I promise you, I will let you go. (Dedicated to the Purple Bamboo Crown)

——And there was only one reason he had treated you that way.

Tang Pei watched the sunlight drift and dance around her like gauzy skirts swirling in the wind. He gazed at her in silence. Upon her face lay a trace of sorrow, a trace of helplessness, and a trace of aloofness, as though she alone stood beneath heaven and earth, watching the mortal world kindle its lights and fires.

Yet Tang Pei knew that no matter how deep the hurt, how sharp the pain, only the person who suffered it could truly understand. He said, “Have you ever considered that he has never cared so deeply for a woman before?” Tang Pei asked, his voice tentative.

The light in Linglan’s eyes dimmed in an instant. She told herself: Do not grieve. Do not mourn. Do not dwell on it. Do not hold on to what is already gone. Life is but a dream—how much joy can it truly contain?

“Have you ever considered that the reason he treats you differently is because he loves you?”

Ye Linglan looked at the man before her. Her words were calm, yet beneath them lay an ocean of unrest.

Love—that word was too sacred to her. She could not bear to profane it.

Love might be alluring, but to her it was poison. Once she touched it, she could not imagine the knife-twisting agony of trying to withdraw. If loss was inevitable, if pain was inevitable, then she would rather never have possessed it at all.

And yet, after Mo Zhicheng entered her life, there had been far too many “buts”…

She could no longer respond to his words. Tang Pei’s voice continued to echo in her ears. He spoke, but all she saw was his lips opening and closing, recounting the madness of that man on that night. He said she could never imagine the look in his eyes then—how deeply he had cared, and how utterly despairing he had been, as though he had lost the entire world.

Her body trembled. She could not listen any longer, yet she could only remain standing where she was. What could she say? She could not tell Tang Pei that, under her true identity, she had infiltrated Mo Zhicheng’s side; that the contract Shengqi had taken from Tiancheng had been recovered by her from the shredder. If he ever learned who she really was, how would he see her? She could no longer imagine the fury he would feel.

And if the calamity that had overtaken the Mo family had anything to do with Uncle Ye—if he truly intended to avenge himself by settling accounts, one by one, with those responsible for framing his family—how would he look at her then?

Moreover, she could not place herself between him and Young Master Ye. She simply could not do it.

And so… she had chosen the most ruthless, most decisive way to leave him. She had not only wounded herself, but him as well.

As Tang Pei continued speaking, he noticed that her eyes had grown bloodshot. He thought she would cry, yet she remained standing there in silence, her vacant gaze resembling that of a wooden puppet stripped of its paint. She seemed too numb to react to anything.

“Linglan,” he called. “If you don’t mind, could you tell me what really happened between you? How did everything become like this in barely more than ten days?

“I know that some pain can only be understood by the person who suffers it. An outsider can never truly share it, and too much consolation may only force you to relive your wounds again and again. But if you are willing to tell me, I will do everything I can to help you.”

What he received in response was still that placid, undisturbed expression. Tang Pei suddenly felt sorry for her. The more fiercely she suppressed her emotions, the more clearly it revealed how much she was hurting.

At last, Linglan’s gaze settled on his face. The man’s features seemed to overlap and blur before her eyes, and for a moment she thought she saw another man’s face.

She stared blankly. “Thank you,” she said softly, then gave a desolate smile. “But I have nothing to say. Do you really think he and I are suited for each other?”

She suddenly remembered Lin Jia’s mocking words: He is worth hundreds of billions. Naturally, countless society beauties and heiresses admire him. What am I compared with them?

“Are you feeling inferior?” Tang Pei asked.

She turned her gaze away. It was undeniable that she had been born with a congenital physical defect. From childhood to adulthood, she had always worked harder than ordinary people, as though trying to prove something—or perhaps it all stemmed from the inferiority buried deep within her bones.

Brother Yuchen had once asked her whether that was why she had never confessed her feelings to Ye Shenghan.

Linglan lowered her eyes, her heart steeped in bitterness. “No,” she said. “It’s because there is someone else in my heart. I can’t be with him while thinking of another man.”

Tang Pei froze again and again. He had already noticed how deliberately she avoided his gaze, the evasiveness in her expression. After a moment of thought, a low murmur escaped his lips.

