Follow the light《Yizhan version》

《Chapter 15: Searching through the dark》

"As my story came to a close I realized I was the villain all along . . ." 

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Xuan Lu's POV 

I rubbed my eyes while I stepped inside the place, it was quiet, and almost could you hear a pinfall. I sighed, letting the rush of tiredness wash over me with the soft wind tickling against my skin when I walked into the police bureau. 

"Didn't sleep well again?" I scrunch my nose with a small pout while Zhoucheng gave me a small smile, passing me a cup of tea with a strawberry smell that I greedily took with a thank you. 

"Many assignments to finish." The lie easily slipped from my tongue while Zhoucheng nodded, we weren't blood-related, but we were like one family, yet I lied to him and not only to him but also to Haoxuan. 

The first time lying was difficult, but with the days that passed and the lies that kept escaping my mouth, I hardly could find the thin line between reality and my lies.  

My whole life up till now I have only told one lie, and that was the lie about me searching for my blood family who abandoned me, it was the reason I always stayed up so late, or so did they thought, I never told them the real reason. 

Haoxuan slipped into the room and gave me a quick smile before walking to the coffee machine while adjusting his glasses, "you know lenses are easier than those glasses of yours?" Haoxuan turned around with a laugh, "I prefer to be old-fashioned." 

Zhoucheng ruffled through my hair while I yawned again, "you shouldn't stay up so late, how long have you already been searching? It's been years, Lulu, what is so important about them that we don't have?" Haoxuan said, sitting down at the table with a small frown while I took place opposite of him with Zhoucheng next to me. 

I simply shrugged, "there is something urgent I need to know." It was not a full lie, it was just fifty/fifty, so I didn't count it as a whole lie, since it was not, I was indeed searching for some people to give me the last puzzle pieces of the picture, though it was not about my biological parents. 

"By the way, where's Zhan ge?" They both stiffened while I took a sip of my warm thee, knowing something was wrong, really wrong with the way they tried to fill in the atmosphere. 

"Zhan . . . Zhan is uhm . . . Not here." I held my head slightly oblique while looking at Zhoucheng and answered, "I know, I can see that, so where is he?" 

"We got a phone call of the community, the white Lotus they exclaim to have Zhan, and they want someone we have in exchange." I raised an eyebrow at Haoxuan's words, almost wanting to ask why they kept it back since we made a promise, the four of us, to never lie before realizing it would be unfair to say. 

"Who do you have?" They both exchanged a glance before Haoxuan responded, his voice lowered down a bit, "she's called Lily, and her Chinese name is Xia'er though she is nowhere registered, and we don't know why they want her specifically back." I nodded, Xia'er, Xia'er, Xia'er. 

The name sounded so familiar in my ears, but I couldn't place my finger on it, where had I heard that name before? 

Xia'er. 

It was a feminine surname that called some blurred memories without a sign of why the name carried a sense of familiarity, but I just couldn't get a hold of it, and when I looked up at both of them, they seemed to have had the same thoughts as I did. 

"Can I see her?" 

"Sure, she is talking to Jiyang right now in the examination room." Zhoucheng gave me a small nod, and I drank all my tea, warming my lungs before standing up, and walking out of the room, towards the examination room, getting myself ready. 

Before I opened the doorway I felt the cold clink of the door against my skin, and I took a deep breath, opened the entrance and walked in, Jiyang was sitting with his back to me, and I could clearly see another girl, sitting in front of him, and when she raised her head our eyes collided. 

The eyes which I never forgot, the eyes that were deep like the ocean, but clear throughout time, the eyes that had even haunted me in my worst nightmares, the eyes had belonged to the person who saved my life . . . 

Jiyang turned around while I was still frozen in shock, not able to utter a word, and the girl, Xia'er or Lily, leaned backwards into her comfortable-looking chair while her eyes didn't let go of mine. 

"Jiyang, Haoxuan wants to speak to you under four eyes, I'll take the lead with . . . Xia'er, wasn't it?" Of course, it was, I knew her name, but I needed to be sure she remembered me, and I hoped she didn't. 

"Lily is okay." Her smile was deadly, her eyes sharp while she ruffled a hand through her smooth hair, she looked young while her eyes looked clear but full of wisdom, just like how I remembered her to be, but sharper, not anymore that little princess she was the day her parents got assassinated. 

Jiyang glanced at me and back at Lily, he did it a few times before slowly standing up, and before he left he once again looked at me- No, he didn't, Jiyang looked at her, and something in his eyes told me that he knew something about her, just like I did. 

And then he left, the moment the door fell into the lock she spoke up, "Haoxuan didn't call Jiyang." It wasn't a question, it was a statement, and just the way she said those words made me confirm my doubts, she was not that very same girl anymore, maybe that little princess did still live inside her, but a part of her must-have died that night together with her parents. 

I sat down, on the place Jiyang had sat a moment ago, her eyes boring into mine while my heart was thumping inside my chest, I never expected to find her, the person for whom I stayed up so late, and now she was facing me, what was I going to say? 

"I-" 

"Xuan Lu, the little girl who lived in the backstreet of the neighbourhood, the girl who was never noticed because she was shy and didn't have many friends, the girl whose parents killed mine, isn't it?" She looked so calm, like the thundering sea, so in balance. 

"I am not here because I support my parent's decision, but-" 

"They're dead." I know what she meant, the friends of my parents who had helped get rid of the evidence, helped get rid of four couples of parents, killed the parents of innocent children, and got their way out of it also. 

Lily, the girl who sat in front of me, could have been a queen, whose parents were assassinated, together with three more kids their parents, all because of wealth. 

"I am sorry . . ." Those were the words I was meant to say, years ago, on the night her eyes met mine when she jumped out of the window, running behind her own fate, escaping death at the peek. 

Word count: 1261 words