Inside the car, Xia Xiyao was completely stunned. She watched as the three others around her shouted and scrambled out of the vehicle. She saw Yun-jie yank her out of the car and hug her tightly. She watched as Tao Lele dragged the blood-soaked, crazed Liu Qian out. She saw Cheng Di frantically calling emergency services and the police.

"Gu daizi~"

Xia Xiyao muttered like in a dream, then suddenly broke free from Yun-jie's arms and staggered toward the car—now mangled beyond recognition.

Inside, all the airbags had deployed, and she couldn't even see his face—only blood endlessly pouring from his body.

Xia Xiyao's strength left her in an instant, and she collapsed to her knees.

Silently, she stretched out her hand, tears streaming uncontrollably down her face. She wanted to hold his hand, but the short distance between them now felt like an unbridgeable chasm.

Sirens wailed as police and ambulances swarmed the scene, everything descending into chaos.

But Xia Xiyao couldn't hear any of it—because in her world, the sky had already collapsed.

......

"This... is a hospital?"

Gu Xingyi rubbed his pounding temples and struggled to open his eyes. What greeted him was a stark white ceiling.

The air smelled of disinfectant. With sore, heavy limbs, Gu Xingyi slowly sat up, looking around blankly at everything before him.

Yesterday, hadn't he just gone to a celebration banquet and had a few extra drinks? How had he ended up in the hospital? And it felt like he had been asleep forever—he'd had a dream, a long, long dream.

But what had he dreamed about? He couldn't remember at all.

"Doctor! Doctor! The patient in Room 02 is awake!"

Before Gu Xingyi could react, a surprised female voice rang out, calling for a doctor. A moment later, the doctor rushed in.

"Incredible! Without any warning, the brain that was in deep coma just... woke up on its own!"

The doctor fiddled with some instruments around Gu Xingyi, shaking his head with disbelief written all over his face.

"Wait... Doctor, hello. I just overslept last night. It can't be as dramatic as you're making it sound, right?"

"Overslept? Heh! Who oversleeps for several months? I really didn't expect you to wake up."

"......"

Several months???

Gu Xingyi began to question reality.

"Well, what matters is that you've woken up! I'll run a full check-up on you soon, and it's best if you stay under observation at the hospital for a while."

The doctor looked at Gu Xingyi and continued speaking.

"Wait, Doctor. I want to know—who brought me to the hospital? And... you said months—does that mean I was in a coma for several months?"

Gu Xingyi was struggling to process this. He was desperate to understand what had happened to him.

"To be exact, three months. As for who brought you in—probably a colleague. They dropped you off and then vanished."

Hearing this, Gu Xingyi couldn't help the twitch at the corner of his mouth.

Three months!!! He had been asleep for three whole months!

Thankfully, someone tossed him into the hospital. As an orphan, if no one had found him, after three months he'd probably be nothing but a rotting corpse by now!

After that, the doctor didn't say much else and began preparing for a detailed examination.

By the end of the afternoon, the test results left the medical staff speechless.

Not a single problem.

No one could figure out why he had fallen into a deep coma in the first place!

During that afternoon, Gu Xingyi also learned about his own situation in detail. After being dumped at the hospital, the doctors didn't know what to do—without any family present, they hadn't dared to administer aggressive treatment.

Later, after discovering that Gu Xingyi was an orphan, the hospital applied for emergency aid from a charity foundation to cover his treatment costs. Unfortunately, no matter what they tried, Gu Xingyi remained unresponsive, as if trapped in eternal sleep—like the living dead.

They had no choice but to keep Gu Xingyi in the hospital room, maintaining his basic nutrition intake each day.

Gu Xingyi gave a bitter smile. He used to work out daily, but after lying in bed for three months, his body had become so weak he could hardly even sit up—he felt like a wrecked dog.

Thinking about how frail he was, Gu Xingyi suddenly felt as if he had experienced something like this in a dream before.

After thinking it over to no avail, he decisively shook his head to clear the scattered thoughts. What mattered most right now was being able to move normally again.

Thanks to his relentless effort, Gu Xingyi was finally discharged three days later.

Though his body still couldn't handle any intense activity, walking normally was no longer a problem.

When he returned to his empty home, Gu Xingyi picked up his phone and scrolled through recent events. He didn't have many friends, so no one even knew he had been in a coma for three months.

Maybe only his former coworkers knew, but he had already been fired by that small record company. After all, he was just an unknown little songwriter.

Three months had passed, but for someone who lived alone, not much had changed in the world.

After a short scroll through his phone, Gu Xingyi stuffed it in his pocket and left the house again—there wasn't a single ingredient at home, so he needed to stock up.

At the nearby mall, Gu Xingyi carefully picked out ingredients, then struggled to carry a huge pile back home.

"Gege! Would you like to buy some flowers?"

Outside the mall, in the plaza, a little girl with rosy cheeks held up a bouquet and looked at Gu Xingyi hopefully.

He was momentarily stunned. His hands were already full and he couldn't carry anything else, but when he saw the light purple lavender in her hands, an odd ache stirred in his chest.

It was like a voice kept whispering in his ear, Buy it.

"Gege! Lavender symbolizes waiting love—it'll bring you good luck! Buy a bouquet!"

The girl's voice rang out again, snapping Gu Xingyi out of it. He set down the ingredients, smiled faintly, and patted the girl's head.

"Lavender has another meaning too! It stands for redemption and hope."

Under the little girl's sweet smile, Gu Xingyi bought the bouquet of lavender. He didn't even know why he understood its meaning—just like he didn't know where the stirrings in his heart came from.

Back home, Gu Xingyi stared blankly at the empty house. For the first time, he felt like something was missing from it.

...

"Xiyao-jie, you haven't eaten anything for three days. Please eat something. If brother-in-law wakes up and sees you like this, it'll break his heart!"

In front of the hospital bed, Xia Xiyao gripped that warm hand tightly. Even as Tao Lele tried to persuade her, her eyes never left the person lying in the bed.

The doctor said it was just blood loss—everything else was normal. But even the doctor couldn't explain why he wouldn't wake up.

He just lay there, breathing calmly, as if he would never open his eyes again.

"Xiyao! Even if you won't think of yourself, think of Nainai! She hasn't seen either of you for three days—do you know what's going on in Xiao Nainai's little heart? The kid hasn't said anything, but her teacher told me she's been quietly wiping her tears alone."

Yun-jie's stern words rang in her ears. At the mention of Xiao Nainai, light finally returned to Xia Xiyao's eyes.

She stood up abruptly. After three days and nights of staying by the bedside, her body swayed unsteadily.

Nainai… If Gu Xingyi wakes up and finds out how the little one has been suffering, he'd be heartbroken. She couldn't go on like this—she still had Nainai to take care of.