'Where am I?' Yan Xiaoran couldn't stop wondering as she walked through this seamless dream of hers.

Beneath her feet, ripples surfaced as it destroys the still and motionless water, creating thousands of circles that kept on moving further and further away from where she stood. She looked around, eyes observing her new environment with awe and fear.

Yan Xiaoran could still remember that she was at the party. Wearing a disguise to fool her husband for her goal of meeting an old friend – which proved to be quite harder than what it seems. After all, it didn't take long for Alexander to know that she was the girl he married. As for looking for her old friend… Forget about it. She might as well just wait for Alina to come to her and return.

But that was not everything, isn't that right?

The commotion. Jack Winters. The four brothers. And most importantly, the bombs littered the hall and doomed them to death. Everything seemed so unreal, so fake that she almost laughed at the events at that party. So many things happened, and with their lives at stake.

That's right.

She remembered that they were fleeing to avoid the bomb exploding and taking them along with it. But why was she here? Inside this dark enclosed area, or was it really an enclosed space? Yan Xiaoran didn't have the time nor the desire to explore this dark place. Fear for something known was one thing, but fearing what's unknown was worst.

But was she supposed to stand here forever?

As if listening to her mind, the enclosed dark space suddenly moved. The environment around her suddenly distorted, twirling and twisting into something disgusting as though things crawled in the wall. But Yan Xiaoran refused to scream nor give it a reaction.

Soon, the walls around her changed. Something that was no longer dark and no longer suffocating. However, the scene before her was not any better for Yan Xiaoran since she could see hundreds of mirrors hanging in the air. Inside these mirrors, images – No, records of her memories seemed to play inside these mirrors.

From the moment she was still very young, to her grade school days, high school, and even to the present time. Past memories kept on playing before her, to which she was breathtakingly mesmerized.

Yan Xiaoran took a step forward; the water beneath her was still there and moved along with her.

Stopping before a mirror, Yan Xiaoran closely watched as she saw her younger self standing beneath a tree, crying, and there seemed to be dirt and marks of abuse staining her white dress. Why was she crying, and why was she wounded? What's more baffling was why she couldn't remember this memory herself and needed the mirror to show it to her?

Confused and deterred by the images playing in the mirror, Yan Xiaoran tried to step back, but as though there was a hand holding her ankles, she almost stumbled backward, and thanks to her balancing herself to make sure she wouldn't fall, she was able to save herself from falling down to this murky waters.

Sure enough, when she steadied herself and looked down to her feet, two hands were holding her ankles and not letting her take any step forward or backward.

Yan Xiaoran choked up upon the sight of these hands. She was never the kind of girl that believes in supernatural things since she's never seen one in all her life. But these hands still brought chill deep in her heart as if to consume her entire being.

She made a gulping sound, and after waiting for a long time to see whether the hands would attack her, Yan Xiaoran slightly relaxed when it didn't and wondered if they wanted her to stay in place and watch the mirror before her eyes.

Speaking and thinking no more, she faced the mirror with her back straight. Her black hair moved along with her head like silk falling down her back.

Inside the mirror, the young yan Xiaoran was still sniffing and choking in her cries. She looked mortified, sad, and lonely, like a puppy stranded in the road while it was storming outside. No one was willing to pick it up and show kindness to it.

"God, why can't I have a simple life like the other girls in my school? Why did you have to give me such trials and let my father leave?" Yan Xiaoran heard her younger self asking the air, accusing it of the rough life she had to experience at such a young age.

"Was it because I was a bad girl? Because I did that a year ago? Because I listened to my mother and stole that one bag of rice when we were starving after my father didn't get his salary? Or was it because I gave in to my hidden desires?" the young girl continued to ask as if someone would suddenly pop out and answer her prayers.

"Why didn't you just kill me when I was inside my mother's womb, just like what my mom asked of you when she was pregnant?" the young girl wiped her tears. Hearing her mother telling her that she never wanted her as her daughter countless times already bored her, but as a young girl, it still hurt her.

Her mother's words cut deep into her skin and went straight to her heart. Every time her mother drank and got angry at their poor condition and small house, she would take it all on the young Yan Xiaoran and make sure that all the bruises were hidden underneath her dress.

But that day, it was different. Her mother seemed to have lost her mind and decided to deal some serious blows to her daughter's body as if she lost her mind. Hence, hiding it underneath her dress was no longer needed as the lashes of the belt left bruises in her body and face and cuts in her lips were visible to the eyes of anyone who dared to have the interest to look at this poor, crying girl.

"Am I so unwanted and alone in this world?"

"No, you're not." The present Yan Xiaoran almost said out loud if not for the child-like voice of a boy sounded from atop the tree stopping her.

"Aren't I here with you?"