The door opened without warning.
There was no knock, no voice announcing itself—just the soft click of the doorknob turning and the gentle rustle of a dress. Mei Ling, who had been absentmindedly flipping through her little notebook beneath the dim light filtering in through the window, felt a chill run down her spine before she even looked up.
Instinctively, her hands moved. The little notebook—her diary and only confidant—was hurriedly shoved beneath her pillow, its pages crumpling under the urgency of the gesture. Her heart, that treacherous organ the doctors monitored so carefully, began pounding wildly.
When she finally raised her eyes, the air seemed to leave her lungs.
The woman standing in the doorway was... beautiful. But it wasn't an ordinary kind of beauty, the sort you saw in magazines or on the tired faces of nurses. It was a beauty that bordered on the supernatural, so perfectly symmetrical and flawless that Mei Ling's eyes took a moment to process what they were seeing.
Golden hair cascaded over her shoulders like waves of liquid light. Her eyes were two crystal-clear blue pools, deep and luminous, shining with an almost supernatural intensity. Her skin was immaculate, without pores or imperfections, and the few expression lines she had only seemed to enhance her beauty. Her lips, curved into a gentle smile, were the exact color of lotus petals.
It was the most perfect face Mei Ling had ever seen.
And yet, something about it was deeply wrong.
Mei Ling couldn't explain what. Her violet eyes, accustomed to endless hours of solitude and silent observation, noticed things others probably wouldn't.
The symmetry of that face was too precise. Her movements, though graceful, were too economical, as if every gesture had been rehearsed. It wasn't the warm, imperfect beauty Mei Ling saw in movies, where actresses laughed with exaggerated smiles and their eyes sparkled with messy emotions.
This was too symmetrical. Too calculated, almost artificial.
Like a cathedral statue sculpted by an artisan who had never truly seen a human face. Or like a doll that had come to life and learned to imitate human emotions without ever fully understanding how they worked.
And behind those radiant blue eyes, there was something that wasn't light—something hidden, something watching with a hunger that beauty could not conceal.
Disturbing. That was the word that came to Mei Ling's mind, and she found it strangely fitting.
"Wh... who are you?" Her voice came out weaker than she wanted, a fragile thread of sound that barely crossed the room.
The woman closed the door behind her with the same gentleness she'd used to open it. Her footsteps were silent, and looking more closely, Mei Ling noticed she was barefoot.
"I am Bai Ning," the woman said, her voice carrying the sweetness of a captivating melody.
The name struck Mei Ling like lightning. Her fingers tightened around the pillow concealing the diary, and instant understanding lit up her violet eyes.
Bai Ning. The same surname—Bai.
This must be the mother Ryuu was running from.
"I've been looking for a boy," Bai Ning continued, tilting her head ever so slightly.
Her blue eyes slowly swept across the room, examining every corner with deliberate patience, leaving nothing unnoticed.
"He's about your height. Golden hair, blue eyes. A very handsome face. Have you... by any chance seen him?"
Mei Ling felt her heart hammer against her ribs. But her face remained calm. Solitude had taught her to observe, and observation had taught her to lie—or almost.
"No," she answered, her voice a sleepy whisper. "I slept for a long time today. I only just woke up."
Bai Ning didn't respond immediately. She simply kept looking, and for a moment, Mei Ling felt as though those blue eyes could see through her skin, through her bones, straight into the truth she was hiding.
Then the girl pointed toward the window.
"Could you close the window?" she asked, her voice taking on a fragile tone that wasn't entirely fake. "It must have been opened at some point, and I'm really cold."
The window was the only physical evidence that Ryuu had been there. Asking Bai Ning to close it would reinforce her innocence. After all, if she had really been awake when the window was opened, she could have simply asked whoever opened it to close it again.
Bai Ning followed her gaze to the half-open window. For a moment, she said nothing. Then her gentle smile widened.
"Of course, dear."
She walked to the window with soft steps, her hips swaying in a hypnotic rhythm. Her hands touched the glass with an almost maternal gentleness. The window slid shut with a soft click, cutting off the stream of cold air drifting into the room.
"If I could walk on my own, I'd have closed it myself," Mei Ling murmured, and there was genuine sadness in her voice, a sadness that wasn't part of the act.
