Fang Siying felt a sharp pang in her heart. She stared at Bai Peiwen, whose face looked somewhat frantic. His blind eyes were fixed, staring vacantly, with an expression of helpless distress and desperate terror. She was shocked; her heart contracted painfully, every nerve in her body aching. He was much sicker than she had anticipated. She felt a surge of anger, anger at the other people in this household—was there really no one taking care of him by his bedside? He was blind and so seriously ill, yet there wasn't even anyone to bring him a cup of tea! He must have gone the whole day without eating.

  "Tingting," she quickly instructed. "Go downstairs and tell Yazhu to make some porridge and prepare some shredded meat. No matter how sick a person is, they must eat something. How can they recover if they don't eat?"

  Tingting immediately ran downstairs. Fang Siying stood in the room, looking around.

  She felt the air in the room was stifling. She walked over to the window and opened it, leaving the curtains hanging so the wind wouldn't disturb the patient. The lighting in the room was poor, so she turned on the light, but then remembered that the light in this room was of little use to Bai Peiwen. A surge of pity rose within her. Returning to the bedside, she instinctively straightened Bai Peiwen's bnket. Suddenly, her hand was grasped by a burning hand.

  "Oh, Mr. Bai!" she whispered in surprise. "What are you trying to do?"

  "Don't go!" he gasped.

  "I'm not going!" she said reluctantly, trying to pull her hand away.

  “No, no, don’t go,” he murmured, gripping her hand even tighter. “Han Yan, is that you, Han Yan?”

  Ah, no, not again! This couldn't go on—it absolutely couldn't. She yanked her hand back forcefully and heard her own voice, cold and hard, ring out: “You’re mistaken, Mr. Bai. I'm Fang Siying, your daughter's private tutor. I don't know who Han Yan is. I′ve never known.”

  “Fang… Si Ying…” he repeated, drawing out the sylbles of her name, as if struggling to dredge something from the depths of his fragmented memory. His thoughts were still muddled and incoherent. “Fang Siying? What is that?” he muttered, bewildered and lost. “I don’t remember… It sounds familiar. Fang Siying? Ah, ah, forget about that Fang Siying. Han Yan, you′re here, aren′t you?”

  He reached out, his hand yearningly searching through the emptiness, desperate to grasp what wasn't there.

  Fang Siying jumped back from the bedside, her heart aching with a sharp, unbearable pain. Her vision blurred. Suddenly, Bai Peiwen sat upright in bed, his filing hand knocking over the gss on the bedside table, spilling water across the carpet. Startled, Fang Siying rushed forward to pick up the gss.

  Bai Peiwen was breathing heavily, locked in a fierce struggle with his own hallucinations. Unable to grasp the hand he so desperately sought, he let out a heart-wrenching, soul-piercing cry:

  “Han Yan!”

  The shout was so loud that Fang Siying was startled. When she lifted her head, she saw Ai Lin standing in the doorway. Her face was like a sheet of frozen ice, her expression as cold and hard as frost. Her eyes, dark and heavy, rested on Bai Peiwen's face with a chilling sharpness. They were piercing, like two bdes, so cold and cutting that if Bai Peiwen had any awareness, he would have felt deeply wounded by them.

  But Bai Peiwen was oblivious. He was trapped in his feverish delirium, struggling in the fog of his fragmented consciousness. His head rolled restlessly against the pillow, which was soaked with sweat. His lips moved continuously, murmuring the calls buried deep within his soul:

  "Han Yan, Han Yan, I beg you, please... I beg you... Han Yan, Han Yan, for God's sake! Save me... Han Yan! Ah, what have I done to you? Han Yan? Ah! What have I done...?"

  Ai Lin walked in. Her back was straight, her elegant neck stiff, and she moved slowly, like a marble statue. She stopped by Bai Peiwen's bedside and lowered her head to look at him. Her cold gaze now burned with hatred and anger, and a cruel, almost savage smile crept up the corners of her lips. She lifted her head and looked directly at Fang Siying, speaking in a clear, controlled tone, neither too fast nor too slow:

  "This is it, Han Yan! Han Yan! Han Yan! Day and night, whether awake or unconscious, he calls out this name. If your enemy is a person, you can still fight her, but what can you do if it's a ghost?"

  Fang Siying stood there, stunned. In that moment, she understood Erlin far better than she had in the two months of living here. Looking at Ai Lin, she felt sympathy for her in a way she never had before. Love, after all, was a fragile and delicate flower—it couldn't withstand years of drought. She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue and said softly, though without much conviction, "Mrs. Bai, he's running a fever."

  "A fever?" Ai Lin's eyebrows lifted slightly. "For that ghost, he's had a fever for eleven years!"

  As if to confirm Ai Lin's words, Bai Peiwen shook his head violently on the pillow, waving his hand in front of him, as if trying to break free from some kind of constraint. He kept shouting, "Go away, go away, don't disturb me, she's coming, Han Yan, she's coming! Ah, don’t disturb me, don’t cover me, I see her, Han Yan! Han Yan! Han Yan! Ah, this damn fog, this fog is too thick; it's covering me, it's covering me, it's covering me..."

  He gasped like a dying wild animal, his hands constantly grasping at the air, reaching, waving. "Ah, don't cover me, go away! Go away! Don't cover me! Oh, Han Yan! Han Yan! Please, I beg you, Han Yan! Don't leave..."

  Ai Lin furiously whipped her head around, her eyes bzing with anger. Her fists clenched tightly, and she held her head high, her voice seething through clenched teeth:

  “Go ahead and die, Bai Peiwen! If you love her so much, you should have followed her to the grave long ago! Just die! Once you're dead, you can find her ghost! Go and die!”

  With that, she spun around and strode out of the room with long, decisive steps.

  Raising her voice, she shouted, “Lao You! Lao You! Get the car ready! Take me to the train station. I'm going to Taichung! Yazhu, come upstairs and help me pack my things!”

  Fang Siying instinctively followed her to the doorway, wanting to call out to Ai Lin to ask her to stay. There were so many things she felt she wanted to say to her… yet she did nothing. She said nothing.

  Instead, she turned back to Bai Peiwen's side. Looking at his fever-flushed face and listening to his constant murmurs and desperate calls, all she felt was an overwhelming sense of weakness, fear, and helplessness.

  Tingting returned upstairs. The sight of her father terrified her. With one small hand, she nervously grasped Fang Siying. She trembled as she spoke, "Te—Teacher, will—will Dad—die?"

  “Don’t talk nonsense!” Fang Siying quickly replied. “He has a fever and is a bit delirious. Once the fever subsides, he′ll be fine.”

  She brought a basin of cold water from the bathroom, soaked a towel in it, wrung it out, and pced it on Bai Peiwen's forehead. As soon as the towel warmed up, she repced it with another cold one. Bai Tingting stood by her side, helping to wring out the towels.

  The cold compress seemed to bring Bai Peiwen some relief. His murmurs grew quieter, and his falling hands calmed down. An hour ter, he drifted into a fitful, uneasy sleep.