Ning Gui went to see Ning Shen.
Through the iron bars of the window, she saw him with a buzz cut, dressed in a blue-gray prison uniform. He looked a bit dispirited, a far cry from the confident man he had been just a few months ago in his tailored suit and polished shoes. He resembled the Overlord of Western Chu, trapped in a world he no longer belonged to.
Ning Shen's gaze met hers, and for the first time, she noticed a rare gentleness in his expression, accompanied by a hint of surprise. He chuckled softly, a note of self-deprecation in his voice. "Gui, I didn't expect you to be willing to come and see me."
He had hoped that once the light cone experiment began, everything would start anew. He imagined returning to the past, preventing his mother's death, and undoing all the harm he and his second personality had inflicted on her.
She was a rose under the sun, and he didn't want their next meeting to be marred by the mud of his past.