“Why… do I feel that you’re lying?”

His words pierced straight through her defenses. Linglan hurried away, but before she could escape, he stopped her. Tang Pei seized her arm and blurted out, “Linglan!”

She turned her face aside, merely trying to conceal the humiliation of having her thoughts exposed. Tang Pei looked at her delicate profile with a trace of heartache. Her arm was held in his grasp; he could almost feel the softness of her slender frame, and the helpless tremor that passed through her.

His words had struck directly at the disguise she wore. Unwilling to question her further, Tang Pei simply let her be.

“Linglan, I only wanted to tell you that your phone has been unreachable. I haven’t been able to contact you during work.”

He took the opportunity to mention that he had been trying to reach her for days, only to find her phone switched off.

She gave him a faint smile. “My phone was stolen. I haven’t had time to replace the SIM card yet. Director Tang, don’t worry. I’ll take care of it today.”

“I happen to have a sample phone here, provided by one of our suppliers. If you don’t mind—”

Before he could finish, she interrupted him. “No need. Thank you for your kindness.”

Linglan said nothing more. She quickly pulled her arm from his grasp and hurried out of the pantry.

With a bang, Tang Pei’s broad figure gave a slight start. When he looked toward the door again, the woman was already gone.

******

“Miss, here is your replacement SIM card.”

Ye Linglan took it from the clerk. “Thank you.”

She bought an inexpensive phone as well. Once she inserted the card, the screen lit up with a pale glow. On an impulse, she asked, “Can the messages from the lost card be recovered?”

The words had barely left her lips before she found the question absurd.

Only then did she suddenly understand that once something was lost, it could never be restored exactly as it had been. No one could foresee the future. Perhaps that was why life was so full of regret.

Beep, beep, beep—

A string of urgent alert tones shattered her thoughts. She started, then gathered herself. Assuming the messages had come from the carrier, she paid little attention and opened them instinctively.

When a familiar phone number appeared before her eyes, the hand holding the phone trembled.

The message had been sent in the early hours of the morning on the night they parted. Joy surged through Linglan’s heart, yet her fingers could not bring themselves to press the button and open it.

She had never known a single second could stretch so endlessly. For a moment, she even wished time would stop right there.

She was delighted, yet afraid. Delighted that he had contacted her, afraid that once she read the message, every hope she held would come crashing down into emptiness.

She began to fear waiting, fear keeping vigil, and even more than that, she feared hope without end.

And so she stood before the counter in a daze for a long while, until the clerk called out to her repeatedly and drew her back to herself.

The night over Nanjiang was as dense as ink, so deep it seemed impossible to dissolve.

The long, secluded path lay immersed in a sea of silver light, enfolding the night in warmth and stillness. She stood within that ocean of moonlight.

Beneath the moon, the stream beside the path flowed quietly, murmuring as it wound toward the farthest edge of the sky before gradually merging into the boundless darkness. The moon was bright, the water was clear, yet everything possessed a hazy beauty—a beauty so poignant it made the heart ache.

Linglan sat on a bench beside the path. At last, in the stillness of the deep night, she took out her phone.

With a long, deep sigh, she finally summoned the courage to open the message. Dense lines of text fell abruptly into view. She drew in a sharp breath.

You gave me hope, something to care about, something to hold on to, and a reason to go on. You made me want to watch you live well—to live forever and ever. Yet you used words so cold, so ruthless, so cruel, and cut my heart—and everything that belonged to me—to pieces.

You once pushed me out of the darkness, only to leave me alone in another night whose depths I could not fathom, forcing me to face a room full of memories and mourn the past.

I guarded you in silence. I endured in silence. I did so many things in silence. I thought I had finally drawn closer to you, yet you pushed me farther away—so far that there was no end to the distance between us.

What does it mean to be utterly disheartened? What does it mean to be consumed by sorrow? What does it mean to give one’s all until nothing remains?

This is what it means.

If this is what you want, then I agree. I will let you go.

“Ah!”

She covered her lips tightly, no longer able to restrain herself.

Linglan gasped for breath as scalding tears fell without end. She clutched the fabric over her chest. The man’s despairing voice seemed to echo again and again beside her ear:

If this is what you want, then I agree. I will let you go.