Yang Sijie sat on the grass and laughed, saying, "You can't learn it yourself, and then you blame others. I think you're just too lazy and should practice more."
Susu retorted, "It's clearly because you picked a bad horse for me. I want to change horses."
"This is already the gentlest of all the horses. If you switch to another one, you'll be even less able to handle it," Yang Sijie teased her.
Susu, unconvinced, said, "You underestimate me." With that, she mounted the horse again, trying to make it obey her and gallop.
But horses have their own personalities. It didn't go out of control, but it didn't pay attention to Susu either, leisurely grazing.
Yang Sijie found it even funnier. Susu stubbornly refused to admit defeat and said, "If I don't tame it today, I won't eat."
"Alright, then I'll have to see how you tame such a well-behaved horse?" Yang Sijie said, laughing heartily.
Susu pretended to be angry and said, "Don't stare here. This horse won't listen to me when it sees you. I have to tame it myself."
"Then I'll go make something delicious for you. You can do it yourself," Yang Sijie said, confidently riding away.
Susu watched him go, then mounted the horse and looked around to get a sense of the terrain.
As night fell, Susu was still riding her horse on the grassland, guessing that Yang Sijie would come looking for her since she hadn't returned.
She pretended to practice some basic riding maneuvers, and when she felt a little tired, she reached a hand towards the sky.
At night, the stars on the black velvet sky seemed within reach, as if one could pluck a star at will.
Suddenly, a shadow blocked the starry sky and said, "Have you tamed it? If not, tame it tomorrow. Go back quickly, it's very cold outside at night."
Yang Sijie saw that it was dark and hadn't seen her, so he had to ride out again to find her. He saw her still practicing her riding in the same spot.
"I'm not going back. I said I wouldn't eat if I didn't tame it," Susu insisted.
Yang Sijie said amusingly, "What more do you want this horse to do? It's already letting you ride it obediently."
"But it won't run fast. Look, no matter how I pull the reins or whip it, it won't run," Susu said with a frustrated expression.
Yang Sijie shook his head helplessly, then took the reins from her hand, mounted her horse behind her, pulled the reins, patted the horse's flank, and shouted "Giddy up!" The horse immediately galloped away.
Susu's eyes were watering from the wind, so she simply closed them, feeling the speed of the gallop, imagining herself riding at this speed when the time was right.
At that time, she would surely be able to leap over fences and gallop through the forest to escape this place.
Yang Sijie, however, mistook her closed eyes for fear of the horse's speed. He lowered his head and laughed at her, "You think this is fast? Then you want it to go even faster."
As he spoke, he slowed the horse down.
Susu pretended to be tough and refused to admit it, looking back at him and saying, "Why did you slow down? Who said I was scared? This speed is considered fast."
Yang Sijie smiled and said, "Alright, it's time to go back and eat. Doesn't your whole body ache after riding all day?"
Susu shrugged one shoulder and said with a pained expression, "It hurts. Fine, let's go back."
Yang Sijie tightened his grip around her waist, sped up, dismounted at the stable, and then helped her down.
As he went to tie up the horse, Susu shook herself free and ran into the house as if she were starving.
In reality, she was avoiding further physical contact with him and was pretending to be eager to eat.
Having to face Yang Sijie every day like this, and having to cleverly pretend to have amnesia and build a new relationship with him without any burden, was truly exhausting, and her heart often felt heavy.
But now, she couldn't think of a better way. She had to continue pretending.
She thought about how Qin Tianyi had pretended to be foolish for so many years to deceive Jin Meiyao and her son. What was her situation compared to that?
Yang Sijie looked at Susu's innocent back as she ran towards the house, feeling as if all worldly matters no longer mattered. He wished they could spend the rest of their lives together in this secluded manor.
Wasn't this also the life Susu desired? Simple and carefree, without any schemes or betrayals.
During dinner, he watched Susu eat heartily and gazed at her, saying, "Susu, let's go back to how we were. I carried you on my back, and you rested on my back as we walked back to the orphanage..."
Susu, annoyed, covered his face with one hand to stop him. "I have some vague memories of what you're saying. Can we talk about something else? What were we like when we grew up? Were we not happy then?"
Yang Sijie's carefully cultivated emotions vanished. It seemed she truly had amnesia, otherwise, how could she dare to cover his face with her hand?
He removed her hand and said, "We were very happy when we grew up too. We were childhood sweethearts, but the adult world became complicated."
Susu said "oh" and then complained, "Why can't I remember anything about what you're saying about our grown-up lives?"
As she spoke, she held her forehead and added, "Thinking too much gives me a headache."
"No rush, no rush, don't think too much. This is good too, as long as you're happy..." Yang Sijie was about to take her hand when the roar of a propeller suddenly sounded from outside.
Susu naturally and skillfully dodged him, immediately got up, and asked, "What's going on? Is it an alien flying saucer?"
Saying this, she ran to the floor-to-ceiling window and looked out. She saw a helicopter descending from the sky and landing on the grassland not far away.
Susu truly hoped that the police had found them and that armed officers would come to arrest Yang Sijie.
Yang Sijie came up behind her, pushed open the window, and looked at the helicopter, saying, "Mark is here. He's finally here."
Susu didn't believe him when he said that. But when she saw the person who got out of the helicopter after it landed, she had to believe it. It was indeed Mark, but he was also leading someone whose hands and feet were bound, and who wore a collar around his neck.
Mark led the person along as if he were walking a dog.
Susu rubbed her eyes, afraid she had misread, but as they got closer to the window, she saw more clearly. It was Kang Xi, yes, it was Kang Xi!
Susu could barely control herself, wishing she could leap over the railing of the floor-to-ceiling window and rush to Su Kangxi to see how he was.
"Don't you recognize them?" Yang Sijie suddenly asked.
Susu turned her head and asked blankly, "Who is Mark, and who is the person next to him? I don't remember. Did I know them before?"
She suppressed her impulse. She couldn't let all her previous efforts go to waste.
Now that she had finally seen Su Kangxi, she wanted to escape with him.
"Yes," Yang Sijie replied. "But the person next to Mark is very bad. He was originally our friend, but he betrayed us."
"Really? Then such a person is truly detestable," Susu agreed with him without any emotion.