Li Rong couldn't believe it. Not at all.
What? What was princess trying to do? he quacked inside, his heart nearly leaping out from his chest. The shock of it made him stumble back on his feet. It amazed and dismayed him in equal parts to see his best friend brought so low by someone who was related to him by blood.
Absentmindedly Li Rong noticed how princess's fingers were shaking - whether in anger at her current position or fear for Zixi's life he couldn't say for sure. He witnessed her signs of worry and anxiety - she leaned forward a bit, her eyes flickered with too many emotions at once, the tightening of her lips and a frown that marred her brows.
Somehow that thought did little to reassure Li Rong. He found his stomach twisting at whatever decision or thought that was driving her to say and do the things Yu Yue was doing. His heart plummeted.
Li Rong also felt uncertain on how to proceed from here on out. He watched silently as Zixi, no not Zixi, Young Master Qin tried to get princess to stand up and cease her actions. Nevertheless, she didn't budge from her position. He saw a rarely seen determination in her eyes and he realised with a start that she would do whatever it took to get that person out of here. Even if it meant giving up her pride and dignity.
He himself wanted to reach out and touch her but he couldn't because right now any restless movement from any of them could mean disaster. He also wondered for a second if she would ever do for him what princess was doing for Zixi. If their places were reversed, would the Eldest Miss of the Yu family bend the knee to save the Second Young Master of the Li family?
Li Rong quickly stopped those dangerous thoughts of his in their tracks. Yu Yue thinks of you as her best friend, how can you be like this, he rebuked and scolded himself angrily.
He also had no doubt that all his family and friends would laugh themselves sick if they realized that for just one brief, ridiculous moment Li Rong - the young business prodigy had wished that a certain Young Miss would do things for him which were far beneath her.
The gnawing in his stomach has been persistently threatening to upend its contents ever since he first knew that Yu Yue and her right - hand man had been kidnapped. He took two deep breaths to ease the discomfort but what followed afterwards has Li Rong's heart sinking to the pit of his stomach.
It is only a matter of moments before he saw his grandfather take the gun from one of his subordinates. As soon as he saw that, he lurched forward towards Yueyue and Zixi. He instinctively knew that if that bullet struck either of those two people - the one uninjured and unharmed would rain hell on the Li family.
Unfortunately, he is too late. When his eyes move away from the devastation lying in front of him he sees another pair of eyes looking at him. Those wild eyes find his. Hope, fear, despair. Those eyes seem to be begging, bargaining and pleading with his own. Both of them watch as a large puddle of blood seems to leak out of the body.
It is all the prayers bubbling up to the surface to all the gods he has never believed in now that death has almost put a hand on Yu Yue's shoulder rather than standing off to the side.
Zixi is the first one to react. He fights with the goons around him and reaches Yu Yue's side first. He turns towards the Li patriarch and before anyone could do more than blink, Zixi had overpowered him and taken the gun from him. Another loud gunshot was fired. This time taking the life of the Li patriarch.
Li Rong is by Yueyue's side.
"Please, please...." he whispers, barely aware that he is speaking.
Li Rong is so consumed with terror that he is actually pulling at her hands, tugging them before his mind can ascertain to his actions.
"No, no, please, please be all right. Please." Li Rong whimpered, panic rising with every second that passed.
Suddenly Zixi is on the other side of Yueyue's body and his hand acting out of its own violation lashes out at Li Rong. He strikes Li Rong squarely in the face with so much force that the Second Young Master of the Li family falls back, head first on to the floor. His head bounces off the stone floor.
The frame of Li Rong's glasses get caught between his head and the unyielding floor and the broken remains hang crazily from one of his ears while a cut on his temple pours blood. It takes a few minutes before Li Rong's vision is clear enough to clamber painfully back to his feet. He can taste blood from where the inside of his cheek has been cut against his teeth. Even his cheek and jaw throbs from where Zixi had hit him.
The pain actually helps Li Rong to snap out of it. It gives him a focus and the mindless terror recedes somewhat. He sees the rise and fall of Yueyue's chest and feels a sliver of hope.
The bullet that his grandfather had fired earlier had struck Yueyue somewhere in the chest area and a lot of blood has poured out of her body since then but if she is still breathing, it leaves him a hope that not everything has ended as of yet. Before he can do much more than get close to Zixi and Yueyue, he can hear the heartbroken plea in Zixi's voice.