Bai Ning turned back toward her, and for an instant, something indefinable crossed her eyes.
"Have you been sick for a long time?"
"Long enough to forget what grass feels like beneath my feet."
The answer lingered in the air, more honest than Mei Ling had intended. She looked away, regretting having said so much.
Bai Ning slowly approached the bed and sat on its edge as though she had all the time in the world. Her fingers brushed the metal railing at the foot of the bed, tracing invisible patterns across the cold steel.
"And who is the boy you're looking for?" Mei Ling asked, forcing her voice to sound casual. "Why would you think he'd be here?"
As much as Mei Ling tried to restrain herself, it was impossible. She was far too curious about the boy who had quite literally fallen into her life.
For a long moment, Bai Ning didn't answer. She simply stared at the now-closed window, as though she could see through the glass and curtains to something far beyond the horizon.
"He ran away," she finally said, her voice a soft whisper. "From his room. He was recovering from a serious injury, and I was taking care of him. Every day. Every night. I bathed him, fed him, stayed by his side while he slept."
Her hand tightened around the metal railing.
"And then, this morning, I had to leave. Just for a few hours. When I came back... he was gone."
She turned to face Mei Ling, and the girl saw tears glistening in the corners of those blue eyes. Clear, crystalline tears rolled down her flawless cheeks like liquid diamonds.
"He left me."
Bai Ning's voice cracked, carrying a sadness so profound it seemed to echo through the walls of the room. Her posture, once straight and confident, slumped ever so slightly, as though the weight of those words was too much to bear.
"After everything I did for him... after all the love I gave him... he left me."
Mei Ling watched without moving. The sorrow on Bai Ning's face was palpable, tangible, almost a physical presence in the room. But something was wrong. Something unsettled the girl in a way she couldn't put into words.
Then she understood.
She couldn't feel moved by it.
Those tears, that trembling voice, that defeated posture—it was all technically perfect. But it was like watching a brilliant performance from a distant stage. It lacked the warmth that made others cry along with it.
At the same time, Mei Ling remembered Ryuu. The way he trembled, the way his voice faltered when he admitted he was running away.
His emotions were raw, and though restrained, they didn't feel fake. His feelings were like crystal-clear water—you could see all the way to the bottom. He didn't try to place his sadness on a pedestal. He simply... felt it.
Bai Ning, on the other hand, wore her sorrow like a frame around her perfect face, as though even pain were an accessory meant to highlight her beauty. Her emotions were like a frozen lake—smooth and shining on the surface, yet opaque. Impenetrable.
"What will you do when you find him?" Mei Ling asked, her voice neutral, trying to keep her concern from showing.
Bai Ning wiped away a tear with the tip of her finger, a gesture so graceful it looked choreographed.
"I'll bring him back home, of course. I'll take care of him. I'll protect him." She paused, and her fragile porcelain smile returned. "He's just confused right now. The world out there is so dangerous... but once he realizes no one loves him the way I do, he'll come back."
Then she looked directly at Mei Ling.
"You'd tell me if you'd seen him, wouldn't you? If some strange boy had fallen through the ceiling into your room... you'd tell me?"
"Of course," Mei Ling answered without hesitation. "But that's not what happened."
It was a lie, and she knew it was a lie, and she said it anyway. Because the woman before her was the mother Ryuu was running from. And if she'd driven her own son to risk jumping out a window to the floor below, she couldn't possibly be a good person.
Bai Ning smiled. But it wasn't a warm smile. It was a smile that said, I know you're lying, and that's alright, because I lie all the time too.
Silence settled between them. It wasn't a comfortable silence. It was heavy, dense, like the air before a storm. Mei Ling knew she should stay quiet, but there was something about this woman that fascinated her—not in a good way, of course.
"You love him very much, don't you?" she asked, almost in a whisper.
Bai Ning blinked. For the first time since entering the room, her smile faltered.
"More than anything," she replied, and there was a strange honesty in those words, as though she were stating the obvious. "More than the world. More than life itself."
"Then why did he run away?"
The question slipped out before Mei Ling could stop it.
