You’re back.
“Qi Song is coming back.”
That day, Yu Luo suddenly received a call from Ah Ran. That clear and mellow voice carried an unprecedented solemnity.
“I feel like I’m detaching from this body…” Ah Ran described. “It’s very slow, but very clear.”
Yu Luo’s mind went blank in an instant.
After being stunned for a few seconds, she barely came back to her senses. “Wait for me! I’m coming to find you!”
“Don’t worry, this process will probably last for a few more hours.” Ah Ran’s laughter on the other end of the line sounded like it was coming from an old phonograph, not quite real. “But you do need to come find me. I have something important to entrust to you.”
Yu Luo’s fingertips tightened around the edge of her phone.
The tip of her nose grew sore, and her voice trembled, “Please don’t use a word like ‘entrust’.”
That word made her feel intensely that Ah Ran was about to leave and never return.
Ah Ran obediently changed her wording in a soft voice, “Alright then, I just want to talk with you.”
“Don’t hang up,” Yu Luo said, then started rushing about.
Ah Ran sat quietly on the worn-out sofa, her ear pressed against the phone’s speaker, listening carefully and intently to the various sounds coming from it.
First came the sound of a woman’s hurried footsteps, followed by a certain child’s clingy question, “Mommy, are you going out?”
“Mhm. Grandma Zhang will be with you. Mommy will be back later.” The woman answered quickly, followed by a soft thud—the sound of a door closing.
Yu Luo drove, hugging the street’s speed limit, and rushed to the building downstairs from Ah Ran’s home.
…
Opening the door, she saw the woman who was always cool and refined, now with the corners of her eyes red and her hair in disarray. Ah Ran’s heart clenched in pain.
“I told you not to rush,” she sighed, moving closer to give Yu Luo a gentle hug.
Over the past month, they had met frequently, and their interactions had become increasingly intimate. Hugs were a common occurrence.
Yu Luo could clearly sense that Ah Ran’s vitality was not as good as usual today, and her voice was a bit weaker.
—She was truly fading from Qi Song’s body.
For two years, Yu Luo had been hoping for Qi Song to return. But ever since realizing that Ah Ran would disappear because of it, this hope had been naturally mixed with an indelible sorrow.
Ah Ran finished the restrained hug and was about to let go, but Yu Luo clutched the fabric at her waist, refusing to release her.
“Where exactly will you go?” Yu Luo choked out. “You’re not allowed to hide it from me.”
“Since you’re also a complete soul, you must have somewhere to go. You can’t just vanish into thin air…”
The woman’s cool voice was soaked with the verge of tears, making her seem pitiful and lovely.
Ah Ran’s lips faltered for a moment. “…I’m not hiding it on purpose.”
“You, me, and Qi Song all have our own missions. Before our missions are complete, we can only keep all our secrets to ourselves,” she said seriously. “This is also what I need to emphatically remind you of today.”
“Taotao’s origins, the fact that your body would not be your own1 later on, anything that goes against the laws of nature—you can only hold it tightly in your heart. You can’t reveal a single trace of it, not even to Qi Song.”
“When the day comes that the dust settles, you will naturally know everything.”
Yu Luo had some trouble processing the information in her words.
“My body not my own? The dust settles?”
Ah Ran gently took her wrist and led her to sit on the sofa.
“I’ve told you before that Taotao’s physical condition has been unstable these past two years, occasionally falling into a coma, because she traveled from the future and doesn’t belong to this point in time.”
“The same is true for Qi Song. The one who is about to return to this body is also a soul from the future.”
“Their souls have violated the rules to cross time and space, so they will be rejected by the timeline. If this continues long-term, they might even be shredded by the timeline.”
Seeing Yu Luo’s face suddenly turn pale, Ah Ran patted her reassuringly. “Don’t worry, there’s a way.”
“I was, after all, born for the sake of consummation.”
Ah Ran raised an eyebrow, a touch of childish pride surfacing in her eyes that were gradually losing their light. “Your family of three’s consummation is my final mission. I can definitely achieve it.”
“There’s a saying: ‘As long as a person is remembered, they will never truly leave.'” Ah Ran said, “The more people who know and remember that person, the deeper their roots in the world’s consciousness, firmly integrated into the timeline. The same principle applies to the soul.”
