"You're here."

Yan Qing Shan greeted her murderer who entered the hospital room. Her back was turned at the door, but she knew, by the sound of the footsteps approaching, who it was. Qing Shan coldly glanced at the woman who sat at the visitor's chair.

"Seems like you were expecting me? How surprising."

The woman answered. Her tone laced with ridicule.

Qing Shan turned her back to her and faced the window, a sneer in her lips.

"I knew you were coming. You're here to finish me off. After all, you didn't expect the poison to be intercepted. You've been waiting for this for a long time now, stepmother. Or should I say, aunt Ming Hua."

Qing Shan replied in her usual cold, detached voice. Yes. Her usual voice. The voice which had pushed everyone away. The voice which had her father and brother to worry for her leading to their loss. The voice which had intrigued the devil who imprisoned her. The voice that had now driven her to death.

No. Wrong. It wasn't her voice. It was her, herself. Her passivity. Her detachment to all things. That is what led her to this point.

"Oh? So you knew? I see that you're not that stupid after all." was the reply Ming Hua gave her.

Aunt Ming Hua was her mother's twin sister. Qing Shan's mother, Ming Yue, died in a vehicular accident when she was five. Her father, whose world was her mother, was devastated. Zhao Ming Hua, who was secretly in love with her brother-in-law, took it as an opportunity to get close to him. With their identical looks and temperament, it was inevitable that her father succumbed to her. But she knew. Yan Qing Shan knew that it was only in looks that Zhao Ming Hua was identical to Zhao Ming Yue. Where her mother was sweet, kind, and gentle; Ming Hua was malicious, envious, and harsh. Her sweet temperament was merely an act to bait her father in. This was a fact that she had confirmed since she was seven. A fact that was magnified even more when her half-sister, Yan Xiaoyi, was born. At that time, she wanted to tell her father. But she saw that he was happy with her. Qing Shan couldn't bear to shatter the smile her father had regained. So she kept it from everyone. But the image of a harmonious family that they had projected made her heart grow cold. Even when she had tried to bridge the distance and get close to them, she couldn't even take a step closer.

Qing Shan tilted her head to face the woman who had her mother's face but was twisted with hate towards her. Her own blood aunt. She smiled ruefully.

"I knew. I have known since the start that you have been trying to put me out of commission. Not just that. I also knew you were behind my brother's divorce. I knew that you plan to trick Father into giving the entire company to Xiaoyi. I'm going to die. And you have made sure that my brother is too out of it to properly function and interfere with your plans. You can't kill him because he's the only son but as for me, you're very much free. In the end, you just wanted everything Mother has. It's a pity, though. You'll never be Zhao Ming Yue. You'll never surpass her even if you take everything that is meant to be hers."

She matter-of-factly said. A trace of astonishment flashed within Ming Hua's eyes but was instantly changed with fuming rage.

"*****! So what if you knew? You didn't do anything about it anyway. You're useless. You're just a coward, Yan Qing Shan. But thanks to that, everything will be my Xiaoyi's. Even your husband. I may not surpass Ming Yue but she's dead. The same goes for you. Both of you lost."

Zhao Ming Hua laughed at her mockingly. She stared at the woman with her usual detached look. As if what she was saying did not involve her. But deep within her heart was a raging turmoil. Her heart constricted painfully at those words. Regret was pouring in every vein in her body. Even more so when the woman in the visitor's chair brought out a little bottle.

Qing Shan gazed at that bottle with melancholy. Up until the end, this was her bad habit. She did not try to resist. Qing Shan never put up any fight against things that she had deemed set. For her, it was better to go with the flow. At some point, she also knew that this was her fatal flaw.

She wasn't really this distant and detached when she was young. It was the contrary. She tried hard to belong to her family. Qing Shan had tried to like and get along with her aunt and half-sister. She had a bunch of close girlfriends as well. But in the end, despite everything, she ended up alone. Her father focused on his other daughter, who was more coquettish and on his only son. He doted on his new wife endlessly to forget whom he lost. She was left out. Her so-called girlfriends were only there because of her status as the Yan family's big miss. So when they noticed that Xiaoyi had more of the Yan Family Head's attention, they also left her alone.

With that, Qing Shan concluded that no matter what effort she put into, it would only be useless. Caring was not an advantage. It gave her no benefit at all.

'Maybe I really am just a coward.'

Qing Shan chided herself at this thought. Thinking about it, however, it was this detached personality that had caused a certain demon to be attracted to her. Zi Jue, 31st Family Head of the Zi Clan. Emperor of City Z. No one could match him in terms of power, money, status, and even looks. Although he possesses a face that could cause the downfall of an entire nation, his sadistic and power tripping tendencies could cause an even bloodier tragedy. He was a devil incarnate, one that smiles sweetly as he kills.

They met at a party of one of the prominent families. She didn't have any plans to attend that party, but Xiaoyi pestered Father Yan for her to go. She was made into a wallflower, a foil, a backdrop to make Xiaoyi shine that night and hopefully catch the eyes of the infamous Zi Jue.

