Love has always been the thing that wounds the deepest.

Today was a day of utter humiliation for Yang Fan.

Even now, he was still in a daze.

Those two resounding slaps he received today left his ears ringing and his vision swimming with stars; he stood there, completely stupefied.

He simply couldn’t understand it. He had dropped out of school after middle school just to work and pay for his girlfriend’s education. The day she entered Yanjing University was the day she broke up with him.

He couldn’t make sense of it—when he asked her why, she only said they weren’t from the same world, insisting it was for his own good. He desperately wanted an explanation.

Since she was so determined to end things, and he had always been meek and accommodating with her, he didn’t dare defy her; in despair, he just clung to her hand, unwilling to let go, as if once he released it, she would vanish forever.

He was a stubborn, single-minded person, putting his heart into everything he did.

For the past three years, he, who once had better grades than Qin Xiaoyu, had dropped out to work so she could chase her dreams.

He knew all too well how hard it was for a rural child to change their fate.

Qin Xiaoyu was always asking for money—not just tuition but also for clothes and cosmetics.

He didn’t want her to be mocked by her classmates for living too poorly.

To earn more, he took the most dangerous job as a scaffolder, making sixteen thousand yuan a month yet keeping only five hundred for himself; the rest he gave to Qin Xiaoyu.

For three years, he worked himself to the bone for a single goal.

At night, he even took on another job, barely sleeping six hours a day.

His eyes were perpetually bloodshot, red as a rabbit’s.

Now, with his goal gone and no meaning left in his life, he hardly knew what to do the next day, or where to put his hands and feet in the coming moment.

What he grasped wasn’t Qin Xiaoyu’s hand, but a drowning man’s last straw.

“Let go! Let go of me!” Qin Xiaoyu was furious. This wretched fool had just ruined the polished persona she’d worked so hard to build. He stood there in dusty camouflage, hair stuck in clumps, stinking so badly she nearly gagged.

His rubber shoes were caked with white plaster; one even had toes poking out.

No explanation came.

Instead, a crowd of students and teachers gathered.

Seeing the onlookers approach, Qin Xiaoyu finally lost her temper.

Smack!

A crisp crack; a burning pain seared across his face.

Yang Fan was dumbfounded.

“Let go of me, you filthy creep!”

Smack! Smack!

This time, the blows came from both sides.

At last, his grip loosened.

His nose tingled; a hot stream trickled down and dripped steadily onto his collar.

“Take it back! From now on, we have nothing to do with each other!” Qin Xiaoyu shouted.

Something hard and cold struck his face before falling into the dust at his feet.

It felt as if an axe split his heart in two.

The pain cut to the bone.

Tears welled up, blurring the world before his eyes. Even without seeing, he knew what had fallen.

An ancient silver ring, its face as large as a pigeon’s egg, etched with timeworn, mysterious patterns.

If one carefully cleaned away the old patina and examined it with a magnifying glass, they’d see the patterns were formed by countless runes.

This ring was a family heirloom from Yang Fan’s ancestors, a token of the engagement once agreed upon by the Yang and Qin families.

Yang Fan knew that nothing could be salvaged now.

He stood there, numb, as people pointed and whispered all around him, but he barely noticed.

At last, the crowd dispersed.

Blood dripped onto the fallen ring at his feet.

No one noticed how the blood was silently absorbed by the ring’s face, followed by tears, as if drawn by some invisible force.

The dull silver began to glow softly; the grime and patina seemed to dissolve, a faint, sacred light emanating from it.

Shivering with cold, Yang Fan bent down and numbly picked up the ring, slipping it onto his finger.

As his reason slowly returned, he realized he couldn’t just stand there like a fool and gradually walked away.

Passing through the gates of Yanjing University, he was suddenly struck by a sense of utter rootlessness—as if the world were vast, yet he had nowhere to go.

The sunset was warm and glowing, a gentle balm to his heart.

In this moment, a strange feeling surged within him. No matter how deep the pain, he felt as if a crushing weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

A cold smile tugged at his lips—he had lost his beloved, yet somehow felt light and free.

With no one in his heart, no money in his pocket, and nothing but rags for clothes, he stood alone under the heavens and felt a certain ease.

After all, what else was there to lose?

As the setting sun stretched his shadow longer and longer, he slowly disappeared into the crowds thronging the street.

On the balcony of a dormitory building on campus, a delicate girl stood bathed in sunlight. Her long black hair was straight and glossy, her skin as flawless as milk.

Her face was bright and doll-like; her dark eyes, sparkling and lively as black grapes, gleamed above her petite figure clad in a white dress—at once innocent and alluring.

In her hands, pressed tightly to her heart, was a bank card. On it: six hundred eighty thousand yuan.

Over three years, Yang Fan had sent her fifteen thousand yuan each month, with all his night job earnings too.

She whispered softly to herself that it was enough for four years of college life in dignity. She was determined to seize this chance to leap into a new life.

For her dreams, she had once suffered the humiliation of an arranged engagement with the Yang family; she’d paid too high a price, and her heart was full of grievance. Even though Yang Fan had touched her hand for the first time only today, how could mere money make up for all she had endured?

Returning to his work shed, Yang Fan collapsed into sleep. In his dreams, the day he first met Qin Xiaoyu, their engagement, the years of sending her money, and the bitter scene of today replayed endlessly like a movie.

He seemed trapped in a nightmare, unable to wake, the pain compounding with every cycle, until he clutched his head and screamed in his sleep. Enough, enough!

At last, he bolted upright, drenched in sweat.

Looking around, he saw he was alone. Suddenly, he remembered—Little Henan, who’d shared the shed with him, had fallen from the scaffolding a week ago and died.

This was a job where you traded your life for money.

He had worked so hard, all for Qin Xiaoyu.

Now, was there any reason to go on like this? He thought of his aging parents, his grandmother, his little sister still in elementary school.

No—he would quit. Besides, the project was almost done.

He would go find the foreman and resign.

Yesterday, he had gone to deliver the month’s fifteen thousand yuan to Qin Xiaoyu, but after being dumped, he’d forgotten all about it.

He packed his few ragged clothes and six thousand yuan he’d painstakingly saved for emergencies.

His wages had already been settled.

He’d rent a cheap room in a shantytown for two or three hundred yuan a month and figure out what to do next.

After resigning, he’d buy some new clothes, take a bath at the public bathhouse, and get a good night’s sleep.

Yang Fan tossed aside his battered luggage, grabbed his wallet and ID, and stepped out.