Alone, Beautifully – Chapter 109
by Little PandaMy Wife (21)
I love you, do you know that?
Walking on the way to the cafeteria, Xu Jiao rarely didn’t just look down at the path under her feet today, but instead observed the pedestrians around her, ignoring Zheng Zhiyu’s questioning behind her:
“Are you not going to explain what you said earlier, Jiaojiao?”
Xu Jiao turned a deaf ear, fully displaying her previous experience as an actress, as if she was like everyone else around her, seemingly unable to hear any extra sounds. Her gaze swept around the surroundings, and after entering the cafeteria to buy a steaming portion of thin-skinned xiaolongbao and a cup of hot soy milk, she walked out carrying two white transparent plastic bags, with steam still rising from the tied openings of the bags.
Zheng Zhiyu reminded her many times in succession, but didn’t see any reaction from her.
Left with no choice, she could only run to Xu Jiao’s side and blow air into her ear, her voice carrying a hint of annoyance: “You were the one who seduced me first, just you wait tonight.”
At this moment, there happened to be no students around, with tall trees on both sides of the road that could block many people’s line of sight. Just when Zheng Zhiyu thought Xu Jiao was going to pretend not to hear again, she saw Xu Jiao’s eyes move slightly, her gaze casually sweeping over her, and she spoke:
“Not even sparing a sick person, are you a beast?”
Zheng Zhiyu gave her a fake smile: “I’m not, I’m worse than a beast.”
Xu Jiao: “…”
She raised her eyebrows slightly, and just when Zheng Zhiyu thought she was going to say something back to her, she saw Xu Jiao shift her gaze to the side, looking elsewhere, not paying much attention to her anymore, as if she didn’t take her warning seriously at all.
Zheng Zhiyu finally couldn’t hold back this time, raising her hand to grasp Xu Jiao’s chin, turning it towards herself, and looking into her eyes, she asked:
“What are you looking at?”
“Are they better looking than me?”
Xu Jiao made an “hmm” sound, as if pondering. Zheng Zhiyu, however, had already released a warning aura, a gloomy and cold atmosphere surrounding Xu Jiao. It didn’t recklessly press against her body, knowing that her condition wasn’t very good at the moment, but just circled around her.
From time to time, it brushed past her face.
As if urging her to quickly say something nice to comfort herself!
Xu Jiao hooked the corner of her lips, her originally calm and indifferent expression suddenly becoming much more vivid and lively. That smile carried a hint of indulgence that was hard to detect, disappearing in an instant.
Her right hand raised, touching Zheng Zhiyu’s wrist that was grasping her chin, not minding the coldness at all, as if touching a beloved, high-quality piece of jade. Her thumb gently caressed it once, then lightly removed Zheng Zhiyu’s hand, saying softly:
“Wait a moment.”
Zheng Zhiyu deliberately contradicted her: “I won’t wait.”
Xu Jiao shoved the buns in her hands into Zheng Zhiyu’s arms, blocking any further obstructive actions, then stepped back a few paces and looked at the teaching building in front of her again. Her gaze wandered left and right, and then—
Xu Jiao retreated from this tree-lined path, quickly moved to the side, and went to look at several previous spots. Seeing that her attention truly wasn’t on herself, Zheng Zhiyu felt sulky for a while, then looked at the hot buns in her hands. After a moment, she suddenly came up with a bold idea.
After Xu Jiao finished examining the structure of the nearby teaching buildings, Zheng Zhiyu came to her side and handed her the bag of buns.
“Let me hold them for a bit longer. If passing students see these buns floating in mid-air, wouldn’t they be scared to death?”
Hearing this, Xu Jiao realized she had indeed been careless.
When there were few people around, she easily treated Zheng Zhiyu as someone not much different from herself, acting more boldly. Now, taking back the bag of buns, she didn’t notice that the bag’s opening had been untied. She raised her chin, gesturing for Zheng Zhiyu to look at the structure of the teaching building in front of them.
“Did you notice early on that there are two places in our school where the terrain is too yin?”
