The older generation had a habit of tucking important things under the bed. Chen Shiyi and Lu Xuan — this pair of “elders” — were no exception.

Reaching beneath the bed and rummaging around, Chen Shiyi pulled out an iron box. With trembling hands, she found the letter inside — yellowed with age, worn and weathered, steeped in the feel of a bygone era.

She drew out the sheet of paper within. Written on it in clear, unmistakable strokes were today’s date and the name of this university. At the bottom was a single sentence: Don’t doubt it — the person standing before you is me.

Lu Xuan and Chen Shiyi both looked up at Rong Qian with expressions of astonishment. Rong Qian smiled back at them. “Yes — it’s me.”

“But — how can this be possible?”

Lu Xuan had spent his entire life studying physics and the sciences. He could not bring himself to believe that something like time travel was real.

Rong Qian could not explain it either, but the fact remained — she had truly traveled back to the past through a photograph.

Yet now was not the time to investigate any of that. What Rong Qian desperately needed to know was what had happened to Shen Yi after she left — and whether Lin Feng had cleared his name.

“Let’s have some tea first.”

Perhaps because there was a great deal to tell, Lu Xuan brewed a cup of tea and handed it to her. Both husband and wife wore grave expressions, which made Rong Qian tense as well. Had Lin Feng actually gone to prison?

Lu Xuan did not keep her in suspense. He said directly, “Lin Feng was freed. He did not go to prison.”

“Thank goodness.” Rong Qian let out a long breath of relief. The weight she had been carrying finally settled. She asked further, “What happened to Lin Feng afterward? Did he change his name?”

“He did not change his name.” Lu Xuan looked down at the teacup in his hands, his whole manner subdued.

Rong Qian was puzzled. “If he didn’t change his name, then why couldn’t he be found?”

“He died…” Lu Xuan raised his eyes to look at her, and the sorrow and heaviness in his gaze were impossible to describe.

Rong Qian was stunned. “He died? Why? How did he die?”

“He was… ‘killed.'” Lu Xuan seemed to be struggling with something as he spoke, as though there were things he found difficult to say.

Rong Qian clenched her fist in fury. She demanded, her voice sharp with anger, “Who! Who killed him?”

“It was —” Lu Xuan pressed his lips together before he could say it. “Shen Yi.”

Rong Qian went rigid. Shen Yi killed Lu Xuan? That’s impossible. No — it’s simply not possible.

“Qianqian jie, a great deal happened after you left.”

Chen Shiyi looked into Rong Qian’s eyes, which had grown bright with unshed tears. Chen Shiyi’s temples had already gone white, and fine lines had quietly crept across her face — the marks left by the passage of years.

But in Rong Qian’s eyes, Chen Shiyi was still the girl she remembered from yesterday — bashful-smiled, youthful, and earnest.

If Rong Qian felt this way, then Lu Xuan and Chen Shiyi must have felt it all the more keenly.

Forty-eight years had passed, and here was Rong Qian standing before them again — unchanged, exactly as she had been.

For Rong Qian, she had only just seen their younger selves the day before. The feeling was one that defied expression entirely.

When Chen Shiyi saw Rong Qian, the memories of that time studying abroad in America came flooding back with sudden clarity. Every detail of those days returned to her, vivid and sharp…

After Rong Qian left, it wasn’t long before Shen Yi moved out.

After that, Chen Shiyi and Lu Xuan rarely saw him outside of school.

During that period, Shen Yi focused entirely on a single matter — getting Lin Feng out.

The incident had caused quite a stir. Unfortunately, Thomas had connections on his side. In the end, Jessnie’s death was ruled an accident, and Thomas — who had been carrying a firearm — was only required to pay a large sum in compensation.

Large as the sum was, for Thomas it was pocket change.

Shen Yi was not prepared to let the case be closed so easily, but Jessnie’s family had already accepted the money ahead of him. This left Shen Yi powerless to do anything, even if he wanted to help.

After the incident, Thomas harbored a deep, burning hatred for Shen Yi — but Shen Yi was someone he could not afford to cross. And so he transferred his hostility to every international student in his path.

