Collar
When Lin Xingzhu realized something was not right, it was already two days later.
These past two days, Bai Xiying had been clinging to her especially tightly, yet it was not the kind of clinging she used to talk about. Bai Xiying’s current state was that she would not say anything, but all of her actions were expressing an attempt to hook you, making you wish you could nail your pair of eyes and your heart onto her body and not move them in the slightest.
The reason Lin Xingzhu realized this was because she discovered that she had not gone out the door for two days.
It is very normal to not work and be lovey-dovey with one’s girlfriend at home for a few days without going out, but in the past, Lin Xingzhu would still go out to throw away the trash. These past two days, even this activity of hers had been invisibly canceled by someone.
The main culprit came out from the inner room, holding a box in her hand.
Lin Xingzhu asked: “What is this?”
Bai Xiying lowered her head to open the box: “A collar.”
“A collar?” Lin Xingzhu was silent for a moment. “Did you bring it over when you came the day before yesterday?”
Bai Xiying had not gone back upstairs these past two days, and she did not have this kind of thing in her home, so it could only be that Bai Xiying had brought it with her when she came down early in the morning the day before yesterday.
Bai Xiying: “Yes, what do you think, is it good-looking?”
She tore open the packaging, casually placed the empty box to one side, and held up the collar for Lin Xingzhu to see.
It was a black leather style, with a silver chain and a bell hanging from it, and the other end of the long chain was connected to a leash ring, looking quite imbued with a certain meaning.
Bai Xiying flicked the chain and the bell with her hand, and upon colliding, they immediately emitted the sound of cold metal.
Lin Xingzhu was scrutinizing this collar.
Meanwhile, Bai Xiying lowered her head to look at the long silver chain and the leash ring. A flicker of excitement flashed through her eyes, but she quickly suppressed it, furrowing her brow as she looked at the long chain: “It’s too long, I should remove it.”
It would affect Lin Xingzhu doing things.
And the bell, it would also make noise and disturb her, so it had to be removed too.
Lin Xingzhu looked at the thing in her hand and calmly asked: “Who is this for?”
Bai Xiying’s eyelashes trembled. She raised her eyes to gaze into Lin Xingzhu’s, and brimming with a smile, she said gently: “If I said it’s for you to wear, would that be okay?”
Lin Xingzhu glanced around and said calmly: “Why?”
“What else could it be for? Isn’t this a bit of fun between lovers?” Bai Xiying said. “But it would be even better if you could wear it every day.”
Bai Xiying stroked the black collar, imagining the picture in her mind. “This way, you would be wearing formal attire on the outside, but underneath your shirt, the collar that imprisons your neck would be pressed firmly against it. Every time you open your mouth to speak or swallow saliva, the blood flowing in your blood vessels would rise and fall with the collar’s slight movements. I wouldn’t be by your side, but it would be as if I were by your side.”
“Because this was put on you by your girlfriend.”
Bai Xiying looked at her with a smile, as if joking: “This way, you would be my property. Even if I can’t announce it to everyone, its existence would achieve that effect on another level.”
Lin Xingzhu: “……”
She felt that her girlfriend’s anxiety was worsening, for her to even say such things.
“Are you still feeling anxious?” Lin Xingzhu asked. “Do you need to use this kind of method to express your anxiety to me, and hope to obtain satisfaction from it?”
She did not mention how absurd the words from Bai Xiying’s mouth were.
This was not like the remote control APP for a tiao dan1, which could be used to cast a spell in a public place under the cover of operating a phone. A collar was a more direct existence; its special meaning destined it to be unable to exist as naturally and fittingly as a necklace.
Lin Xingzhu dared to be certain that once she really put on this collar from Bai Xiying and went out for a walk, she would be guaranteed to receive a high rate of turning heads.
Moreover, going to work at the company—although it was already autumn, almost no one wore high collars, and an ordinary shirt would have a hard time concealing a collar with such a distinct color and shape.
But she did not mention it, yet Bai Xiying had already seen her meaning from her calm eyes.
“Yes, I am anxious.” Bai Xiying pressed her lips together. “But the engagement soon should have cured my anxiety.”
Bai Xiying lowered her head to look at the collar in her hand, which she had specially bought at a high price, and tugged at the corner of her lips: “I was just joking with you. You have to go out to work, how could I really make you wear it? It would be more like it if I wore it.”
She tugged the long chain and the bell with her hand, and the sound was emitted again. “If I wear it, then there’s no need to take these off.”
She was always staying at home anyway, and didn’t go out much.
Thinking of this, Bai Xiying raised her arm, found a good angle, and gestured with the collar in front of her own neck, asking her: “How is it? Is it good-looking?”
The hitherto silent Lin Xingzhu blinked her eyes and said softly: “It’s good-looking.”
Bai Xiying looked like she really liked it.
Hearing the answer, Bai Xiying smiled: “Putting it on, do I look like your dog?”
She pulled the leash ring apart and passed it toward Lin Xingzhu.
The long silver chain connected the two people; at one end was Lin Xingzhu, holding the leash ring, and at the other end was Bai Xiying, holding the collar and gesturing with it at her neck.
The black leather and Bai Xiying’s excessively white skin contrasted, the colors presenting an extreme difference.
Lin Xingzhu’s throat bobbed: “No, you are not my dog, you are my girlfriend, you are my treasure.”
She would not allow Bai Xiying to speak of herself this way.
Bai Xiying saw the seriousness in the bottom of her eyes.
“I am willing to be your dog,” Bai Xiying said. “As long as you, the keeper, never change and never leave.”
