So I Had No Choice But to Stop Being the White Moonlight – Chapter 32

That Mermaid Could Never Again Wait for Her Maiden.

The sun climbed to the highest point in the sky. The sunlight shot straight down, its golden light piercing.

Waves slammed violently against the reef with a hua la, as if they had also crashed into Chi Qian herself.

Heaven knew that one second ago she had been full of confidence, feeling that she wouldn’t lose out, only for the next second to be about to pledge herself to another.

She froze. Under Shi Jinlan’s gaze, she stammered, “Th-this isn’t good, is it…”

Hearing this, Shi Jinlan curved her eyes. “Not good?”

“Didn’t you ask me to guess what Ling Ji was going to do? How is it not good?” Shi Jinlan’s voice carried an amused tone, as if she didn’t understand, or as if she were being deliberate.

She had a pair of extremely deep eyes, her jet-black pupils holding countless emotions.

As she said this, she narrowed her eyes slightly, like a weary, lazy cat licking its paws unhurriedly as it watched its prey. “Or could it be… you thought this was me wanting you to—”

“No way, how could that be, I absolutely did not!”

Overwhelming embarrassment and the will to survive pounced on Chi Qian at the same time. How could she have ever imagined that Shi Jinlan would have such a wicked turn of mind?

They had clearly been talking about a bet just a sentence ago.

How did she then guess what Ling Ji did to Ah Qing!

Chi Qian was completely unprepared and had made a big oolong.¹

Chi Qian had no other choice but to bite the bullet and try to smooth over her words. “That’s what I meant too. I was just saying, that’s not very good, is it.”

“One cannot just stake the rest of one’s life on it simply because someone saved you. There are many ways to repay a kindness, but not by pledging your body in return². Don’t you agree?” As Chi Qian spoke, she threw Shi Jinlan a look that sought approval.

Hearing Chi Qian say this, Shi Jinlan raised a hand to stroke the rabbit on her lap, her thoughts unclear. “Yes.”

This feeling of being out of control made Shi Jinlan very uncomfortable.

This topic, a trap she had laid, had caught more than just Chi Qian.

“So I was right,” Shi Jinlan changed the subject.

“Right.” Chi Qian, feeling she had passed the test, nodded briskly. “I owe you one wish.”

“Good, I will remember it,” Shi Jinlan said.

——And this strange feeling right now.

“Heh.”

Shi Jinlan let out a short laugh.

The smile in her curved eyes wasn’t clear, but it was richer than before.

In the sunlight, a few specks of golden light fell upon Shi Jinlan’s crow-feather-like eyelashes, which were clean and deep.

Chi Qian looked down at her like this, feeling instinctively that Shi Jinlan’s smile was very beautiful.

Besides coming out to bask in the sun often.

Shi Jinlan should also smile more.

No one is born to live in darkness.

A bird flew past the sun. The light and shadows flickered, making one dazed for a moment.

The thought in Chi Qian’s heart grew stronger. She wanted to pull Shi Jinlan out of the darkness, even if only for a second, even if she might one day have to leave her.

“Continue.”

Her thoughts had been drifting, but Chi Qian was pulled back by Shi Jinlan’s reminder.

She refocused her gaze and suddenly saw Shi Jinlan’s eyes looking at her.

Who knew what this person was thinking. Her undisguised gaze was too obvious; even if Shi Jinlan had wanted to let it slide, she couldn’t.

They had been together for so long, what was there to look at.

And even if you’re going to look, you should at least hide your gaze properly.

Idiot.

The two of them seemed to have a silent understanding, not mentioning a word about their gazes that had just collided.

As the one who’d been caught, Chi Qian hastily averted her gaze and nodded repeatedly. “Oh, oh, oh, we, where were we just now…”

Shi Jinlan observed Chi Qian’s reaction and reminded her in a faint voice, “Ling Ji pledged herself to her, and Ah Qing refused.”

“Right, pledged herself to her.” Chi Qian muttered these words, her face feeling hot.

She raised her hand and pressed the back of it to her cheek, then scrolled through the story the system had stored in her mind and continued narrating to Shi Jinlan. “Ah Qing’s reason for refusing was simple: she was a maiden, so she could not marry a maiden. Besides, she only saved her because she couldn’t bear to see her fall into the hands of unscrupulous merchants. She hadn’t done much; even the wounds on Ling Ji’s body had healed through her own abilities. She didn’t need to be repaid.”

“But Ling Ji didn’t think so. She was a jiaoren³, and once her injuries had mostly healed, she gained the ability to simulate a human form. She shed her scales and grew a pair of legs. Ah Qing had to go out to sea every day, so Ling Ji would stay at home and tidy up for her.”

“That sounds a bit like The Little Mermaid, and also a bit like the River Snail Maiden⁴.” Hearing Chi Qian’s narration, Shi Jinlan commented faintly.

Chi Qian thought so too. “Perhaps all the stories in the world are more or less the same.”

“So, did Ah Qing die later?” Shi Jinlan then asked.

Her lifted eyes were calm and waveless, her voice betraying no emotion about the ending she had conjectured.

Chi Qian’s emotions were much richer than hers. Astonished, her eyes went wide. “How did you know!”

“If they are all more or less the same, then in all myths and legends, lovers never end up together.” Shi Jinlan’s tone was invariably calm, coldly blanketing the sunlight on the horizon.

Whether in the past or the present, Shi Jinlan always saw through many things.

It was hard to know whether she should thank her grandfather for forcing her from a young age to discard emotion and view things with rationality. She was always calm when facing any matter, analyzing the pros and cons, able to dissect the core of the problem with a single stroke.

