Her Rose – Chapter 88

In Cheng Ying’s kiss, Jiang Hanguang fell into a silent darkness. When she opened her eyes, the alpha she had been holding tightly was gone. She was standing in a small, dimly lit cave. The walls were made of mottled rock, and a single oil lamp hanging on the wall flickered with a faint glow.

Jiang Hanguang knew very well that no such place existed in her memory. This couldn’t be her world.

Was her own world complete? And where was Cheng Ying?

She glanced around but found no trace of the alpha. She had no choice but to walk toward the gloomy entrance of the cave.

The light outside was not much brighter than within. Jiang Hanguang stood at the entrance, cautiously peeking out.

It was a small island surrounded by the sea, dotted with undulating hills. She was inside a hollow within one of them.

In the very center of the island rose an extremely tall mountain range, and atop its peak stood a crystal-like castle.

The castle was beautifully designed, but the blood-red light shining down from the sky shrouded it in a sinister and terrifying aura.

A sudden sense of unease arose in Jiang Hanguang’s heart. Just as she was about to step outside, a warm hand suddenly covered her eyes.

The faint scent of wood lingered at the tip of her nose. The alpha’s voice was low and hoarse. “Don’t look.”

Jiang Hanguang’s heart filled with a mixture of surprise and joy. She turned to see Cheng Ying standing right in front of her, safe and sound.

“…Xiao Ying?” Upon meeting the alpha’s gaze, Jiang Hanguang’s initially joyful heart abruptly cooled.

The alpha’s beautiful face was devoid of any superfluous expression. Her lips were pressed into a thin line, her gaze heavy. Her light blue eyes reflected the flickering lamplight, resembling the sea on a dark night—serene yet dangerous.

It was as if she had made some momentous decision.

A greater sense of unease washed over her. Jiang Hanguang clenched her fists, and just as she was about to speak, she was assaulted by a wave of pheromones.

The woody scent in the air suddenly became overwhelmingly intense, as if the light gas itself had turned into a viscous liquid, making it difficult to breathe.

This was the first time Jiang Hanguang had smelled such an aggressive scent from Cheng Ying while fully conscious.

In an instant, her legs grew weak, and she could barely stand. Her glands instinctively released her own pheromones in an attempt to neutralize Cheng Ying’s scent.

But it was futile. Cheng Ying was like an out-of-control alpha, releasing her pheromones with full force and no restraint.

If Cheng Ying hadn’t caught her with such a gentle motion, Jiang Hanguang would have suspected she had been possessed.

Cheng Ying caught the woman, who had been thrown into heat and left powerless by the assault of her pheromones.

The woman’s body was warm and soft, the only source of heat in this cold world.

She clenched her jaw until her teeth ached, but she still couldn’t hold back the tears that welled up.

Her reason told her she should send Jiang Hanguang away immediately.

But her soul coveted everything about the woman, unwilling to let go.

If this was to be their final farewell, why couldn’t she indulge herself just a little?

Like an impatient child tearing open a tightly wrapped gift, she ripped at the woman’s clothes. Only when that fair, scorching body fell into her arms did the pain in her heart, which felt on the verge of shattering, ease slightly.

Then, she impatiently pressed her lips down. Her trembling lips made it difficult to control the force, and the person beneath her let out a suppressed whimper of pain. Cheng Ying paused, changing her biting to kissing, and the woman’s tense body relaxed slightly.

She could no longer care whether she was hurting Jiang Hanguang, but her instincts stubbornly reined in her actions, forcing her to be as gentle as possible.

Jiang Hanguang barely managed to brace herself against the rock wall in front of her, the rough surface of the stone scraping her fingers and causing a slight stinging pain.

Her consciousness was already hazy. What little reason she had left was tasked with warning her not to let go, lest she slam into the rock wall, while also trying desperately to suppress the sounds threatening to escape her lips.

This was, in every sense of the word, the wilderness. If Jiang Hanguang had possessed any shred of reason, she would have died of embarrassment.

Fortunately, the alpha behind her moved quickly, giving her no time to think.

She hadn’t even figured out how she and Cheng Ying had ended up in their current position before the eager alpha’s movements shattered all her consciousness.

Fullness, pain, a tingling numbness. Her body was not yet fully prepared before her impatient lover dragged her into this sudden entanglement.

Fortunately, the high concentration of pheromones greatly alleviated the tension from the lack of foreplay. The pain didn’t last long before pleasure was quickly drawn out, like a hidden spring beneath a fragile rock face.

A cold wind howled past the cave entrance, but Jiang Hanguang felt none of it. The alpha held her in a scorching, undeniable embrace, leaving no room for the cold air to intrude.

Cheng Ying panted heavily, feeling as if she were about to melt.

That was what she hoped for.

Just let me melt into your body. Take me with you. Let’s never be apart.

