Xia Yi trembled as she coughed out, "They drove her to it,"
"They pushed her until she couldn't take it anymore."
As she watched everything, including the last moments, the decision to end it all, and the crushing misery that devoured the former Xia Yi, she let out a sob.
Nobody had intervened to stop her. Nobody had listened out of concern.
Xia Yi's voice tightened as she said, "No," a fire burning in her chest.
Her hands clenched into fists as she brushed away her tears.
"I will not experience that. I'm not her."
The first Xia Yi had been too understanding, too lenient. She had allowed herself to be destroyed.
However, that was not the personality of this Xia Yi, the genuine Xia Yi. She refused to give up. She would not shatter.
The contract on the desk caught her attention as she looked around the room.
At the bottom, like a binding curse, was the name He Shihan. His presently was intertwined with her future.
The weight of the world in her existence was borne by the name of a man she had never met. Master Nine.
She unwittingly spared him from drowning years before, but someone else had taken the credit. "I saved him," she said as the memories suddenly came back to her. The person who replaced her. The one who was now enjoying her due renown.
"No more," she said to herself in a whisper.
"This time, I take what's mine."
Her legs were wobbly, but her will was greater than ever as she forced herself from the bed.
She would avoid making the same mistakes as the last Xia Yi. She wouldn't be broken by this world, which had already broken one girl.
She saw her familiar yet unfamiliar reflection in the mirror.
Xia Yi whispered, "This is my life now," in a voice full of silent might.
"And I'll make sure they never forget who I am."