So I Had No Choice But to Stop Being the White Moonlight – Chapter 139

Concerning My Cultivation and Turning My Wife into a Rabbit

Spiritual Union

Her whole body went soft.

When it came to Dual Cultivation¹, Chi Qian had no prior understanding whatsoever.

            

The concept of spiritual union² was too abstract — especially on that green website, where her curiosity could never be satisfied.

So when Chi Qian attempted to enter Shi Jinlan’s Spiritual Abode³, she suddenly found her perception completely transformed.

She was no longer in human form, but a tiny lotus. After skimming across the shimmering lake surface, she touched a small sphere wrapped in golden light.

            

Green smoke circled around it, drifting slowly away, as if formless.

Yet Chi Qian could touch it. She gently unfurled her petals and lightly brushed past this small sphere, then entwined with it, teasing every strand of green smoke that threaded through her petals.

The green smoke trembled, and Chi Qian’s petals trembled in response to the reaction that rippled through the smoke.

            

The sensation was novel and alluring — something she had never experienced before.

Chi Qian felt an electric current running in fine, dense threads along the veins of her petals toward the flower’s heart, making her legs go weak.

Was this spiritual union?

            

Chi Qian couldn’t be sure. She only felt her consciousness being completely claimed by the green smoke.

She could feel every one of her petals transmitting emotions to her — emotions belonging to Shi Jinlan.

The green smoke wound around light and shadow, and Chi Qian felt as though a movie were playing before her eyes.

            

In the frame, a bright sun hung high, and a lively, bouncing shadow broke through the deep forest’s stillness and leapt in.

“Miss Shen! Good morning!”

“Miss Shen, the sun is lovely today. Grandfather asked me to take you to the courtyard for some sunshine, or else you’ll grow mushrooms.”

            

“Miss Shen, are you alright? Are you hurt?!”

…

It was an intensely joyful emotion, rising and falling with tones that were sometimes excited, sometimes anxious.

            

In this positive emotion of Shi Jinlan’s, Chi Qian saw many versions of herself — with various expressions, from the past life and this life — calling out to Shi Jinlan:

“Miss Shen.”

“Miss Shen!”

            

“…Miss Shen.”

…

For a moment, Chi Qian couldn’t even tell, in Shi Jinlan’s field of vision, whether that round glowing object behind her was the sun, or herself.

            

It was the first time she had seen herself speaking from a third-person perspective.

Bright, charmingly naive, unable to hide a single emotion.

And perhaps because of this, Shi Jinlan’s mood was always quite good when facing these expressions.

            

The petal Chi Qian had raised was brushed by the green smoke, which turned the tables and took control. A tingling numbness spread from the joyful emotion.

She couldn’t understand where these perceptions came from, but her heart kept accelerating. The emotions she had once given Shi Jinlan were now being fed back to her, and at the moment their nerves intertwined, a pleasure difficult to put into words burst forth.

“Mm.”

            

“Ah Lan, I’m back.”

Chi Qian bit her lip, overlapping with the words she had spoken when she returned to Shi Jinlan’s side.

That abundant emotion held joy and delight, as well as the restraint of wanting to cry.

            

Chi Qian pressed against Shi Jinlan’s primordial spirit⁴. Her pale petals flushed pink, wrapped in green smoke, and several drops of dew seeped out.

The originally calm breathing suddenly grew heavy, hot breath rushing forth.

Chi Qian’s expression went dazed. Belatedly realizing what had just happened, she felt her reason being effortlessly drowned in Shi Jinlan’s pleasure. She suddenly felt a bit useless.

            

Shi Jinlan could hold back, so why had she just given in like that!

An unprecedented competitive desire rose in Chi Qian’s heart. Her petals gently caressed Shi Jinlan’s primordial spirit, wanting to do it again.

More deeply.

            

To make Shi Jinlan lose control first.

But when Chi Qian’s petals probed more deeply into the glowing sphere before her, tens of thousands of pains rushed toward her.

This primordial spirit of Shi Jinlan’s was like a bitter pill coated in sugar. After the brief pleasure came an unavoidable hostility — a sensation like a blade’s edge, soaked in the cold of a glacier.

            

Shi Jinlan’s life had been far longer than Chi Qian’s. Chi Qian had participated in her important beginnings and endings.

Yet precisely because of this, her happy times had occupied only one-tenth of her life.

In the remaining nine-tenths were mixed violence, madness, and cruelty.

            

And dominating it all, taking up the majority, was still pain.

In these countless cycles, Shi Jinlan had to experience her parents’ death, her grandfather’s severity, the betrayal of those around her, and her uncle’s relentless pursuit every single time.

There was even the violation of fate’s script — the pain of being unable to love this person before her who looked exactly like “Chi Qian” and acted almost the same.

            

“Miss Shen, what’s wrong with you?”

“Why are you looking at me like that? Did I do something wrong?”

“I like you. I really like you. I can wait.”

            

“This is the last time we’ll meet. Can’t you cry for me, just this once?”

…

Disappointment, dejection, bewilderment.

            

Because of that familiar face, Shi Jinlan naturally wanted to draw close.

But every time she drew close, that entanglement would surface. Something felt wrong — everything felt wrong.

She pulled back the kiss that had almost happened.

            

She pulled back her own stirring heart.

Even at the very end, as if carved into her bones, she reached out and tightly grasped the person about to fall off the cliff.

She still couldn’t say “I like you” even at “Chi Qian’s” pleading.

            

Thousands upon thousands of people, one after another, wanted Shi Jinlan to forget.

But she fought with everything she had, making herself remember every single time.

