The call was disconnected.

Ethan held the phone, standing in the rain.

Across the street, an LED screen was playing Elena’s new music video, singing "Meeting You Is the Most Beautiful Accident."

He squatted down and buried his face in his knees.

The rain pounded on the back of his neck, cold to the bone.

The next day, he went to the hospital room where Sophie had stayed.

The bed had been changed for a new patient.

A little boy lay on the bed playing on his phone, and his mother was peeling an apple beside him.

No one remembered that a fourteen-year-old girl had once lived here, holding an old plush bear, telling her sister—Sophie’s wish is also for you to be healthy and happy.

Ethan stood in the corridor for a long time.

The nurse recognized him and asked cautiously: "Dr. Ethan, who are you looking for?"

He opened his mouth, only to find he couldn't answer.

Looking for Clara? She was gone.

Looking for Sophie? She was dead.

Looking for himself—the one who should have stood by her side during her hardest times, but didn't?

He couldn't even find himself anymore.

He turned and walked out.

When he reached the hospital entrance, he saw Silas leaning against a car door, a cigarette between his fingers.

Silas saw him, extinguished the cigarette, and looked him up and down.

"Ethan, how is it? Does this feeling satisfy you?"

Ethan ignored the mockery and walked straight ahead.

But Silas called out to him again.

A smile played on his lips: "Ethan, honestly, seeing you like this—dead inside—is the most satisfied I have ever felt."

"So, truthfully, I really want to see you try to win her back, and fail."

"I know where she is."

Ethan’s eyes snapped up.

Silas smiled, walking toward him step by step, and whispered in his ear:

"Dr. Ethan, kneel down and beg me, and I’ll tell you where she is."

Chapter 11

Ethan stood frozen in place.

Silas leaned against the car door with a smile hanging on the corners of his mouth.

The smile was light and faint, but there wasn't a hint of warmth in his eyes.

"What? Dr. Ethan, do you not even have this much sincerity?"

Ethan’s fingers clenched and then released.

He remembered what Ash had said.

He thought of how, over these five years, she had poured glass after glass of white liquor into her stomach. He thought of her collapsing from a stomach hemorrhage at the entrance of the funeral home. He thought of her saying—

Don't tell Ethan, he is about to get married.

His knees bent, and he knelt down.

The cement floor was ice-cold, and rainwater splashed up, soaking his pant legs.

The smile on Silas’s face faltered for a moment as he looked down at Ethan, who was kneeling before him.

"You actually knelt."

"Tell me." Ethan raised his head, rainwater streaming down his jawline, "Where is she."

Silas looked at him for a long time. Then he laughed—a soft, light sound that spilled from the depths of his throat, carrying an indescribable sarcasm.

"Ethan, what if you knelt? Do you think that by kneeling, all those things can just be wiped clean?"

He took a step forward, looking down at him from above.

"Where were you when she was lying in the ER, drinking until she had a stomach hemorrhage? Where were you when she knelt in the rain begging you to take her to the hospital? When her sister died and she stood alone at the entrance of the funeral home holding an urn—where were you then?"

Silas squatted down to be eye-level with him.

"Do you even deserve to look for her, after hurting her like that?"

Ethan remained on the ground, rain cascading down his hair.

Silas stood up and tossed his cigarette butt into the trash can.

He chuckled softly, "Ethan, you don't deserve to be forgiven for the rest of your life."

"If I were her, I would deeply regret ever meeting you."

"You are the one who brought her the greatest pain."

With that, Silas turned and walked away.

Ethan remained kneeling where he was, rain pouring into his collar and running down his spine.

He had been looking for her for two years.

He had hired private investigators and checked the IP addresses of her social media.

But every time, he returned empty-handed.

It was as if she had truly and completely vanished from his world.

In these two years, he had done much; Ethan’s father went bankrupt, all thanks to him.

Because there were no conversations in Elena’s records that explicitly encouraged suicide, the police could not hold her accountable.

However, she was now ruined, her career had plummeted, and the once famous singer had been cyberbullied to the point of suffering from severe depression.

She had brought it upon herself.

For two years, he hadn't been free from guilt and self-reproach for a single moment.

And he never gave up looking for Clara for a single moment.

Until Ash said to him: "Have you ever thought that Clara decided to leave because she felt she could live better in a city without you?"

"If the life she wants isn't one with you in it, why can't you let her go?"

She didn't care about the past; she wanted a fresh start.

In that moment, he felt sour and heartbroken.

But the life he wanted was a life with her.

...

Two years later.

A 6.2-magnitude earthquake struck Deqin, Yunnan.

When Ethan arrived at the disaster zone with the medical team, it was just breaking dawn.

There were collapsed houses, broken roads, and dust filling the sky everywhere.

Search and rescue teams were weaving through the ruins, with shouts echoing back and forth.

He was squatting in front of a pile of debris, bandaging an injured elderly person.

His gloves were covered in blood and mud.

In front of him was a massive collapsed structure, and search and rescue members were digging into a caved-in wooden frame.

He heard someone shouting.

"Quick, there is one more volunteer teacher who was buried under the ruins after running back to save her students."

Several seriously injured teachers were calling out toward the ruins—

"Teacher Clara, hang in there."

Ethan felt his breathing stop entirely.

Chapter 12

The gauze rolled out of Ethan’s hand.

He stood up, his legs weak, almost tripping over the rubble.

Could it be her?

The nurse beside him called his name, but he didn't hear her.

A crowd gathered in front of the ruins.

Search and rescue members were using hydraulic shears to prop up a broken prefabricated board; dust filled the air.

A female teacher who had been rescued sat on the ground, her legs covered in blood, crying out toward the ruins: "Teacher Clara! Hang in there!"

Ethan lunged forward, thrusting his hands into the pile of rubble to start digging.

Sharp stones cut his fingers, blood mixing with the mud.

A broken wooden board was jammed underneath; he used his shoulder to wedge it, veins bulging on his face.

"Clara!" he shouted down, "You have to hang in there!"

A weak cough came from deep within the ruins.

That sound was like a bullet fired into his chest.

It was really her.

It was Clara, the one he had been looking for for two years.

Another cough, clearer than the last.

The final board was lifted, and I was lifted from under the ruins by the rescue team.

I was covered in dust, my hair stuck to my forehead with dried blood, and my left arm hung at an unnatural angle.

Our eyes met.

The air seemed to freeze.

Ethan opened his mouth, his Adam's apple bobbing over and over.

The words he had rehearsed countless times before coming here wouldn't come out—not a single one.

When I saw him, I looked surprised for a fleeting second, then quickly looked away.

The nurse ran over and cut open the sleeve of my left arm.

The skin around the fracture was swollen and shiny, a deep purple hue.

Ethan squatted down next to the stretcher, reaching for a splint.

His hands were shaking; it took him twice to get a firm grip on the splint.

"I'll do it."

I didn't look at him and said to the nurse, "No need, you go ahead."

Ethan’s fingers froze in mid-air.

The nurse took the splint and glanced at him cautiously.

Ethan didn't move; he stayed crouched by the stretcher, watching the nurse fix my arm, watching as they put five stitches into the wound on my forehead.

When the disinfectant was applied, I frowned, my fingers tightening on the canvas edge of the stretcher, but I didn't make a sound.

I used to be the one most afraid of pain.

I would bury my face in his shoulder whenever I got an injection, clutching his hand, not daring to look at the needle.