Meteor Garden -2001- -

The music was deep and raw, not a polished recital piece but something angry, something searching. It came from the rotunda. She crept closer, licking the last of her popsicle, and peered through a shattered window.

“Stay away from my son. Or I will destroy everything you love. Starting with your father’s stall. – D.F.”

Then he ruined it. “Don’t tell anyone,” he said, his old arrogance slithering back into his voice. “About… this.” meteor garden -2001-

“You followed me,” he said, but it wasn’t an accusation. It was a question.

“You have guts,” she said softly. “Guts are useful. But they are also fragile.” She reached out and touched Shancai’s chin with one cold finger. “I am going to give you one chance. Walk away. Forget you ever saw him. And I will forget your father’s noodle stall exists.” The music was deep and raw, not a

The woman was even more terrifying in person. Immaculate. A hawk carved from jade and diamonds.

Shancai looked around the meteor garden—the broken fountain, the peeling paint, the ghosts that weren’t really ghosts but the echoes of dreams that had cratered and died. And yet, here she was. Here they were. “Stay away from my son

“Everyone is scared,” he whispered. “But only you saw it.”

She didn’t mean to make a sound. But a piece of the rusted gate she’d been leaning on gave way with a screech.

That evening, she heard a sound she’d never heard in the Meteor Garden before: a cello.

“Why would I?” she shot back. “No one would believe me. They think you’re carved from ice and money.”