“Are you serious?”
Cen Lingqiu asked.
Yu Mingjiao stared at her without blinking and hummed in affirmation. “Haven’t you found a place yet? Live with me. I have an extra room here.”
It was rare for her to say so much, but Cen Lingqiu was in no mood to care. Yu Mingjiao’s utterly shocking words were still ringing in her mind.
She had originally thought that the two of them sleeping in the same bed today was already beyond the pale, but she never expected something even more astonishing.
Living together was always for two people who were close. At the very least, both parties had to have no reservations to live together peacefully.
But had her relationship with Yu Mingjiao evolved to this point?
Cen Lingqiu belatedly realized that their relationship was heading in a direction she had never considered.
Coming to this world again, Cen Lingqiu was so relaxed that she had almost forgotten she still had a mission. Admittedly, if she were to live with Yu Mingjiao, it would be beneficial for her mission.
But for some reason, Cen Lingqiu began to hesitate.
During this time, she could naturally sense Yu Mingjiao’s strangeness. She seemed to really like being close to her, and Cen Lingqiu didn’t dislike it. On the contrary, she also enjoyed her time with Yu Mingjiao.
It was precisely because she enjoyed it too much that Cen Lingqiu hesitated. She didn’t know what unexpected things might happen if they lived together. If the distance between her and Yu Mingjiao grew smaller and smaller, what would she do about the separation later?
They shouldn’t be getting close. It wasn’t logical.
Yu Mingjiao was her mission target, and she couldn’t stay in this world. Overly deep feelings would only become a regrettable burden.
Cen Lingqiu was afraid of this happening.
She asked curiously, “Mingjiao, why do you want to live with me?”
Yu Mingjiao didn’t answer.
Because she didn’t know why she had made this request either. She just wanted to be able to see Cen Lingqiu every day, that was all.
She didn’t answer directly, only asking softly, “You don’t want to live with me?”
Cen Lingqiu said, “Why do we have to live together? I can live next door to you, or across the hall. We’d still be very close.”
She was rejecting her in a roundabout way.
Yu Mingjiao clutched the quilt, her eyes lowered to stare at the pattern on it. Her gaze was deep, and she didn’t speak for a long time.
She appeared calm on the surface, but only she knew that a violent storm was raging inside her.
She rejected me.
She doesn’t want to live with me.
Why.
Why can she live with Wen Zhi, but she has to reject me?
Is it because our relationship isn’t that close?
The moment she thought this might be the reason, a strange frenzy began to course through Yu Mingjiao’s limbs. She couldn’t accept this reason; it was like an invisible dull knife, slowly slicing through her flesh and bone.
The faint, subtle pain just made her want to go mad.
Damn it.
Why reject me.
How could you reject me.
What right do you have to reject me.
You’re the one who owes me, so why can’t you even satisfy this simple request?
Yu Mingjiao felt as if many insects were biting her body. She felt itchy and pained, and couldn’t help but scratch her wrist fiercely with her nails.
Cen Lingqiu didn’t receive a response from her for a long time. Feeling sleepy, she drifted off without noticing Yu Mingjiao’s sinister and terrifying face in the dim light.
She pressed her lips together, driven mad by her own conjectures. Her nails continuously scratched at her wrist, leaving one long, bloody mark after another.
A pair of pitch-black eyes stared fixedly at Cen Lingqiu’s sleeping face.
I want to kill her.
The moment this thought emerged, Yu Mingjiao was startled by it herself. She curled up, clutching her aching head, and moved closer to Cen Lingqiu as if seeking a sense of security.
Cen Lingqiu groggily sensed someone approaching. In her hazy consciousness, she knew it was Yu Mingjiao, so she instinctively hugged her, patted her back, and murmured, “…Go to sleep.”
Yu Mingjiao’s movements froze. She remained stiff for several minutes before carefully, clumsily, and tentatively wrapping her blood-streaked hands around Cen Lingqiu’s waist.
The feeling was strange. She didn’t feel any oddness at all; instead, her restless heart inexplicably calmed down.
Yu Mingjiao buried her head in her embrace, her long hair spilling all over the bed. Like a cold puppy seeking warmth, she hugged Cen Lingqiu tightly.
