Li Weiyi carried her backpack downstairs and drove off in a small car worth forty to fifty thousand yuan. In this lifetime, she still studied painting. Because she spent a large amount of time caring for Zhang Jingchan, both her fame and income were far inferior to the previous life, but it was enough to live on. She had also learned to drive.

After graduating from university, Li Yunmo entered a company as a marketing specialist. The work was busy and exhausting, and the pay wasn’t much.

Apart from their living expenses, the two of them put all their extra money toward paying for Zhang Jingchan’s nursing home fees.

The sunshine today was lovely. Li Weiyi drove the car along suburban roads, with winding rivers and verdant farmland on both sides. At some casual moment, she habitually pinched the pendant at her neck, rubbing it between her fingers. Looking down, she saw it was the old gold Buddha that Zhang Moyun had given her before his death eight years ago.

Li Weiyi lowered her eyes, staring at the gold Buddha. She brought it to her lips and kissed it gently.

This nursing home wasn’t large, but it was clean and tidy. The care staff were quite dedicated, and Li Weiyi and Li Yunmo visited frequently, so Zhang Jingchan had always received good care and rehabilitation exercises.

Soon she reached the room’s entrance. The male caregiver was just coming out carrying a basin, smiling at her.

Li Weiyi asked, “Is he… alright?”

The male caregiver looked at her strangely. “Same as always, doing well.”

Li Weiyi said “oh,” and wanted to push open the door, but for a moment her hand went weak. She slowly pushed it open.

The room’s appearance was exactly the same as in her memory. Facing south, simple and narrow, with warm sunlight and clean curtains.

White bedding covered him up to his waist. He wore the sweater she had bought, his arms resting outside the blanket, as if he were merely sleeping.

Li Weiyi first placed her backpack on the table, standing with her back to him for a while before showing a smile and walking over. But the moment she clearly saw the face of the person on the bed, she couldn’t smile anymore. Tears blurred her vision.

Zhang Jingchan really was just the same as always—black short hair, fair face, prominent brow bone, straight nose bridge. Even with his eyes closed, you could see his air of cold pride. Only his face looked a bit thinner than before—just like hers.

Li Weiyi sat down by the bed, grabbed one of his hands, and gently rubbed his fingers. Her voice was so soft only the two of them could hear it. “Zhang Jingchan, why haven’t you woken up yet? I’ve already come back.”

In every lifetime, even in the first life with a billion yuan in debt, he had been superior to others, full of presence, noble and extraordinary.

Only this time, he lay weakly in bed. For eight years, even his basic survival had to rely on others to maintain. Li Weiyi looked and looked, and suddenly felt she couldn’t bear it. With tears in her eyes, she asked him, “Why were you so foolish? Taking that blow from the crane for me? At that time, at that time… I was the man. And aren’t you the big CEO? Why couldn’t you calculate this account? Even if I had lain here for eight years, what would it matter? I’m just a nobody anyway. But you’re the person who was supposed to become the richest man. You still owe me one hundred million yuan. Yet you’ve lain here for eight years, lain in this shabby, broken-down place for eight years. In this lifetime, you have nothing left… It’s all my fault. I’m too useless, I can’t earn big money, making you live in a place like this…”

After crying for quite a while, she gradually calmed down, but more and more memories, with the outbreak of emotion, vividly surged into her mind.

She saw how every year on Zhang Jingchan’s birthday, she and Li Yunmo held a small cake and sang birthday songs around him. She also saw herself, after being accepted into her ideal art academy, placing the admission notice by his bedside for the whole night. She saw herself, when work wasn’t going well, crying as she came before him, threatening that if he didn’t wake up to comfort her, she would cheat on him. But in the end, she still washed the two sets of clothes he had changed out of and went home tearfully. She saw herself discovering that a caregiver had once been lazy and hadn’t given him rehabilitation and massage. She was so angry she stayed in his room for three days and three nights, her gloomy expression making every caregiver afraid to speak. She saw herself climbing into his bed late at night, picking up one of his arms, sleeping in his embrace, gazing at the stars outside the window, their ten fingers intertwined.

…

Tears fell like threads once more. So many memories, every detail of eight years, were as if Li Weiyi had experienced them personally—vivid and unforgettable, carved into her bones and heart.

At the same time, a strange yet familiar emotion, incomparably deep and profound, the kind that could only be accumulated over years and months, slowly rippled through the depths of Li Weiyi’s chest.

Li Weiyi was stunned for a moment.

This experience seemed familiar.

In the previous life, “she” had also harbored deep feelings for Xu Yi, and had tried repeatedly to invade her heart. But Li Weiyi had ultimately chosen to resist, chosen to ignore. She had completely taken over “her,” and that person deeply loved by Xu Yi disappeared in the timeline. That emotion, with the continuous iteration of timelines, had long since faded beyond recognition.

But at this moment, feeling the struggle and impact of that emotion in her chest, Li Weiyi seemed to hear “her” from this lifetime silently asking: Can you preserve my feelings for Zhang Jingchan? Let my love for him continue through you?

Li Weiyi lowered her head and laughed bitterly yet sweetly.

So that’s how it is.

So this is what it feels like to love someone desperately yet hopefully for eight years.

Zhang Jingchan, this time, you’ve really gotten a great bargain.

I can’t bear to let it go.

These eight years of morning and evening together, deep affection and profound loyalty—I don’t even need to think about it. I can’t bear to discard any of it. I only want to cherish every dusk and dawn spent with you, properly preserving them in the bottom of my heart.

So, could I have any other choice?

No, I won’t.

She closed her eyes and thought—so she had been wrong before.

She hadn’t completely taken over “her” in this timeline.

The one and only Li Weiyi, the Li Weiyi who traveled through countless timelines, only in this lifetime was willingly taken over by “her” emotions instead.

She absolutely couldn’t resist. Those feelings seemed to have already grown into her bones and blood. She could even feel that deep, enduring love merging continuously with her original affection and attraction toward Zhang Jingchan, like a vast ocean and a rushing stream gradually becoming one.

From this moment on, she was “her,” and “her” had always been her.

…

When Li Weiyi raised her head again, the way she looked at Zhang Jingchan had changed.

Suddenly, a white light seemed to flash through her mind, followed by an enlightenment like being awakened.

So… so…

Had it been the same for him back then?

When Zhang Jingchan from the previous life woke up on January 13, 2022, facing “his” complex yet steadfast feelings for Li Weiyi over eight years, what choice would he have made?

With Zhang Jingchan’s stubborn nature, would he have any other choice?

No, he wouldn’t.

Only at this moment did Li Weiyi finally understand why, in the previous life on that day, when she became Xu Yi’s girlfriend and ran to his office, he had looked at her with that kind of gaze—silent, restrained, untouchable. Why he had asked how she had been “these years.” Why he had kissed so fiercely, as if he were coming to collect a debt.

Because he was coming to collect a debt, collecting debt on behalf of that version of himself who had waited from youth to young adulthood.

Because on the day he woke up, he similarly couldn’t bear to part with those eight years of emotion, willingly taken over by “him.” From that day on, his feelings for her were already different.

Li Weiyi covered her mouth and cried aloud.

She had always thought that crossing over that time was just an instant.

Only now did she know—he had already waited a full eight years.

Li Weiyi lay against the bedside, burying her face in his palm, not knowing how much time had passed.

Until someone knocked on the door.

She sat up straight, wiped her face with a wet tissue, turned her head and said, “Come in.”

Xu Yi, dressed in a black coat, pushed open the door, his eyes bright and deep as he looked at her.