The love that couldn’t be erased from her subconscious, and the painful contradiction of reality, tangled together.

            

At this moment, Chi Qian felt what Shi Jinlan felt, pained what Shi Jinlan pained. A blade’s edge grazed her frail petals, and tender tears dripped out — yet it also made her feel that same “pleasure” from before.

Pain and pleasure intertwined, enough to drive one mad.

So was this why they said Dual Cultivation was actually a very dangerous practice?

            

— One had to open oneself completely and share every feeling in the Spiritual Abode.

Chi Qian felt that sometimes even humans themselves might not be able to face their true selves.

Yet Dual Cultivation required letting another person see this self.

            

Chi Qian didn’t know, but Shi Jinlan certainly did.

She had placed herself entirely in Chi Qian’s hands, trustingly opening her most vulnerable place.

Another wave of pain came. Fine electric currents, like ants, burrowed into the splits opening on Chi Qian’s petals.

            

The numbness was hard to dispel. Together with the pain, it pressed on the tip of Chi Qian’s heart, constantly transmitting emotions that Shi Jinlan had long grown accustomed to.

“Don’t bear it alone.”

Chi Qian spoke those words she had said to Shi Jinlan many times before, shifting the petals embedded around Shi Jinlan’s primordial spirit and completely wrapping her up.

            

The lotus petals were covered with a fine layer of fuzz. The rabbit leaning against Chi Qian’s side curled up uncontrollably.

Shi Jinlan felt as if some gentle feathers were parting her body, brushing past her fragile primordial spirit again and again.

The green smoke floated, sensitive, making her suddenly feel as though she had arrived in a tropical rainforest.

            

Her small, thin form couldn’t escape the sudden downpour from the loquat leaves overhead. Rain collected and poured down on her, drenching her entire body, as if her bones had been pulled out — instantly softening her into shapelessness.

The fusion of primordial spirits left no room for thought about what was happening. Shi Jinlan only felt her entire body being completely occupied by a lotus.

The refreshing scent of lotus wind blew from some unknown distance, passing through the thick fur on her body, penetrating into her bones.

            

It was an inseparable feeling. She could feel warmth, as if she were with the sun. Brilliant sunlight wrapped around her, making her whole body go soft.

Shi Jinlan knew this was Chi Qian.

Every inch of breath rolling past her throat was stained with Chi Qian’s scent, merging into her blood, rushing into the deepest parts of her body, making one forget one’s name and identity, only able to sink in.

            

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“Miss Shi.”

“Miss Shen.”

The young girl’s voice, carrying a slight nasal tone, mumbled the two characters “Shen” and “Shi.” A cool breeze blew from the mountain stream.

            

Shi Jinlan’s brows, covered in soft fur, faintly furrowed. She had dreamed again of that day three years ago — that day when she had woken from a dream at midnight, from a memory of Chi Qian curled in her arms, calling her name in a daze.

“Shen” and “Shi” were indeed two characters very easy to confuse. Shi Jinlan had originally chosen this name for herself for that very reason. Later, when Chi Qian called her by the wrong name, before she had discovered it, it was also for this reason.

Facing this sudden realization, Shi Jinlan’s eyes revealed a complex emotion.

            

She painfully discovered that Chi Qian had actually been planning to leave her from the very beginning.

Summer seemed to be coming soon. Cicadas had already started their work among the forest leaves.

The piercing sound penetrated the moon outside the window. The night without Chi Qian was bone-chillingly cold.

            

And that person who had left her was probably somewhere living a good life right now.

This person who had once admitted to her grandfather, repeatedly saying she loved her — from the very beginning, she had known her name and surname, and was a liar who was going to leave her.

No.

            

A liar had to be punished. Since she had deceived her, she should take back what the liar had stolen.

When love and desire reached their peak, one no longer cared what the other person thought.

The setting the System had given Shi Jinlan was obsessive from the start. They had never imagined that the sense of responsibility they stingily withheld from her would drive her to such madness.

            

Shi Jinlan had to capture Chi Qian and lock her up.

Anyone who wanted to take her away from her side had to die.

Such thoughts flashed through Shi Jinlan’s mind. Her obsession back then also frightened her present self.

            

The timid little white rabbit shrank into her lover’s arms, sweat dampening her fur.

The temperature in the Demon Realm was low, and the heavy spiritual aura also severely affected those who didn’t belong here.

And for a small creature like Shi Jinlan, she was even more isolated and helpless, able only to struggle alone in her nightmare…

            

Suddenly, a warm palm pressed against Shi Jinlan’s back.

She was about to try to calm herself down, but what received her was a familiar palm.

“What’s wrong? Did you have a nightmare?” Chi Qian looked at the white rabbit leaning in her arms, her sleepiness still evident, but her tone gentle.

            

This person was sleeping groggily, not knowing how she had woken up. As she spoke, she lightly raised her fingers and patted Shi Jinlan’s back, over and over.

Like soothing a child.

Yet Shi Jinlan hadn’t experienced this feeling since not long after she was born.

            

Chi Qian’s comfort came timely and perfectly. Shi Jinlan raised her head to look up.

Past the disheveled collar, past the slender, delicate collarbone, she saw Chi Qian with her eyes half-lowered, watching her from beside her.

This was not a hallucination after an unawakened nightmare. This was someone truly and genuinely staying by her side.

            

Shi Jinlan thought that right now she was just a rabbit — small, harmless, pitiful. So she could freely let go of her coldness, restraint, and pride, curl up in Chi Qian’s arms, and say to her: “Ah Qian, don’t go.”

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