Shu Yao said nothing. He only stared, because that same dream—no, that same curse—had glued itself behind his eyes again, stitched into the seams of his memory like shadow ink. The images hadn't faded. Bai Qi—but not the Bai Qi he remembered. Not the gentle one who had once tended Qing Yue's wounds with the patience of spring. No, this was a different man altogether. A version carved from fury and heartbreak.
In the dream, Bai Qi's eyes burned like scorched earth, and his voice cracked with thunder. The air around him was ash and vengeance. It wasn't grief that consumed him—it was destruction. He looked ready to rip the sky in half if it meant reviving what he lost. And lying still in the center of that chaos was Qing Yue—pale, still, and soaked in silence. Lifeless. A white lily drowned in red.
Even now, fully awake, Shu Yao couldn't shake it. His fingers trembled, and a fine sheen of sweat clung to the back of his neck. He hadn't cried but something inside him had withered. That dream hadn't come to haunt. It had come to warn.
The worst part wasn't seeing Qing Yue dead. It was seeing Bai Qi willing to burn down the world for her.
And Shu Yao, still shaking, didn't know which was more terrifying the dream… or the truth hiding behind it.
The car began to slow, the world outside melting into familiar silhouettes—the tilt of rooftops he had memorized as a child, the crooked iron gate he once ran through barefoot in the summer rain. His neighborhood loomed ahead, unchanged, as if time had been too polite to touch it.
The vehicle came to a gentle halt before Shu Yao's gate.
George reached instinctively for the handle, ready to open the door for him—some small gesture to feel useful in the presence of a pain he couldn't touch. But Shu Yao, with trembling fingers, beat him to it. His hand shook as he pressed against the metal, his movements graceful but hollow, like a porcelain dancer performing in the wreckage of a forgotten stage.
He stepped out, the wind curling softly around him, tugging at the hem of his coat as if trying to pull him back.
George watched, silently. Not because Shu Yao hated him. No—this avoidance wasn't laced with contempt. It was the mark of someone who had seen too much behind their eyelids, someone carrying a version of the world where love turns feral and grief speaks in screams.
Even like this, with his voice barely steady and breath thin as silk thread, Shu Yao turned his head slightly—just enough to whisper to the man seated behind him.
"Thank you… for the ride," he murmured.
And then, without waiting, he walked toward the gate. Step by step, like wading through fog. The door clicked shut behind him, and George was left with nothing but the ghost of his perfume and a bitter smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.
The engine stirred once more, and the car rolled off into the dusk.
Now alone, Shu Yao pressed the doorbell—his finger pausing a second longer than necessary, as if unsure the world on the other side still belonged to him. Behind his long lashes, the trauma began to rearrange itself again. Not like a memory. No—like a storm, ready to devour him whole the moment the door opened.
The bell echoed faintly through the hallway, a soft chime swallowed by silence.
Shu Yao stood frozen, the wind tugging at his coat, his breath forming ghosts in the cold air. He heard the sound—footsteps approaching, deliberate and familiar. His heart began to pound, drumming against his ribs like a war signal. If he hadn't seen the dream—if he hadn't watched Qing Yue lying lifeless in his nightmare—he might not have believed anything anymore. Not even her voice.
Then, through the wooden frame of the door, a sweet sound emerged.
"Just a moment," came her gentle reply.
It was Qing Yue. That voice—light as spring blossoms, warm as sunlight through lace curtains. Shu Yao exhaled, the air leaving him like a weight dropped from his lungs. She's alive, he told himself. She's safe. It was only a dream. A cruel, twisted dream.
The door swung open.
And there she stood—Qing Yue, in her simple cotton dress, the hem brushing her ankles, her hair tied with a pale ribbon. Her eyes, wide and bright, shimmered in the doorway like two lamps guiding lost ships home.
"Welcome back, gege," she said, her voice dipped in honey.
Shu Yao tried to smile—tried to summon strength from hollow reserves—but all he could offer was a weary curve of his lips, like a flower trying to bloom in winter.
Qing Yue's expression softened. She stepped aside, careful in every motion, as if her brother were made of glass.
"Your dinner is ready," she said sweetly. "Go get a bath—I placed your tray on the table."
But Shu Yao, heavy with exhaustion and haunted remnants of dreams he couldn't untangle, shook his head slowly.
"I'm full," he whispered, voice nearly lost. "I already ate… outside."
Qing Yue blinked, confusion flickering in her eyes.
"You… ate outside?" she echoed, as if the very idea was unnatural. Shu Yao, after all, was too shy to eat alone in public, too gentle to order a meal without second-guessing himself three times.
Still, she didn't argue. Her gaze lingered a moment longer, searching his face like she might find a hidden wound or unshed tear.
"Okay, gege," she finally sighed, "this time I'll let you go. But tomorrow, you have to eat breakfast on time. Mom told me you skipped it again this morning."
Shu Yao dipped his head like a student before a patient teacher. It didn't feel like scolding—it felt like care, wrapped in a little sister's love. He didn't mind. Not one bit.
"You're the kind of brother every girl dreams of having," Qing Yue added, her tone soft but laced with something deeper. She stepped forward, carefully breaking the invisible distance between them. Her hand rose and settled on his shoulder—delicate, but firm with sincerity.
"Please stop hurting yourself, gege. I know you're going through something you don't want to share. It's okay—you don't have to tell me everything. But at least… don't punish your body for your silence."
