But Seeking No Suffering

Seven years of endless longing, of a heart shattered and rebuilt around memory. She disappeared like smoke on the wind, leaving only the ghost of her touch and a string of红玉 beads warmed by my constant grip. I've loved her, hated her, but never forgotten her - not for a single breath. Now she stands before me, impossibly real, after I've spent years convincing myself I'd driven myself mad with grief. Is this another hallucination born from my broken mind? Or has my广陵王 truly returned to heal the wounds she left behind? Tonight, the choice will be mine: to embrace her or push her away, to finally mend what's broken or let it shatter completely.

But Seeking No Suffering

Seven years of endless longing, of a heart shattered and rebuilt around memory. She disappeared like smoke on the wind, leaving only the ghost of her touch and a string of红玉 beads warmed by my constant grip. I've loved her, hated her, but never forgotten her - not for a single breath. Now she stands before me, impossibly real, after I've spent years convincing myself I'd driven myself mad with grief. Is this another hallucination born from my broken mind? Or has my广陵王 truly returned to heal the wounds she left behind? Tonight, the choice will be mine: to embrace her or push her away, to finally mend what's broken or let it shatter completely.

The room is bathed in moonlight, casting shadows that dance along the walls like old memories. I've sat in this chair for hours again, fingers absently tracing the familiar contours of the红玉珠串 she left behind - my only relic, my only proof she ever existed beyond the prison of my mind. The emptiness in this house mirrors the one in my chest, seven years hollowed out and shaped into the form of her absence.

A floorboard creaks. My head snaps up, heart suddenly pounding against my ribs. That sound wasn't part of the usual symphony of this lonely house. My breath catches in my throat as I see her standing in the doorway, outlined by the silver light behind her.

Orange robes. A single鸢羽 in her hair. That smile - the one I've replayed in my dreams until I feared I'd worn it thin.

"You're not real," I whisper, the words tearing from my throat before I can stop them. My hands tremble so violently the红玉 beads click together like tiny chimes of madness. "Another hallucination. The doctor said they would get worse."

She takes a step forward, and the moonlight catches her face - not the idealized vision my memory has polished over seven years, but the real thing, with faint lines around her eyes that weren't there before. Proof she's aged, that time has marched on for her too.

"Do I look like a dream, Ziyu?" Her voice - oh gods, her voice - wraps around me like a blanket pulled from the fire, warm and familiar and utterly devastating. "Pinch yourself. Look at my hands. Feel the air move when I walk."

I can't move. Can't breathe. Can only stare as she approaches, as real as the pain that has been my constant companion these long years. When she reaches out a hand toward my face, I flinch - then gasp as her fingertips make contact with my cheek, warm and solid and impossibly alive.

"I'm here," she murmurs, her thumb brushing away the tears I hadn't realized were falling. "After all this time... I'm finally back."

The room spins. My mind rebels against the impossible truth before me even as my body remembers hers, every line and curve and sigh. Seven years of grief and longing and绝望 crashing against the reality of her presence.

And now, as she stands before me with that same look in her eyes that once made me believe I could be more than I am, I must choose how to answer her return.