The heartless beauty is addicted to being licked by a seemingly obedient and loyal dog.

The stains were wiped away, revealing the scars that had been hidden in the cuffs.

Besides the newly formed puncture wound, there were several scabs that had already scabbed over but were uneven, with the skin and flesh rolled back to the sides, leaving pale and hideous scars.

Pulling the sleeve up a little further, the inside of the arm was covered with dense, round cigarette burns, a mixture of purplish-red and charred black, a scene of utter devastation.

Two deep purple, old marks remain where the wrist bone protrudes, with a lingering bruise between them. It's unclear how much force was used back then to cause the subcutaneous bruising to persist to this day.

Su Shen was only in his early twenties, but it was hard to find a single patch of intact skin on his arms, which should have been clean and slender.

Those old wounds and new injuries, intertwined, even though they had long since scabbed over, were destined to remain as marks of shame and torment, forever etched on this frail body.

Meng Zhaoyuan's wiping fingers paused in mid-air.

"How much suffering they must have endured..."

He stared at the scars for a long time, the usual frivolity in his eyes completely gone, replaced by a strange sense of bitterness and oppression that weighed heavily on his heart.

The young man was so thin that his bones were sticking out, looking exactly like a rag doll that had crawled out of hell. Even when being cared for, he exuded a pitiful air that suggested he might fall apart at any moment.

Meng Zhaoyuan sighed softly, said nothing more, rubbed the red-stained towel a few times in the basin of water, wrung it out, and casually draped it over the edge of the basin.

The cleaned-up young man lay quietly, lifeless except for the rise and fall of his chest with the ventilator.

Meng Zhaoyuan got up, carried the dirty water into the bathroom and poured it out, then grabbed two tissues to dry his hands.

When I came out, the cleaning staff had already thoroughly cleaned up the bloodstains on the ground, and the fishy smell in the air had faded considerably, leaving only the mixed smell of medicine and alcohol.

The ward was eerily quiet.

Meng Zhaoyuan pulled up a chair and sat down again, casually stretching his long legs out in front of him.

He took out a cigarette case from his pocket, skillfully flicked out a cigarette and held it in his hand, but then remembered that he was in a hospital room, and suddenly stopped turning the lighter.

He simply bit the unlit cigarette between his lips, using the faint smell of tobacco to suppress the irritation in his throat.

After an unknown amount of time, the person on the hospital bed suddenly moved.

Unconscious sobs escaped from her throat, Su Shen's eyelashes trembled violently a few times, and she opened her eyes with difficulty.

Those eyes were pitch black, unfocused, and the whites of their eyes were covered with terrifying red blood vessels.

He turned his neck, his gaze dryly falling on the man beside the bed, devoid of emotion, only a numb blankness.

A faint, muffled breathing sound came from beneath the mask.

Meng Zhaoyuan removed the cigarette from his mouth, leaned forward slightly, and looked down at him: "Awake? How are you feeling? Do you want to change your clothes?"

Su Shen's hospital gown was already stained with blood, but Meng Zhaoyuan had thought about it for a long time and felt that he was not qualified to change the clothes of a person who was in a coma, especially since the person was on a ventilator, so he gave up.

The young man did not answer.

He seemed not to hear Meng Zhaoyuan's voice at all, and subconsciously tucked the urn in his arms into his chest again.

He rubbed his knuckles against the hard wooden box, drawing tiny beads of blood, but he seemed to feel no pain whatsoever.

"Alright, alright, stop being so stubborn. You've almost crushed the corner of the box."

Meng Zhaoyuan made sarcastic remarks, but gently pressed down on his wrist.

Worried about hurting the marks on Su Shen's wrist, they deliberately avoided the injury and used a little skill to gently pry the young man's bleeding fingers away from the edge of the wooden box.

With his wrist restrained, Su Shen's eyes finally moved slightly, his gaze falling on Meng Zhaoyuan.

"Where is Mr. Song...?"

The breathy sound squeezed out through the gaps in the mask, weak and hoarse.

"Look at the state you've become, and you still care about others?"

Meng Zhaoyuan rolled his eyes at him, but didn't stop what he was doing.

He reached out and pulled the corner of the blanket, carefully tucking Su Shen in, and then slightly raised the pillow to make it easier for him to breathe.

After doing all this, Meng Zhaoyuan leaned back in his chair, his long, slender fingers toying with the lighter, his voice cool:

"Yunqi has been busy all day because of you. He wasn't feeling well just now, so Shen Chonglu took him to get checked out."

"If anything happens to him, see if Shen Chonglu will skin you alive. I won't stop him then."

Upon hearing the words "feeling unwell," Su Shen bit her lip.

The jumbled fragments of memory were pieced together again.

He recalled his out-of-control behavior when he went crazy, the faint fragrance on Song Yunqi's body when she hugged him, and the dark red bloodstains he had rubbed on her snow-white shirt.

A layer of self-reproach welled up in her previously numb eyes, and her slender shoulders trembled slightly.

"sorry……"

Su Shen closed her eyes, tears sliding down her cheeks and into her dry hair.

"I've caused Mr. Song trouble again..."

He was curled up on the hospital bed, such a big person, but when he curled up he was only a tiny ball, he didn't even dare to make a sound when he cried, it was so pitiful that it made people grit their teeth.

Meng Zhaoyuan couldn't bear to see him like this; the overwhelming heartache in her heart completely overwhelmed her, yet the words she uttered still carried a barb:

"If you know you're causing trouble for others, then you should avoid making things difficult for yourself. The person is gone, but those who remain should live well."

He may be sharp-tongued, but his actions are excessively considerate.

Meng Zhaoyuan took the cotton swab, tore open the packaging, dipped it in warm water, and carefully peeled off the edge of the oxygen mask.

He lowered his head slightly, his expression focused as he gently placed a cotton swab on Su Shen's dry, chapped, and bleeding lips, slowly moistening the wound.

The cotton swab was applied very gently, without causing any pain, and Su Shen obediently accepted it.

"Yunxi and I went through so much trouble to drag you out of the mansion, not to see you torture yourself like this."

After moisturizing his lips, Meng Zhaoyuan carefully fastened the oxygen mask again and tucked the stray hairs that had fallen across his cheeks behind his ears.

"Keep this life. You are the last thing your aunt left in the world. If you go with her, no one will remember her anymore."

Su Shen shook his head weakly, his eyelids drooping heavily.

He stopped speaking, but curled up even tighter, pressing his thin cheek against the urn, letting his last bit of body heat melt into the lacquered wood.

Outside the ward, the light from the corridor slanted in through the glass window on the door, casting Meng Zhaoyuan's shadow on the wall as extremely long.

"you……"

The man gripped the expensive limited-edition lighter tightly in his hand, his whole being irritated, the metal casing even warmed by the heat of his palm.

He turned his head to look at the listless young man on the bed, his eyes filled with indescribable helplessness, which turned into a very soft sigh after a long while.

"I'll be keeping a close eye on you, so don't do anything foolish."