Unfortunately, it was her, the wallflower who the devil took an interest to despite Qing Shan's shabby gown and bare face. A week later, unbeknownst to her family, she was suddenly whisked away to Ying Yue Garden and confined there by the damned smiling devil.

She became a bird trapped in an elaborate, golden cage. Zi Jue provided her everything, as well as a certain degree of freedom. After all, it was only her first year in university. Qing Shan tried to flee once, but it failed miserably. It also made Zi Jue a lot more guarded. She didn't try anymore after that. She knew it was futile. Thus, Qing Shan became more withdrawn. She stopped going to school and just stayed in that beautiful prison like a doll in a luxurious doll house. Treating everyone in the place coldly, speaking only when she was spoken to. The more she was like a puppet, the more Zi Jue tried to elicit a reaction from her. He tried every means possible. Both are good ones and bad ones. But it was like hitting cotton. In the end, he set free thinking that that would make her become human again. Qing Shan jeered at this vain attempt of his.

Qing Shan wondered how Zi Jue would react when she died. She laughed at herself internally at this thought. He had already ceased to care.

"Do you really think Zi Jue would succumb to your daughter just as my father did to you? I wish her all the luck in the world then. She would need every single bit of it to have that smiling devil in her hands. I sincerely advise that she do not bite off more than she could chew."

Zhao Ming Hua's gaze turned ferocious. She walked nearer to her and grabbed hold of her neck.

"You b!tch! Even if you are lucky to have gotten Zi Jue, you didn't last long enough to enjoy it anyway. I really wonder what he saw in you, you sl*ty trash."

The hand on her neck tightened even more. Qing Shan wanted to claw at it, but she was too weak to do so. Although the poison that Zhao Ming Hua first gave her was intercepted, she still hadn't recovered from it and was still weak.

Qing Shan yanked at the hands, holding her down. But to no avail, the sinister woman was still a lot stronger than her weakened body. Her jaw was forced open while she struggled desperately. Ming Hua poured the poison in her mouth, then covered it, forcing Qing Shan to gulp down every single drop.

Qing Shan stared at her with fire in her eyes.

No! She couldn't die yet! She didn't want to die!

As the poison coursed through her body painfully, so were the bitter regrets that came bursting through, evident in the tears dripping from her eyes. But she sucked up the burning pain. Nothing could compare it to the fact that her own cowardice led her to her demise. And not just only hers.

She curled up in the bed in pain, hoping to be relieved even just a bit. But to no avail, the fire burned her internally, not sparing a chance of reprieve.

She could hear Zhao Ming Hua laughing with delight at her misery. Qing Shan could care less. She was starting to lose her senses, her world slowly losing its light.

Helpless. She was helpless. Her resolve to fight and change everything came too late. Her muddled consciousness was wallowing in self-despair that had magnified her suffering.

"If time will turn back its hands, I will no longer just watch. I will return everything in its right place. I will control my own fate. I will not let my father be fooled by that witch. I will make sure my brother will be happy. I won't let those two get away with what they had done to us. I will return everything to them thousandfold. They will regret crossing me, Yan Qing Shan." She thought gloomily as she sank further in the darkness until she was no more.

--

Qing Shan felt like she was floating. It was a pleasant feeling, free of any pain. Then she saw a glimmering light.

Pretty! It looked like starlight with brilliant colours incomparable to gemstones. She trudged through, pushing herself nearer to that light. She wanted to touch it. Reaching out her hands, the light grew bigger and bigger until it exploded. Forcing her to shut her eyes against the bright glare.

Painful. Qing Shan scrunched her brows at the ache she was feeling. Hadn't she died? Dead people were not supposed to feel pain, right? Is she really so unfortunate that even in death, she felt this hurt?

She tried opening her eyes slowly. There was still that light glaring at her like an irritating 500 megawatt lightbulb. Ugh! Qing Shan raised her arm to block it to help adjust her eyes.

The hell?!

Why does the place look so familiar? Is the afterlife making fun of her? Of all rooms that the purgatory could look like, it had to be the room she stayed at the Ying Yue Garden.

She looked around suspiciously at the immaculate cream-colored walls and the lapis lazuli patterns twinkling up in the ceiling.

Qing Shan then realized that she was lying in a canopy bed. The exact same as the one in that room. She sat herself up and gauged her body. It was aching terribly. There were bruises in her legs, arms, and wrists; looking like the ones she got when she attempted to flee from Zi Jue. She almost got away and reached her old house, but Zi Jue was still able to capture her. It was so close. Zi Jue dragged her back to Ying Yue Garden and punished her quite thoroughly until every piece of her was aching. Qing Shan realized that day, there was no escaping the smiling devil.

Wait a minute.

She pinched herself hard, relishing the sting she felt from it.

Could it be? Could it be that she isn't dead?

Qing Shan knew it was highly improbable. However, she remembered by heart Sherlock's words of wisdom. When all of the impossible are eliminated, what remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.

She really was alive.

The doorknob turning snapped her up from her reverie. She turned to the door while trying to hold onto her last sliver of calm. A maid holding a tray with a bowl of porridge and a glass of water went inside and exclaimed in surprise when she saw Qing Shan already sitting in the bed slightly looking lost.

"Miss Yan, you're awake."