Crimson Spider Lily — V

As Li Xinyuan gazed at the litany of cuts and faded or fading scars, he could feel a part of himself die the longer he looked.

So many of them, decades of mourning, decades of pain. And Li Xinyuan never once noticed even a singular crack in Hu Lijing's mask of normalcy.

When he had been a child in this world of novel, he had been that just in the eyes of other while being a full grown adult in reality. How could he not have noticed?

How proficient was Hu Lijing in keeping his mask on all the time that it had done under his radar for so long?!

As his fingers gingerly traced over the white scars, the pad of his thumbs skimming over the discoloured tissue as he looked down at the forearm in his grasp with hooded eyes.

A few moments passed, shame and helplessness filled Li Xinyuan's heart, squeezing at his airways so tightly that he could feel his breath cutting short, a heavy weight seemed to be crushing down on his chest all the while.