A dreamless night. For once, Yu Mingjiao didn’t have any nightmares.
Cen Lingqiu was woken by a feeling of suffocation. She opened her eyes to find Yu Mingjiao’s arms wrapped around her neck, her head nestled between her shoulders. Cen Lingqiu could only see a large expanse of soft, black hair.
This distance was too close.
Cen Lingqiu had almost never been in such close contact with anyone. She carefully loosened Yu Mingjiao’s wrist and then gently got out of bed.
Yu Mingjiao was still asleep, her face hidden by stray strands of hair, revealing only her pale lips.
It was still incredible to think that she had actually slept in the same bed as Yu Mingjiao.
Cen Lingqiu watched her for a few seconds, stroked her head, then tucked her in and left the room.
When Yu Mingjiao woke up, Cen Lingqiu was already gone. There was breakfast she had made in the living room, still warm.
She ate it quietly.
After graduating, Yu Mingjiao could work at x.r with peace of mind. Her job was relatively flexible, so she didn’t always have to go to the company.
Today, she felt a little dizzy, so she told her supervisor she would work from home, and her supervisor agreed.
Yu Mingjiao first finished a few client design drafts. Afterward, her head felt extremely heavy, so she went to her room to rest.
Today, Cen Lingqiu had a business interpretation job in another city district, a two or three-hour drive away.
It was a large corporate exchange summit where leaders from various companies would network. To put it plainly, it was a gathering for exchanging cooperation opportunities and making business partners.
Today, she was interpreting for a leader of a British pharmaceutical company. Midway through, she saw Lin Dong.
As the heir to the family business, it was expected that he would attend such an event. Speaking of which, Cen Lingqiu had almost forgotten that this world even had a male lead like Lin Dong.
In the past six months, his family had put immense work pressure on him, often sending him abroad to negotiate projects, which left him with little time to bother Yu Mingjiao.
Lin Dong saw her too. During a break, he walked over and asked, “Sis, are you feeling better? Why are you out working so soon after being discharged from the hospital?”
Although Lin Dong had a bad temperament, he cared a lot about the original owner, his sister.
“I’m just doing it for fun.” Cen Lingqiu had been interpreting continuously and was very thirsty. She chugged a bottle of water.
Lin Dong frowned. “But you were bedridden for half a year. You shouldn’t be out working. It’s not like the family won’t give you money.”
Cen Lingqiu wasn’t used to the male lead’s concern and replied casually, “It’s no big deal.”
Lin Dong remembered something. “Sis, have you been looking for Mingjiao again recently—”
Before he could finish, a young man in a pink suit called out to Lin Dong, walking over and slinging an arm around him. “Lin Dong, long time no see. Didn’t expect to run into you here.”
“He Hanzhou, weren’t you in France?” Lin Dong said.
The man named He Hanzhou had a wanton look in his eyes, exuding the air of a carefree playboy. “Ah, there was a woman in France who kept pestering me. I found it annoying, so I came back.”
Only then did He Hanzhou notice Cen Lingqiu’s presence. He let out a long “Ohhh,” and said, “This is—”
“My sister.”
Cen Lingqiu vaguely felt the name was familiar but couldn’t recall it at the moment. She didn’t pay it much mind. Her phone rang; it was her client looking for her. Cen Lingqiu said to Lin Dong, “I’m leaving.”
After saying that, she didn’t spare them another glance and walked past them. As she passed He Hanzhou, her gaze swept faintly over his neck for just a moment before she looked away.
He Hanzhou patted Lin Dong. “Hey, your sister just looked at me.”
Lin Dong was speechless. “She was looking at your wrongly buttoned shirt, you idiot.”
He Hanzhou glanced down. His shirt buttons were indeed buttoned wrong. He undid them and couldn’t be bothered to button them back up.
“Lin Dong, your sister really has an air about her.” He Hanzhou watched as Cen Lingqiu calmly interpreted for the foreigner beside her, her expression indifferent and detached.
Lin Dong sneered, “Don’t you dare use your womanizing tricks on my sister.”
He Hanzhou gave a lazy smile. “Hey, I was just saying.”
By the time the gathering ended, it was already evening. She figured she wouldn’t get home until the middle of the night, so she didn’t go to see Yu Mingjiao, just sent her a message.