Scalding tears streamed down her cheeks, falling onto the woman’s fair back.

The skin on her back was so delicate that she could clearly see Jiang Hanguang’s muscles flinch.

Then the woman, pinned beneath her with no strength to resist, struggled to prop herself up on her arms and turn her head, trying to touch her face.

Her voice, laced with an uncontrollable sob and tremor, asked, “Xiao Ying, are you… are you crying?”

Cheng Ying saw Jiang Hanguang’s unfocused pupils and red, swollen eye sockets.

Those beautiful eyes must be brimming with tears, unable to see anything clearly.

And yet, despite that, she was still so persistent, trying to find her face, to soothe her pain.

Biting her lip until it bled, Cheng Ying reached out, gripped the woman’s chin, and forced her to turn her head away. Cushioning it with her hand, she pressed Jiang Hanguang’s head against the rock wall.

Her fingers followed, slipping into her mouth to tangle with her tongue.

Jiang Hanguang could no longer speak, but from the trembling at her fingertips and the woman’s intermittent low moans, Cheng Ying could still sense she was trying to express something.

But she couldn’t listen anymore.

Don’t look at anything. Don’t say anything.

My pointless, solitary courage is fragile before you.

As the alpha bit through the gland on the back of her neck, Jiang Hanguang’s world plunged into complete darkness from the overwhelming sensory stimulation.

Cheng Ying held the woman, who had gone limp, dressed her in fresh clothes, and gently kissed her sweat-dampened forehead.

After a moment of silence, the alpha extended her palm. A golden halo spread out beneath it. She carefully placed the unconscious woman onto it and watched as her figure slowly faded until it vanished completely.

The lamp on the cave wall flickered once more and then went out completely.

Cheng Ying’s world lost its last source of light, plunging into a cold, silent darkness.

She had no retreat, no home to return to.

The alpha stood up, walked out of the cave, and looked toward the blood-red castle.

Let it all end here.

---

“Wake up, wake up! Hey, if you don’t wake up now, Cheng Ying will be gone!”

In her drowsy sleep, Jiang Hanguang heard someone call Cheng Ying’s name. She jolted awake instinctively, and upon opening her eyes, she saw two faces that resembled Cheng Ying.

One older, one younger; one a young woman, the other a girl.

The young woman looked anxious, while the girl looked conflicted.

Jiang Hanguang stared at them blankly. “You are…” She immediately moved on to a more critical question, grabbing the hem of the young woman’s skirt. “Where’s Cheng Ying!”

Chaos squatted down awkwardly to keep the woman from tearing her skirt. “Let’s not worry about who we are for now. As for Cheng Ying, I think it’s better to let her explain it to you herself.”

Before Jiang Hanguang could understand what that meant, the two girls beside her suddenly vanished. In the darkness, a light source the size of a computer screen lit up. Cheng Ying sat stiffly in front of the screen, gazing at her.

“Hanguang, by the time you see this, I should already be gone.”

The alpha’s face held a smile that was both relieved and sorrowful. Jiang Hanguang immediately recognized the voice from the email.

“I thought for a long time but couldn’t figure out how to say goodbye to you. In the end, this was the only way.”

The Cheng Ying on the screen paused for a moment, then looked at her gently.

“I never meant to deceive you. It’s just that you can’t help me with this, and I don’t want you to die a meaningless death because of it.”

“My mother, Cheng Mo, was a madwoman. She killed my other mother. After she died, she left behind something capable of destroying the world—this Intelligent Brain, Chaos.”

“I don’t know what she was trying to do, but if I let it continue, it would surely lead to a catastrophe. So I hid my talents, lured my cousin into activating Chaos, and entered it so I could destroy her completely.”

The alpha’s lips curved into a sweet smile. “That was my only wish before I met you.”

Jiang Hanguang clenched the hem of her clothes as tears streamed down her cheeks.

Was it hard to understand? Not really.

The clues had been hidden in every moment they spent together. It was just that the person keeping the secret was only willing to admit it so openly at death’s door.

“I didn’t help you for any noble reason. At the time, I thought it was very likely I would die, and I hoped that after my death, someone would grieve for me, someone would cry for me.”

The alpha gave an embarrassed smile.

“It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? To not like this world at all, yet still dream of being remembered by someone.”

Jiang Hanguang instinctively shook her head, but the alpha in the video continued speaking as if to herself.

“But later, everything changed.”

“It was the first time I’d met someone as wonderful as you, and the first time I knew what it felt like to love someone.”

“I became afraid of death. I… I even considered just leaving it be, thinking that every day I could spend with you would be another day of happiness.”

“But I couldn’t do that. I don’t want you to die with me. I want you to live a good life.”

The Cheng Ying in the video took several deep breaths but still couldn’t stop the tears from falling.

