A warm hand brushed lightly over her head, and the moment he sensed the trembling beneath his palm, it paused. With only a gentle shift of force, the long fingers raised her chin upward. Delicate strokes traced along her jawline before settling with an unyielding grip that lifted her face fully into view.

Lan Lingyan's gaze lingered on the wide-eyed fear reflected in her eyes—those dark irises quivered like shattered glass within their watery depths, magnifying the startling blackness of her gaze. Her pupils constricted rapidly as pallor drained from her small face, lips devoid of any color save a ghostly hue tinged with desolation.

She remained frozen beneath his touch, caught in that suspended moment. Lan Lingyan's eyes narrowed instinctively before he willed himself to stillness, tightening his grip rather than releasing it. His voice cut through the silence like tempered steel: "You call yourself Liang's kin, and while I know such things aren't entirely unknown... what puzzles me is why you would."

His fingers trembled faintly as he spoke, yet his tone remained steady. The girl's reaction to the woman surnamed Gu unsettled him further—this wasn't mere aversion but an instinctive repulsion that bordered on primal fear. She reacted with indifference when told about Ning Yuncheng and Gu's entanglement, as if it were old news. And then there was her uncanny familiarity with the Eastern Dragon's island and its formidable patriarch.

These threads wove an invisible net tightening around his curiosity. He had truly wanted to let this lie... until last night when her terror had carved a chill into his bones deeper than any blade could have. Compared to her silence, he'd rather endure the weight of her fear in his gaze than accept another two years wasted in futile waiting.

Ning Yunhuan listened without sound, her body rigid with tension that bordered on numbness. The black voids of her eyes held no luster whatsoever, save for the barely restrained shivers wracking through her frame like an unseen current. Lan Lingyan noted how she avoided his gaze altogether, as if deaf to every word he'd just spoken.

He didn't need words to pry open secrets—he understood the artistry of pressure better than most. The ones who floundered in explanations were usually the ones with something to hide. His initial confession had been a calculated strike at her defenses, an attempt to anchor himself against the disorienting sense that she flickered like a mirage just beyond his grasp.

Now he understood why he'd felt compelled to bind her so tightly from their first meeting—despite his confidence in keeping Ning Yunhuan tethered to him through every means known to man (those tracking devices, those coded safeguards), there remained an unshakable uncertainty gnawing at the edges of his certainty. Until today's impatience finally unraveled it all.

"If..." The word hung between them like a blade poised above her heart. Lan Lingyan watched as she shrank beneath his scrutiny until the tension in those long lashes gave way to an involuntary shudder. She tried to look away, but her chin remained pinned under his hand—a living paradox of vulnerability and defiance.

Her fear mirrored lifetimes entwined with this man's shadow. In another life or perhaps a hundred lives ago, she'd once dreamed of girlish fantasies before reality shattered them into dust. That first life had ended abruptly in this very world, leaving behind no memory of death beyond the primal terror it inspired. But Lan Lingyan had gifted her with both fear and humiliation—the sterile horrors of his lab's experiments, the months spent as a living test subject for substances that twisted flesh and mind alike.

Though Gu Yingxi was the architect of those atrocities in theory, she'd merely been the puppet. The true villain wore a mask of civility while carving scars into her soul. Two years together had birthed son and suspicion in equal measure—his kindness could never erase what he'd shown her: that beneath every pleasant smile lurked a man who killed without hesitation or remorse.

The fever must've loosened whatever restraint she'd learned through lifetimes of survival. This quiet girl, skilled only in the art of endurance, suddenly found herself stripped bare by his questions.

"I know," she said at last, voice fraying around the edges like brittle paper. "I know your name and I hate Gu Yingxi. You're afraid of me because you are a monster who runs labs where people suffer." The words spilled out in a rush, each syllable colder than the last as memories clawed their way back to life. Her arms curled tightly around herself, shivering violently even as she forced her head upward against his grip: "All I ever wanted was to live..."

Lan Lingyan's silence stretched into eternity before he asked softly, "What if you had?"

Her face contorted with the weight of that question alone. He could see it now—how tightly those secrets coiled around her like serpents, how every word she'd spoken confirmed half-formed suspicions he hadn't dared to name aloud until this moment. The lab... the experiments... the deaths. They weren't just rumors or theories anymore—they were truths etched into her very being.

"You were dead," he said finally, his voice dropping to a whisper that made the air between them thicken with tension. "In my laboratory."

Ning Yunhuan's body jerked like it had been electrocuted. The revelation struck him with the force of lightning—confirmation that everything from her fear to her knowledge coalesced into one impossible reality: she'd died once before, and now here she was reborn in his grasp again.

The implications sent a thrill through his veins as he closed the distance between them, his eyes narrowing like a predator locking onto prey. "In my laboratory," he repeated, each word an anchor sinking deeper into the certainty taking root in his mind.

Ning Yunhuan had always been cold and detached, carrying no trace of the extravagance or impulsiveness typical for her age. She seemed like someone who'd seen through all worldly illusions, calm and collected in a way that earned silent admiration. From the moment they were abducted by Long Meng, Li Panpan could sense Ning Yunhuan's effortless composure—the sort of steadiness that made people instinctively rely on her as their anchor. It was the first time Li saw not the weary resignation but the vibrant youthfulness blooming in Ning's spirit.

This realization stirred a curious unease within her while she kept staring intently at Ning. The latter had been preoccupied with thoughts about Lanling Yan when this sudden attention made her heart leap violently in alarm. "Do you know how easy it is to scare someone to death?" she snapped, voice tinged with irritation—especially because her mind was already burdened with heavy thoughts.

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