Bai Ning's smile disappeared completely. For a brief instant, her eyes darkened—not with anger, but with something deeper. Something Mei Ling recognized because she saw it in her own eyes every time she looked into a mirror.
Loneliness.
"Because he still doesn't understand," Bai Ning said, her voice quieter now. "He still doesn't understand that I'm the only one who truly loves him. That the outside world will only hurt him. That every person he meets will try to use him, deceive him, destroy him. He's far too innocent to see that."
She paused, smoothing an invisible wrinkle in the bedsheet.
"But he'll learn. And when he does... he'll come back to me."
Mei Ling didn't answer. Bai Ning's words were twisted, but there was a logic to them—a warped logic, like a cracked mirror that still reflected reality, only in the wrong way.
The most disturbing part was that Bai Ning genuinely seemed to believe every word she said. She truly saw herself as Ryuu's savior, his protector, his only anchor in a hostile world.
And that was far more frightening than any lie.
"What kind of drawings do you like to make?" Bai Ning suddenly asked, her voice turning casual. "It must be boring staying here all day. I bet you like drawing, or writing, or..."
Her eyes wandered around the room, and Mei Ling felt her heart stop when they landed on the pillow—more specifically, on the corner of the notebook she hadn't managed to hide completely.
"Oh? What's this?"
Bai Ning moved. In the blink of an eye, she was beside the bed, her nimble fingers pulling the little notebook from beneath the pillow before Mei Ling could react.
"No!" The girl tried to snatch the diary back, but it was too late. Her hands grasped nothing but air.
"Shh, shh," Bai Ning murmured, her voice a soothing purr. "Don't worry, I just want to take a little look. Is it a diary? How adorable."
But before she could open it, something happened.
Bai Ning's eyes met Mei Ling's.
And stopped.
It was a brief moment—so brief that a distracted observer would never have noticed. But it happened. Bai Ning's blue eyes met Mei Ling's violet ones, and something passed between them.
A spark? Recognition? Perhaps...
Bai Ning felt her blood turn cold.
Those violet eyes. So large and curious. But also... penetrating.
She felt the darkness inside her writhe uneasily. It was an overwhelming sensation of being watched, and whatever lurked within her did not like being seen.
Bai Ning's smile never faltered. Her expression remained just as sweet and motherly as before. But her eyes... her eyes grew colder.
"You have very beautiful eyes, dear," she said, her voice still sweet, though now carrying a tone that hadn't been there before. "So... observant."
"Give it back," Mei Ling demanded bluntly, reaching out for the diary. "It's mine."
Mei Ling's gaze was hard. The importance of that diary to her was obvious to anyone—especially Bai Ning.
"I'll scream, and the guards will come, so give it back!"
Mei Ling threatened, proving that although she was fragile, this rose still had a few thorns.
Unfortunately, this was Bai Ning.
"Get some sleep, dear."
Confusion filled Mei Ling's eyes, and her heavy eyelids slowly began to close. But the girl resisted, shaking her head and stubbornly trying to stay awake.
"Give... it... back..." Mei Ling managed to murmur before finally succumbing to sleep.
Bai Ning then opened the diary.
She began reading it aloud, her lips curled into an amused smile even though Mei Ling was unconscious.
— "Dear Diary, today the sun was so beautiful that I almost forgot the smell of medicine..."
Bai Ning's voice was melodic, almost like a song, as she recited the words Mei Ling had carefully written. At first, the entries were cheerful—the days, the little wonders of the hospital, the birds that visited her window, the clouds that formed shapes in the sky.
— "Today a new nurse brought me flowers. They're as yellow as the sun..."
As the pages turned, the tone gradually changed. Mei Ling's condition worsened. She could no longer leave her room. Fewer people came to visit. The words became scarcer.
— "Today they told me my parents are busy. They won't be able to come..."
At one point, the ink colors began to alternate—black, blue, red, green. Mei Ling had explained in her diary that the pens she'd been given at the beginning were running out one by one.
— "The pink pen ran out of ink. The blue pen ran out of ink. The green pen ran out of ink..."
Bai Ning's voice became quieter.
Slower.
The following pages were a mosaic of changing colors, the entries written with whatever ink remained in each pen. Until eventually, only black was left. The dates stopped appearing. The sentences became shorter. More fragmented.
