The room was quiet.
Too quiet.
The dim glow of his phone screen cast pale shadows over his face, highlighting the sharp edges of his features.
His dark blue eyes, always filled with unwavering determination, now stared blankly at the last message.
It was as if time itself had frozen.
His thumb hovered over the screen, refusing to scroll up or move. His breath was steady, too steady, as if he were afraid that the slightest movement would break something inside him.
Word by word, he read the message again. Then again. And again.
The letters burned into his mind, etching themselves into something far deeper than his thoughts—they burrowed into his very being, into the core of who he was.
"Little Angel doesn't cry for you anymore."
"She's starting to forget you."
"Whatever reason you had for leaving us, it wasn't enough to justify this silence."
"You were my light… and now it feels like you extinguished that light yourself."
Mo Fan didn't move.
He didn't even blink.
A suffocating weight pressed against his chest, heavier than any burden he had ever carried. It was unlike the exhaustion of battle, unlike the pain of injuries, unlike the weight of responsibility that always rested on his shoulders.
This was something worse.
A cold, hollow ache settled deep within him, like an open wound that refused to bleed.
He wanted to say something. To react. To curse, to whisper her name, to deny the words she had written. But there was nothing—nothing but the empty, endless silence in his chest.
His fingers trembled slightly.
Not from anger. Not from frustration.
But from something far more fragile.
"I lied to her," he realized. "I swore I wouldn't make her feel alone ever again. I swore I'd never let her feel abandoned again. And yet… I did exactly that." Mo Fan said...
He remembered what he had said to her when he brought her to Shanghai.
His gaze dropped lower on the screen.
"This will be my last message to you."
His grip on the phone tightened.
"You saved me when I was drowning in eternal torment. You brought light to a life I thought would always stay in the darkness. I respected you. I trusted you and at some point I even Lov... Admired you."
A sharp, stinging pressure built up behind his eyes, but his expression remained unreadable, a mask of unwavering calm.
Outside, the lights flickered through the window. A faint hum of life carried through the walls—the distant sound of car honking, of voices, of a world that continued moving forward, indifferent to his pain.
But Mo Fan didn't hear any of it.
His mind was elsewhere—trapped in the past.
He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.
He saw Qin Yu'er standing in the doorway, waiting for him to return.
He saw her pacing around the house, phone clutched tightly in her hands as she checked it for the hundredth time.
He saw the little girl, her wide, innocent eyes filled with tears as she sat by the door, waiting for him who never came back.
He had left them behind.
Not by choice. Nuh-uh...
But that didn't matter.
The result was the same.
To them, he had abandoned them.
The single person who had given her hope. The only paternal figure the little girl had ever known.
Gone.
Without a single word.
Without an explanation.
Without a promise to return.
A deep, quiet breath left his lips.
Then, for the first time... ever since his Father Mo Jiaxing passed away...
A single tear fell from his right eye.
It rolled down his cheek, slow and silent, a lone drop of warmth against his otherwise expressionless face.
He didn't wipe it away.
Didn't even acknowledge it.
He simply sat there, staring at the screen, feeling the weight of her words press down on him like an unbearable tide.
Qin Yu'er…
The name echoed in his mind, but there was nothing he could say.
Nothing he could do to take back the time that had already been lost.
"Hah.." He scoffed.
A bitter chuckle—empty, void of any amusement—escaped him.
"Even after all these years… I'm still just a disappointment, aren't I?"
He let his head rest against the headboard, staring up at the ceiling. His body still felt weak, his legs useless beneath him.
He had faced monsters, and even beings beyond human comprehension.
But in the end, it wasn't any of them that managed to truly hurt him.
It was a simple message.
A message that made him realize just how much pain he had caused.
How much trust he had shattered.
How much hope he had unknowingly stolen.
And yet…
Mo Fan knew.
Knew that even if he tried to explain, tried to fix it—
Things would never be the same again.
The damage was done.
Qin Yu'er had given up on him.
The little girl had forgotten him.
And no matter how much he wanted to, no matter how much he wished he could turn back time…
He couldn't change the fact that he had disappeared from their lives.
For them, he was already gone.
A memory that was already slowly fading away.
The phone in his hand dimmed as the screen timed out.
He didn't turn it back on.
Didn't reread the message.
Didn't try to call.
Instead, he simply let the darkness of the room consume him, let the silence press against his chest.
And for the first time in a very long time—
Mo Fan felt truly, utterly alone.