2.14

Feng Mian received a phone call from old man Li at two in the morning. Her eyes had been strained for several hours continuously and she picked the phone up lethargically, voice hoarse with undue sleep.

Old man Li was an energetic old man regardless of what time in the morning it is. "Xiaofeng brat, is your cousin with you?"

Feng Mian pinched the bridge of her nose. "Li Haoran? No, why would he be?"

"He dropped off your wife earlier in the office but that punk still hasn't come back home yet. I can't get through his phone."

'Li Haoran is missing?'

"Let me try and see if I can get through grandpa. I'll look for him, you go to sleep. Old people should sleep more, or you'll be growing more wrinkles and grey hair."

Feng Mian heard old man Li giving a firm humph through the receiver. "Who says I look old? People say I look twenty years younger than my age. Just go find that Haoran brat, I'll tear him a new one once he gets home." Although his words were berating, there was a tinge of worry in them. However unruly Li Haoran was, he was still his grandson after all.

After assuring the old man for some time, Feng Mian closed the line.

'Not coming home huh?'

This cousin of hers gave her a contradicting vibe. Li Haoran from what she could tell was a smart person but goes around playing dumb. He also manages the side branch business well but also has the spare time to go partying and mingling all night.

Feng Mian tapped her fingers on the screen of her phone. She made her way down to the building's security room on the basement floor.

Two night guards who were on duty were surprised to see their CEO pay them a visit this late at night.

Feng Mian comfortably occupied one of the seats that displayed multiple CCTV monitors. "I want to see the footage from today's afternoon."

The recording was rewinded at high speed until she saw Li Haoran's figure enter the monitor. She saw how her cousin dropped off Hao Junli at the reception and said his farewell, from start to finish it seemed to be a normal everyday occurrence.

Only, Li Haoran hadn't actually left the building. Not until four o'clock.

***

Hao Junli woke up groggily at half-past three. The sky was still dark outside and the office was like a ghost town with only him and Feng Mian who has not yet left for home.

"You're up?" Feng Mian who sat next to him asked.

Hao Junli, in fact, was still half asleep and Feng Mian could also tell from the spaced-out look he gave. Hao Junli reached out a fair hand, pinching Feng Mian's pinkie softly between his two fingers. Like touching a cloud he was afraid would disintegrate with too much pressure.

"I had a bad dream." Hao Junli's voice was gruff.

Feng Mian patted his back slightly in comfort. "What dream?"

The specks of cloudiness receded from Hao Junli's pupils slightly, and as he tried to remember exactly what it was that he dreamt about, the look on his face turned graver.

Hao Junli looked at Feng Mian in a gaze that was one part sadness, and three parts cherishing. "I dreamt about another world. In that world, I was an unfavoured prince but I had a maid who doted and cared for me."

Feng Mian had a notion of what the dream was, but her friend's melancholic look made her want him to bury that glimpse of memory in the deepest recesses of his mind. So she said in a joking manner, "How narcissistic of you Hao Junli, even in your dreams you're still a prince. You're not about to tell me that I was the maid, right?"

But Hao Junli did not gloss over this topic so easily. He took a pinch at Feng Mian's cheek which no longer had reminiscent of its baby fat and pulled while looking deeply into her eyes. His eyes were so intense that Feng Mian's rebuttal died down in her throat.

Hao Junli's voice held no trace of humour and was as forlorn as the setting moon. "The maid died. Shot by a thousand arrows. And as the clouds cleared and the sun rose, I held her limp body in mine and cried all the way until dusk."

Feng Mian stumped. Hao Junli hands that had pinched her cheeks trembled slightly before he released them completely. "She bled out from at least seven orifices, but the darkest blood flowed from where one of the arrows pierced her heart."

Hao Junli's nose was blocked and he croaked out, "I couldn't stop the bleeding. I called for the physician, for my mother, and for everyone around us, but no one was willing to help her."

Feng Mian felt her ears deafening, the room's air desisting in a standstill transit. If she were to be honest, she did not want to remember. But Hao Junli's insistence spurred the box she wanted to keep shut and locked away to unlatch.

Feng Mian didn't know what to say. She remembered the scene of her standing in the open field with clarity; soldiers pulling their bows taut and Concubine Zhou's face looking at her from above, and felt some sort of emotions resurfacing but it was as if something was blocking them before she could react to the information processed. She couldn't register exactly what it was that she was feeling.

Feng Mian: "Baobei, could Hao Junli have remembered the first world?"

System 555: "He shouldn't have. But… it's not entirely impossible either. With enough emotional stimulus or resentment in his soul, after that soul shard has reached the end of his lifespan, his emotions were transferred into this one. But it's odd that Hao Junli even remembered glimpses of it."

Hao Junli's words pulled Feng Mian out of her reverie. "Feng Mian, am I your first soul shard?"

Feng Mian stared at her office walls avoidingly. "It's just a dream. You're looking too much into it."

"You're avoiding the question."

Hao Junli stroked the fingers in his hold as he looked at her absentminded appearance. When they had reunited, the changes were faint but he felt it nonetheless. From where he couldn't see, Feng Mian had grown in the short time they were apart. Hardships had nurtured her yet scarred her heart at the same time.

Silence enveloped them for a few moments before Feng Mian opened her mouth hesitatingly.

"You are," she said. And technically he was because she didn't manage to capture the first soul shard.

"Really?"

The half-lie was hard to swallow down, even more so when the lie was for herself. "Really."

Hao Junli squinted his eyes doubtfully but didn't push her to admit what she was keen to hide. "If it's true then that's good."

Feng Mian offered a meek nod.

Hao Junli closed his eyes and she suspected that he was starting to doze off again, his voice slowing down.

"The girl in my dream died so miserably. It wasn't because she was too trusting but because others failed to meet her trust. Her heart was in the right place. If I could meet her and do it all over again, this time, I'd be there for her."

The warmth caressing her hand was gentle and the sensation travelled all the way to her heart. She felt as if the words spoken were for her rather than for the maid he dreamt of.

Hao Junli made no further sound as he settled into quiet rhythmic breathing that blended sparsely into the late night.

Feng Mian walked soundlessly to her large window that oversaw the large part of City A's nightlife. The neon lights were still bright and many a drunken adult walked in and out of conspicuous bars that made themselves available only during this hour. Feng Mian confided in System 555 who was in her subconscious.

"What happened to Hao Junli when I left in the last world?"

555 was slow to answer. "... Nothing much. Like any other human being, he will grow old and die."

Feng Mian detected the elusiveness in 555's answer, and she swallowed her heavy guilt-ridden premonition down. "Will Hao Junli wake up even if I didn't collect that piece of soul?"

"He can, the soul was only but a small piece. He'll be incomplete and may lose parts of his memories, but he'll wake up."

Feng Mian's breath fogged the glass in front of her. "Is there no way to retrieve that piece of him?"

"You want a do-over?" System 555 was genuinely surprised that Feng Mian would want to go back at all after what had happened.

Feng Mian's silence answered 555's query.

555 ransacked its database, going through items that could be of help for its host carefully and sedulously. Finally, it found a piece of object that gleamed from the upper shelf of the system's store and quickly went back to Feng Mian's side to notify her.

"There is an item in the store worth one million points. A return ticket that enables task-takers to travel to a plane of their choice. But with your current points now Xiao Mian… there's still a long way to go."

"I'll save up," Feng Mian said decisively.

She only needed to know if going back was possible or not.