“By increasing their exposure and leaving a certain degree of impression in people’s memories, their souls can be gradually stabilized.”
“And I have already found a path for you that is perfect for both sides.”
Ah Ran handed her phone to Yu Luo. “This parent-child variety show can not only quickly increase Qi Song and Taotao’s exposure, but it also provides an opportunity for you and Qi Song to spend time together, making it easier for you to lead her out of the fog. As long as you participate in the show for the normal recording duration, it will be enough to achieve the effect of stabilizing their souls.”
“Therefore, your primary task now is to get Qi Song to agree to go on this show—whether by threatening, enticing, coercing, or using any other means, you must ensure she cooperates obediently.”
“Additionally, before the show ends, you also need to have Qi Song mark you—your gland is currently in an unmarked state, yet you have a daughter with Qi Song. This also doesn’t conform to the laws of nature.”
“As for helping Qi Song regain her memories and accept you, that is another massive undertaking that I know nothing about. You need to be mentally prepared.”
Yu Luo’s dry lips moved slightly, momentarily at a loss for words.
There were too many questions in her mind.
For example, Ah Ran saying she was “born for the sake of consummation,” and that the soul about to return to this body was unexpectedly from the future.
She couldn’t help but ask, “If Qi Song and Taotao both came from the future, won’t that affect the future?”
Ah Ran shook her head.
She pondered for a moment, finally letting out a sigh and said softly:
“There is no ‘future’ anymore.”
“Time has already rewound. The former future was dismantled and no longer exists.”
“Yu Luo, you and Qi Song have to start from the beginning, to recreate a future that belongs to you both.”
Her faded gaze watched Yu Luo warmly, her voice growing weaker. “I really hope I can see that day…”
In Ah Ran’s weak voice, Yu Luo felt like she couldn’t grasp onto anything.
The truth was right in front of her, yet it was a chaotic mess, making her dizzy.
The future where she and Qi Song would meet Ah Ran a few years later and have Taotao had actually ceased to exist—
What on earth happened in the future that would cause time to rewind and everything to start over?
It was like a grand retraction of a chess move.
In her shock, various signs from after Qi Song’s departure surfaced and churned in Yu Luo’s mind, threatening to drown her completely.
Suddenly, an answer was ready to come out at a call2.
Her heart trembled.
Her lips faltered, and she said slowly, “Did something happen to someone.”
A thick undercurrent of emotion surged in Yu Luo’s eyes, gradually churning and overturning, about to spill out.
“And,” she lowered her eyes, whispering in a moment of epiphany, “that person should be—”
“Stop guessing!”
Ah Ran suddenly interrupted her urgently, the two words almost shouted.
She was already weak, and forcing herself to speak so forcefully left her even more exhausted.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”
The corners of Ah Ran’s eyes were red. She closed them and said weakly, “In these final moments, just hold me, Yu Luo.”
Yu Luo bit her lower lip hard, breaking the soft skin and drawing bright red blood.
She raised a hand to wipe away her tears messily and turned to hug Ah Ran.
As if holding her own dearest child, she stroked Ah Ran’s head and patted her back.
Ah Ran spoke softly into the crook of her neck, “I spent my life striving for the consummation of others, but the day I met you, I met my own consummation.”
“I will always like you.”
“Please, you must find each other with Qi Song and live happily ever after.”
“Oh, and that little brat Taotao.” Ah Ran’s lips curved weakly. “I’m so jealous of her.”
“Don’t be jealous.” Yu Luo’s tears flowed fiercely, streaming onto Ah Ran’s shoulder and soaking a patch of fabric. “If you stay, I will love you just as I love her.”
She used love as a plea to stay, and Ah Ran desperately wanted to take the bait.
But she had the heart but not the strength3.
“Your words are enough,” Ah Ran murmured. “I always wanted to hear those words before, but unfortunately, I was too foolish…”
“I’m getting a little sleepy.”
Her voice grew quieter and quieter, pleading softly, “Can I fall asleep in your arms?”
Yu Luo was crying so hard her whole body trembled. She held Ah Ran tightly, her sore throat unable to form words for a moment.
