Twenty

To everyone else, Bai Yang Wei had simply walked away. But to her, it had happened in slow motion. He had given her a cold glare that threatened her to repeat her nonsense and told her that he wouldn't be so lenient the next time she tried it. Then he had taken Li Hua's hand, pulling her close to him before he walked off.

Dong Mei felt her heart grow cold with his glare then hurt a little. All her tears had dried up in the second he turned his back to her. It was almost as though she never cried.

She watched him, holding Li Hua close as he walked away from her. She wasn't allowed a few inches close to him yet Li Hua was allowed to be the very air he breathed.

Dong Mei was finding it hard to inhale. Her brows furrowed so much that they would crack at one point. Her lips curled to show just how angry she was.

"Little girl. Don't keep grievances. Let the young man help you up. Yes you fell this time, but you can still walk. There's nothing you've lost. At least be thankful for that. You can live to see tomorrow's sun," the woman was still meddling in their affairs.

"Shut up," Dong Mei spat in her direction before standing up on her own.

The woman was a bit startled before she refuted, "bad mannered girl. You deserve what came to you. You don't know when people are being good to you. You deserve to fall."

The woman sneered and went back to her business.

Cang Mang could not hide his happiness. When he spoke to Dong Mei, he was full of smiles, "why are you so upset? You fell on your own."

Dong Mei gave him a dead eye stare before she flipped her hair over her shoulder and walked away.

Cang Mang was still happy. He called after her, "hey! Hey! Don't forget our deal! You forgot the deal."

Dong Mei just kept walking on. She didn't know where but she walked. She walked away from the sight of Bai Yang Wei with that Li Hua. She walked away from that bastard, Cang Mang. She walked away from the market.

For the few days after the falling incident, Cang Mang minded his own business and only hovered around the Bai residence in case Dong Mei decided to make an appearance.

When she got home, Dong Mei concealed herself to her room more and more. Barely moving five or two steps out of the courtyard. With all that had happened, her mind needed time to adjust. She couldn't simply take the blow while standing on her own two feet.

The market incident served as a reminder of so many things. From the fact that Bai Yang Wei never looked at her to the fact that he was married to another and to the possibility that he may never look at her the way he looked at Li Hua. How could she walk out when that fact was beaming it's red eyes at her?

Her parents tried to get her out of the house. They called her friends to take her to play in the market but she didn't even bat an eyelash at them.

Most times she over slept. When she did get up and was forced to do a thing or two, she would do a single thing for hours and was always in a daze.

Her parents didn't know what to do for her. They could only hope for the phase to pass quickly.

Dong Mei didn't know what to think. Most times she ended up in a daze trying to get her mind to formulate something. But all the time she was blank.

After getting a second chance at life, anyone would think she would be the final winner. That she was chosen by heaven to rearrange everything. But then, it was as if a joke had been played on her. Like she were the fool who needed to be beaten twice to realize that it was impossible for her.

In her past life, her heart yearned for a single person to the point of madness, without knowing what the future held. But she failed to get him.

In her second life, she knew the future and that made her want him and pursue him despite the knowledge of the past.

But then, she was back to the same square she was in her past life. She felt that she was back, staring into the endless chaos of madness and wondering whether she would jump in.

Was she always doomed to never get what she wanted? Was that life's lesson when it gave her a second chance?

She wasn't sure when, but her feet wandered along with her and soon she was in her father's small collection of alcohols, drinking the numbing pain away.

The chill of the night breeze had picked up. Most of the houses had a little yellow wicker lamp light tracing their windows.

"What less to expect," Cang Mang smirked, looking down from above.

His robes flattered in the wind, adding a mysteriousness to his image as he stood on the outer most rooftop of the Bai residence.

"For a moment there I actually thought you had been born again with a mind of gold," he mocked, "but it seems you were only waiting for the perfect time to strike."

He continued, "tell me, coming like a thief in the night, do you intend to steal the groom?"

Unlike the capital that would have a few lanterns lit here and there to make the night brighter, in the village, some didn't even have a candle for their houses. If it wasn't for the moon, the area would have been plunged into complete darkness.

Dong Mei's figure swayed in the dark. She mindlessly staggered slowly towards the room she knew belonged to Bai Yangwei.

Cang Mang tsked and scaled down the rooftop to the ground.