Peerless Beauty – Chapter 3

Hand

Such Hands

Blatantly exposed, Lu Yinxi remained unperturbed and explained in a low voice: “When I was a child, I used my left hand. Many people said I was abnormal and looked at me with strange eyes. My teacher would hit my palm when he saw me using my left hand. My classmates would gather around, watching me write, and laugh at me, as if I were a monster… So I learned to use my right hand, but in private, I still subconsciously use my left hand… Using both hands, over time, they both appear quite nimble.”

These words were not false.

Lu Yinxi was naturally left-handed, but had been forcibly corrected.

As a child, she was left with her grandmother in the countryside by her mother.

In those days, country folk were rather superstitious. They believed left-handedness was unlucky. Seeing her write and eat with her left hand, they would hit her hand, saying she was ill-mannered and needed to change.

Later, when she went to the village school, the teacher saw her writing with her left hand and hit her palm with a bamboo stick.

The bamboo stick was very thin and hurt a lot when it hit. Her palm would be red and swollen, but she didn’t feel she was wrong, so she wouldn’t cry or make a fuss, nor would she change, stubbornly continuing to write with her left hand.

The teacher, disappointed, eventually ignored her, but some classmates liked to mock her, bullying her with various unpleasant nicknames.

Country children were usually left to roam freely, going to and from school without parents picking them up, always in groups.

From kindergarten to primary school, other kids would hold hands, skipping home cheerfully, but she was always alone, walking slowly back, sometimes being laughed at by passing classmates.

At home, the neighbors would point and gossip. Some advised that being left-handed was abnormal, against natural order, and it should be corrected while she was young. Others said it might be because she was left-handed that her father died, and that’s why her mother didn’t want her and left her in the countryside.

These words were hurtful. She believed them, standing in the courtyard with her little schoolbag for a long time. Eventually, she took out her exercise book, sat at the stone table in the yard, and practiced writing with her right hand, holding back tears.

Jian Qing remained silent, quietly watching her, as if discerning the truth of her words.

Lu Yinxi no longer avoided her gaze, meeting Jian Qing’s scrutinizing eyes, her long eyelashes trembling slightly.

Jian Qing averted her eyes and responded off-topic, “Being used to using your left hand isn’t abnormal, it’s just different.”

Lu Yinxi smiled softly, “Sometimes, being different from the majority makes you an outcast, considered abnormal.”

Her smile seemed somewhat bitter.

Jian Qing said, “I won’t.”

The implication was that she didn’t need to pretend in front of her.

Lu Yinxi looked into Jian Qing’s eyes, momentarily silent.

Jian Qing looked down at her, saying nothing more.

Her wrist was encircled by something cold and soft, her pulse beating rapidly, pounding against her cold palm.

The person holding her wrist must have felt it.

They stared at each other silently for a long time. Lu Yinxi belatedly realized she seemed to be subtly comforting her, so she said, “Thank you…”

Jian Qing looked at her still reddened eyes and then glanced at her feet.

Her feet were pale and delicate, bare on the floor.

The floor was clean, but Jian Qing was a bit of a neat freak.

“Wash your feet, go to sleep.” She let go of her wrist, not pursuing the matter of the slap or the accidental cut on her hand, and floated back to her room like a cold, detached ghost.

Lu Yinxi watched her leave, then raised her left hand, looking at her wrist.

There were a few faint finger marks on her wrist, which quickly disappeared.

The cold, delicate touch on her skin, however, was imprinted in her heart, lingering for a long time.

Lu Yinxi lowered her arm, no longer acting. The weakness and fragility in her eyes faded away, leaving only calmness.

Outside the window, the moonlight was clear, and the red plum blossoms contrasted with the white snow.

Lu Yinxi still had no mood to appreciate it.

She thought of the ending in the book, where she was imprisoned in a villa, forced to commit suicide, and her body was buried under the plum tree as fertilizer. She couldn’t appreciate it no matter what.

Looking at the red plum blossoms, she seemed to smell a faint scent of blood.

Lu Yinxi rubbed her nose, clicked the electronic screen on the wall, and the curtains automatically closed, blocking out the red plum blossoms and white snow.

She wasn’t a neat freak, but she had a quirk – she liked to take a hot bath when feeling flustered.

Lu Yinxi groped her way to the dressing room, picked a white robe, found the bathroom, and took off the original owner’s sexy red robe.

Turning on the shower, hot water poured over her head, drenching her entire body. Lu Yinxi wiped her face and stood in the steamy water, deep in thought.

She really wished this was all a dream, that she’d wake up in her own bed.

But if it wasn’t a dream, if she had indeed come to another world, then complaining was useless, and fear wouldn’t help either. She had to stay calm, avoid dangerous people, keep herself safe, and wait for the opportunity to return to reality.

How to leave, and when to leave, needed careful planning step by step.

Warm water washed over her body repeatedly, washing away the strong perfume scent of the original owner, and gradually washing away Lu Yinxi’s anxious feelings.

After the bath, she dried herself, put on the robe, walked to the sink, and kept rinsing her mouth, washing away the faint taste of blood in her mouth.

In her mind was still the image of that block of ice lifting her chin and smearing blood on her lips, both bloody and perverse.

Lu Yinxi was extremely disgusted, her good impression of Jian Qing, which had risen infinitely from their time on the bed, now plummeted.

After rinsing her mouth, Lu Yinxi wiped the steam off the mirror and stared at the face in the mirror, stunned.

This face was exactly like hers in reality, just a few years younger.

In her early twenties, she looked beautiful, clean, untainted.

Such a pure and unpretentious face, looking so chaste and self-respecting, how could she possibly be kept?