Around that time, nearly all of the students who had been harassed by Thomas eventually went to seek Shen Yi’s protection.

It was because of Shen Yi’s presence that Chen Shiyi, Lu Xuan, and the rest of them were able to get through their entire time at school — all the way to graduation — without harm.

But Lin Feng was not so fortunate…

His death, it turned out, had something to do with Shen Chi.

At the time, Shen Yi had worried about Lin Feng’s safety and wanted to send him back to China.

But Lin Feng said that he had grown up in America, and going back to China would only leave him with no one and nothing. At least here, he had his brother Shen Yi.

Having said all that, Shen Yi did not press him further. He thought that if Lin Feng could work at Shen Chi’s company, he would at least have a roof over his head and food to eat — and Thomas would have no reason to go after him.

Shen Chi had been quick to agree at the time, readily promising that he would take good care of Lin Feng.

Shen Yi naively trusted that Shen Chi would take that promise seriously. Over the months that followed, he buried himself in his studies.

Then one day, word spread through the school that Thomas had deliberately driven a car into a person, crushing all four of the victim’s limbs. It was said that the victim’s internal organs had been destroyed.

The victim was none other than Lin Feng.

Shen Yi only found out afterward that Shen Chi had never let Lin Feng into the company at all. He had simply abandoned him, leaving Lin Feng to spend those months enduring abuse after abuse.

At first, the worst of it was having people sent to beat him. But over time, things spiraled further and further out of control.

Until one night, Thomas and a group of his friends, drunk and looking for a thrill — those inhumane brutes pinned Lin Feng beneath a vehicle and ran over him, back and forth…

Lin Feng did not die immediately. He lay in the hospital with tubes running in and out of him, paralyzed and suffering — in agony worse than death.

Chen Shiyi and Lu Xuan had gone to see him. What they witnessed there was something no ordinary person could bear. The moment they laid eyes on him, both of them broke down in tears.

At the time, Lin Feng begged them to pull his oxygen tube. He was in too much pain. He just wanted to be free.

But they could not bring themselves to do it. And watching Lin Feng suffer, they were tormented in turn.

In the end, it was Shen Yi who did it…

When Lin Feng passed, there was a smile on his face. Up to the very last moment, he kept saying thank you to Shen Yi.

By the time Rong Qian heard all of this, she was already shaking with rage, tears spilling freely down her face. Just thinking about what Lin Feng had endured, she could barely breathe through the grief.

She could hardly imagine the torment Shen Yi must have been carrying inside during all of that.

That was Lin Feng — the person who had been kinder to him than anyone else. To be the one to end his life with his own hands — that kind of anguish was something no ordinary person could fathom.

To watch Lin Feng die right before his eyes. To watch the breath leave him. To watch his body lose its warmth and become a cold, still corpse.

To say that kind of pain was like a knife cutting through the heart would not even begin to cover it.

The world had not been gentle with Shen Yi. It had, if anything, been cruel.

Just when he finally allowed himself to embrace something beautiful, the world had deliberately taken that beauty and torn it apart right in front of him.

Shen Yi later also learned that Shen Chi had never actually stood against Thomas at all. In fact, the two of them had a working partnership.

Perhaps when weighed against a businessman’s profits, the death of one person amounted to nothing. Especially when the one who died was someone deemed a “nobody.”

It was around that time that Xu Zhiwei stepped forward.

Xu Zhiwei said he could help bring Thomas down — but on the condition that Shen Yi help him in return.

And so Shen Yi and Xu Zhiwei formed a brief alliance.

In the end, it was Shen Yi’s own abilities that saw Thomas sent to prison, his family’s fortune ruined, and justice — at long last — brought for Jessnie and Lin Feng…

“So that’s what happened.”

In this moment, Rong Qian finally learned the full course of events. She hadn’t expected it to end like this.

No — wait! This still was not the final ending!

Rong Qian suddenly remembered that the most important question had not yet been answered!

“What happened after that? What became of Shen Yi? You know this much — so you must know why Shen Yi disappeared at sea that year. Tell me!”

She needed the truth with desperate urgency — and this was perhaps the most critical piece of all.