Gu Nian’s explanation of the script and the characters lasted over an hour. By the time it was done, even she felt exhausted.

“… That more or less covered the script and the characters. So, what do you think? Do you have any questions?” ask Gu Nian in a tone that was so gentle that not even her promisees [of a contract] had ever heard coming from her. Then she proceeded to looking at her precious son with the most “affectionate” look that could only have come from a mother.

The little girl’s back looked both delicate and dance-like. She jogged over to closed the windows before she doubled back to close the room door.

Luo Xiu looked over at her nonchalantly. His spectacle with thin lens, hooked by his slender finger lazily, was placed casually over his nose. In his sight – which the spectacles made no difference whatsoever, the girl closed the room door, turned around, and let out a sigh of relief.

There was dead silence in the air.

The dead silence that resembled the moment before the knife drops on a guillotine, that of suffering and desperation.

And Gu Nian was the most desperate one of them all.

The glow of the sunset in the mountains was beautiful in the evening. It covered splendidly over most of the sky. As the sky slowly got dark, the glow painted different intensity of gold over the mountains.