Chapter 212 - Welcome Back (2)

Feng Huan picked up the fake lotus ring. His past memories felt like a dream kept hidden away until it was time to remember it.

"What do you want to do?" Xiong Jingfei asked, taking a seat that faced Yin Yuan and Feng Huan. 

"I…" Feng Huan trailed off his sentence. He confidently answered that he was "General Feng Huan," but he wasn't sure what he wanted out from remembering his past. He squeezed the ring to keep his cool, "Haah."

He hired someone to draw the ring that he described from his dream. Then went to the extent of making it too, but he would never have guessed this was the result of it.

"Tell me how I should feel…" Feng Huan traced his fingers across his neck as warm droplets of water slipped down his chin. "I-I… I don't want to make the same mistake… I..."

A pair of warm hands covered Feng Huan's trembling hand that was holding the ring. He didn't realize his entire body was shaking until Xiong Jingfei touched him. The same pair of hands had the same warmth as it did in the past.

"Huan," Xiong Jingfei's softly said his name as a way to comfort him. For him to cry about it, the past still hurts him. "I can't tell you how you should feel, but…"

If she had the power, she would have locked away Feng Huan's memories. Unfortunately, the choice was not up to her to control, and she didn't have the power to stop it. All she can do is give him the two options she gave herself. 

"You can let everything that happened in the past go, or take revenge on those who had wronged you." Xiong Jingfei's voice suddenly got serious. "Take your time to pull your emotions together, but just don't take too long."

Xiong Jingfei understands how emotionally it can be remembering things that happened in the past. 

Your emotions run wild as everything hits you all at once, including the way your life ended. Then it'll just get more challenging to differentiate the past from the present. Eventually, you will get through it, but that's if you pull yourself together. If not, you can turn into a mentally unstable person, unable to tell what's real and not. 

Right now, it's up to Feng Huan if he wants to pull through or let it slowly eat him from the inside. 

"Zhao Fan…" Feng Huan's tears cut off at the mention of her name. "Xiong Guang." 

Xiong Jingfei took a glance over to Yin Yuan, and he only shrugged his shoulders. He wasn't sure what Feng Huan would do, so they can only watch him together. 

"What about you?" Feng Huan immediately grabbed her wrists. "Are you going to marry him again in this lifetime? After everything that family did to you and your family!?"

Xiong Jingfei knew when he said, "that family," he meant Yang Zheyan's family and the royal family. 

She let Feng Huan do whatever he wanted, even when his grip was shooting pain up her arms. She couldn't find herself pushing him away or tell him to let go. Was it because she felt guilty that he died in her place? If only she was put on that stage before him, then he could have been saved from the death sentence. 

"I'm sorry, Huan." Xiong Jingfei quietly apologized. It should have been her that day! Death would have been better than the events that followed it. "It should have been me that day."

"Ahem! Ahem! Ahem!" Yin Yuan loudly cleared his throat three times like an old man. He grabbed Feng Huan's hands and released his grip on her. "Feng Huan, why don't you take a second to calm down? I don't want to have you running off, and I have to become a chaser again."

Xiong Jingfei rubbed her wrists, "I already apologized for it…"

"I know! I know!" Yin Yuan laughed, trying to lighten up the dark mood around them. "It was a sight to walk into."

Feng Huan's gaze couldn't be any more obvious that he was curious about what she did. 

"I… Slapped someone and threw things at another person." Xiong Jingfei answered Feng Huan's curious eyes that could burn a hole into her face. 

"And?" Yin Yuan made a hand motion for her to continue.

"I screamed, cursed, and trashed his house." Xiong Jingfei nodded her head, acknowledging she did all those things. "In other words, you're taking all of this in a lot better than I did."

Yin Yuan smiled as he recalled that day. He muttered, "Maybe I should have waited outside a bit longer…" Then instantly changed his answer when a pair of irritated eyes were on him. "I-I mean, I wish I could have stopped you when we were up in the mountain." 

"Mountain?" Feng Huan looked at both of them with confusion. What does Xiong Jingfei's past memories have anything to do with a mountain? His memories returned because of a ring, but hers was a whole mountain?

For a second there, Feng Huan saw some nervous movements in Xiong Jingfei's body movement, but it was instantly gone. He wasn't sure if his eyes were playing tricks on him, or it was all in his head.

"You didn't answer me. Which of the two choices did you make?" Feng Huan asked although he had a feeling he knows the answer already. Seeing as she was rather affectionate towards Yang Zheyan, as though they were in love with each other again in this lifetime.

A part of Feng Huan wondered how her life was after his execution. Did she think about him at all in her past life? Did she marry Yang Zheyan and lived a happy life?

"You're wrong." Xiong Jingfei coldly replied to the questions in Feng Huan's head. She quietly stared at the empty wall, "I didn't get that ending. Instead, someone else got it in my place."

"That's impossible!" 

Something Feng Huan wanted to say out loud but kept his mouth shut after seeing Xiong Jingfei's dead eyes. He couldn't find his voice to ask her what happened between them. Plus, something kept punching him in the face not to ask it, and that was Yin Yuan's fierce eyes. 

In the past and till now, the way Yin Yuan looked at him always gives him chills. Yet, in front of Xiong Jingfei, they disappeared as if it was utterly "impossible" for him to make those kinds of scary faces. 

Feng Huan wondered if Xiong Jingfei felt Yin Yuan's dark eyes, but she probably didn't, as hers were darker and colder than him at this very moment.