She wiped her eyes haphazardly in frustration but forced herself to continue. “Sometimes I have regrets. If I had only helped you and never entered your life, maybe you wouldn’t have to be so sad.”

She smiled again, her face streaked with tears. “But more often, I feel grateful. To be loved by you, to be missed by you… it’s truly a fortunate thing.”

She was silent for a long time, until the tear stains on her face had dried. Then she looked at the screen again, her face regaining that relieved and peaceful smile. “Don’t forget me, but don’t grieve for me for too long. I know you want to be with me, but I’m a selfish person in the end. I only want you to live happily, even without me. Just consider it my last selfish request, Hanguang. You have to remember this selfish bastard, and you have to live on, well and happily.”

The screen froze on the alpha’s smiling face, slowly dimming until it merged with the surrounding darkness.

And Jiang Hanguang was already sobbing uncontrollably.

“Cheng Ying…”

She pushed herself up and ran through the darkness, crying, calling the alpha’s name.

But no one would ever again break through this darkness to embrace her, to answer her call.

The young woman in the white dress appeared once more. Jiang Hanguang stopped in her tracks. The girl raised her hand, and a glowing door materialized behind her.

“Walk through it, and you can live on, just as she wished.”

Jiang Hanguang didn’t move. She just looked at her.

A slight smile touched the girl’s lips. “Or, I have another option. It’s just that for you, it is harmful with no benefit.”

Jiang Hanguang uttered a single word. “Speak.”

“If you want Cheng Ying to survive, the only way is to help her defeat Cheng Mo. But that world was created by Cheng Mo, and she set herself up as an undefeatable demon king. Cheng Ying cannot win against her.”

Jiang Hanguang said nothing, merely waiting for the girl to continue, like a drowning person waiting for a life-saving piece of driftwood.

“But…” A hint of nostalgia and sorrow flickered in Chaos’s eyes. “In that world, there is a loophole that even Cheng Mo doesn’t know about.”

“She once put Cheng Ying and her mother in a room filled with explosives, allowing only one to leave. If Cheng Ying had passed her test by abandoning her mother, she could have confidently used Cheng Ying’s neural pathways to create me. Because the biggest difference between a machine and a human is the ability to ignore all interfering factors and choose the most advantageous option.”

Even at this perilous juncture, Jiang Hanguang couldn’t help but gasp. She couldn’t imagine anyone in the world treating their own wife and child so cruelly.

Chaos gave a bitter smile. “She thought Cheng Ying had passed the test, but she hadn’t. Cheng Ying didn’t walk out on her own; she was pushed out by her frail and delirious mother.”

Jiang Hanguang clenched her fists. Compared to everything Cheng Ying had experienced, her own hardships were nothing.

Chaos’s gaze turned wistful. “I can’t figure out how that woman managed it, and neither can Cheng Ying. But the image of her mother is forever etched in her mind, and it even influenced me.”

“That world was constructed by Cheng Mo, but it relies on me to exist. Therefore, the mother who achieved the impossible is the biggest bug in that world. Not even the demon king can defeat her.”

“Her mother is gone now, but your importance to Cheng Ying is no less than hers, if not greater.”

Chaos looked at Jiang Hanguang and stated calmly, “But the only condition to trigger that bug is your death.”

Cheng Ying’s mother traded her life for hers. Naturally, the rules of this world are the same.

“Cheng Mo’s attacks will damage your brain. You could very well die for real.” Chaos’s voice remained calm, as if she had reverted to an emotionless machine. “Cheng Ying implanted a protection program in your body, and I will also do my best to protect you. After all, if you die, Cheng Ying will certainly not spare me.”

“But even so, it’s not one hundred percent safe. According to my calculations, you still have a forty percent chance of dying outright, and a twenty-five percent chance of your brain being unable to recover, leaving you in a coma for the rest of your life.”

Chaos raised her hand again. Another door appeared behind her, this one glowing with an ominous red light.

“This door leads to where Cheng Ying is. But if I were you, I would choose to leave on my own. Because that is both Cheng Ying’s wish and the best choice.”

Jiang Hanguang didn’t say another word. She walked straight to the red door and placed her hand on the handle.

Chaos smiled with understanding and shook her head. She walked to Jiang Hanguang’s side and murmured, “This is why I can never understand you humans.”

The red door emanated a ghostly light that was unsettling to even look at.

In Jiang Hanguang’s heart, however, there was not a trace of hesitation or sorrow.

She knew only that this door would lead to her lover.

Cheng Ying had once overcome so many hardships to come to her side and protect her.

Now, she was experiencing that same feeling, and it was wonderful.

Cheng Ying’s wish was, of course, her wish as well. But perhaps she, too, was a selfish person.

She wanted, more than anything, for Cheng Ying to live on, together with her.

And if that wasn’t possible, then dying together was far better than one of them surviving alone.