Lu Yebai silently approached, sitting down next to her, then gently clasped her icy cold fingers.
She was in this condition because of him.
Her physical affliction was his doing.
Initially, Meng Xi'er perhaps didn't need to be punished so harshly. He was too consumed by anger and disappointment, and he denied her any chance for survival.
For those five years, he had never visited her. Nobody told him about the torment she suffered in prison, and how she had tried to take her own life so many times.
The lively and cheerful Meng Xi'er was reduced to such a pitiful state by his own hands.
Even a deliberate attempt to forget doesn't solve anything, the events that have transpired will always be there, and there's no way to conceal them.
If he had been a bit more merciful to her back then, they probably wouldn't have ended up like this. She might not have chosen suicide out of despair and he wouldn't be wallowing in his current agony.
However, regret was already futile.
