Alone, Beautifully – Chapter 147
by Little PandaJust Like the First Meeting (4)
A fate worse than death.
Xu Jiao still doesn’t know about Ye Zhen’s plan.
But she must quickly suppress those warm feelings in her heart—
Because according to Xu Hankai’s habits, he will return home soon.
He is a very cautious man who secretly abuses Xu Jiao and worsens her condition behind closed doors, while also pursuing women richer than Xu Jiao’s mother outside. To avoid discovery, he must be extremely careful.
He doesn’t have much patience dealing with Xu Jiao, this sick child. Taking care of a child who barely gives feedback and could explode like a bomb at any moment isn’t easy for him, especially since he has to avoid being hurt by Xu Jiao’s sudden outbursts, which isn’t a simple task either.
Xu Jiao has always been unwilling to recall her childhood memories, firstly because her mental state wasn’t good then, and secondly because her childhood memories are incomplete. She only remembers deeply hating this home, this environment, and her stepfather. The only clear impression was when Ye Zhen happened to visit her home once and witnessed Xu Hankai’s evil deeds, leading to some arguments between them—
And the result was.
Ye Zhen fell from upstairs.
The clearest image in her memory is that figure she never carefully looked at, disappearing like the wind by the window. That beautiful face was the swift passing of a beautiful swan (used to describe a brief but memorable sight), yet Xu Jiao remembered it. Subsequently, the color that remained most in her vision was the extremely beautiful sky outside when the window was wide open, the spectacular view of the sunset clouds deeply etched into her retina.
When she came to her senses, Xu Hankai was taken away, her mother hurriedly returned to her side, held her in her arms and wept, and at that moment, she seemed to hear the sounds of the entire world.
Like a thick shell covering her spirit being cracked open, the world finally smiled at her, saying, “Hello, welcome to the mortal realm.”
But it was too late.
She could only stare blankly at that sky, motionless, without blinking, not even having the chance to truly make eye contact with Ye Zhen before forever losing the qualification to know her.
Only that magnificent skylight outside the window remained, which she never saw again in the many years that followed.
Fearing she would be more traumatized, everyone, including her mother, prevented her from seeing Ye Zhen’s dead form. They covered her eyes, leaving Xu Jiao to only hear stories about that person through her ears:
“I told you that woman from the Xu family picking such a fresh-faced fellow wouldn’t work out. One without whiskers can’t handle affairs properly (a traditional Chinese saying meaning young people lack experience), carrying on with the twenty-year-old girl next door behind her back in broad daylight (guangtian huari: literally “bright sky transformed sun,” meaning in plain sight). Who knows what happened…”
“Young Xu is pitiful too, divorced so young, with such a child to care for. Finally thought she found someone who understood her heart, but who knew you can know the face but not the heart (a Chinese idiom meaning appearances can be deceiving). Tsk tsk tsk, they say the child was in the house then, who knows what she saw…”
“Mind your words and keep some virtue in your mouth (a Chinese expression meaning to be mindful of speaking ill of others), the Xu family has suffered enough.”
“Ah, divorced women are just like this, truly pitiful…”
Those idle gossips remained fresh in Xu Jiao’s memory for many years after, even though many years later in the tube-shaped apartment building, no one remembered the details of that fatal case anymore. Even when she bought this house, neighbors laughingly told her that living here wasn’t auspicious (bringing bad luck), but it was much better than next door, where they said someone had died some years ago.
Residents in the tube-shaped apartment building came and went, and no one even remembered that Xu Jiao was that autistic daughter from the “pitiful young Xu’s” family they once talked about with such relish.
Later, she stopped screaming at strangers and no longer behaved strangely in crowded places. She only developed one habit: staring blankly at the sky, and learned to communicate with others through a layer of computer screen, expressing her inner thoughts through text.
Until she gradually learned to build her own world through language.
In her world, female protagonists with faces similar to Ye Zhen appeared one after another. Xu Jiao sketched them out using her limited, one-sided impressions. She thought she was only writing shadows of Ye Zhen, never realizing that every word was also an expression of her own soul. Unconsciously, she poured her own stories into them, so these protagonists all had childhoods as terrifying as shadows like her, yet were kind like Ye Zhen, always willing to help others in times of trouble, becoming light in others’ lives.
However, as she continued writing, Xu Jiao discovered she wasn’t writing replicas of Ye Zhen’s blessed life, but rather the protagonists’ own stories. These main characters who shared the same features as her benefactor were ultimately not her.
At first, Xu Jiao thought it was due to her insufficient writing skills, so she would lose interest while writing, abandon the pit (qikeng: Chinese internet slang for abandoning an unfinished story), leave loose ends, wanting to write more perfect stories.
But as her narrative abilities grew stronger, she increasingly realized these protagonists carried strange shadows. It was those slightly different pasts that made the protagonists gradually deviate from their original settings during the storytelling process—
As if they were defying her.
Xu Jiao wanted to give her benefactor a good enough story in her own kingdom.
But she couldn’t even properly portray her benefactor’s appearance.
So the stories failed time after time, and she was unwilling to give these copies a perfect ending. She deliberately changed outlines and messed up story directions, causing readers to curse her viciously on the website forums.
Only she herself didn’t care at all.
If not for the system’s appearance, Xu Jiao didn’t know how long she would have continued in this endless cycle of failure.