—Just got off work. It’s very late. I’ll come see you tomorrow.
After Cen Lingqiu got home, she wanted to see what message Yu Mingjiao had sent her, but there was nothing.
Come to think of it, she hadn’t replied to the message she sent this morning either.
That’s not right.
Yu Mingjiao wouldn’t not reply to her messages.
Is she angry?
Because I rejected her request.
Cen Lingqiu planned to go ask her tomorrow.
The next day, Cen Lingqiu didn’t have work. She went to x.r in the late afternoon, intending to pick her up after work.
“Yu Mingjiao? She hasn’t come to the company for the past two days,” her colleague said.
“Why not?”
“We don’t know. She usually comes to the company, so we’re not sure why she hasn’t.”
“Thank you.”
After thanking the colleague, Cen Lingqiu drove to Yu Mingjiao’s home.
Yu Mingjiao still hadn’t replied to any of her messages, and Cen Lingqiu couldn’t help but worry.
She arrived at Yu Mingjiao’s door and rang the doorbell. No one answered. She knocked, but still no one answered.
The unease in her heart grew stronger.
Cen Lingqiu knocked for nearly ten minutes before the door finally opened.
Yu Mingjiao was in a nightdress, her hair a bit messy, her lips very pale. Her dazed eyes glanced at her once before she lowered them tiredly and turned silently to go to the living room.
“Why didn’t you reply to my messages, Mingjiao?” Cen Lingqiu asked, following behind her.
As if she hadn’t heard, Yu Mingjiao went to the water dispenser on her own and filled a cup. Just as she was about to lift it to drink, her hand seemed to lose all its strength. Her palm went slack, the cup fell to the floor, and then her whole body went limp, pitching forward and falling out of her wheelchair, crashing heavily onto the ground.
“Mingjiao—” Cen Lingqiu rushed over and helped her up, only to see that Yu Mingjiao’s cheeks were flushed, her breathing was rapid, and her body was burning hot.
She had a fever again.
Yu Mingjiao’s head was dizzy and heavy, and she started dreaming again.
She dreamed of Cen Lingqiu.
In the dream, Cen Lingqiu was standing by the sea, her back to her, her hair fluttering in the wind. Yu Mingjiao wanted to walk to her side, but wave after wave surged up, blocking her path.
Yu Mingjiao called her name.
Cen Lingqiu turned around, her expression calm.
“Where are you going?”
Yu Mingjiao said.
Cen Lingqiu just looked at her quietly, not speaking.
“Will you come back?”
“………”
“Are you leaving me again?”
“………”
She never spoke, just watched her quietly with eyes like a winter mist.
Deep and hazy, so distant that they were impossible to see clearly.
Yu Mingjiao was terrified. She desperately tried to cross the tide to get closer to her, but the waves grew larger and larger, quickly submerging her.
Until she could no longer see Cen Lingqiu at all.
The tide was suffocating. Yu Mingjiao found it hard to breathe.
A huge sense of unease gripped her heart.
She suddenly opened her eyes, gasping for breath. In her line of sight, she saw Cen Lingqiu’s eyes.
Those clear, light eyes held worry for her.
Completely different from the eyes in her dream.
Panting, Yu Mingjiao suddenly hugged her waist, burying her face against her, her body trembling slightly.
Cen Lingqiu’s hand, holding the medicine, stiffened. She paused for a moment, then her lips curved into a smile. “What’s wrong?” she asked softly.
Yu Mingjiao’s chest heaved violently. Feeling the warmth of Cen Lingqiu’s body, she slowly calmed down.
Her voice was hoarse. “…I had a nightmare.”
“Hm?” Cen Lingqiu gently patted her back. “What kind of nightmare?”
Yu Mingjiao was silent for a few seconds before replying, “I dreamed… that you left me again.”
Cen Lingqiu: “…………” She fell into a strange silence.
Yu Mingjiao buried her face against her waist, her voice muffled. “Will you?”
Cen Lingqiu licked her dry lips, laughed, and comforted her lightly, “Who knows what the future holds? Dreams are fake, don’t worry about it too much.”
“Come on.” Cen Lingqiu deliberately tried to change the subject. “Take your medicine first.”