“You can,” she managed to squeeze out an answer, her tone pitifully distorted.
“But, can you remember to wake up…”
The woman’s last word dissolved into a sob.
…
“Mommy, what is this?”
Taotao looked curiously at the white paper in Yu Luo’s hand.
“It’s a contract.” Yu Luo gave the terms in the contract one last check before putting the paper away in her bag.
She sat down on the sofa, bent over to lift Taotao onto her lap, and turned her head to look out the floor-to-ceiling window.
The bright sunlight did not illuminate the gloom in her eyes.
After Ah Ran left, Qi Song’s body fell into a deep sleep and had yet to wake up.
Thanks to Qi Song and Ah Ran’s previous warnings, she was already mentally prepared—the awakened Qi Song would likely believe herself to be a down-and-out unlucky devil4, having forgotten both Yu Luo and herself.
To ensure there was no chance of error in getting her on the variety show, she had drafted a contract. The one hundred million could both make the currently-in-a-bind Qi Song obediently submit and also cover all those debts.
“I destroyed everything Qi Song had; that was her price to pay,” Ah Ran had once said. “But after that, her life is free and wide open. She can very well build a new career for herself.”
Thinking of this, the rims of Yu Luo’s eyes reddened again.
Ah Ran was really gone, leaving nothing behind.
She couldn’t even find the Doraemon doll that Ah Ran had treasured in that rental apartment.
“Mommy, don’t cry.”
Taotao looked at her with concern and planted a soft, comforting peck on her cheek.
Yu Luo shook her head, stroked her daughter’s head, and gently kissed her back. “Mommy’s fine.”
In the past two years, she had been worn down so much that she had grown somewhat numb to the pain in her heart.
She didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
As she was lost in thought, her phone suddenly vibrated.
With a suddenly intense premonition, Yu Luo’s chest tightened. She immediately picked up her phone to look.
“…You’re back,” she murmured.
With Ah Ran’s previous reminder, she hadn’t waited in the rental apartment for Qi Song to wake up, instead leaving that person some time and space to adjust.
But she had made a setting on Qi Song’s phone so that as soon as Qi Song lit up the screen, she would know.
Yu Luo stood up, contacting her assistant and driver, Xiao Zhang, while picking up Taotao. “Mommy is taking you to meet someone.”
Taotao obediently lay in her arms and let out an “Mhm.” “Who is it?”
The word “Mama” on the tip of her tongue was just barely stopped. Yu Luo decided not to tell Taotao yet, wanting to observe the reaction between the mother and daughter first.
The closer she got to the rental apartment, the more nervous Yu Luo became.
A cold sweat was even faintly forming in her palms.
Amidst her increasingly chaotic heartbeat, Yu Luo sensed an ominous premonition.
It was very strong.
She took a few deep breaths, quickly led Taotao around the corner of the staircase, and saw at a glance that the old wooden door of the rental unit was broken and open, as if someone had violently forced their way in.
In an instant, Yu Luo’s pupils contracted sharply. Her fingertips dug into her palm, sending a wave of unbearable pain.
She rushed to the doorway and saw a man with a fierce and malicious expression cornering Qi Song, raising a knife to strike—
“Wait!”
She cried out, her voice trembling.
…
Yu Luo appeared calm on the surface, but in reality, the fingertips touching the screen were trembling.
There was a limit on bank transfers, so repaying the three million debt required multiple payments. She took the opportunity to report to the police via text message.
After she was done, she kept talking to the debt collector to stall for time while discreetly observing Qi Song out of the corner of her eye.
The way that person looked at her was filled with gratitude and assessment, as if looking at a strange savior.
…She really didn’t remember her.
Later, when the police came to take statements, beads of sweat appeared on Qi Song’s forehead, as if from fear or weakness.
Yu Luo couldn’t resist taking out a tissue to gently wipe her brow.
She could feel the young woman’s breath catch suddenly.
She remained completely still, letting her do as she pleased, as obedient as a large dog.
“Thank you,” Qi Song said in a small voice as she withdrew her hand.
Yu Luo broke into a gentle smile.
