Wu Meiying paced across her room in frustration. Her bare made soft thumping noises as she padded back and forth across the floor, but she could hardly hear the sound, her mind focused entirely inward.

“I can’t take it. I can’t take it. I can’t take it. I need to see him.”

She raised a hand to her mouth, extended her thumb, and bit down. She didn’t bite too hard. Wu Meiying was not interested in tasting her own blood, but biting the thumb helped settle her mind. It allowed her to think.

“But if I sneak out, there’s a chance Aunty will find out, and then she’ll punish me. I might even be forced to remain in this room for longer than a month.”

She had no idea how Wu Àiliàn knew that she had been sneaking into Wu Jian’s room every night, but now that she was aware of this, Wu Meiying knew she couldn’t be careless.

“Surely they won’t find out if I just sneak out once. I won’t even visit him. I’ll just watch him from afar. Noooooo. That won’t work. There’s no way I could watch him and not want to be near him.”

When Wu Meiying closed her eyes, she saw several possibilities play out before her, like moving paintings. Each one was a possible future. Like the threads of a spiderweb, she could see the possible futures branching out in many directions.

This was her unique power. She had no control over this ability. She didn’t know why she had it or even how it worked. However, this power had been with her since she was just a baby, and she had used it to her benefit when sneaking into Wu Jian’s room.

When she was younger, this power caused her to cry a lot. She often saw horrifying visions as a child, and since she had no control over them, they would haunt her day and night. The only time they ever became manageable was in Wu Jian’s presence. For reasons she didn’t understand, he was able to calm her visions just by being there.

Now that she was older, they didn’t affect her like they used to, and she had even been using them to her advantage.

Unfortunately, each possible future she saw presently involved her getting caught and punished even further.

Wu Meiying sighed and sat on the bed, exhaustion seeping into her bones. Being by herself was horrible. She was keenly aware of Wu Jian’s absence in her life. It was like a gaping hole in her chest where her heart should have been.

For as long as she could remember, Wu Meiying had been in love with Wu Jian. Even before Wu Jian shared her feelings, even before she became consciously aware of them herself, she had loved him. She didn’t understand why she felt this way. It was strange to love someone so completely and utterly since the moment you were born. However, whenever she looked at him, her heart felt warm and at peace. Perhaps that was why her visions calmed in his presence.

And yet…

“I wonder why I also feel such sorrow when I see him?” she asked herself.

It was not something she had told anyone, not even Wu Jian, but her heart ached when they were together. Sorrow and regret always filled her. These feelings mixed with her joy and happiness to create a confusing cauldron of emotions.

She didn’t understand these feelings and was even afraid of them, so she often pushed them to the side, but now that she was alone, these feelings came to the fore and refused to go away.

Groaning, Wu Meiying fell back onto the bed and covered her eyes with her forearm.

“This sucks,” she muttered.