Yu Mingjiao obediently took the medicine.
Seeing that she was acting normally, Cen Lingqiu couldn’t help but start lecturing her. “I told you I’d get you sick, but you didn’t believe me. Now you have a fever again. If you’re not feeling well, you should call me. What’s a phone for?”
“It hurts.” Seeing that she was about to continue her lecture, Yu Mingjiao softly uttered a single word.
Cen Lingqiu paused and, as expected, stopped lecturing. “Where does it hurt?”
“My hand.”
Yu Mingjiao showed her arm. On her pale, slender arm was a deep bruise, which looked stark against her cold-white skin.
“It must be from when you fell out of the wheelchair just now and your hand hit the water dispenser.” Cen Lingqiu went to rummage through the first-aid kit again, found some liniment for bruises, and applied it for her. Then she added, “Getting such a deep bruise from a light knock, and getting sick so easily… you’re really delicate. Why are you called Mingjiao? How about I just call you Jiao Jiao from now on.”
She spoke slowly, her clear voice tinged with a hint of anxiety.
Yu Mingjiao loved the way she looked when she was worried about her. It brought a great sense of satisfaction.
A little more.
Worry about me more.
“It’s fine,” Yu Mingjiao said. “Call me whatever you want.”
Cen Lingqiu: “…”
She was helpless. “You’re really… can’t you focus on the main point?”
Cen Lingqiu applied a gauze patch for her and said casually, “It’s a good thing I came to your place. If I hadn’t, and you didn’t call anyone else, what would you have done?”
“It would be fine if you moved in with me.”
Cen Lingqiu: “…”
She laughed. After all this, Yu Mingjiao had been waiting for this.
“So insistent on living together, huh?” Cen Lingqiu put away the first-aid kit and placed it in the cabinet.
“Mhm,” Yu Mingjiao answered honestly.
A flicker of hesitation crossed Cen Lingqiu’s face, but she still didn’t explicitly agree. “Let’s talk about this later. I’ve already found a place recently, on the same floor.”
Yu Mingjiao’s expression darkened, and her eyes turned sinister again.
“Right—” Cen Lingqiu remembered something. She grabbed her right wrist, her tone stern. “What are all these dense scratch marks?”
Yu Mingjiao was angry and didn’t want to deal with her. She pulled her hand away, saying coldly, “What’s it to you?”
Cen Lingqiu was snapped at for no reason. She bent down to look at Yu Mingjiao’s face, but Yu Mingjiao turned her head away, not wanting to meet her gaze.
Cen Lingqiu followed her gaze, tilting her head to stare at her face. “Why so fierce all of a sudden? Are you angry?”
Yu Mingjiao stubbornly refused to look at her, her words falling like hailstones, one cold word after another.
“Don’t you find me disgusting? I don’t need your concern.”
“…When did I ever find you disgusting?”
“You did.”
“Tell me.”
“You won’t even live with me.”
“…………”
Yu Mingjiao spoke coldly again, “Anyway, if I die at home one day, you won’t know. So take back your concern.”
Cen Lingqiu felt very wronged.
“You’re being willful, Jiao Jiao.”
Hearing this name, Yu Mingjiao’s earlobes instantly turned red.
Cen Lingqiu felt her temples throb. Young people these days were so hard to handle.
She rubbed her temples and sighed. “Just… let me think about it first, okay?”
Yu Mingjiao nodded. “Okay.”
“I don’t want to see those scratch marks on your wrist again.” Cen Lingqiu’s expression became slightly more serious and stern. “Can you do that, Jiao Jiao?”
Yu Mingjiao covered her scratched arm and pushed her luck, making a demand: “I can, as long as you live with me.”
Cen Lingqiu: “…Shut up.”
Yu Mingjiao: “Oh.”
In the following days, Yu Mingjiao would always send her messages, and the content was more or less the same.
—Bumped my waist on the corner of the table. It hurts a lot.
—Accidentally rolled off the bed and hit my head.
—Slipped and fell in the shower.
And so on. All sorts of accidents in daily life.
It made sense, though. Yu Mingjiao was a disabled person with limited mobility, so her daily life was naturally not as convenient as an able-bodied person’s.