She knew Qi Song too well. She easily saw that in the instant she smiled, a dark light flickered in the eyes of a certain someone who was staring at her intently.
It was like one glance concentrating the heart5.
Ah Ran had instructed her to completely cooperate with Qi Song’s perception and pace, so Yu Luo had originally planned to start as friends with Qi Song and approach her step by step.
But now she realized that wouldn’t work.
Her heart was itching.
Especially after seeing Qi Song’s lingering fear from having her life threatened, and after realizing that the amnesiac Qi Song had fallen in love with her at first sight.
They were once so intimate, liked each other so much, and even had a three-year-old daughter. On what grounds should they go back to being ordinary friends?
At the very least, it had to be a flirtatious relationship. She needed physical and emotional contact to soothe her heart that had been in pain for two years.
With the relief of her lost puppy finally returning to her side, and with the smooth and rapid development of the current situation, Yu Luo felt a long-lost sense of relaxation and joy.
…….However, Qi Song’s “love at first sight” for her seemed to have suddenly dissipated.
After Taotao introduced herself, a look of shock and annoyance appeared in the young woman’s eyes.
Yu Luo read that look and realized with a start—
Qi Song had some sort of major misunderstanding.
Suppressing the confusion in her heart, Yu Luo didn’t dare to act rashly. She tossed the contract to Qi Song and turned to leave.
She opened the app on her phone that monitored Qi Song’s phone, feeling a bit hesitant.
She didn’t want to invade Qi Song’s personal space, but for the sake of their future, she couldn’t be completely without information.
Ah Ran had said that the slightest misstep could lead to unimaginable consequences.
After hesitating for a moment, Yu Luo still turned on the listening function and happened to hear the content of Qi Song’s phone call with a friend.
—So it turned out that in Qi Song’s eyes, her persona was that of an ex-girlfriend who had cheated and had a child.
After the call ended, Yu Luo gently raised an eyebrow.
She wasn’t hurt, though.
“If, when I come back, I forget you, avoid you, or even misunderstand you with malicious and twisted thoughts, I beg you not to stop liking me because of it. I don’t mean it.”
Qi Song had once pitifully emphasized this.
“Then I’ll just be the scum woman,” Yu Luo murmured, ruffling her daughter’s head, a slight smile playing on her lips.
“Teasing you like this is also very interesting…” Yu Luo murmured. “It’s much happier than you not being by my side.”
Yu Luo was caught in a complex state of mind.
Sometimes, she felt a little wronged, wanting Qi Song to take the initiative to hug her gently and full of love.
Sometimes, watching Qi Song, who on one hand thought she was scum but on the other couldn’t stop herself from being good to her, she felt a different kind of sweetness.
She knew all too well how much of a moral compass Qi Song had.
Secretly cheating and having a child—to Qi Song, this was definitely an incomprehensible moral failing.
If it were anyone else, Qi Song would only retreat three she6 and be filled with disdain.
But this person could never truly reject her. Her mouth was stubborn, but in every detail, she loved her instinctively.
That was why in the bathroom of that dilapidated farmhouse that day, when she saw Qi Song seriously say she didn’t like her, Yu Luo actually almost burst out laughing.
Watching Qi Song’s stubbornness where the mouth says yes while the heart says no from a God’s perspective was sometimes a great pleasure.
Silently handing her medicine and candy when she saw she had a cold, pitifully demanding she sit in the center of the small boat out of fear she’d fall into the lake, confessing that her “heart was very sour, yet very moved” after getting drunk, getting jealous and competing for favor with her past self…
Yu Luo had always known how much Qi Song loved her, but this time, in a brand new situation and from a perspective she had never imagined, she once again clearly reread that love.
It was unconditional, as tolerant as the deep sea.
Even when faced with her “child with another person,” Qi Song managed to cherish and care for Taotao sincerely, where loving the house extends to the crows on its roof7, treating Taotao as her own.
“I will always love you, deeper than you can ever imagine.”—Qi Song had said this during her brief return in her differentiation period.
She had never told a lie.
From the day Qi Song realized her identity, Yu Luo was both overjoyed and apprehensive.
