105 Golden Silence

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At Zhou Sheng's nod, she continued ruefully, "Father knew the entire truth about everything that had happened, didn't he?"

"Yes."

"For years on end, both of them must have planned and plotted the entire thing. If I remember the timeline correctly, it happened when we were all quite young. This meant that father had kept this secret for years."

Zhou Sheng could faintly discern where this was going.

"I couldn't care about it when I was young but when I had matured enough to realise the importance, they should have both told me the truth."

Before he could get a word edgewise, Su Li continued.

"Do you know why I knelt that day? Do you know why I kowtowed? You always thought that it was simply because I love that person but that is not the entire truth."

"What? What other reason could be there?"

Su Li gave a wan smile when she heard the question.

"Father was ready to give me his entire wealth and responsibilities, everything that he had built with his own hands but he never told me this one truth."

"You were a child back then. I am sure he didn't keep anything from you intentionally."

"No. You see that is where you are wrong. Both of them - my father and the person I love with all my heart and soul kept such a big secret from me."

Zhou Sheng gripped her in his arms, "No. I am sure they simply didn't tell you because they were worried about you and didn't want to stress you. You were already in such a precarious situation. I am sure they didn't want you to worry about other things at such a time."

A sigh escaped her lips and once again she shook her head in denial.

"No. That's not it. We had everything in hand. I am never one to blubber and I wouldn't have even disclosed such a thing on pain of death. It really makes me wonder why they never took me into confidence."

He tried to shake her so that she would remove that far away look in her eyes. It was as if even though she was here physically, she would be gone without a moment's notice.

Su Li shrugged his hands off and turned to look at Zhou Sheng.

Really look at him and try to find traces of everything that had happened in the past.

After all, both of them were the only remnants of the first world and everything else had been blown away like fairy dust – leaving one to wonder if it had all been an overactive imagination or real, tangible world.

"I — I know father loved me. How could I not? He placed all of his life's work in my hands, didn't he? I also know that person loved me. Maybe, I was clueless about it earlier but I had slowly realised it. I know he had killed in my defence and he would have given up his life for me without a single complaint."

"Prin…"

She steamrolled over his words.

"However, it makes me wonder if either of them ever trusted me. Why did they never take me into their confidence? Was I so untrustworthy in their eyes? Or was I just worth all their love but not their consideration and trust?"

Everything felt too raw, too real and too hurtful in that moment when Su Li and Zhou Sheng's eyes met over a shared past that could never return.

Neither of them spoke for a long time after those words.

As if those words had opened a pandora's box and let out the demons for a short while before being snapped shut again.

Finally, Zhou Sheng was the one to break the silence.

"No. It's not like that. You are just jumping to conclusions. Both of them trusted, loved and pampered you. I — I am sure they had their reasons."

However, there was something about his words that were different. It was as if he were unsure of what came out of his mouth.

He implored, "I know, I know that you must have some resentment towards your father for some of the decisions he made and his actions but I am damn sure that all of his actions were guided by his love and care towards you. How can you even think like this?"

Su Li made a haphazard attempt to blink away the tears in her eyes.

"I never said that he didn't love or care for me. I never questioned that, Zhou Sheng. I just wonder if I was not worth their trust."

Zhou Sheng's face turned pale at her insistence and he knew that these thoughts had featured and taken root in princess's heart for a long time.

It wouldn't be so easy to make her realise that she was overthinking and overanalyzing everything.

"No. They trusted you. Even if your father kept it from you, in the end, he sent that person to you. It was a tactic to protect both of you. Nobody would have ever doubted or looked at a person who was so close to you and wondered about their identity. This kept both of you safe"

"Truthfully, their reasons don't matter. The only thing I know for sure is that they lied to me for years on end and kept such a big secret from me. So, in a situation, where it looked like the person who was important to me and my father, I did everything in my power to save him."

Her exhausted voice shook and lowered at the pity and anger in Zhou Sheng's eyes.

There was nothing except silence in the entire street. It was as if even the critters had gone silent.

It was said that silence was golden but this one felt heart-wrenching and cruel.