Yu Mingjiao opened her eyes and habitually felt the space beside her.
Empty.
She stared with lifeless eyes, lost in a daze for a long while.
Was last night another one of her hallucinations after all?
She had seen Cen Lingqiu return to her side. She had held her, even kissed her.
That hallucination was the happiest moment she had felt in these five years.
Yu Mingjiao had grown accustomed to Cen Lingqiu’s disappearances. She was always like this, staying by her side for a fleeting moment before vanishing without a sound.
Yu Mingjiao could only wait hopelessly for the next hallucination.
She got up and looked at the pitch-black room. A sliver of light from outside filtered through the curtains as they stirred in the wind. In the crack between light and dark, Yu Mingjiao was forever shrouded in gloom.
A buzzing sound started in her ears again. Yu Mingjiao touched her ear. She sat up halfway in bed, her long black hair cascading down, her eyelids drooping listlessly. Her entire being exuded a withered aura of long-held stillness.
It felt like she was dreaming of Cen Lingqiu more and more often.
Appearing and disappearing, over and over again, had nearly driven her to her limit. Hallucinations were fragile; nothing could be held onto. She missed Cen Lingqiu.
She missed her terribly.
She wanted to embrace the real Cen Lingqiu, the one with genuine warmth.
She didn’t want to wait for Cen Lingqiu anymore.
Yu Mingjiao yearned for last night’s beautiful dream, but the sudden return to cold reality was suffocating. Everywhere she looked was impenetrable darkness.
Yu Mingjiao covered her face and wept softly in the silent, lonely air.
She really didn’t want to wait for Cen Lingqiu anymore.
She had had enough of this hopeless waiting.
I want to die.
I want to die.
I want to die.
Yu Mingjiao’s eyes were dark sockets, filled with stagnant water.
She dazedly got out of bed and went to the living room.
The living room was still completely empty.
She hadn’t come back.
Yesterday really was just my hallucination.
She lowered her eyes and took a sip of water.
Just then, the door suddenly opened. The figure of Cen Lingqiu appeared before her, holding a bag in one hand and taking off her shoes with the other.
Cen Lingqiu saw her. “You’re awake, Jiao Jiao.”
Yu Mingjiao’s eyes widened slightly. The hand holding the glass was incredibly stiff. She stared blankly at Cen Lingqiu, not saying a word.
“What are you spacing out for?” Cen Lingqiu first put the food in the refrigerator. There was almost nothing to eat in Yu Mingjiao’s home, so she had gone to the supermarket first thing in the morning.
“What do you want to eat? I’ll make it for you,” Cen Lingqiu asked as she placed the groceries in the fridge.
Only silence answered her.
Cen Lingqiu let out a puzzled “Hm?” and looked over, only to find Yu Mingjiao still frozen in the same position, completely motionless.
Cen Lingqiu walked over and waved a hand in front of her face. “Jiao Jiao, still sleepy?”
The glass in Yu Mingjiao’s hand fell to the floor. She grabbed Cen Lingqiu’s waving hand, her eyes dark and her voice betraying no emotion, though a careful listener could detect a slight tremor.
“Are you…” She paused. “Are you Cen Lingqiu?”
“The real Cen Lingqiu?”
Cen Lingqiu smiled softly. “Yes.”
“Jiao Jiao, I am Cen Lingqiu.”
She pressed Yu Mingjiao’s hand to her own face.
“I’m your Sister Lingqiu. Didn’t I tell you I would come back? I didn’t lie to you.”
Yu Mingjiao reached out to touch her face—her eyebrows, eyes, nose, and then her lips, confirming it over and over again.
“Impossible…”
Yu Mingjiao’s expression was dazed, her tone one of bewildered disbelief. “She won’t come back.”
“I’m just dreaming.”
Yu Mingjiao murmured.
“I must be dreaming again. She won’t come back.”
Cen Lingqiu held her hand, pressing it tightly against her own heart. “Jiao Jiao, feel my heart. How can a dead person have a heartbeat?”
Yu Mingjiao couldn’t hear her words at all. Her spiritual world was already a sealed-off space, battered by wind and snow, rejecting all warmth. She could no longer bring herself to trust anyone.
Over the past five years, she had thought many times that Cen Lingqiu would return. Perhaps she would come back on a rainy day, or maybe on a bright, sunny one.
But she never did.
Cen Lingqiu had appeared by her side countless times, but whenever she closed her eyes, the space beside her would be empty again.
Countless cycles of anticipation and disappointment had drowned her spirit time and again, until it finally collapsed completely.
