Qing Shan's Proposal

Qing Shan was looking straightly at the wall the moment she asked that question. She looked composed and tranquil but the ripples in her eyes betrayed the truth. Anxiety was brimming inside her and she was afraid that if she looked at Zi Jue, everything would spill out.

A long silence dragged on between them. Qing Shan was nearly losing her mind and was about to snap when she finally heard Zi Jue's voice.

"I don't like you."

He said curtly. Qing Shan felt an explosion in her mind. She completely blanked out at his unexpected answer. She questioned herself. Was she just assuming all along? Was she mistaken? Her mind was jumping to all sorts of conclusion but it was cut off when Zi Jue spoke again.

"I don't just like you, Yan Qing Shan. I love you."

From the sudden drop to hell, to an abrupt shift to heaven, Yan Qing Shan's mind had long turned to mush. Multiple explosion had already gone off in her head. The emperor of City Z, head of the century-old Zi family, this smiling devil really does love her… Yan Qing Shan's eyes were wide, her jaw opened in shock. She had an inkling about this, still his actual confession is a hundred times more potent. Yan Qing Shan was insta-killed.

'Yan Qing Shan get a grip. You must straighten things up with him tonight. This is the first step to changing your fate. Calm the hell down.'

She chided herself internally. Trying to recover her long gone composure, Yan Qing Shan cleared her throat before turning her eyes to the evildoer beside her.

"You love me? Why hurt me then?"

Yan Qing Shan asked solemnly. She saw Zi Jue stiffen.

"You were trying to leave me. Yan Qing Shan, don't you realize it yet? I can handle even heaven's calamity except you leaving. You don't know how far I'll go just to keep you from doing that."

Zi Jue honey warm voice deepened. His words shook Qing Shan to the core.

They say love is the most vicious motivator. She finally believed it now. A man in love is capable of everything. This emotion takes captive even the most powerful, and it turns them completely weak for one person. And this man's weakness was her.

Yan Qing Shan's heart felt full. She was so wrong about him in the past. She might not know much about being in love but she knew that there were only a few men like him left. She didn't know what to say to him. Yan Qing Shan was rendered speechless.

"Shan Er, I know it's presumptuous of me to even ask for forgiveness. Nothing could change the fact that I was the one who forcefully took you away. And even more than that, I have hurt you with my own hands. Believe me, the pain I feel now is even more than yours. I have hurt the woman I cherish the most, taken her freedom away. It's something that I'll make up for my entire life. But I can't bear it. I can't bear for you not being mine."

Yan Qing Shan saw him clenching his fist. Guilt, desperation and yearning strewn in a conflict all over his face. Right now, Zi Jue was not one bit of the majestic person he made people see. He was just him, Zi Jue, a man.

Never in Yan Qing Shan's life, both of it, did she imagine Zi Jue kneeling before someone. But the next thing she knew, he was there in the floor. On his knees and holding her hands as if his very life was depending on it.

Yan Qing Shan swallowed hard. Her expression unreadable. Suddenly, she felt hot, wet tears trailing down her cheeks.

'The devil is too OP. My heart and conscience can't take your begging.'

"Shan Er, I'm not going to ask for anything from you. I'm not going to force you to love me too. Just please, grant me one thing. Don't leave me."

She stared at him hard. She had already decided to take him, and stay. Even if he hadn't asked for it. But what he did today had moved her. Yan Qing Shan felt an unexplainable bliss and security in her heart. Despite her uncertainties, there was one thing that's for sure. Him.

She unclasped his hands from hers. Zi Jue's shoulders slumped at her action.

'This silly man.'

Yan Qing Shan thought as she then held his face and met his eyes glimmering under the light. She gazed at him trying to fathom the thoughts in that brilliant mind of his. After a long while, she dropped him a bomb.

"Zi Jue, take responsibility for your words. You should marry me."