Lu Yinxi cursed inwardly while blow-drying her hair until it was seventy percent dry.

After drying her hair, she returned to the living room.

The villa was equipped with underfloor heating, and the room temperature was acceptable. She didn’t want to sleep next to that block of ice again, so she planned to curl up on the sofa for the night.

As she lay down, she saw the remaining sterile gauze and hand sanitizer gel on the table.

She turned over, facing the back of the sofa, refusing to look.

Seeing those would remind her of that cold woman and her profession.

Lu Yinxi was no stranger to the medical profession.

Her parents were both professors at a medical school and doctors at the university-affiliated hospital.

Nowadays, there’s a popular saying that if you encourage someone to study medicine, you deserve to be struck by lightning. But some children from medical families, influenced by their surroundings, still choose to study medicine.

Lu Yinxi was no exception. After the college entrance examination, she filled out her application with clinical medicine majors and was finally admitted to the medical school where her parents taught.

She enrolled in the eight-year clinical medicine program, studying both undergraduate and graduate courses. The first five years covered internal medicine, surgery, gynecology, pediatrics, and other subjects. In the sixth year, students began choosing mentors and departments.

In her freshman year, she had already planned her career, selecting oncology as her future research direction.

Unfortunately, plans couldn’t keep up with changes. During the summer vacation after her sophomore year, she encountered some incidents during her internship in the oncology department, which altered the course of her life.

Old memories were vivid. Lu Yinxi had thought that apart from seeing doctors and taking medicine, she would never interact with the medical field again in this life. Unexpectedly, she met Jian Qing.

Although she didn’t end up on the irreversible path of medicine, she always had a special feeling for doctors specializing in oncology.

That was once her dream and her lifelong regret.

Lu Yinxi turned back, staring at the gauze and hand sanitizer on the table for a long time before finally sitting up, dragging out the medicine box, and heading towards the master bedroom.

The bedroom light was on. Jian Qing lay on the bed with her eyes closed, without the gloomy, cold gaze. Her long eyelashes were dense, and her sleeping face was serene, like a sleeping beauty from a fairy tale.

Earlier, under the moonlight, with the romantic filter, she seemed like a flawless jade lying in the snow.

Now, knowing the plot’s direction, she looked like a beautiful but venomous snake lying in a dark forest.

Lu Yinxi wished she could stomp on her twice.

Rationality restrained her.

She saw the knife, polished to a shine again, placed conspicuously by the bedside.

Lu Yinxi, carrying the medicine box, tiptoed inside.

She wanted Jian Qing to re-treat the cut on her left palm to prevent infection.

Unexpectedly, this block of ice had fallen asleep again.

Was she really that tired?

Lu Yinxi stood by the bed, gazing down at the person on the bed, hesitating whether to wake her.

In her hesitation, her gaze swept over the hands resting outside the quilt.

Her left hand was wrapped in layers of gauze. The wound, which had stopped bleeding, had reopened due to pressure, and blood had soaked through, staining the gauze. Now the wound and the dressing were stuck together.

Her right hand had distinct joints, long fingers, rounded fingertips, no trace of nails, and the skin on the back of her hand was paler than elsewhere, with a few small cracks from the cold.

Such hands unexpectedly gave Lu Yinxi a sense of familiarity.

She had seen many hands like these in the hospital.

Every winter, the hands of healthcare workers looked unsightly.

The hospital’s infection control department constantly emphasized hand hygiene. Washing hands before rounds, before changing dressings, before patient contact… A day easily involved washing hands hundreds of times.

The hands of medical workers would often peel, crack, and develop frostbite in winter. Over time, they became rough, with a layer of rough texture to the touch.

Many people would apply a thick layer of hand cream before bed as a protective measure.

Why didn’t this person apply some before sleeping?

She vaguely felt that this block of ice didn’t care for herself much, always cold and indifferent as if she didn’t care about anything, silently enduring even when in pain.

What had she gone through to keep a knife by her bedside while sleeping?

Lu Yinxi’s gaze shifted to the knife on the bedside table, trying to recall more details about Jian Qing’s storyline, but she couldn’t remember anything.

Had she known she would enter the book, she wouldn’t have skipped through it last night. Even reading it once thoroughly would have been better than now, seeing everything like a fog, unclear and hazy.

Lu Yinxi sighed, took out a tube of bruise and pain relief ointment from the medicine box, carefully read the instructions, opened the cap, squeezed some onto a cotton swab, and gently applied it to Jian Qing’s face.

The bruise was mainly due to the rupture of subcutaneous capillaries, causing blood stasis. Cold compresses to constrict the capillaries were sufficient in the short term, and generally, no extra medication was needed.

But Lu Yinxi felt a bit of guilt and softness in her heart—she had slapped too hard.

Her left palm could still feel a slight tingling pain, let alone the right cheek of the person in front of her, which was red and swollen.

She was also glad the other party was a woman, not someone who thinks with their lower body, less aggressive and oppressive compared to men—after taking a harsh slap and having a sharp knife cut her, Jian Qing just paused for a moment, then found a blanket to cover her, and silently went out to apply a cold compress…

She didn’t seem too bad.

At least, not bad for now.

After applying the ointment evenly, Lu Yinxi extended her finger, gently poked Jian Qing’s cheek as a small revenge, then withdrew her hand. Just as she was about to get up, a cold touch suddenly covered her cheek.

Lu Yinxi froze, her gaze falling on Jian Qing’s face.

On the bed, Jian Qing touched Lu Yinxi’s cheek, her lips moving, and coldly uttered two words:

“Sleep. Here.”