She knew Cen Lingqiu probably wouldn’t come back.
She wasn’t from this world.
Perhaps she herself was just an insignificant, pitiful wretch in her life.
She would never come back again.
Therefore, she didn’t believe the words of the person before her. She thought this person was just another one of her hallucinations.
“She won’t come back.”
Yu Mingjiao repeated this sentence over and over, her forehead resting against Cen Lingqiu’s chest, her head bowed low as she ground her teeth.
“…She’s a liar, a rotten woman. She’s been lying to me all along!”
Cen Lingqiu was speechless. A sharp pain began to bloom in her chest. Yu Mingjiao’s scalding tears fell onto her chest like lava, burning her until she could hardly breathe.
What was she supposed to do?
She had returned to this world through great hardship, expecting to see a beautiful, vibrant doll, but what she got was a piece of low-quality porcelain, riddled with a thousand holes and cracks.
The person she cherished most in her life, the little beauty to whom she had always given her indulgence, had withered into an unrecognizable state over these five years.
Pale, emaciated, with an endless flow of tears and eyes that were perpetually red and moist.
Cen Lingqiu wanted to nurse her back to health, but she discovered she wouldn’t even have that chance. At most, she only had two months left.
Could anything be more hopeless than this?
Cen Lingqiu was in despair, a despair deeper than when she had died alone in her youth.
Yu Mingjiao’s hallucinations were truly severe. Cen Lingqiu had stayed by her side for the past few days, but she still refused to believe she was real, convinced she was a hallucination.
As a result, she was in a constant state of panic and anxiety. Even her auditory hallucinations had worsened. Several times, she stood on the balcony, gazing at the high floors below. When Cen Lingqiu asked what she was looking at, she would say,
“She’s calling me.”
Yu Mingjiao said.
“I hear Sister Lingqiu calling me, asking me to go with her.”
“She says she’s very lonely.”
Each time, Cen Lingqiu would say, “No one is calling you.”
“I’m right here beside you, Jiao Jiao. Look at me.”
Yu Mingjiao’s eyes were empty, containing nothing but a pitch-black void.
Her mental state grew increasingly unstable. Perhaps it was because Cen Lingqiu had been with her for so long that she felt a sense of panic that this hallucination would soon disappear for good.
She had already lost Cen Lingqiu; she didn’t want to lose this false hallucination as well.
She was uneasy day after day. Sometimes, while looking at Cen Lingqiu’s face, she would blankly wrap her arms around her waist, lift her face, and say with a mix of innocence and despair, “Sister Lingqiu, are you leaving?”
Cen Lingqiu asked her, “Why do you say that?”
“You’ve been by my side for too long. It feels like you’re about to leave.”
Cen Lingqiu’s expression stiffened, the corners of her lips twitching slightly. She spoke gently, tirelessly, “Jiao Jiao, don’t think like that.”
Yu Mingjiao ignored her words and suddenly smiled, saying, “It’s okay, Sister Lingqiu.”
She nuzzled Cen Lingqiu’s waist affectionately. “You’re here to take me home, right, Sister Lingqiu? That’s wonderful. I’ll leave with you.”
“So, it’s okay. It’s okay to leave this place.”
At first, Cen Lingqiu didn’t understand what she meant by that, but she finally understood later.
That day, Yu Mingjiao was washing up in the bathroom. When Cen Lingqiu noticed she hadn’t come out for a long time, she grew uneasy and opened the door to check.
She saw Yu Mingjiao completely submerged in the bathtub, with only her long, seaweed-like hair visible. Cen Lingqiu’s pupils shrank abruptly, and she frantically pulled her out.
Fortunately, Yu Mingjiao hadn’t been under for long. After being pulled out, she leaned over the edge of the tub, coughing violently.
For the first time, Cen Lingqiu slapped her—a light slap, delivered with the back of her hand, with the force of a mosquito.
Even so, Cen Lingqiu regretted it the moment she did it. Her hand trembled slightly.
Yu Mingjiao’s cheek turned to the side from the slap. Her eyes were crimson, her face a bloodless white, her gaze dazed and vacant.
Cen Lingqiu bit her lip, squatted down, and held her cold body, trembling all over, completely silent.
A tremendous sense of oppression enveloped her, rendering her unable to speak a single word. She couldn’t even cry. She just silently held Yu Mingjiao tighter.
She finally understood what Yu Mingjiao’s words meant.
She was too tired of waiting for her. She thought she was a hallucination. Perhaps in her heart, Yu Mingjiao already believed she was dead and would never return. She didn’t want to wait anymore, so she wanted to die.