Lin Xingzhu shook her head, released the leash ring, and reached out to move away the hand gesturing at her neck, saying seriously: “Isn’t it good to be human? I clearly won’t leave even if you are human.”
She caressed Bai Xiying’s jade-like side profile, feeling the temperature at her fingertips, and made certain decisions in her heart.
Bai Xiying took the opportunity to bend down, shrinking into the embrace that Lin Xingzhu opened for her.
Beneath her cheek was Lin Xingzhu’s warm cotton pajamas. The soft fabric could not block her steadily beating heart, its regular thumping, one beat after another, possessing a kind of tranquil gentleness.
She tightened her arms, hugging Lin Xingzhu’s waist tightly.
“Who knows which will arrive first, tomorrow or an accident?” Bai Xiying muttered in her embrace.
She also could not say clearly what was wrong with her these past two days. She did not want to do anything, did not want to think. She did not want to think about how someone knew of her absurd and baseless fate from her previous life, which she once minded the most, and did not want to think about where exactly Lin Xingzhu knew all of this from.
But it was not as if the panic that followed her like a shadow would cease to exist just because she stopped thinking.
Bai Xiying had once investigated it; Lin Xingzhu’s arrival had been without any warning. Then what about her disappearance? Would it also be without any warning?
Bai Xiying always could not stop herself from thinking about the existence of “disappearing”.
Lin Xingzhu patted her back, her furrowed brows obviously showing her emergent worry, but the voice with which she spoke was as gentle and reassuring as ever. “Then don’t think about it. Regarding tomorrow and the future, you only need to think about one question.”
Bai Xiying’s head moved slightly. “What is it?”
Lin Xingzhu lowered her head and replied to her: “What to eat.”
Bai Xiying: “……” What you said makes a bit of sense.
The two of them started to get up to make lunch.
After eating lunch, Bai Xiying began the regular afternoon nap she had developed over the past two days, and Lin Xingzhu lay on the bed with her.
Her left hand was extended as usual, held by Bai Xiying as she fell asleep.
After a while, Lin Xingzhu heard the stable breathing of the person beside her and knew she was asleep.
At the same time, she had already arranged a time with someone on her phone.
A moment later, Lin Xingzhu began to try to pull her hand away, to no avail. Fortunately, she had already found a method.
She moved close to Bai Xiying’s ear and said a few words in a very small voice, then tried to pull her hand again, and sure enough, it had loosened.
One minute later, Lin Xingzhu felt her free hand and, light-handed and light-footed, took her outdoor clothes to the living room to change.
Before leaving, she turned her head to glance at the bedroom. Bai Xiying inside should be able to sleep until three o’clock with this nap; her time was completely sufficient.
Her gaze swept over the black collar that had been placed on the sofa, and Lin Xingzhu stared at it inexplicably for a few more seconds.
Wen Lin sat in the coffee shop by the window, looking at Lin Xingzhu in front of her, who was wearing a high-collared top as a base layer, and was somewhat puzzled: “Didn’t you say you had some things to ask me?”
Lin Xingzhu took a sip of coffee: “Yes.”
“Then ask away.”
As long as it was not seeking revenge, just asking a few things, Wen Lin would cooperate completely.
Lin Xingzhu rubbed the side of her cup and pondered: “Can you tell me about the Bai Xiying in your impression?”
Wen Lin was slightly stunned: “I’ve only met her twice.”
Lin Xingzhu looked at her: “You know that’s not what I’m talking about.” She stressed her tone, “The Bai Xiying in your impression. Don’t tell me you don’t know?”
Wen Lin: “……”
Grass2, how can she be so sure that I’m a book transmigrator just like her?! This attitude is so damn annoying!
Lin Xingzhu: “Since I was able to ask you out, I must have grasped some evidence.”
“……” Wen Lin suspected that after returning from the shopping mall that day, Lin Xingzhu had seized upon the suspicious point of her being ooc3 and gone to look for evidence.
But the key was that her impression had long since blurred; how would she know what the evidence was.
But Lin Xingzhu spoke with such conviction that Wen Lin somewhat regretted not having thought things through and made some arrangements that day.
However, the thought that this move of Lin Xingzhu’s was also a form of self-exposure made her feel a bit better.
“She’s your girlfriend, shouldn’t you be the one who understands her best?” Wen Lin retorted, but under Lin Xingzhu’s gaze, she hurriedly put on an appearance of thinking.
The Bai Xiying in her impression…
This impression was from quite a long time ago.
Wen Lin gulped down a mouthful of coffee and squinted her eyes to recall.
Actually, when she created Bai Xiying, she did not think that much. It was completely set according to her own experience of reading yellow content4; fair skin, exquisite looks, and a delicate and soft body were the standard configuration. After that, adding some special settings from Huang Wen5 basically completed the configuration that a Huang Wen female lead should have.
As for deeper things like a character biography6, there was almost none.
As for the plot that was meant to embody the character’s personality, that was even more pitifully scarce.
Wen Lin thought hard. The reason her book was later able to gather a wave of readers was that the protagonist must have had her outstanding qualities.
Lin Xingzhu waited patiently for her to think.
Her understanding of the original work was not deep, while Wen Lin was someone who had read the entire plot thoroughly. She could probe and piece together a “complete” Bai Xiying from the original plot through Wen Lin’s words.
This “completeness” was very important to her.
No breaking, no establishing; breaking and then establishing.7
Lin Xingzhu had always upheld such an attitude. Whether it was the decision she made after her feelings became clear back then, or her current desire to eliminate Bai Xiying’s anxiety.
And that was to pierce through everything and meet each other with frankness.
This was the “bottom card”8 that Lin Xingzhu had decided to play after she returned this afternoon.
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