And then, without warning, she leaned into him—her forehead pressed gently against his chest, like a child trying to shield a god from his own ruin.
"You're the strongest man I know," she whispered. "And I believe one day, you'll find your happiness too."
Her smile bloomed up at him, radiant and tragic, like the last star before dawn.
Shu Yao stood there in a daze, caught in a world far too cruel for someone like him. He didn't know how to answer.
Should he lie and say he would be fine?
Or should he stay silent… and let her believe in the light for both of them?
Shu Yao didn't even realize it—that Qing Yue's arms had wrapped around him so gently, like silk unraveling from a spool, soft and sorrowless, as if trying to hold together the splinters of a man made of glass. She pulled away slowly, delicately, with the same grace one would withdraw from a prayer.
"Good night, Gege," she whispered in her sweet, bell-like voice, her smile radiant as starlight through mist.
Shu Yao managed a faint nod, stepping toward the staircase, dragging his limbs like shadows across the marble.
"Good night," he murmured, barely audible, as if the words themselves were too tired to rise from his throat.
Qing Yue turned away with her usual lightness, scooping up Juju—their mischievous orange cat whose bright green eyes gleamed like jade lanterns. Juju meowed with innocent rebellion, tail flicking like a little fox. Qing Yue giggled softly, cradling the feline like a baby, and carried her into her room, unaware of the storm still trembling behind her brother's eyes.
Shu Yao climbed the staircase, every step heavier than the last. The hallway stretched before him like a quiet tomb. When he reached his bedroom, he turned the lock with a click that echoed louder than thunder in his ears.
Inside, the silence curled around him like smoke. He moved with ritual-like precision. From the inner lining of his work coat, he retrieved a small paper bag—innocuous, brown, and thin, like a secret folded into oblivion. Inside were three bottles of sleeping pills, as pale and cold as moonstone.
Two bottles he tucked into the drawer beside his bed, careful, as if handling glass. The third he held longer in his palm, fingers curled like a question he was too afraid to ask.
He didn't speak.
Didn't cry.
Didn't sigh.
He simply changed into his soft grey pajamas, the color of ash after fire, the fabric clinging to his skin like weariness. He hadn't bathed—his body felt too heavy, as if gravity itself had singled him out for punishment.
His eyes wandered back to the bottle on his bedside. A cold whisper in a warm room. He unscrewed the cap slowly. The sound was quiet, but in his ears, it cracked like bones.
Two small pills.
Like twin promises.
He placed them on his tongue and reached for the glass of water resting beside his lamp. He drank.
The taste was bland. The silence was not.
With that, Shu Yao sat still, waiting.
Not for dreams.
Not for rest.
But for whatever magic the pills would bring
Sleep, silence, escape, or
nothing at all.
Shu Yao lay on his bed like a marionette with his strings cut—still, breath barely brushing against the air, limbs folded in resignation. The room around him was soft with shadow, gentle in its quiet, like the world had pulled a curtain over itself to hush the noise of living.
Thirty-three minutes passed.
Not rushed.
Not reluctant.
Just quietly—like autumn wind moving through bare trees.
It began subtly. First, a gentle pressure behind his eyes, a velvet heaviness crawling down his lashes. Then, the weight of gravity doubled, tripled, pulling him deeper into the mattress, until even the thought of moving felt sacrilegious.
His eyelids fluttered like moth wings caught in amber light. He blinked once. Twice. Then no more.
So this was it.
The embrace of the pills—warm, slow, unyielding. Not cruel, but certain.
Sleep wasn't knocking.
It was already inside the house.
Shu Yao finally surrendered, letting his eyes close fully, the darkness behind them soft as silk and thick as ink. He didn't dream—not yet. He simply… vanished into the hush, into that strange realm where time bends and memory forgets its name.
His mind slipped beneath the surface like a pearl sinking through still water.
And now—
Until the magic wore off,
until the chemicals untangled from his blood,
until morning or madness found him—
Shu Yao would not wake.
Not even if the stars cried his name.
Time was not ticking anymore—it was dragging, its feet through molasses, stretching seconds into lifetimes. The room had dimmed into a hush, the kind only deep night could weave—threaded with silence, thick with unspoken things.
Shu Yao lay adrift in the dimness, breathing beneath the veil of chemical slumber.
He didn't know if the next dream would arrive as a whisper or a war.
He didn't know if tonight's descent would be gentle or if it would come fanged and furious, cloaked in the skin of another nightmare.
His chest rose in rhythm, a quiet tide.
One hand rested upon it—like a subconscious effort to anchor himself—fingers curled slightly, as if afraid of letting go.
The other lay over his abdomen, pale and still, as if trying to soothe the trembling that no longer came.
His lashes—long, delicate things that once fluttered in sleep—were motionless now, not even a flicker betraying life beneath them.
Even his breath, once uneven, had softened into silence.
Not a muscle stirred.
The pills had swallowed him whole.
Not violently.
But the way the sea swallows a ship that dares to sleep on the surface too long.
And now, Shu Yao floated beneath layers of mind and medicine—suspended, unknowing, untouched.
Outside the window, the moon was climbing, cloaked in a gown of thin clouds, its glow faint and ghostly. It looked in as if curious—watching this boy made of sorrow and silk, wondering what kind of dream would claim him next.
A lull.
A scream.
A memory, or something worse.
But for now, all was still.
Shu Yao was no longer here.
He had gone inward—
into the ache,
into the dark,
into whatever waited on the other side of sleep.