They quickly returned to the sweet-as-honey atmosphere of their past relationship, so fervent it seemed they wanted to fill the void of the missing two years and the already dismantled future.
But she also had a faint worry.
Sooner or later, Qi Song would ask her what had happened. At that time, how could she harden her heart and be speaking of it without detail8, letting Qi Song drown in a fog?
She also needed to have Qi Song mark her before the end of the variety show. Although she and Qi Song had been marked in the future, the current her was not yet mentally prepared.
These two matters occupied her mind, becoming her biggest worries.
But Qi Song still embraced all of this with love.
She would rather be trapped in confusion and unease than break her silence, tolerating all of Yu Luo’s secrets.
She repeatedly refused her invitations for a marking, gently pausing before the fear Yu Luo inadvertently revealed.
It couldn’t be more selfless and pure.
…
Tomorrow was the last day of the variety show, and also what Ah Ran had called the day “the dust settles.”
In the bathroom, amidst the sudden vulnerability and unbearable heat of her fever period, she forced Qi Song to bite her gland.
In that instant of sharp pain and the pleasure of being possessed, countless images flashed through Yu Luo’s mind.
The feeling of her heart like dead ashes9 when she was violently pressed against a dilapidated wall and injected with the “Fragrance-Inducing Factor.”
The trembling hand of her mother on the day she sent her to her grandmother’s house, admitting she “abandoned her because she hated the smell of her pheromones.”
The young Qi Song appearing before her for the first time, draping her jacket over her rigid, cold body, enveloping her in warmth.
The tears that suddenly surged in Qi Song’s eyes when she was squatting in a desolate corner of her backyard, crying while shoveling rice into her mouth, and was asked by her, “Do you want to have a small home with me?”
Her standing under the phoenix tree waiting for Qi Song to get out of evening self-study, the girl running towards her impatiently with her schoolbag on her back, the hem of her school uniform flying.
Her sitting in the driver’s seat of the small car, Qi Song knocking on her window, poking her head in, and rubbing against her palm.
The moment she woke up after being in a coma for a month, the girl staring at her unblinkingly by the hospital bed, her reddened eyes and trembling, dry lips.
On a night with a rich moon, on the balcony, the precious and shy touch when Qi Song lowered her head to kiss her.
Being so busy with work they hadn’t seen each other for a month, Qi Song standing downstairs from her building, on the phone, saying she was feeling the wind from outside her window.
The exhilarating passion on the giant rock in the sea breeze, the romantic masquerade ball at midnight.
Them enjoying fervent pleasure, jointly looking forward to revisiting the giant rock, only to be met with that sudden separation the next day.
Taotao’s tender and cute little face, the softness of her stumbling into her arms.
Ah Ran’s cheerful back as she left after delivering the birthday cake, her mature gaze mixed with a childish light.
During the differentiation period, when Qi Song briefly returned, the blood-curdlingly painful “I miss you so much.”
The warmth of Ah Ran nestled in her arms as she disappeared.
After Qi Song returned, the shyness of being nineteen again, the stubbornness that, in its desire to conceal, only made things more conspicuous10, the silent, deep tolerance and love…
…
As the past surged through her mind, Yu Luo felt as if her life had been so long that she had already experienced a thousand sails11.
But Ah Ran had said that she and Qi Song were just beginning, that they had to recreate a future that belonged to them.
That future seemed to be right before her eyes.
When tomorrow arrived, all the dust would settle, and she would part the clouds and see the sun12.
She couldn’t help but feel a sense of dread about the final truth that was so close.
“Ngh…” The bite on her gland was unbearable.
Qi Song’s pheromones flowed into her gland, bringing a spiritual intoxication and tremor.
She trembled, tilting her head slightly to ask Qi Song:
“…My pheromones, what do they smell like?”
But the moment she asked, she had actually already completely let go of this question.
Everything else was insignificant.
She only cared if the dust could truly settle, and if there was any possibility of Ah Ran coming back.
She prayed devoutly, willing to give everything—
Wanting the three people she loved to be by her side always in the future.
The author has something to say:
The flashback completely ends here. It was much longer than I expected. The next chapter will return to the present time, which is the end of Chapter 72. It’s really about to end (rubbing hands).
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