After Transmigrating Into a Book, I Was Played by the Black Lotus – Chapter 80

Unease

But her disappointment hadn’t had time to last long when Bai Xiying in front of her suddenly changed her mind.

Bai Xiying: “I suddenly changed my mind again. I think getting engaged is quite good.”

Lin Xingzhu looked puzzled: “But you just said it was too early.”

“But I have a sense of crisis, very worried that someday you’ll run away.” Bai Xiying picked up the empty coffee cup in front of her, turned around and began washing it with clean water first. Her voice was somewhat distorted under the influence of the water flow: “You’ve tied down my stomach with your cooking skills, but what should I use to tie you down?”

Bai Xiying asked herself that although she wasn’t a person of exceptional intelligence, she absolutely couldn’t be called a foolish person who couldn’t perceive the truth even when it was right in front of her eyes.

If yesterday in the fitting room she had sensed something abnormal from the conversation between Lin Xingzhu and Wen Lin, then afterward when Lin Xingzhu, who had always loved sharing with her, concealed everything instead, this seven-part suspicion had already turned into nine-part certainty.

“Getting engaged means a new stage where our relationship becomes closer, and it also transforms into an invisible constraint, binding us two together. This kind of relationship with constraining implications is looser than marriage, but more solid than a romantic relationship.”

Bai Xiying placed the cleaned cup to one side, then picked up her own and continued scrubbing it. “You’re so excellent, I also want to tie you down a bit tighter.”

Lin Xingzhu had very high moral cultivation and was a woman with a very strong sense of responsibility.

If they got engaged, Bai Xiying felt she would have an additional layer of security in her heart.

No one knew the anger in Bai Xiying’s heart when she painted last night.

She had once tested whether Lin Xingzhu came from the same world as her, and got a negative answer. It was precisely because of this negative answer that she indulged herself, nearly throwing off all shackles to sink into the tenderness that belonged to Lin Xingzhu, and fell in love with her.

But now, someone suddenly came to tell her that although she didn’t come from the same place as her, she knows everything about her.

The absurd and preposterous things she had experienced in her previous life, Lin Xingzhu perhaps knew them all.

Not only did she know, but Wen Lin, who had changed into a different person, also knew.

No, perhaps it wasn’t just the two of them. Maybe there were even more people who knew.

Last night, after Bai Xiying finished painting the entire work while suppressing her shock and anger, she saw a screen full of messages from Lin Xingzhu.

Word by word, sentence by sentence, all were proof of her caring about her.

Bai Xiying’s suppressed emotions eased a few notches.

It just so happened that after painting continuously for several hours, she was also hungry. She took out the cake from the refrigerator that Lin Xingzhu had specially made for her, and Bai Xiying curled up in the living room, turned on the TV and randomly put on a movie.

Night fell with drooping stars, but the curtains in the room were drawn tightly, with only some light coming through from the TV.

When she had nearly finished eating a small four-inch cake, Bai Xiying discovered that she had put on a sci-fi film whose plot involved overlapping timelines.

It was at that moment, in a flash of inspiration, that Bai Xiying suddenly understood something.

Dual spacetime worlds.

She came back from the past, changing everything, but essentially still existed within this world. And Lin Xingzhu was an existence belonging outside the spacetime she was in, a visitor to this world.

This was simply something that science couldn’t explain.

But Bai Xiying thought of her own rebirth, thought of Lin Xingzhu, and felt that bringing up science at this time was really too absurd.

She herself was already an existence that broke science.

But precisely because she had broken scientific boundaries, her existence had already extended toward another mysterious and unprovable unknown direction, and panic made people feel as if they were falling into an abyss.

She was like this, and Lin Xingzhu was also like this.

She couldn’t use words, language, or truth to explain Lin Xingzhu’s origins, just as she would be unable to use speech and words to fathom whether she would leave again.

At this moment, all the inferiority, anger, and suppression… couldn’t compare to her panic and fear of losing Lin Xingzhu.

Bai Xiying sat withered in the living room all night.

When the dawn’s morning light penetrated the heavy curtains, bringing faint light, Bai Xiying suddenly slowly calmed down.

She gathered up all her external emotions one by one, pressing them properly and meticulously into the depths of her heart, leaving no trace on her face.

But Lin Xingzhu was someone who understood her very well.

That exclusive antenna for capturing Bai Xiying’s emotional points twitched, and Lin Xingzhu got up, looking at her from behind: “Bai Xiying, what’s wrong with you?”

Bai Xiying lowered her head, placing the cleaned cups neatly on the rack, not answering her immediately.

After placing them properly, she looked at the two matching cups quietly leaning against each other and smiled with curved lips.

Only then did she speak: “I praised you, is that wrong?”

Lin Xingzhu kept a straight face and didn’t reply.

Bai Xiying sighed and turned around: “Actually, I just have insecurity. I need to get engaged with you to fill my unease.”

Lin Xingzhu shook her head, clearly pointing out the problem: “The problem now isn’t about getting engaged, but where your unease comes from.”

Bai Xiying looked at her: “The source of my unease is you.”

“Me?” Lin Xingzhu frowned in thought and recollection. “I recently… haven’t done anything else, have I?”

They had always been very harmonious, hardly ever quarreling. What could be called a dispute was only the sweet-spicy debate at the dining table, but that at most counted as the fun of adjustment between lovers, and wouldn’t create uneasy emotions at all.

