Mr. Pei! Don't force yourself into circles you can't fit into.

Pei Lin stopped moving. He floated on the surface of the water and looked back. The gray-black sea was empty; there was nothing there. But the voice still rang out, as if it were right next to his ear.

"Ah Lin..." It was her mother's voice.

He hadn't heard it in so long, so long that the person's image in his memory had become blurred. But now, those two words floated up from the sea, making him feel suffocated.

His lips moved twice, as if he wanted to call out that name, but the sound caught in his throat.

Immediately afterwards, another voice followed.

"Pei Lin—" The last syllable was drawn out, with a soft, coquettish tone, like someone clinging to his arm and begging for forgiveness after making a mistake.

Pei Lin's pupils contracted sharply for a moment, and his body involuntarily turned in that direction. Waves crashed over him, splashing water on his face. He desperately tried to discern the direction from which the sound came, but all around him was the sea, pitch black, with no end in sight.

"Baby," he cried out, his voice hoarse, the sound drowned out by the waves.

How did his baby end up here? What if he can't swim? No, I have to find him. I have to get him out of here.

"Pei Lin—"

The sound continued, growing closer and clearer, intertwined with his mother's gentle calls, one after another pouring into his ears.

Pei Lin's breathing became erratic, and his movements changed from paddling to chaotic struggling. He swam desperately toward the sound, but couldn't grab onto anything. The sea in front of him was empty, with nothing but endless darkness.

Jiang Jin caught up from behind, grabbed his arm, and, breathless, shouted, "Master Pei! Master Pei, look carefully! There's no one here! There's no one else here!"

Pei Lin couldn't hear him.

He struggled, his strength so great that Jiang Jin almost lost his grip.

Those eyes were open, but the pupils were dilated. The gaze passed through Jiang Jin's shoulder and landed on a certain point in the void, as if it had seen something that others could not see.

Jiang Jin's heart skipped a beat, and he panicked completely.

He had seen Pei Lin when he was having an attack; that was several years ago.

Once the calm and composed man is triggered to have a paranoid episode, he will become trapped in his own world like this, unable to distinguish between reality and illusion. All he sees and hears are the deepest fears in his heart that have never healed.

The seawater and darkness were the fuse that ignited all the illness he had managed to control over the years.

Jiang Jin dared not let go and desperately dragged him towards the shore.

Pei Lin stopped struggling, as if all her strength had been exhausted by the auditory hallucination just now. She was just passively being pulled by him, her eyes half-closed and her lips still moving silently.

Jiang Jin gritted his teeth; his arms were so sore they were almost numb, but he dared not stop for a moment. Wave after wave crashed over them, pushing them toward the shore only to push them back again and again.

The sea turned completely black.

Finally, Jiang Jin's feet touched the rocks.

He staggered and dragged Pei Lin ashore, then collapsed onto the nearby gravel, gasping for breath, his chest burning with pain.

Pei Lin lay on his back on the shore, his soaked clothes clinging to his body, outlining the slight rise and fall of his chest. His eyes were still closed, with tiny water droplets clinging to his eyelashes, his face was almost transparently pale, and his lips were purple from the cold.

Pei Lin's fingers curled up, then slowly loosened.

Jiang Jin took a while to catch his breath, then sat up next to Pei Lin, propping himself up with his hair. "Master Pei... how are you feeling?"

Pei Lin closed his eyes and remained silent for a long time.

Before he could finish speaking, his hoarse voice said, "Let's go back to the hotel first."

Jiang Jin was taken aback. "Not Beishan Villa?"

Pei Lin opened his eyes, his gaze falling on the completely dark night sky above. His voice was soft, carrying a hint of suppressed weariness.

"If I go back now, he'll worry." He saw me injured last time and I cried a lot. I thought it best not to worry him.

"Yes……"

-

When Shen Mingxiao woke up, everything was pitch black.

The silky fabric clung to his eyelids, its texture delicate, yet it wasn't his own. He instinctively jerked his wrist; the rope was tightly bound, made of some kind of rough hemp rope, chafing his skin painfully.

He recalled being in the driver's seat when a sudden wave of drowsiness washed over him, his eyelids so heavy he could barely keep them open. At that moment, Shen Yu'an, sitting in the passenger seat, considerately said something...

"Brother, if you're tired, take a break. I'll drive," he said without thinking much, and switched places with his chair, leaning back against the seat.

Then I don't remember anything.

He was here now. He didn't know where he was, or how much time had passed. There was a faint scent of sandalwood in the air, mixed with a hint of old wood. He could vaguely hear the noise of people outside. Shen Mingxiao listened for a moment, and his brows slowly furrowed.

Just then, a faint hum of electricity came from somewhere in the corner of the room, followed by a voice that had been distorted and high-pitched, like it had been sanded.

"Don't waste your energy."

Shen Mingxiao stopped struggling and turned his head in the direction of the sound.

"Who are you? What do you want?"

The voice chuckled, sounding particularly grating through the electronic processing, "I don't want to do anything, I just came to invite you to sit down."

Shen Mingxiao, of course, did not believe it.

Today was the day Pei Lin was supposed to meet the Shen family. He was supposed to be on that yacht in two hours. But he was kidnapped and brought here at this exact moment. The other party's intentions were too obvious; they were deliberately trying to prevent him from keeping the appointment.

But was the other party targeting the Shen family or the Pei family? What was their purpose? His mind raced, but his face remained impassive.

The door opened at that moment.

Someone walked in.

The footsteps were very light. The person squatted down in front of him. Shen Mingxiao felt a pair of hands rise up, and the fingertips gently traced the outline of his eyebrows and eyes through the silk fabric, and then fell down along the curve of his cheekbone.

The distorted voice rang out again, this time very close, almost touching his ear.

"Shen Mingxiao... your name is so beautiful."

Shen Mingxiao turned his head away, avoiding the touch of those hands, his voice deepening, "Where is my brother?"

There's definitely something wrong with that bottle of water.

He remembered that he drank it, and he also remembered that Shen Yu'an drank two sips.

The other person paused for a moment, then chuckled softly, "Your brother? Of course... just like you, he's tied up."

"But he's too timid... He gets scared easily, and he fainted again after just a few words from me, even though he had just woken up."

Shen Mingxiao frowned and warned in a deep voice,

"If my brother is injured in any way, the Shen family will not let Yuanyue off the hook."

"How did you know it was a full moon?" There was a hint of curiosity and surprise in the voice.

Shen Mingxiao did not answer.

He could faintly hear the shouts of drinkers outside, and the sound of a shop closing its wooden door as it packed up. He had walked that street of round moons many times; those sounds were etched into his ears, and he could distinguish them even through a wall.

He just didn't expect that he would actually guess right.

"...Are you the boss behind the scenes?" Shen Mingxiao asked.