Zheng Zhiyu nodded and added, “This area is surrounded by willows and locusts. I don’t know how it was originally designed, but there’s an Eight Trigrams feng shui building for suppression, and many students come and go daily. In theory, it should be balanced…”
“But the feng shui here has been disrupted. I just searched the news, and there was a suicide jump from this building two years ago. Since then, this teaching building hasn’t been very peaceful,” Xu Jiao continued her words.
Afterwards, she beckoned to Zheng Zhiyu, gesturing for her to come with her to look at the Science and Liberal Arts Building covered in ivy. The building was situated in the Eight Trigrams position symbolizing water, slightly south of the Li trigram. As the saying goes, “mountain south and water north is yang,” so water south is yin, and this Science and Liberal Arts Building’s position in the entire campus was indeed in a yin-leaning location.
These two places were also where the most bizarre legends in the school had occurred.
But all of this wasn’t important—
Xu Jiao discovered that Building No. 18 formed a triangular formation with these two buildings.
There were also two roads connecting these three buildings.
It was as if it were some kind of fixed formation locking in yin energy. Who exactly had designed this?
Zheng Zhiyu hadn’t paid much attention to this point before, but after Xu Jiao suddenly pointed it out, she looked at her with considerable surprise, and then, prompted by her, thought of a certain array formation.
“The design of this school… is quite interesting,” she sighed thus.
Xu Jiao instinctively felt that this design was related to the main storyline. Just then, she heard Zheng Zhiyu speak again: “I remember before, you were completely clueless about these things. How come you suddenly understand Eight Trigrams positions and can even comprehend array formations?”
As her question came out, Xu Jiao also furrowed her brows.
Yes, why indeed?
Previously, when she received the memorial tablet, she knew nothing, even relying on Ma Yuan when her roommate was beating up the dirty thing. When did her knowledge reserve become more mystical than a mystic?
She lowered her head and stuffed a bun into her mouth, planning to eat a couple of bites before racking her brain to recall this matter.
However…
As soon as the bun entered her mouth, her cheeks stopped moving.
After two seconds, she looked around and indeed found a trash can by the roadside. She then walked over, spat out all the food in her mouth, and hesitantly looked at the remaining steaming buns in her hand.
Zheng Zhiyu pretended to know nothing, walked to her side, and concernedly asked:
“What’s wrong?”
Xu Jiao stared at the buns in her hand with a worried expression, as if unable to believe that the cafeteria could ruin such a wonderful food like this. She immediately spoke with some hesitation:
“Today’s xiaolongbao… seems particularly unpalatable.”
“I don’t know why, but when I smelled it earlier, it was quite good, and the filling was made with fresh pork and cabbage. Why is it that when I eat it…”
Zheng Zhiyu could hardly contain the laughter in her eyes, so she had to turn her head away and casually continue her sentence: “What happened when you ate it?”
Xu Jiao summarized in one sentence:
“I have never eaten such unpalatable xiaolongbao; it doesn’t even deserve to be called xiaolongbao.”
This was an insult to the very name of xiaolongbao.
This time, Zheng Zhiyu couldn’t hold back and let out a small sound: “Pff.”
Xu Jiao cast a suspicious glance at her. At the same time, adhering to the principle of not wasting food, Xu Jiao mustered up the courage to bite into the second, slightly warm xiaolongbao. She couldn’t quite believe that the cafeteria could truly disrespect food to such an extent, and was determined to try all the xiaolongbao before accepting the truth.
With this bite.
The warm, fragrant filling mixed with the aromatic wrapper entered her mouth, blossoming on her tongue. The soft, perfectly leavened white dough, the well-balanced mix of lean and fatty meat, along with the fresh, finely chopped cabbage, and a few sesame seeds—
How could the word “delicious” even begin to describe it!
If it hadn’t been left to cool long enough, this bite would have surely scalded Xu Jiao’s tongue.
It was worlds apart from the previous one.
Xu Jiao looked at Zheng Zhiyu, considering how the previous one had become extremely unpalatable, like a fake bun made of paper. Suddenly enlightened, she asked:
“Did you eat that previous bun?”
