Cen Lingqiu froze for a second, then patted her on the back and asked comfortingly, “What’s wrong?”
Yu Mingjiao didn’t speak, just held her tightly without a sound, her entire being wrapped in a dazed silence.
Cen Lingqiu didn’t understand her strange behavior, but this was hardly a good time to catch up. The crowd gathering around them was growing, and Yu Mingjiao was soaking wet, her clothes clinging stickily to her body.
“Let me take you inside first, alright?” Cen Lingqiu gently patted her back, asking for her opinion in a low voice.
Yu Mingjiao nodded and released her.
“Xiao Yu, what happened?” Director Zhou had just rushed over, her eyes widening in surprise when she saw Yu Mingjiao drenched in water.
Cen Lingqiu lifted her directly into her arms and said quickly to the director, “Director Zhou, I’m taking her to the lounge first.”
“Oh, oh, alright,” Director Zhou replied, snapping out of her daze.
Cen Lingqiu made her way through the crowd, carrying Yu Mingjiao to the VIP lounge.
Yu Mingjiao was completely soaked. Cen Lingqiu wanted to check the nearby wardrobe for some dry clothes, but just as she stood up, Yu Mingjiao grabbed her wrist.
Cen Lingqiu turned her head, confused.
Yu Mingjiao kept her head down, her jet-black hair hanging low, obscuring her expression.
“Where are you going?”
Her voice was quiet, laced with a subtle hint of panic.
Cen Lingqiu said, “I’m going to find you some dry clothes. You’re soaked through.”
Yu Mingjiao’s movements were stiff for a few seconds before she finally let go.
Cen Lingqiu went to search the closet but found no clothes. Just as she was getting worried, someone knocked on the door.
She opened the door to find Director Zhou, who had brought a few sets of dry clothes.
Cen Lingqiu took them with a word of thanks, then told Yu Mingjiao to change while she turned her back and looked out the window.
Outside the window, the greenery was lush and the cicadas chirped incessantly.
Cen Lingqiu couldn’t help but feel a sense of unreality.
Was it summer again?
Half a year had already passed.
It felt like it had been a very, very long time since she had last come to this world. Both the green branches and Yu Mingjiao felt as if she hadn’t seen them in several years.
After Yu Mingjiao finished changing, Cen Lingqiu took her home.
She drove, with Yu Mingjiao sitting in the passenger seat, her expression strangely calm.
The two of them hadn’t spoken since leaving the villa. A separation of half a year, a reunion after more than a hundred days—it was enough to freeze their words and create a sense of distance.
There was nothing to say.
And they didn’t know how to say it.
Even though their hearts were overflowing with things to say, there was only a strange silence between them now.
She drove to the apartment with practiced ease. After getting Yu Mingjiao home, she didn’t leave immediately but quietly followed behind her, entering the apartment together.
Yu Mingjiao stood with her back to her, motionless in the living room.
Cen Lingqiu broke the silence they had maintained throughout the journey.
“Have you not been eating properly?”
she asked.
Yu Mingjiao’s eyelids trembled. Her hands, gripping her wheelchair, tightened slightly, as if she were desperately trying to suppress some emotion.
Cen Lingqiu took a few steps toward her, looking at her gaunt shoulders, and asked again, “You seem even thinner than before.”
The familiar, long-missed concern was still as light and gentle as it had been half a year ago.
How long had it been, Yu Mingjiao wondered, since she had heard such words.
In the past six months, not a single person had asked if she was eating properly. No one had cared how thin she had become.
Because from beginning to end, she had only had herself.
Only that woman would ask such things. After she left, that warm concern vanished completely.
But only she knew how desperately she had hoped to hear it just one more time.
She would often fantasize that in the next moment, a woman would whisper in her ear, “Why have you gotten so thin?”
But it never happened.
And now that she was finally hearing it again, she found she didn’t dare to accept it.
Cen Lingqiu walked over and squatted down in front of her. She tilted her head and smiled slightly. “Still the same as ever, huh? You don’t like to answer people.”
Yu Mingjiao’s fingers curled. Her dark, profound eyes stared unblinkingly at the Cen Lingqiu before her.
“You…”
Her voice caught in her throat, as if she couldn’t quite accept this reality.
Her lips moved for a long moment before she managed to ask, “Have you woken up?”