Cen Lingqiu was inexplicably reminded of the Yu Mingjiao she had seen at the manor. Back then, her body was covered in dense wounds, some of which didn’t seem to have been caused by the original owner. Thinking back now, they were probably caused by her daily mobility issues. Her skin was also delicate, so it bruised easily.
Today, just after she finished a simultaneous interpretation job, she received a message from Yu Mingjiao.
She had only sent a picture: a pair of fair hands covered in glass shards, blood staining the entire hand.
Cen Lingqiu’s pupils contracted. She immediately called her.
“What happened to your hand?”
“I wanted to cook something, but I didn’t hold the bowl properly. The floor was slippery, and I fell.”
She said it nonchalantly, but Cen Lingqiu’s heart burned with anxiety as she listened.
“I’m coming right away.”
Yu Mingjiao hung up the phone and quietly looked at her blood-soaked hands. The shards hadn’t been removed yet, and Yu Mingjiao had no intention of removing them. After all, this way she looked more pitiful. She would wait for Cen Lingqiu to arrive.
Ever since she suddenly realized how much she liked Cen Lingqiu’s worry for her, Yu Mingjiao had been intentionally or unintentionally creating some wounds.
The pain could both earn her Cen Lingqiu’s concern and weaken Cen Lingqiu’s resolve to refuse living with her.
To gain so much from such a simple matter, Yu Mingjiao felt it was an excellent bargain.
Perhaps at the thought of seeing her concerned and anxious eyes again, Yu Mingjiao couldn’t help but smile, her expression both delighted and frenzied.
After waiting for no more than ten minutes, Cen Lingqiu arrived. She had already registered her fingerprint on Yu Mingjiao’s door a few days ago, so she could now come and go from her apartment freely.
“Jiao Jiao.”
Cen Lingqiu ran to the kitchen. Yu Mingjiao was slumped on the floor, her right hand hanging limply, a small pool of blood already formed on the ground.
Hearing her voice, Yu Mingjiao lifted her face to look at her. Her expression was innocent, her beautiful peach-blossom eyes slightly upturned. Paired with her calm demeanor, she looked both lushly beautiful and pure.
Somehow, her face was also stained with a bit of blood. Slumped in a pool of blood, she exuded a strange, dazed fragility.
Cen Lingqiu stood at the doorway, her heart pounding violently for a few moments before she quickly came to her senses.
The sudden sight of blood made Cen Lingqiu feel nauseous. She carefully removed the shards from Yu Mingjiao’s hand.
“Does it hurt?”
Yu Mingjiao nodded. “It hurts. A lot.”
Cen Lingqiu carried her back to the living room, sat her down on the sofa, and went to get the first-aid kit.
The first-aid kit’s usage rate had increased dramatically during this period.
Cen Lingqiu asked, “Why did you suddenly decide to cook?”
She clearly never went into the kitchen.
Yu Mingjiao lowered her eyes. “Hungry.”
“Takeout tastes bad.”
Cen Lingqiu had no response to this reason. She wiped the blood from Yu Mingjiao’s hands with a wet wipe, applied antiseptic, and finally wrapped both hands up like a zongzi.
Looking at the various large and small wounds on Yu Mingjiao’s body, Cen Lingqiu couldn’t help but sigh with heartache. “How can you have so many wounds? You’re not a child.”
Yu Mingjiao’s eyes darted around. With her uninjured hand, she tugged on the hem of Cen Lingqiu’s clothes, her dark eyes staring straight at her. “You know, I’m a disabled good-for-nothing. Getting injured is a common occurrence for me.”
Like a snail, her fingers slowly closed around Cen Lingqiu’s wrist, feeling the cool skin.
“Lin Qiu, I’m scared of pain.”
She blinked, gazing into Cen Lingqiu’s eyes as if wanting to live inside those clear, misty pupils.
Her voice was low and weak, yet so pleasant to listen to. When she acted spoiled with a fragile, pleading tone, it inexplicably softened one’s heart.
Cen Lingqiu wasn’t an idiot; of course she understood the unspoken meaning.
The back-and-forth turmoil of this period finally killed her hesitation. Faced with Yu Mingjiao’s frail wounds, Cen Lingqiu went against her own decision.
She sighed.
“Jiao Jiao, I really can’t win against you.”
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