Bai Xiying: “Think again.”

As Lin Xingzhu thought, her thinking turned to the phrase “too excellent” that Bai Xiying had just said, and she furrowed her brows.

“…This is impossible.” Lin Xingzhu said.

Bai Xiying looked at her with a smile.

Seeing this, Lin Xingzhu said with furrowed brows: “You yourself are also a very excellent person. I firmly believe that my own abilities would only attract your favorable impression, make you develop interest in me, and not make you restlessly uneasy.”

“Otherwise, we wouldn’t have gotten together in the first place.”

Lin Xingzhu still remembered the verbal sparring between her and Bai Xiying when they were testing each other, still remembered that the other party had never concealed her own intelligence and perceptiveness, and had never felt inferior because of confronting others.

This kind of emotion appearing in others might be very normal, but it absolutely shouldn’t appear in Bai Xiying.

Seeing her speak with certainty, Bai Xiying smiled: “Didn’t you say that sometimes when the mood strikes you like to go to temples to offer incense? Then you should have heard that Buddhism emphasizes ‘without desire, one is strong.’ Having desires brings suffering; without desire, one is strong¹.”

Lin Xingzhu was slightly stunned.

“From love comes worry, from love comes fear. If separated from love, there is no worry and no fear².” Bai Xiying murmured to herself. “When I hadn’t fallen in love with you, I was naturally confident and strong. But when I developed feelings for you, my heart became uncontrollable.”

No matter how capable a person is, when facing emotions they can’t say they can retreat completely unscathed.

Lin Xingzhu had a sudden realization.

“…It’s actually me myself?” she said with a bitter tone.

She had never thought of making Bai Xiying exist with unease and anxiety in this relationship.

Bai Xiying looked into her eyes that bore no gloom: “Yes, but seeing your reaction now, I’m a bit unhappy again.”

Lin Xingzhu: “?”

She looked at her uncomprehendingly.

Bai Xiying: “Why is it that I uncontrollably develop unease because I like you too much, while you’re perfectly fine with nothing at all?”

Does she not like her enough? Wouldn’t that mean she could pat her butt and leave at any time?

“…” Lin Xingzhu swallowed, facing Bai Xiying’s suddenly unfriendly piercing gaze, and spoke up for herself: “I think I know what the reason for this is.”

“What is it?”

“It’s because your body is too good. Every day I’m worried about whether I’ll be drained dry, and aside from work I don’t have the mental energy to think about anything else.”

Lin Xingzhu said: “Our bedroom affairs are so passionate, it’s hard for me to develop the kind of feeling you’re talking about.”

Bai Xiying: “…”

A moment of silence.

Bai Xiying raised her eyebrows: “Oh.”

Lin Xingzhu smiled, then restrained her smile and became serious again: “Your unease truly exists. Perhaps my very existence can’t help you dissolve this emotion, but what I can do is work hard to satisfy what you seek and enrich your heart.”

Bai Xiying asked: “Really?”

Lin Xingzhu: “Really.”

“Then tell uncle that you agree to the engagement.”

“I’ll tell him.”

Bai Xiying smiled with curved lips: “But although I agree, let’s wait until after I finish the competition to talk about the engagement.”

Lin Xingzhu agreed to everything.

After resolving this matter, Lin Xingzhu still hadn’t forgotten the doubt in her heart. She asked: “When did I make you develop unease?”

Bai Xiying didn’t answer directly: “You guess?”

Lin Xingzhu made no sound. She watched Bai Xiying kick off her slippers and lie down on the sofa, and already had the answer in her heart.

Starting from yesterday.

All of yesterday’s abnormalities now had answers.

But what was the origin of these abnormalities?

The truth had already been placed in front of her—it was the uninvited Wen Lin.

Lin Xingzhu took off her matching slippers, hugged a cushion and lay down on the sofa with her, picked up the remote control and turned to ask: “Want to watch a movie?”

Thinking of last night’s rather unpleasant viewing experience, Bai Xiying furrowed her brows: “No.”

She changed position and lay down properly, stretched out her hand to clasp Lin Xingzhu’s hand, and said: “I didn’t rest well last night. I’ll lie here and take a nap.”

Lin Xingzhu let her hold her hand, only asking: “Don’t you want to go back to the room to sleep? Sleeping on the bed would be more comfortable.”

Bai Xiying refused: “No, I just want to take a nap on the sofa.”

Seeing this, Lin Xingzhu didn’t persuade her further, letting her find a good position while holding her hand and cultivating sleepiness.

But did she sleep comfortably in this position?

Lin Xingzhu used her free hand to pick up the book that had been forgotten on the coffee table yesterday and continued reading where she left off.

During this time she wanted to use the bathroom, but before the hand being held by Bai Xiying had moved twice, the sleeping Bai Xiying, like a kitten guarding its food, gripped her hand tightly again.

Lin Xingzhu felt the force and helplessly gave up.

She could still endure it.

Keeping her left arm in this position continuously, Lin Xingzhu soon felt it going numb.

Her gaze once again pulled away from the book and fell on Bai Xiying’s peaceful sleeping face. She had been gripping her hand tightly like this for some time now—that extended hand must also be stiff and numb.

But even so, she still hadn’t let go.

Lin Xingzhu sighed, setting aside the pages dense with text, somewhat unable to read.

Bai Xiying hadn’t been like this when sleeping before.

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