It wasn’t just stories like this; in Shi Jinlan’s eyes, the entire world seemed more or less the same.

A world that was either black or gray was also supremely dull.

“Yeah.”

Just as she was thinking this, a voice drifted by her.

Chi Qian seemed very moved by her statement, propping up her chin with a sigh.

Those thick, dense eyelashes drooped slightly, brushing against a small, fair, and clean face that was especially conspicuous against the black.

Shi Jinlan’s gaze was obscure as she looked at this splash of color in her vision. Then she heard her continue, “After rescuing Ling Ji, they had a wonderful period of time together. The people in the village were very kind, too. They thought Ling Ji was a child with bad legs and took care of her in every way. They swam in the summer and watched the snow in the winter; their hearts had long been connected.”

“But the world is unpredictable. The matter of Ah Qing having once caught a jiaoren was eventually discovered by a man on the same boat. Ah Qing’s worries had not been baseless. The man told the captain, and they conspired to follow Ah Qing, slaughter the village, and then kidnap Ling Ji.”

“Ah Qing sensed this. The captain, having nothing left to lose, brandished a knife and coerced her into revealing Ling Ji’s whereabouts, threatening to massacre her village and search house by house if she didn’t.”

Because she knew the ending of the story, Chi Qian was already very sad by this point in the telling.

She took a deep breath, as if she had fully prepared herself mentally, before she finally told Shi Jinlan the end of the story. “Both of these outcomes were things Ah Qing did not want to see. For Ling Ji’s safety, and also for the village, she set fire to the ship. She perished together with the captain and the others on board.”

Shi Jinlan listened, the hand stroking the rabbit slowing its rhythm.

Her fingers brushed over the warm fur on the back of the rabbit’s neck as she asked, “What about Ling Ji?”

“Such terrible news quickly reached the village, but Ling Ji didn’t know that Ah Qing was gone, or perhaps, she was unwilling to believe it.” Chi Qian pinched her slightly stuffy nose. “She still cleaned the house spotless every day, sitting in the courtyard to wait for her maiden to come home.”

“But that mermaid could never again wait for her maiden.”

“After her death, her body transformed into the island’s vegetation, her tears became a hot spring, and connecting with the sea that buried Ah Qing, she nourished this desolate and barren island in return.”

Such a heavy afterward.

Since she was little, Chi Qian had heard many such myths—Jingwei filling the sea⁵, Kuafu chasing the sun⁶—and thinking of them now still made her sad.

That kind of nourishment in return, accompanied by death, was always wreathed in an inconsolable sorrow, deeply connecting mortals and gods.

The reason people believed in and worshipped them for generations was because they were truly worthy of it.

Hearing this story for the first time, Shi Jinlan appeared very calm in comparison to the deeply moved Chi Qian.

She was even a little dismissive.

Just as she had said earlier, most myths were like this.

She couldn’t bring herself to believe in it like Auntie Zhou and the others. It was just that when she heard Chi Qian’s final two sentences, her heart inexplicably tightened.

It was an uncomfortable feeling, and the way she stroked the rabbit became somewhat less than gentle.

A sea breeze blew from the distance, pushing a thin cloud to cover the sun.

The story was finished. The sunlight in the courtyard was veiled by a white film, and the air carried a hint of cool warmth.

Emergency Rations (rabbit) stayed obediently under Shi Jinlan’s hand, its gray-blue eyes reflecting Chi Qian’s sorrowful expression.

Shi Jinlan stroked it intermittently, one hand slipping into her pocket.

“Want one?”

Flat and cool, Shi Jinlan’s voice came from above Chi Qian’s head.

A white frost drifted down in the sunlight, carrying the scent of dried plums.

As if by a trick of the gods, Shi Jinlan remembered what Yuan Ming had done in the bedroom earlier.

She still had some preserved plums⁷ left over from the mountain stream, so she opened the bag and offered one to Chi Qian.

“Thank you.” Chi Qian was a little surprised by Shi Jinlan’s action, but her heart felt warm.

After knowing her for so long, who had Shi Jinlan ever shown concern for?

She shouldn’t just feel warm; she should feel happy, too.

This was another step closer to winning over Shi Jinlan!

This was how it should be, step by step, accumulating over days and months, until one day she would stand by Shi Jinlan’s side!

Chi Qian took the preserved plum from Shi Jinlan’s hand as if she were receiving her very own medal of honor.

Then she placed this medal in her mouth. The white frost melted in her mouth, and that cool sweetness felt both strange and familiar. Before she could ponder it, it instantly dispersed the sorrow lingering in her heart.

Shi Jinlan is so nice.

Chi Qian nibbled on the preserved plum, thinking stealthily in her heart.

Her round, almond-shaped eyes darted about, and she couldn’t help but glance again at the slender shadow beside her.

Both were sitting in the courtyard, yet one was grieving over the story while the other was calm and composed, unstained by a speck of dust.

Shi Jinlan was as calm as ever, her hands resting on her knees, her form tall and graceful like jade. The sunlight fell along her shoulders, seeming to drape a thin veil of rationality over her, concealing any sorrow like her own.

The preserved plum had closed the distance between Shi Jinlan and Chi Qian. Chi Qian tilted her head and asked curiously, “Does Miss Shen think this story is rather strange and uninteresting?”

“No.” Shi Jinlan shook her head. “It fits the tone of ancient mythology well. It has the feel of Kuafu chasing the sun.”

But as she said this, she turned her head to look at Chi Qian sitting beside her and stated her observation in a very calm tone, “Compared to the story being strange, I think your reaction is stranger than the story.”

“Your sadness… it’s as if this is the first time you’ve ever heard this story.”

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