Her appearance had made Yu Mingjiao more and more uneasy.
From the very beginning, Yu Mingjiao never believed she would come back.
Just what had she driven Yu Mingjiao to, for her to be thinking of death?
These five years must have been so painful.
Jiao Jiao.
That night, Cen Lingqiu slept with Yu Mingjiao as usual. The weather was gradually getting hotter, so Cen Lingqiu had changed into a set of light pajamas.
Yu Mingjiao’s cheek was a little red, likely from the slap she had given her earlier. She hadn’t hit her hard, but Yu Mingjiao’s skin was delicate and bruised easily.
Cen Lingqiu got an ice pack to apply to her face. Yu Mingjiao lay on her lap, her eyes closed quietly.
After icing her face, Cen Lingqiu turned up the air conditioner. Yu Mingjiao had a habit of kicking off her blanket in the middle of the night, and she could easily catch a cold if the temperature was too low.
In truth, it was also because she herself was afraid of the cold. She didn’t know if it was because this body was about to be abandoned, but she was more sensitive to the cold than before. Sometimes, if the bathwater was slightly cool, she would catch a cold the next day that just wouldn’t go away, forcing her to take a ton of medicine.
Yu Mingjiao was always exhausted by nighttime. Lying in bed, she subconsciously reached for the person beside her.
With her eyes closed, she fumbled around in a daze. Cen Lingqiu calmly let her touch her.
Yu Mingjiao’s hand unconsciously found its way to her neck. Cen Lingqiu had a deep, ugly scar on her neck, a long line that she was afraid would scare Yu Mingjiao, so she always wore a collarbone necklace to cover it.
But today, perhaps because she was angry, her temper flared, and feeling hot, she had taken the necklace off.
She had been so focused on icing Yu Mingjiao’s face that she had forgotten to put it back on.
And so, Yu Mingjiao’s fingers brushed against that distinct scar.
Her hand paused, and her eyes flew open.
She seemed to lose control of her emotions, her fingers tracing the scar over and over again.
The touch tickled Cen Lingqiu. She grabbed her hand. “Hey, Jiao Jiao, that’s enough. It tickles.”
A flicker of life returned to Yu Mingjiao’s face, like a withered tree sprouting new leaves in spring. A sliver of light appeared in her empty, dark pupils. She sat up, gasping for breath.
Cen Lingqiu also sat up and anxiously touched her face. “What’s wrong? Are you hearing those voices again?”
Yu Mingjiao’s breathing was rapid. She shook her head frantically.
Cen Lingqiu frowned. “Then what is it? Are you not feeling well somewhere?”
As she spoke, she began to check Yu Mingjiao’s face, hands, and heart, trying to see what was wrong. Yu Mingjiao gripped her hand with surprising strength. Cen Lingqiu didn’t know how someone as thin as a withered branch could have so much force.
“Jiao Jiao, what’s wrong with you? Talk to me—”
“Sister Lingqiu.”
Yu Mingjiao suddenly spoke, her voice hoarse with disbelief.
“Yes, I’m here.”
Yu Mingjiao’s lips trembled pathologically, her eyelids fluttering nonstop. She pressed her lips together tightly, and her eyes began to redden again.
Cen Lingqiu didn’t know what was wrong with her this time. Just as she was about to speak, Yu Mingjiao threw her arms around her in a tight embrace.
Yu Mingjiao’s body was shaking. It seemed she was crying again, letting out a small sob.
“Sister Lingqiu…”
Her voice was thick with violent sobs. “Are you finally back?”
“Are you back by my side again?”
Cen Lingqiu froze for a moment, then began to laugh, hugging her back.
“Yes, Jiao Jiao.”
Her own voice was trembling, but her smile was impossibly gentle.
“Jiao Jiao, I’m back.”
Yu Mingjiao finally heard the familiar voice clearly. She broke free from her hallucination and belatedly recognized the person before her.
All the suppressed emotions, cold and fragmented like snowflakes, suddenly burst forth, falling like a blizzard that left her trembling uncontrollably.
Despair, hardship, loneliness, hallucinations, auditory hallucinations—every oppressive emotion that had tormented Yu Mingjiao transformed into a snowstorm, descending all at once, and then melting away.
After five long years of numbness and decay, of being unable to cry, Yu Mingjiao finally wept out loud on this midsummer night.
She sobbed inconsolably.
Her violent wails brought a downpour to Cen Lingqiu’s heart.
Cen Lingqiu patted her back.
“Go on and cry, Jiao Jiao.”
“These five years must have been so hard for you, so it’s okay to cry.”