Indeed, when she first entered the system space, she was deeply depressed with few joys, not wanting to know what kind of lives these copies lived, because those stories were already extremely familiar to the point of rotting in her heart, and she didn’t want to see how she failed over and over again.
Until…
Xia Jingzhe slightly surprised her.
Then there was Shen Yelan.
As if treading the same failed path she once couldn’t control, repeatedly whispering in her ear, “Wake up, your stories are destined to be unsaveable, because you’ve never carefully looked at the characters under your pen.”
Xu Jiao was confused by Xia Jingzhe’s decision to embrace death, and scorched by Shen Yelan’s fanatical feelings toward her. She saw her own shadow in Shen Yelan, and only then did she understand that whether a creator is willing or not, their writing will always carry their shadow. She was so obsessed with her benefactor, unilaterally making the other person her spiritual pillar, her worshipped deity, the voice that awakened her, simply because her benefactor once saved her—
So the equally tragic Shen Yelan, upon seeing her, this benefactor who extended a helping hand, became fanatically and unscrupulously infatuated, just as she had once hidden Ye Zhen’s image in her own heart.
Shen Yelan is her mirror.
As if showing that she could never escape from this childhood tragedy and shadows, even in death, she would be branded with and unable to break free from her young years’ imprint.
She sympathized with Shen Yelan, and with herself.
And at this time—
She met Feng Qingyu.
It was Feng Qingyu who showed her what true love is. Indeed, Feng Qingyu initially held a disdainful attitude toward her. Later, when first falling in love with her, being in the position of a legal wife, she followed the prairie fire in her heart (liaoyuan zhihuo: a small spark that can set a prairie ablaze, metaphor for growing passion) and wanted to make their wife-wife relationship real, but in the end…
Feng Qingyu didn’t do so.
Sometimes good and evil lie in a single thought (yinian zhijian: Buddhist concept meaning the thin line between right and wrong decisions).
In countless crucial moments of decision, Feng Qingyu always chose to respect Xu Jiao.
When knowing Xu Jiao didn’t love her, Feng Qingyu thought about pursuing her, thought about holding on, but in the end, she only quietly appeared by Xu Jiao’s side when needed, accompanying her, and silently accepted the fact that she would never have Xu Jiao in this lifetime.
From her, Xu Jiao understood what love truly is, and what respect means.
She began to be uncontrollably attracted to the female protagonists under her pen, and truly began actively accepting the mortal realm, letting the smoke and fire of human life (yanghuo: metaphor for everyday mortal experiences) stain her clothes. She also truly distinguished Feng Qingyu from her former benefactor, finally accepting the fact that these female protagonists she created weren’t substitutes for anyone – from the moment they were born, they had their own souls.
Souls that couldn’t be manipulated by anyone.
Xu Jiao unconsciously applied this respectful attitude to Lilith in the next world. For the first time, she treated a protagonist under her pen as her own child. Like those who once tried to teach her these things, she patiently and meticulously, sincerely wanted to give Lilith a different life, wanting to see her create her own unique story with her own hands.
But there was a small accident.
Lilith fell in love with her too.
However, by this time, Xu Jiao could no longer remain unmoved and uncaring to the protagonist’s pursuit like in Xia Jingzhe’s world. When her heart was moved, she struggled and wavered repeatedly in her heart. Even the system didn’t know what earth-shattering happiness arose in her mind when she did those things with Lilith.
In her subconscious, there was a kind of excitement and joy—
Why couldn’t Xu Jiao refuse Lilith?
Because in her heart, she hoped for a hypothesis: if her benefactor were still alive, if this spiritual pillar still existed, when she grew up, would the other person look at her differently because of this special hand-taught relationship, and then let her become the most important person in their life?
The truth was unknowable then, but her repeated unresisting falls into passion were already the answer.
But this wasn’t the end.
She thought she had hidden it well, but her protagonists had long seen through her – that her love was only a reflection, a transference (yiqing: psychological term for emotional projection). Being as proud as they were, how could they tolerate being just a shadow in Xu Jiao’s heart?
Time and again, her protagonists used their own heavy strokes of ink (nongmo zhongcai: literary term meaning vivid and distinctive characteristics) to cover up Xu Jiao’s remembrance of her benefactor, finally making her distinguish that those spiritual dependencies and fantasies were all in the past. What existed in the present was only these lovers who had long possessed their own souls.
What she loved were the unique souls born in each story belonging to the protagonists.
She didn’t love Ye Zhen.
That was merely a young person’s attachment and tender affection from the past, not the appearance of true love.
“Ding dong.”
Through the wooden door, sharp-eared Xu Jiao heard the sound of Xu Hankai’s return. She shouldn’t have remembered it so clearly, but her body seemed to have developed complete fear and disgust toward these footsteps, to the point that her brain reflexively triggered the memory.
Xu Jiao curved her lips and called out in her mind: “System.”
“?”
Xu Jiao: “There are some things I can’t remember clearly. Since this is also a world you can access, why not help me strengthen my memories? Send me all the contents of my childhood events, I know you can do it.”
System: “…”
It really could.
Xu Jiao stared straight at the door, while receiving those dark stories of her childhood where no daylight could be seen, while carelessly pondering in her heart:
What method should she use to let Xu Hankai experience the feeling of a fate worse than death?
Maybe the planned bald monk treatment.