Standing Next To You-Chapter 537: Behind the myth

Fei Chuan woke up, crying.

He wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes. A lingering sorrow and emptiness remained in his chest, as if his heart had been hollowed out.

That strange dream again.

And for whatever reason, it had made him cry in his sleep.

Fei Chuan sat up, frowning. Not only did he have a severe headache from drinking all night, but the dream also weighed heavily on his mind. He wasn’t the type to cry—yet here he was, weeping in his sleep like a child.

Was it because the man... looked like him? Was that why he felt an unfamiliar sense of empathy?

His gaze fell on the bedside table, where a glass of water and a bowl of warm soup sat. Feeling groggy and hungover, he reached for the soup, but then he paused.

It wasn’t his favorite dish.

Still, he forced himself to eat. Today, he wasn’t going to stay indoors and drink. Four days of confusion and lamenting over the past were enough. He should stop looking back. He had avenged himself and cut her off—just as he was supposed to. There was nothing to grieve.

This was what he had been telling himself for the past four days. And this time, he would surely stop thinking about it.

After finishing the soup, Fei Chuan picked up a pen from his desk and started drawing. His sketchbook was already filled with several drawings of the graveyard he had seen in his dreams.

Every night, the dream returned. And every morning, the details slipped away, fading from his memory. Yet the emotions, the sorrow, and the emptiness remained.

So as soon as he woke up, he drew whatever he could remember—like the graveyard, the man who looked like him, and the fragments of scenes that lingered in his mind.

When he finished drawing, he looked through his past sketches. The pages were filled with images of the same graveyard in different seasons. The more he stared, the clearer the picture became in his mind.

He remembered the rain—the biting cold wind during the rainy season, the pools of water forming beneath his shoes. In the fall, leaves drifted down, covering the grave he always stood beside. He could picture himself kneeling, brushing them away.

He remembered the nights he came drunk, sitting by the grave and rambling about everything...

The scenes were fragmented, incomplete, and made no sense. Yet they felt so vivid, as if he had truly lived them.

Absentmindedly, Fei Chuan reached for the necklace beside him. His fingers traced the smooth surface of the blue gem as he fell into deep thought. Suddenly, he froze. His gaze locked onto the necklace.

There was something familiar about it.

It felt as though... it had appeared in his dream as well. But when? In what scene?

Fei Chuan tried to recall, but the harder he thought, the worse his headache became. He prided himself on his sharp memory, yet the details of the dream remained frustratingly out of reach.

Sighing, he gave up and picked up his phone.

He scrolled past countless emails seeking his attention and finally arrived at one from his intel team.

There was an attached file.

Fei Chuan opened it, scanning the lengthy report on the necklace. His eyes moved quickly through the text—until they abruptly stopped on a familiar phrase.

"...It came from the same set as the ’Tears of the Mermaid,’ along with a pair of earrings."

"...The earrings appeared at the Prince Auction House in Year 20XX and were purchased by William James."

Fei Chuan glanced at the necklace in his hand. No wonder it felt familiar. The small gems in the earrings and the large gem in the necklace were crafted from the same material, sharing the same striking color. They belonged to the same set.

He continued reading.

His team had successfully traced the history of the ’Tears of the Mermaid’—the necklace and the earrings together. The set had been passed down through generations of queens before vanishing during wartime. It later surfaced in ruins, purchased by a wealthy collector, and changed hands multiple times.

Eventually, it reappeared at the renowned Prince Auction House. However, when it was presented to the world again, only the earrings remained.

"...According to our intel, the Prince Auction House originally acquired the set. But at the auction, only the earrings were put up for sale. Upon investigating, we confirmed that the necklace had indeed been purchased along with the earrings. However, while in storage, it mysteriously disappeared."

Fei Chuan paused.

Disappeared?

Was it stolen?

His intel team seemed to anticipate his thoughts and had added a note:

"...We found no evidence that it was stolen or smuggled out. It was as if the necklace vanished into thin air."

Fei Chuan frowned.

How could something disappear from Princeton’s Auction House—the most secure auction house in the world?

And if it had truly vanished, why had there been no news about it?

More importantly, how did a necklace that supposedly disappeared without a trace end up in Lin Fei’s hands?

The inconsistencies in the story only deepened his curiosity about the necklace’s origins.

He continued reading, reaching the section where his team had traced the artifact’s history. Their conclusion was startling—

"...Due to the lack of records from the Before Common Era (BCE), we were unable to determine the exact year the necklace was crafted. However, based on our research, it is estimated to have existed well beyond BCE."

"...The first queen to name the set ’Tears of the Mermaid’ associated it with the legendary myth of the ’Cry of the Mermaid,’ which was well-known in ancient times. According to historical accounts, the queen accidentally fell asleep wearing the necklace and earrings—and that night, she had an unusual dream."

"She claimed to have dreamed of mermaids. From that night onward, she became deeply fascinated with mermaid legends, to the point that stories about them spread widely throughout the empire. Every envoy knew of her obsession, and they would bring mermaid-related tales from their lands to present to her."

"One particular envoy from a distant land received a grand reward after sharing a story with the queen. That story was the legendary ’Cry of the Mermaid’—a tale that soon consumed her thoughts."

"However, the queen’s obsession took a toll on her health. She grew ill, and the king blamed the myth, believing it had bewitched her. In response, he ordered all mermaid-related records to be burned and erased. He also forbade anyone from speaking of the ’Cry of the Mermaid’ ever again."

Fei Chuan’s gaze deepend as he read.

The necklace... and dreams.

It sounded absurd, yet the queen’s condition—didn’t it resemble his own?

Now that he thought about it, his dreams had started again the moment he received the necklace.

Could the dreams truly be connected to it?

Was the necklace...cursed? freēwēbnovel.com

No.

Fei Chuan exhaled, shaking off the thought. Maybe he was overanalyzing, drawing connections where there were none. It could all just be coincidence. After all, he had that strange dream back in high school before Lin Fei gave him the necklace.

Pushing aside his doubts, he skipped over some of the historical details and went straight to the myth itself.

’Cry of the Mermaid.’

The room fell into silence as he read. Time slipped away unnoticed.

Fei Chuan finally put down his phone, his gaze drifting toward the horizon.

Outside, the heavy rain had stopped. The dark clouds that had loomed over the sky for the past week slowly dispersed, allowing beams of sunlight to pierce through. Droplets of water clung to the leaves, falling rhythmically into the shallow pools below, creating ripples in the stillness.

Fei Chuan had never been fond of stories, nor was he the type to be affected by them. But for some reason, this one stirred something deep inside him.

No wonder the queen had been obsessed with it.

He held the necklace tightly, then stepped toward the window. He stood there for a long time, lost in thought.

When his emotions finally settled, he picked up his phone again and dialed a number.

The call connected.

"I want you to look into a place for me," Fei Chuan said, his voice hoarse.

His gaze fell on his sketches, and he hesitated. The person on the other end assumed the call had cut off, but just as they were about to speak, Fei Chuan continued.

"I’ll send you the picture. Comb through the entire country—or even around the world, I don’t care. Just find it as soon as possible."

Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps he was overthinking everything.

But... if this place- the graveyard that appears in his dreams- truly existed, then maybe—just maybe—there were extraordinary things in this world beyond his comprehension.

And maybe... just maybe... he could understand her.