<h4>Chapter 2: Starting Afresh</h4>


    Trantor: Vesper


    She had done her best to be worthy of staying by his side, but he was the one who let go of her hand in the end.


    She closed her eyes slowly. When she opened them again, there was no longer any surge of emotions and it was reced by calmness, almost as if the person who was shattered just then was not her at all.


    Ning Meng Yao went to the courtyard. She searched for a box lying under her old bed in the middle of her room. She took out a clear green jade pendant that had a character engraved on it.


    Looking at the jade pendant, Ning Meng Yao had on a self-deprecating smile on her face as she ced the pendant back into the box and locked it.


    Beside the cupboard where she put the box, there was another box. ncing at the box, Ning Meng Yao reached out for it and opened it, revealing a stack of papers that she quickly closed after a quick look.


    Ning Meng Yao carried that box out and went to the bank. When she left, the box was no longer with her.


    Looking at the bustling street after handling a certain something, Ning Meng Yao felt her heart be more rxed.


    Ning Meng Yao bought some vegetables by the street and went home to make food. As the sky slowly turned dark, she took out the oil she had bought and poured it at all four corners of her house. When night came, she lit a fire and burnt down the ce she had lived in for the past six years.


    Gazing at the small courtyard that was being eroded by me bit by bit, Ning Meng Yao turned and left while carrying with her only a small bundle wrapped in cloth.


    On the next day when Ling Luo bought his confidant with him to Ning Meng Yao’s home, all he saw was the remains of a burnt house.


    Looking at the burnt house, a trace of panic shed in his eyes, “This ...What happened?”


    The man beside Ling Luo circled the house and returned to his side a whileter. “Young Master, this house’s corners had been doused in oil.” That was why the house was burnt to such an extent.


    Ling Luo staggered backward. She had resorted to such a method to sever their ties. She was just as merciless as she was in the past.


    “Young Master, you....”


    “Ming Fang, I’m alright. Why can’t she understand me?” Ling Luo muttered to himself.


    Looking at Ling Luo in such a state, Ming Fang didn’t know how he shouldfort him and he tried to appease, “Young Master, shouldn’t you be very clear about Miss Ning character?”


    Five years ago, the young master was bafflingly good towards a vige girl. He didn’t understand why at first, but he finally understood as time went by. Ning Meng Yao was not someone to be judged based on appearance, and there had never been any other girl with a temperament like hers.


    Ling Luo’s hands went slightly stiff. That’s right, shouldn’t he know her temperament better than anyone else? She would rather give up on him than be an equal wife. Now, she had chosen a cruel method to cut off their rtionship that extended to both lives.


    In a remote mountain vige a thousand miles away from the capital, there was a wooden cottage at the foot of the mountain for who knew when it was there. Surrounded by thetticetched by growing vines, there were thumb-tall vegetable seedlings growing in front of the cottage.


    The wooden door of the cottage suddenly opened and a young girl came out, wearing a light pink embroidered dress and with a wooden basket in her hand. Her waist was slim and her long hair was carelessly bound by a jasper hairpin while the rest of her hair hung loosely on her back. This young girl was Ning Meng Yao who suddenly vanished from the capital.


    Half a month earlier, Ning Meng Yao came to this ordinary mountain vige. At the foot of the mountain, she bought a cottage with a beautiful view.


    Having settled at this ce for half a month, her heart gradually calmed down. She did the things she had longed to do everyday: nting vegetables, making embroidered flowers, or walking around the vige. It was a in but fulfilling life.


    Putting her basket at a corner, she picked up a wooden bucket and went to a stream not too far away and returned to water her vegetable field. Once she was done, she went to the kitchen to start her new day.


    After eating, Ning Meng Yao took out an embroidery frame from her house that was halfway done.


    Not long after sitting in her courtyard doing embroidery, the gate creaked open and the voice of a young girl was heard.