Outside, the guards continued their patrols, unaware that the real threat to this family wasn't anything they could protect against; it was the ghosts of the past and the damage already done to a girl they'd found too late.
The night finally released its grip as the first gray hints of dawn crept over the horizon.
But for the Jin family, morning would bring no relief, only the cold light of day to illuminate failures they could no longer ignore, and questions they had no answers for.
In the hospital across the city, Zhou Yuxi slept peacefully in Mu Yunchen's protective embrace, unaware and unburdened by the chaos her existence had brought to the family she didn't want.
And perhaps that was the cruelest truth of all, that while they lay awake, tortured by guilt and desperate to connect with her, she rested easier in the arms of a stranger than she ever could in theirs.
