and brilliant girl—once she set her mind on something, no one could stop her from shining for it.

Xu Yi also went to Zhang Jingchan’s side, but the ICU didn’t allow visits. He only looked from outside. Zhang Moyun and Wu Xinhui had no mind to pay attention to him either.

Xu Yi left the hospital with a dark expression.

Actually, the current Li Weiyi was to him nothing more than a moment of heartfelt attraction, an amusement, a girl who stirred up his strong possessiveness. Full of fondness, but not yet love.

But why, after she pronounced his death sentence, did his heart feel weighed down as if pressed by ten thousand pounds of giant stones, making every breath difficult and painful to speak of?

He walked hurriedly, not even knowing himself whether he was fleeing from something or trying to conceal something. All the way down the elevator, walking toward the parking lot, the instant he pressed the car key and his hand gripped the door handle, he stopped motionless.

The afternoon sun clearly reflected his face in the car window.

It was a version of himself he had never seen before.

Eyes red-rimmed, tears falling.

In Xu Yi’s memory, probably after age ten, he had never cried again. No one could make him cry.

Xu Yi closed his eyes, lowered his head, his right hand still gripping the door handle, burying his face in his left palm. A moment later, he raised his head again. The tears were gone, though the corners of his eyes were still red.

He suddenly smiled.

When did it begin?

Loving a little girl so painfully that it pierced his heart, yet even he himself had only just realized it.

His soul was beyond his control, his love beyond his choice.

That secret buried in those two people’s soul exchange, buried in the tiny fragments of time’s cycle, and also buried in his love—what exactly was it?

Xu Yi slowly raised his head, looking at the sky’s slightly dizzying sunlight.

Was it… time?

—

ICU.

Wu Xinhui sat by the bedside, crying softly, overcome with grief.

Zhang Moyun stood before the glass partition with an iron-gray face, his eyes red-rimmed, full of gloom.

Clearly it was Li Weiyi whose brain had been injured, yet after midnight last night, Li Weiyi woke up while Zhang Jingchan lost consciousness and became a vegetable. Even the doctors were baffled by this, though Zhang Moyun had one or two suspicions in his heart.

The human brain is the most complex thing. The visible brain structure, the invisible brain waves, neurons, subconsciousness… What those two people exchanged wasn’t just bodies, but brain consciousness. Perhaps the tangible brain damage was smaller, but the intangible functional damage was greater.

Zhang Moyun even had an absurd thought—perhaps that boy himself was unwilling to wake up, taking her place in suffering. That boy was capable of doing such a thing.

Thinking about it, Zhang Moyun laughed bitterly again. Wasn’t his son’s deep sense of loyalty and righteousness just like him? That touch of self-mocking smile slowly faded. He looked back once more at his son on the hospital bed and his ceaselessly crying wife, then turned and left, going to another hospital room.

Although Li Yunmo had been beaten badly yesterday, they were all just flesh wounds, with one or two bone fractures. He didn’t even need surgery, just his whole body wrapped up like a rice dumpling, requiring rest and recuperation for a period of time.