"I'm sorry. It's my fault that I didn't take good care of you."
Zhao Shuning's voice choked with sobs. Looking at Ye Xingchen's pale and bloodless face, she felt heart - wrenching pain.
"Are you her? You're my sister."
"Yes, it's me."
Zhao Shuning replied.
"I'm sorry. I failed to take good care of you back then. If I had held your hand tighter, if I hadn't run out halfway, you wouldn't have suffered so much."
Ye Xingchen shed tears.
"They said your surname is Zhao."
"Yes, now my surname is Zhao."
"Lin Feng said Ye Ling is dead. She's been dead for many years."
"Yes, Ye Ling is dead. The one who survived is Zhao Shuning, but I'm still your sister."
Ye Xingchen hugged Ye Ling. His shoulders trembled faintly.
He knew this was his sister.
Only his sister would talk to him in such a tone. Only his sister would know every little detail of what had happened to them.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry, Xingchen. It's all my fault, sister."
Ye Xingchen's appearance remained unchanged, and his face was forever frozen at the age of sixteen.
Looking at him, Zhao Shuning felt even more heart - ache.
He didn't become like this because of the beauty - preserving pill.
When Ye Xingchen's body grew to the age of sixteen, Lin Feng soaked him in a medicine jar every day. The medicinal soup was full of bone - shrinking potion.
As a result, his skeleton was fixed at that time.
After that, he would never grow older, his body would never change again, and his spiritual power and mental strength would be hard to improve.
Lin Feng wanted to use Ye Xingchen as a pawn. But he knew that Ye Xingchen didn't have the Lin surname after all. One day, he might turn against him. So, even if he couldn't imprison his body and mind, he had to confine his spiritual and mental strength.
Ye Xingchen was very powerful, but this was all he could be.
In front of Lin Feng, he would always be a nobody.
"Was it them who harmed you like this?"
Ye Xingchen nodded.
Then he said, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, sister. I failed to avenge you. I did my best. I pretended to lose my memory and act as if I remembered nothing. But Lin Feng is an old fox. No matter how nice I was to him, he didn't trust me. He always guarded against me."
"It's okay. You've done a great job. How... how were you discovered?"
Ye Xingchen recalled for a while and then said, "It was because of a box."
"A box?"
"A puzzle box."
Zhao Shuning suddenly remembered something.
When she was in the Nan family in Qingning, she found a puzzle box. But later, she gave the box to Situ Yun and asked him to pass it on to the Chu Wen and Chu Nuan siblings.
"That puzzle box?"
Ye Xingchen said, "I was the one who took that puzzle box out. But I didn't know it was a trap set by that old scoundrel Lin Feng."
One day, Lin Feng took Ye Xingchen into the secret chamber of the Lin family, saying that he had an important task for him to complete.
When Ye Xingchen got inside, he found this puzzle box.
At that time, Lin Feng went out for something. Ye Xingchen flipped through some books in the secret chamber. It said in the books that the puzzle box contained all kinds of things about Ye Ling before her death.
Ye Xingchen was eager to find out why Ye Ling died back then. Unable to hold back his curiosity, he stole the puzzle box.
He replaced it with a box of the same appearance and left it in the Lin family's secret chamber.
From the books, he knew that the key to the box was hidden in the Nan family in Qingning.
Ye Xingchen was too eager for success. He took the box and rushed to Qingning in a hurry. Unexpectedly, this was exactly what Lin Feng had planned.
The box was just an ordinary one used by Lin Feng to lure Ye Xingchen. He did this to see if Ye Xingchen had really forgotten everything and was loyal to the Lin family.
Then, the box was lost in Qingning.
When Ye Xingchen finally got away, he left his vital aura on the puzzle box.
If his sister was still alive, or if someone who knew the Ye family's vital aura found it, they could contact him.
Fortunately, later this box fell into the hands of Zhao Shuning and Situ Yun.
After finishing telling the whole story, Zhao Shuning let out a long sigh.
Just thinking about what Ye Xingchen had been through made Zhao Shuning feel breathless.
When she was Ye Ling, she had searched for her younger brother for so many years. She never thought that he had been hidden by the Lin family on an island surrounded by the Undercurrent River.
There was no one on that island. How had he survived all these years?
"Xingchen, you've been to the Dark Swamp Land, right?"
"Sister has been there?"
"Yes, I also saw the Huodou."
Ye Xingchen asked anxiously, "That brute didn't hurt you, did he?"
Zhao Shuning quickly shook her head.
Ye Xingchen breathed a sigh of relief.
"Since I had nothing to do, I raised a Huodou in the dark river and dense forest of the Dark Swamp Land. That Huodou was abandoned by its parents when it was young. It was extremely thin and not very smart. At that time, my favorite game with it was throwing stones."
Throwing stones?
So, this habit of the Huodou was taught by Ye Xingchen.
At that time, when the Huodou hugged a huge rock and kept throwing it at Zhao Shuning, it was actually playing with her. But she almost lost her life.
"Xingchen, with sister here from now on, you don't have to be afraid."
Ye Xingchen supported his chest and slowly sat up.
"Sister, we Ye family members are not afraid of trouble. Don't worry about me. As a man, I secretly swore when I was young that I would protect my sister well when I grew up."
Zhao Shuning's eyes were filled with tears.
Today, she had really lost her composure, crying like this in front of her younger brother.
"By the way, there are so many people cleaning the courtyard and decorating it with lanterns and festoons outside. Is there any happy event?"
Zhao Shuning said, "It will be my sixteenth birthday in five days."
"Xingchen, now I'm the youngest daughter of the Zhao family. They treat me very well. From now on, they will also be your family."
"Okay, I understand."
Ye Xingchen smiled weakly.
Zhao Shuning leaned over to check his injuries.
Her eyes turned cold. The arrow was only a little bit away from piercing Ye Xingchen's heart. If it had, Ye Xingchen would have died.
Lin Feng, you took my life back then, took away my younger brother, made him work for you for so many years, and finally, you still didn't want to let him go. The feud between us is getting deeper and deeper.
The debts you owe to the Ye family, to Ye Ling, and to Ye Xingchen can never be paid off now.
"Sister, I'm not afraid of pain. I'm used to all this."
The word "used to" made Zhao Shuning even more heart - ache.
"Xingchen, don't worry. I'll make them pay back for what they've done to you."