"Yueyue, Yueyue..." Zixi hugs her close to his body, arms wrapped around her like iron bands, face buried in her shoulder and mutters the name over and over again as if this very name had infinite strength in it.
Su Li knows her body well and the system has already given her the notification that she isn't long for this world so she musters up whatever meagre strength that is left in her body to talk to Zixi this one last time. She doesn't know if she'll ever see him again once she leaves this world. After all, he couldn't follow her onto other worlds, could he? Though she fervently hopes that he can.
"Zixi, don't cry. I will be fine. The injury is not that serious." She knows she is lying to him, her conscience is far from clear but he is too far gone in his present state to hear her words so she wants him to calm down somewhat.
"Don't lie. Don't lie to me, Yueyue. Do you still think to lie to me in your condition, even now? In all this deceit, why don't you stop to think about whether I'd be sad too?"
Su Li gives him a smile though it is wan and painful it is heartfelt nonetheless. She has really never been able to hide anything from him since their serious talk all those years ago when he had asked her why she tried to keep him at an arm's length. So much time has passed since then and now when she is at the end of her road, she really isn't willing to leave this person's side. She was in too much of pain to do anything much so she just touched his face, stroked his hair back from his forehead, took hold of one his hands in her own.
"Why were you so foolish? Why did you come back?" Zixi questions Yueyue. Had she not come back she would have been safe and sound by now and not bleeding in his arms.
"Why? Why indeed? I came back to take you along with me. How could I ever leave you behind? I can't, Zixi." she replies, almost laughing at the absurdity of the question. She turns sharply and refuses to let her heart crumble at the look of guilt and grief on Zixi's face. "It's that simple," she further explains. "You were here and I came back."
Coming back to the warehouse had never been a question of want or need. It had never been a question at all, but if Su Li has to explain herself she would rather describe it as a compulsion. No, that's not right. There had been other choices - to leave Zixi behind and hope for the best, to allow Li Rong's people to come for him or many other variants thereof but the truth that sits at the centre is that she could never leave her heart behind. How could a person live without their heart?
Zixi hugs Yueyue tighter at her words. Her words are not the conventional words of a love confession by any means, how could they be without a single mention of the word love but they meant more to Zixi than anything else. However, it was deplorable that what he had always wanted to obtain was being given to him at such a juncture of life.
The words sounded bittersweet to him. Warmth infuses his heart at her words but he can already feel the ghost of cold lingering for the rest of his life. His long fingers curl around Yueyue's hairs, their eyes meet, gazes locking.
"I am sorry I couldn't spend much time with you. I am sorry I didn't know your identity. Also, tell father that am sorry to leave this world before him. Tell him that he was one of the best paternal figures a girl could ask for. Also, don't entangle yourself with Yu Yan. Let her be. Remember your promise to me." Su Li had trouble breathing but she still continued.
"Thank you, Zixi. For everything that you have done for me but also thank you for being a part of my life. You were always the light in my dark world."
Into the stilted silence, Su Li coughs several times. It's more strained air than sound. Her lungs, Zixi realises, listening to the sound of it and his own lungs almost collapse in on themselves when the observation twists them into something emotional, carving a sense of loss and pain into his heart.
Su Li grips Zixi's wrist and says, "It will be soon. It's time."
Zixi falters. He almost stops breathing. He knows. He can't - doesn't - say. His hands have begun shaking. From the inside out, he is burning. His heart is aflame: cracking, smoke billowing, embers scattering. You can't do this to me, he thinks. Why is this happening to me?
Time hangs between them, suspended from its perpetual turning. He would damn himself - all of himself for even just one more day added to Yueyue's life. He'd do it himself, tear apart everything that he holds dear with his hands and teeth if it meant more time. He'd let it crumble, he'd let everything collapse but fate isn't on their side. It has never been kind to him since childhood so what hope could he have for a reprieve now.
Zixi takes her hand and encloses them within his own - finger to finger, tip to tip. He holds it with all his might. Refuses to let his tears fall. He doesn't want her to leave with a picture of his tears as a last farewell.
"I'll follow you. Just like you came back for me, I'll follow you. I won't let you leave me behind." he says.
"Yes. I know." She agrees.
It comes to pass just as she said and just as he knew it would. They have said enough.
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