Cen Lingqiu blinked calmly, then hummed in affirmation.
Yu Mingjiao pressed her lips together. They moved as if she had more to say, but nothing came out.
She didn’t ask why Cen Lingqiu had suddenly woken up, or how she had managed to appear by her side at just the right moment. She compressed all these incredible, unbelievable matters back into her heart with silence.
The atmosphere fell quiet again for several minutes.
Yu Mingjiao wearily lowered her thin eyelids and spoke very softly.
“I’m hungry.”
Cen Lingqiu inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. Thankfully, Yu Mingjiao didn’t ask how she had suddenly woken up, let alone how she had been healthy enough to appear at the banquet just in time.
Otherwise, she wouldn’t have known what excuse to come up with to placate her.
Because the situation had been sudden and critical, Cen Lingqiu had transmigrated back into this world—still in Lin Qiu’s body—on the very day she received the mission failure notification.
At first, because Lin Qiu’s body had been bedridden for half a year and was still suffering from the after-effects of the car accident, Cen Lingqiu could barely get out of bed.
She was afraid that some accident had befallen that child, Yu Mingjiao. Coupled with the fact that her body was in great pain and discomfort, she exchanged points with the System for a healing reward—a special bonus the System Center had awarded her one year for outstanding work.
Although it couldn’t completely heal the ruined body, it could treat the most critical issues. After Cen Lingqiu made the exchange, her body felt much lighter, and following the System’s directions, she made her way to the banquet.
“You’re feeling hungry, is that right?” Cen Lingqiu asked.
“Mhm.”
“Is there any food in the house?”
Yu Mingjiao shook her head.
“Rice?”
“There’s none.”
“…”
Cen Lingqiu pressed a hand to her forehead, a headache forming. How was Yu Mingjiao still the same as before, completely unconcerned with her own well-being?
She studied Yu Mingjiao carefully.
Her skin was overly pale, her chin sharp, and her eyes seemed even darker than before. Her hair had grown much longer, cascading smoothly down to her waist. Her exposed collarbones were gaunt and prominent.
Her face was somehow more striking than it had been six months ago, but it was far too gaunt. Her small face had no flesh on it, filled only with a frail, sickly air.
Even her wrists, resting on her knees, were devoid of color—thin and pale, like withered branches covered in snow, exuding an air of decay.
How had she been living for the past six months?
How could she have become so frail?
The only sign of life on her entire body was the red string on her left wrist.
Wait.
Cen Lingqiu narrowed her eyes, her gaze fixed on Yu Mingjiao’s wrist.
If she remembered correctly, she had been the one to give her that red string. But Yu Mingjiao had thrown it away back then. How did it end up back on her wrist?
Perhaps… she didn’t despise her so much anymore?
To be honest, seeing that red string on Yu Mingjiao’s wrist, she felt an uncontrollable, unconcealable flicker of joy.
“Then what do you want to eat?” Cen Lingqiu looked up at Yu Mingjiao.
Yu Mingjiao: “Anything.”
Then, she abruptly added, “You have to eat with me.”
Cen Lingqiu took a few seconds to process that, then lowered her head, a faint smile gracing her lips.
“Alright.”
The ice of their half-year separation was broken by doing something they had often done in the past. There were few words of solicitous concern and no intimate gestures.
“How are you?”
“How have the last six months been?”
“Have you recovered?”
These common phrases, typical of a long-awaited reunion, were not exchanged between Cen Lingqiu and Yu Mingjiao.
They simply acted as they had before. Cen Lingqiu made her a bowl of noodles, and the two of them ate a meal together in peace.
If there was one thing that was different from the past, perhaps it was that the hidden iceberg between them was slowly beginning to melt.
As the ice melted, perhaps a spring mountain lay behind it.
Yu Mingjiao ate her noodles quietly.
Of course, she also found Cen Lingqiu’s presence strange. Why was her body perfectly healthy? How had she been able to rush from the hospital to the banquet just in time to save her, as if she had known an accident was going to happen today?
She didn’t ask about any of it.
All she needed to know was that this woman had woken up and returned to her side. That was enough.
She was sick and tired of being alone.
Huge thanks to Wolfster for the support!
Enjoy uninterrupted reading experience with instant access to all chapters at your convenience.
