On the tombstone, Li Mengyan's smile was as beautiful as a flower.

I sat there, unable to resist the urge to talk to her, but what should I say?

After a long silence, I raised my hand to touch the cold stone tablet, and thoughts of the summer four years ago came to mind.

That day, I first met Li Mengyan.

She walked into the dormitory, huffing and puffing with a snakeskin bag on her back, and greeted me with a bright smile:

"Hello, classmate, my name is Li Mengyan."

It was the gentlest voice I had ever heard, like a serene lake in the spring, with light glimmering across, causing ripples in my calm heart.

Li Mengyan had nearly all the wonderful qualities a girl could have.

Kind, optimistic, diligent, gentle...

No one would dislike such a girl.

But I didn't dare to get too close to her because I was afraid of hurting her.

"Why, Qianqian, are you always so solitary? Isn't it lonely? Can't I be your friend?"

When I pretended to be impatient and told her to stay away from me, she hooked her arm around mine and asked me this.

See, she was just that good, not even getting angry when someone gave her the cold shoulder, so good that I couldn't bear to lie to her.

"Because I'm sick here." I pointed to my heart, my voice hoarse and tormented, "So please stay away from me, okay? The feelings I have are different from yours."

Smart as Li Mengyan was, she immediately understood what I meant.

But she didn't choose to keep her distance as I had asked; she still stayed close to me.

I was

happy to have met someone in this world who resonated with me, but I was also afraid that others would notice something, so I always kept a proper distance from her at school.

Only off-campus did I dare to be unbridled, behaving arrogantly in front of her like a domineering beast.

Until, we happened to run into her no-good brother.

That was the first time Li Mengyan showed fear and disgust in front of me, and at that moment, I understood what Liu Pengfei had done to her.

Heaven knows how furious I was then; I wished I could kill Liu Pengfei.

But even in her terror, Li Mengyan remained rational. She clung to my hand tightly, desperately begging me not to do anything foolish.

"It's not worth it for someone like him, Qianqian. We're about to graduate. Once I get my guaranteed spot for postgraduate studies, I can start a new life."

But at that time, none of us knew that she would never get that spot.

To let her focus on preparing for the postgraduate assessment, I didn't tell her Liu Pengfei had been harassing me.

I didn't expect Liu Pengfei to hold a grudge against me for having someone beat him up, and he also eyed Li Mengyan as an enemy, mistakenly thinking she had ordered me to do it.

So he went back to his hometown with resentment and continually tormented Li Mengyan's father, until the old man collapsed and was hospitalized, then diagnosed with cancer.

Upon hearing the news, Li Mengyan was frantic, trying to raise money for the surgery.

I had thought about helping her, but she didn't want me to trouble my parents because of my "illness"; they had once considered disowning me as their daughter.

I was at a loss, crying as I apologized to Li Mengyan. She was already exhausted from the high surgery costs, yet she still forced a smile to comfort me.

But her momentary kindness ultimately led her into a profound abyss of death.