She had always thought that ghosts couldn’t eat food, but unexpectedly, this person could. However… the food that had been eaten would turn into such a terrible taste. Xu Jiao somewhat understood why Zheng Zhiyu, following her around, was never interested in any food.
Because it was too wasteful.
It looked like it hadn’t been eaten, but in reality, it had been wasted. People couldn’t eat it anymore. To have hot food served time after time, only to watch it being thrown into the trash bin unchanged but soulless, must be heartbreaking.
Thinking of this, Xu Jiao lowered her head and swallowed the bun in her mouth, then suddenly asked, “Two streets behind our school, in the corner, there seems to be a shop selling burial clothes. Why don’t I go there and buy you some incense and candles?”
Although Zheng Zhiyu never ate anything…
Having something delicious is always better.
Zheng Zhiyu saw that she didn’t dwell on the prank of eating the bun, but instead asked about offering incense and candles. Suddenly feeling that her earlier behavior was a bit mean, she uncomfortably changed the subject:
“No need. Let’s go back to what we were talking about earlier. How come you suddenly understand feng shui? And why are you suddenly concerned about the school’s feng shui?”
Xu Jiao took a sip of soy milk from her other hand, waiting for the aroma of soybeans to fill her mouth before answering, “It feels strange. How can our school be a place with righteous energy? There are too many dirty things lingering here.”
Zheng Zhiyu thought for a moment and couldn’t help but nod: “That’s true. Excluding the reason of your constitution, the things around here… don’t seem like what a place of a few thousand square meters should have. It’s more like all the spirits and monsters of the entire city are gathered here.”
Xu Jiao affirmed, “I feel these things will be related to me.”
Zheng Zhiyu originally didn’t plan to get involved, but hearing her say this, she immediately stood up straight: “What do you mean?”
This time, Xu Jiao only gave her a strange look and replied, “You wouldn’t understand.”
Because she’s the protagonist.
According to the laws of novels, unless it’s an anthology series without a main character, all stories can be related to the protagonist.
Zheng Zhiyu persisted in asking her: “How come I wouldn’t understand?”
Xu Jiao removed the straw from the soy milk in her hand, threw away the outer plastic bag, lifted the lid, and handed it to her: “Drink the soy milk, talk less.”
Zheng Zhiyu: “…”
She took two seconds to react, looking at the soy milk that Xu Jiao had barely drunk, mostly left for her. Somehow, a smile appeared in her eyes.
In the teaching building.
Xu Jiao was lucky enough to run into Su Qiong.
The latter was about to enter the classroom. In the corridor, the doll hanging on her backpack bumped into another girl from an unknown major. The other girl heard the sound, lowered her head, and said softly:
“Classmate, the doll on your backpack fell off.”
Su Qiong, as if unaware, turned her head and looked at her with confusion: “Hm?”
Her beautiful face was glowing.
Like an angel.
Xu Jiao stared at this scene. As the girl helped Su Qiong pick up the doll and return it, she heard Su Qiong ask:
“Is this for me?”
The girl was bewildered for a moment and replied: “Of course, isn’t this your doll?”
Su Qiong pretended to be embarrassed and replied: “Ah, I’m sorry, I meant to say thank you! Haha! Because my doll is so ordinary, I’ve seen several people with the same one as mine, so I wasn’t quite sure.”
After the two of them walked into the classroom together, she quietly asked Zheng Zhiyu beside her:
“Did you see that?”
Zheng Zhiyu made an “mm” sound and answered her: “That doll can absorb people’s spirit and energy. When the other person gives it back to Su Qiong along with their spirit and energy, answering her ‘Is this for me?’ is equivalent to voluntarily giving it up, completing the transaction.”
Xu Jiao licked her lower lip: “Do you have any way to deal with this?”
Zheng Zhiyu smiled: “Of course.”
An hour and a half later.
Su Qiong finished her self-study session, packed up her books, and stood up to leave. Xu Jiao pretended to be carrying a water cup and squeezed towards the door with her, once again “accidentally” knocking off her doll. As she picked it up, she called out to her:
“Classmate Su Qiong.”
