When the car pulled up to the sanitarium, Chu Luyao sat frozen at the entrance for a long time, lacking the courage to step inside.
She had specifically dug out the outfit she wore the very first time she met Zhou Du—a desperate attempt to evoke the past.
When she first received the news, Chu Luyao was so excited her hands trembled uncontrollably. She made her assistant confirm the report multiple times, terrified that her eyes were playing tricks on her.
Without a second thought, she booked the earliest flight to Country A and rushed here.
But now that she stood before his door, her hand felt heavy as lead. She couldn't bring herself to knock.
Would Zhou Du forgive her?
He definitely would.
She had been deceived by Song Yuhuan; all of this was Song Yuhuan's scheme.
As long as she explained it clearly, Zhou Du would surely forgive her.
After all, he had loved her so much, for so many years.
They had been deeply in love for over a decade.
With Zhou Du's soft nature, how could he give up on her so easily?
Chu Luyao thought this, deceiving herself.
She hypnotized herself over and over again: Zhou Du still loves me. His silent disappearance is just him waiting for me to apologize.
As long as she apologized sincerely, everything could go back to the past. They could return to how they were before.
Chu Luyao was convinced—absolutely certain.
Clinging to this fragile hope, she finally knocked on the ward door.
Before the door even opened, Chu Luyao had already rehearsed her apology speech a thousand times in her mind.
However, time ticked by, and still, no one came to open the door.
Knock, knock—
"Zhou Du must be asleep and didn't hear it," Chu Luyao muttered to herself, trying to suppress the rising dread as she knocked again.
Still, there was no response.
Chu Luyao's heart pounded against her ribs, threatening to burst out, and her palms were slick with cold sweat.
Subconsciously, she pushed the door open.
The room was silent. Inside, there was only an empty hospital bed.
The bedding was neat and tidy, smoothed out as if no one had lived there at all.
Hanging on the bed rail was a medical chart that hadn't been taken down in time. The name had been hurriedly crossed out with a thick black marker.
Chu Luyao stared at the English spelling of "Zhou Du" visible beneath the chaotic scribbles of black ink. A panic as chaotic as a battlefield surged in her heart, drowning her senses.
"Who are you looking for?"
A caregiver appeared in the doorway, holding a bouquet of white chrysanthemums.
The white flowers blended with the stark white bedsheets, and in Chu Luyao's eyes, the whiteness was blindingly harsh, stinging her vision.
"Are you looking for Mr. Zhou?"
Chu Luyao's lips trembled so violently she couldn't speak; she could only nod.
"He passed away. Late-stage stomach cancer. He didn't have long to live anyway."
"When?"
In the span of just a few hours, Chu Luyao felt like she had plummeted from the clouds into hell. She went from the extreme joy of finding Zhou Du's trace to the crushing despair of learning of his death.
Chu Luyao looked at the caregiver in disbelief.
"Where is his body?"
"It was taken away by his family."
Family... Zhou Du had never mentioned his family to her. Not once.
Chu Luyao recalled the past in a daze.
It seemed that in her time with Zhou Du, she was always the one being taken care of meticulously.
She had never asked, never cared about Zhou Du's background.
After getting together with Song Yuhuan, the time she spent with Zhou Du became less and less.
It was so little that she couldn't even recall the last time they had truly been together before he left.
Chu Luyao's heart grew heavier with suffocating self-blame.
She hated her former self to the extreme.
Zhou Du was so good to her; why didn't she know how to cherish him?