And then the words stopped altogether.
What remained were drawings. Sketches of birds by the window. Outlines of clouds. A sun that never set. A tiny, lonely figure lying in a bed. Wilted flowers. Birds with broken wings. A tiny little girl lying in an enormous bed, tubes extending from her arms like poisonous roots.
Bai Ning turned another page and stopped.
— "Dear Diary. Today I almost died."
Her voice was barely above a whisper now.
— "My heart stopped for a few seconds. The doctors rushed into my room. It hurt so much. But what hurt the most was what the nurse said afterward."
A blot of ink stained the page, as though the pen had remained motionless for far too long.
— "She said my parents would be notified. That they'd come visit me soon."
She turned a few more pages. The following entries were sparse, but there was visible effort behind them. A deliberate attempt to stay positive. Mei Ling was trying to convince herself that things would get better.
— "Dear Diary. Today I looked out the window. The sky was gray, but I imagined it was blue. Imagining is almost the same as seeing for real, isn't it? Kisses."
— "Dear Diary. Today I dreamed about them. Mom was wearing that yellow dress I like. Dad carried me in his arms. It was a nice dream."
— "Dear Diary. Today I didn't cry. It was a good day."
— "Dear Diary. Today I cried again. But that's okay. Tomorrow will be better."
Bai Ning turned the page.
And stopped.
The entry was short. A single sentence written in the center of the page. The paper was wrinkled and stained, as though drops of water had fallen onto it and dissolved part of the ink.
"They didn't come."
Bai Ning remained motionless, her eyes fixed on those three words. The silence in the room was so profound that she could hear the IV dripping through its tube and the slow rhythm of Mei Ling's heartbeat on the monitor.
She didn't read it aloud. She simply stared.
Then, with slow deliberation, she turned the page. The next sheet had been torn out—its ragged edges still visible along the notebook's binding. After that came blank pages. So many blank pages.
Bai Ning silently flipped through the rest of the diary. Most of the pages were empty. It was as though the girl had begun rationing her words, saving them for something that truly mattered.
Until she reached the final written page. Today's entry.
The handwriting was different. It wasn't the weak, trembling script of the past few weeks. It was hurried, almost euphoric, the words tumbling over one another as though the person writing them had rushed to get everything onto the page before the emotion faded away.
Bai Ning read in silence, her eyes racing across the lines at an impossible speed.
The girl had described everything. The rope swaying outside the window. The boy falling into her room. His golden hair, blue eyes, weary smile. Their conversation. The question she had asked—"Are you running away?"—and his answer—"From my mother."
Bai Ning's fingers tightened around the diary.
The girl wrote about how Ryuu had held her hand. About how warm his skin had been. About how he had recoiled in fear, as though he had seen something she couldn't.
And then, at the very end of the page, one line made Bai Ning stop completely:
"He looked at me as if I were a person."
Bai Ning slowly closed the diary. Her eyes lifted toward Mei Ling's sleeping face. Even now, her brow was still faintly furrowed.
The gentle smile had vanished from Bai Ning's face. So had the coldness. What remained was something that even she could not name.
The white-haired doll. The girl in the tower. The princess who would never be rescued. And those words—"He looked at me as if I were a person."—lingering in the air like specters, silent accusations that could never be answered.
For a long moment, she said nothing.
Mei Ling's heart monitor continued its steady beeping. The IV continued to drip. The world kept turning.
And then, in a voice that was neither cold, nor angry, nor sweet—a voice completely devoid of any recognizable emotion—Bai Ning murmured:
"Poor thing."
The words lingered in the air like a sentence. They could have been compassion. They could have been mockery. They were simple words, yet they carried a weight impossible to decipher.
"Let me help you."
She placed the diary on the bedside table beside the monitors that blinked silently.
Then, slowly, she reached out her hand.
Her fingers, which only hours earlier had been black claws capable of tearing through steel, hovered over Mei Ling's sleeping face. The tip of her index finger gently brushed the girl's pale cheek—a touch so fleeting it was almost nonexistent.
Her hand remained suspended in the air, as though she were thinking—or hesitating.
And the room fell silent.