The girl casually turned her head to look at her.
Xu Jiao proactively handed it over, smiling as she said: “Yours.”
Su Qiong looked at her, a hint of suspicion and uncertainty appearing on her face. Unusually, she didn’t use that type of sentence. After hesitating for a few seconds, she actually just said “Thank you.”
Even so, Xu Jiao had already seen that a part of the black energy from Zheng Zhiyu had seeped into the doll.
Midnight.
A scream rang out from a certain dormitory in Building No. 18: “Ah!”
The scream echoed from the fifth-floor window, startling those above and below. Someone poked their head out curiously and asked, “What’s wrong?”
Immediately after, a loud answer came from downstairs: “Nothing~”
Meanwhile.
Su Qiong stared at a pimple on her face, her expression changing repeatedly. She gripped the edge of the mirror so tightly she almost shattered it. Her roommates were laughing and comforting her:
“It’s okay, what’s the big deal?”
“Some of us have allergies, some break out in pimples. It must be because the room is too dirty or it’s just been renovated. It’s not good for the skin, but it’s normal. Why don’t you go to the dermatology department tomorrow?”
“That’s right, beautiful Su. To be honest, if you were naturally flawless and unaffected, we’d really be jealous of you!”
They casually comforted Su Qiong, even feeling a bit of pleasure in seeing her share in their common troubles. However, Su Qiong, at the center of the incident, had hatred bursting from her eyes.
This shouldn’t be happening!
She shouldn’t be like these ugly creatures!
She should be beautiful forever!
Forever!
Something must have gone wrong somewhere.
That’s right, Baby had said a couple of days ago that it had encountered a tough one, telling her to stay away from that person. Who was it… wasn’t it someone surnamed Xu from the neighboring department?
She remembered that person. Very poor.
How dare such a penniless and incompetent fellow compete with her for beauty?
While everyone was asleep, Su Qiong sneaked out to make a phone call. Her voice hidden in the layered shadows of trees below the dormitory building, filled with insatiable desire:
“Master…”
“It’s not working anymore… I want to replace it… I want something better…”
“I want something that works forever! It can only rely on me to seize it, it’s too useless! I want something more proactive, something that allows me to grasp power, something that can fulfill all my wishes! Do you understand, Master!”
Xu Jiao didn’t know that Zheng Zhiyu had already broken Su Qiong’s spell.
She had another nightmare. This time, due to her extremely bad mood, she woke up in the middle of the night. Her chest was filled with a sense of anxiety, and even her breathing carried a hint of irritation.
She didn’t know what was wrong with herself. Instead, it was Zheng Zhiyu who felt her forehead again:
“This isn’t good. Your condition isn’t right.”
“Let’s go to the hospital again tomorrow to check.”
Xu Jiao closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, her voice echoed in the empty dormitory: “It’s not a cold, it’s not a constitution problem.”
Her voice was hoarse, and Zheng Zhiyu felt a bit heartbroken hearing it. She wanted to hug her but was afraid of making her cold. She could only encircle her through the blanket, asking with concern: “Hm? Then what’s wrong?”
Xu Jiao exhaled, feeling the cold sweat on her temple, and said in a low voice: “I had a dream. I’ve been having this dream lately.”
Zheng Zhiyu: “What dream?”
Xu Jiao casually described: “Looking for someone… I can never find a.”
Zheng Zhiyu listened intently, feeling that the details Xu Jiao described were very strange.
It didn’t seem like her soul had been pulled away, after all, she had checked, and Xu Jiao’s three hun and seven po1, as well as her soul fire state, were all normal. There were no traces left on her body from the previous encounter with the dirty thing.
This seemed more like…
A past life and present life situation.
But she had no concrete evidence, so she could only comfort Xu Jiao: “Sleep now, I’m by your side. You won’t lose me.”
Xu Jiao made an “mm” sound.
