As Xu Yuan's childhood memories resurfaced like shards of broken glass, Lin Xiaoxia felt the weight of each revelation settle like ice in her chest. The fragments—once scattered and disconnected—now formed a chilling chain, leading to a truth more unsettling than she'd imagined.
Xu Yuan recalled his grandfather's obsession with time—every corner of their ancestral home filled with ticking clocks, each second measured, monitored. The old man had spoken of time as if it were a living thing, whispering theories about their family's sacred duty to "guard its flow."
There were other memories too: strange "training" sessions where his grandfather made him focus on the passage of time, urging him to feel its current, to influence its eddies with nothing but thought.
And the silver ring—always on his finger. A family heirloom, his grandfather said. A conduit to their birthright.
Then, the accident.
At ten years old, Xu Yuan had somehow activated the ring's power during a lesson. Time had stuttered—just for a moment—but it was enough. His grandfather's rage had been volcanic. Too young. Too reckless.
After that, everything blurred. A fever. Waking with gaps in his memory. The ring vanished, and so did his old life—shuffled off to live with distant relatives, his past rewritten into something ordinary.
Lin Xiaoxia listened, her pulse hammering. The implications coiled around her:
Xu Yuan was heir to the Silver Family's power. His memories hadn't faded—they'd been taken.
And Li Mingzhe... had his appearance been meant to trigger this awakening? What did the family want with time's fabric? What were they unraveling?
She studied Xu Yuan's face—the confusion, the pain of a past forcibly forgotten now surging back. She had to help him remember. Only then could they untangle this.
But one thought slithered through her, venomous:
If he's part of them...
Had their meeting been orchestrated?
Had she ever truly been loved—
Or was she just a step in someone else's design?
The ring between them gleamed, silent.
Waiting.
ns3.133.123.140da2
