She paused, then added, her voice even softer, yet it struck like thunder:
“Yours. And mine.”
Mine?
Ye Lan’s pupils contracted almost imperceptibly.
She narrowed her eyes, scrutinizing Mu Xi carefully.
This little thing… what’s gotten into her today? First, ordering her to come to the hospital, and now making such a request.
What is she referring to? Could it be… those marks she had left on her body in the past?
Those imprints symbolizing conquest and possession?
This wasn’t like her.
The old Mu Xi had long grown numb to everything on her own body, accepting whatever came her way.
What was this sudden persistence for today?
Mu Xi didn’t avoid Ye Lan’s scrutiny. Her gaze was clear and candid, carrying an almost childlike stubbornness.
She took a step forward, closer to the glass wall, and said softly, “Ye Lan, you said we should live well.”
Her voice was light, like a feather brushing across the heart.
She paused slightly, as if weighing her words, then finally said, “The scars of the past—whether on your body, or… or whatever might remain on mine, those bad marks… and the ones in our hearts… they should all be cleansed.”
She raised her eyes, looking at Ye Lan seriously, speaking word by word, clearly: “Let’s… start over.”
Start over.
Those four words, like a key, suddenly unlocked the deepest part of Ye Lan’s heart—a corner she herself had deliberately ignored.
Perhaps, hidden there, was a sliver of longing for a “fresh start” that she herself refused to acknowledge.
She looked at Mu Xi’s earnest gaze. There was no familiar hatred, no fear, no numbness—only a clean, stubborn determination to bury the past completely and clumsily try to move toward the future.
This was too unreal.
Like a dream too beautiful to be true.
Ye Lan fell silent.
In the treatment room, the rhythmic beeping of instruments intertwined with her slightly ragged breathing.
Deep within her, doubt and longing waged a fierce battle.
Were these Mu Xi’s true feelings?
Or another new kind of disguise she couldn’t understand?
Was it to lower her guard? Or…
But looking into those clear, bottomless eyes, seeing that sincerity without a trace of impurity, Ye Lan found herself willing to believe.
Even if there was only a one in ten thousand chance, she wanted to seize it.
A long time passed—so long that even the air seemed to freeze.
Finally, Ye Lan slowly, extremely slowly, nodded.
She spoke to the waiting doctor outside, her voice hoarse but carrying a weariness and indulgence of settled dust: “Fine.”
Just one word, yet it contained too many complex emotions.
“Whatever you say,” she added, her gaze still locked on Mu Xi, with a faint, almost resigned tenderness that was hard to detect.
This decision surprised everyone present, especially the captain of the escort team. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but upon meeting Ye Lan’s unyielding gaze, she ultimately lowered her head in silence.
Since the Sovereign had decided, there was nothing to question.
In the time that followed, Mu Xi also underwent a comprehensive physical examination.
The doctors were highly professional, thoroughly assessing her physical indicators and focusing on whether any physical scars or marks might remain from Ye Lan’s past actions.
Although Ye Lan couldn’t move on the treatment bed, her gaze followed Mu Xi the entire time.
When the doctor approached Mu Xi for the examination, the vigilance and possessiveness in her eyes nearly became tangible. That intense aura—desperate to confine Mu Xi within her absolute domain—pressed down on the medical staff around them.
The final treatment plan was quickly confirmed.
Ye Lan would undergo deep debridement of her back wounds, anti-infection treatment, nerve repair, and the highest-grade bio-scar restoration therapy.
As for Mu Xi, although no obvious severe old scars requiring special treatment were found, she also agreed to undergo a comprehensive body conditioning and skin optimization course, as a way to go along with what Ye Lan called “starting over.” The two would undergo treatment simultaneously in adjacent, highest-level isolation treatment rooms.
The entire process was expected to take several days, during which both would need to rest quietly and were not permitted to leave freely.
The night before treatment officially began.
In the dead of night, the hospital was silent, broken only by the occasional soft hum of instruments.
Mu Xi lay on the comfortable hospital bed. Perhaps due to the fright and exhaustion of the past few days, or perhaps because her subconscious sensed temporary safety, she slept deeply.
Her silver hair spread across the white pillow, making her delicate, small face appear even more pale and fragile.
In the adjacent treatment room, Ye Lan had no trace of sleepiness.
Through the monitoring equipment in her room, she gazed at Mu Xi’s peaceful sleeping face on the screen, her deep, phoenix-shaped eyes swirling with complex, unreadable emotions.
Does she really not hate me?
Everything that happened today—Mu Xi’s persistence, her request, that phrase “start over”… it was like a sudden storm, completely upending Ye Lan’s established perceptions and plans.
The shift was too fast, too abrupt, almost eerie. Is it sincere?
Or is she playing some new trick?
Using this to lull me into complacency? Or… perhaps because she saw me at death’s door and felt a momentary softness?
Ye Lan’s fingertips tapped unconsciously against the bedsheet.
She was used to controlling everything, used to getting what she wanted through the most direct and cruel means.
Mu Xi’s sudden “compliance” and “initiative” instead left her at a loss, even vaguely uneasy.
Looking at that defenseless sleeping face on the screen, Ye Lan’s heart softened irresistibly once again.
No matter what—whether Mu Xi was sincere or false, whatever lay hidden behind this brief warmth…
She would accept it all.
As long as Mu Xi was still by her side, as long as she could still see her, touch her—even if it was drinking poison to quench thirst, she would savor it willingly.
A faint smile slowly curled at the corner of Ye Lan’s lips, a mixture of obsession and anticipation.
Little Xi, no matter what you’re thinking, this time, I won’t let go.
As for those scars of the past—can they really be easily erased? Perhaps the physical ones can, but what about the ones in the heart?
Ye Lan’s gaze fell upon Mu Xi’s closed eyes, as if trying to see through to the secrets hidden within her dreams.
The cold medical instruments hummed in a steady rhythm, and the scent of disinfectant filled the air, yet it strangely brought a nearly numbing sense of safety.
The bio-restoration treatment process went far more smoothly than expected.
The resources Stone City could mobilize were clearly top-tier. Those probes and restoration beams that shimmered with a faint blue glow traveled across the skin, bringing only a mild tingling sensation rather than the anticipated pain.
Advanced technology precisely targeted damaged tissue, suppressing discomfort to the minimum.
Mu Xi lay on another treatment bed, turning her head to see Ye Lan’s figure in the adjacent sterile chamber.
Her eyes were closed, allowing the precision instruments to work on her back, calm as if she were receiving an ordinary massage. That scar—the one that symbolized “protection”—was being gradually smoothed away, replaced by regenerated cells.
Watching this scene, indescribable emotions churned within Mu Xi.
Hatred? That seemed already distant.
Gratitude? That felt too ironic.
More than anything, it was a tangled complexity of confusion and exhaustion.
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