After a while, she actively turned over to grab Zheng Zhiyu’s hand. Perhaps because emotions needed to be restrained, she unintentionally became a bit unrestrained in terms of desire, as if this was the only way to release those emotions that couldn’t be fully satisfied or overflow.
She said in a low voice: “I can’t sleep.”
Zheng Zhiyu heard that her tone was a bit unusual, but she didn’t dare to think too broadly. She could only cautiously respond: “Mm… shall I tell you a story?”
Xu Jiao laughed a little.
She chuckled softly and asked: “Are you an elementary school student?”
Zheng Zhiyu: “…”
Xu Jiao blew her breath on her jawline and said softly: “Come on, help me sleep using adult methods. Isn’t this the version of me you’ve always been thinking about?”
Zheng Zhiyu realized that when this person was abstinent, she seemed inhuman, without the seven emotions and six desires, impossible to move. But sometimes… she could be even crazier than herself.
How could she act up at a time like this?
She moved her lips, wanting to persuade Xu Jiao, but was blocked by the other’s proactive approach. Between their lips and teeth, a sentence overflowed, seeming both a warning and an invitation:
“If you don’t seize this opportunity now, when I’m clear-headed later, you won’t have such benefits anymore, hm?”
Zheng Zhiyu decided she didn’t want to be human anymore.
But seeing Xu Jiao’s furrowed brow, she had second thoughts. She leaned in to whisper in Xu Jiao’s ear, her voice tinged with restraint, yet her words were discouraging:
“Let’s forget it.”
She said, “Although it’s indeed very hot and comfortable, but… it seems you’re not quite used to it. Next time, okay? Next time when you’re ready, you can tell me to stop, and I won’t even stop then.”
Xu Jiao pressed on her shoulders, taking the initiative to sit on her lap. Then, she wrapped her arms around her neck, resting her forehead on her shoulder. She let out a soft gasp, feeling the other’s cold body stiffen slightly, before chuckling softly and saying:
“In the past, when I said no, how come I never saw you being so considerate?”
“Now you’re pretending to be so gentle.”
Zheng Zhiyu’s throat bobbed repeatedly as she looked at the smooth ankles resting on the hem of her red dress. In the light from the windows of other buildings, the contrast between the red and white colors was particularly dazzling, making her throat itch.
She closed her eyes briefly, hugging Xu Jiao tighter, and pulled the blanket up, carefully wrapping the already slightly sweaty person. She sighed softly:
“You…”
Xu Jiao’s beautiful eyebrows raised slightly, a myriad of emotions flashing through them. Her eyes glistened with a hint of moisture as she asked, “What’s wrong with me?”
“Am I not as delicious as before? Indeed, whether human or ghost, once you obtain what’s beyond reach, it’s not as tasty anymore, right?”
Zheng Zhiyu lowered her head to bite Xu Jiao’s collarbone.
Hearing Xu Jiao’s barely suppressed gasp, she whispered, “Don’t say such things…”
Xu Jiao closed her eyes, trying hard not to make those sounds.
But it was impossible; she was about to melt.
It was too hot.
Yet too cold.
She couldn’t control the tears at the corners of her eyes.
Xu Jiao realized she couldn’t go on like this, couldn’t continue to indulge herself, or else all her restraint and rationality would vanish into thin air.
As she bit her lip, feeling somewhat dazed and wanting to escape, Xu Jiao was pulled back by Zheng Zhiyu, who grasped her slender ankle. Then she heard Zheng Zhiyu press against her back, kissing along the line of her spine, slowly saying, “Don’t be so nervous, don’t be afraid.”
Xu Jiao shook her head, not knowing herself what she was refusing, perhaps only because this pleasure left her at a loss.
So she could only try to escape.
Zheng Zhiyu held her very tightly, greatly shortening the distance between them, almost pressing together in an unprecedented negative space record. Xu Jiao even felt as if her entire being had opened up to the other.
At the other’s mercy.
Zheng Zhiyu pressed on her lower back, and in that tide of ice and fire, whispered to her, “I love you, do you know that?”
“Is it so hard to trust me once?”
“I love you, I will never hurt you.”
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