So I Had No Choice But to Stop Being the White Moonlight – Chapter 35

“I just feel that you’re not like her.”

Because Chi Qian and Shi Jinlan’s cup-tossing¹ ritual had gone so smoothly, the incense stick Auntie Zhou had lit wasn’t even halfway burned through.

Partly out of piety and partly as a fire precaution, everyone had to wait for the incense to burn out completely before they could leave.

The ancestral hall² was in a lovely setting. The pagoda tree in front of the entrance was neatly pruned, its branches lush and verdant with a full canopy of green.

Chi Qian had never been to such a place before and couldn’t help her curiosity. She stepped over the threshold, followed a trail of small, scattered flowers blooming in the grass, and made her way around to the back of the hall.

The branches parted on either side, and sunlight streamed straight down, revealing a wide-open space.

Chi Qian never would have expected to find such a vast, vibrant field of flowers behind the ancestral hall.

It was as if this was the secret girlish sentiment that Ah Qing and Lingji had hidden away.

Yuan Ming noticed Chi Qian was gone. She turned her head and saw Shi Jinlan was also about to head outside.

Seeing Shi Jinlan’s difficulty walking, she followed after her and asked, “Miss Shen, are you going to look for Ah Qian?”

Hearing this, Shi Jinlan abruptly stopped.

Her voice was quiet as if she were carefully mulling the name over. “Ah Qian.”

This wasn’t the first time Shi Jinlan had heard the nickname.

Over the past few days, she’d heard many people call Chi Qian Xiao Qian or Qianqian. Chi Qingyan and Auntie Zhou used them interchangeably, but only Yuan Ming called her “Ah Qian.”

At this thought, Shi Jinlan couldn’t help but furrow her brow slightly. “Is that what you always call her?” she asked Yuan Ming.

“I do,” Yuan Ming replied candidly, her gentle voice explaining the origin of their nicknames for each other. “Both of our names have two characters. Calling each other by our full names felt too distant, but just one character felt awkward, so we added an ‘A’ to the beginning.”

At this, Yuan Ming smiled at Shi Jinlan. “Can you guess what Ah Qian calls me?”

Shi Jinlan found this sudden attempt to build suspense quite familiar.

She glanced at Yuan Ming’s smiling eyes and, in the bright sun, seemed to see a certain someone else’s timid yet cunning face.

Shi Jinlan had never known someone so deeply. She coolly withdrew her gaze, her thin lips parting slightly as she said to Yuan Ming, “Ah Yuan.”

Surprise flashed across Yuan Ming’s face. She couldn’t help but marvel, “You’re very clever, Miss Shen.”

“I just had a feeling that if it were ‘A Ming,’ she would think it sounded too much like ‘Xiao Ming’—the generic name from all the textbooks—so she wouldn’t have picked it.” Shi Jinlan’s voice was placid, her words delivered with an easy, offhand grace.

Yuan Ming readily agreed. “That’s exactly how Ah Qian’s mind works. She’s been strange and whimsical ever since she was little.”

Shi Jinlan listened, her eyes lifting to meet Yuan Ming’s for a moment before she looked away again.

Sunlight filtered through the doorway, casting the pagoda tree’s dappled shadow into the hall. The mottled light fell across Shi Jinlan’s profile, and her raven-feather-like eyelashes, as if too heavy to hold up, suddenly drooped.

By all rights, she should have been satisfied to learn more about Chi Qian from Yuan Ming. Yet, not only did she feel no satisfaction, she felt displeasure. Perhaps it was from spending so much time with a certain someone that her own personality was becoming inexplicably strange. She even found herself thinking that it would have been better not to have learned anything new at all.

A dark flame surged within her, consuming the sunlight around it.

Daylight draped over Shi Jinlan, but it could not penetrate the shadows she carried within.

Meanwhile, Chi Qian was completely unaware that the flames within Shi Jinlan were flaring up again. She was completely absorbed in the sea of flowers behind the hall.

The flowers here were more beautiful than anywhere else, a profusion of blooms carpeting the ground. There were pure oranges, soft pinks… every color imaginable.

Chi Qian looked at the small flowers she was weaving into the start of a crown, vaguely recalling that they were called wood sorrel.

Back in her original world, she had always wanted to grow flowers. But how could a city-dwelling wage slave find the space to plant so many? The most she could manage was a small pot. After work, she would sit by her narrow floor-to-ceiling window, gazing out at the glittering high-rises that were part of her city, but not part of her life.

Chi Qian’s thoughts drifted as she searched the sea of flowers for the perfect blossoms.

She wanted to weave a flower crown. The circlet of grass she had made for Shi Jinlan last time had looked so good on her; a crown of flowers would surely suit her even more.

…But should I make one for Yuan Ming, too?

At this thought, her flower-picking slowed.

According to the original owner’s personality, she and Yuan Ming were so close that even if she’d developed a crush on Shi Jinlan, she would have casually made one for Yuan Ming as well. But last time, I already made Shi Jinlan unhappy by telling her that carrying her back was the same as when I’d carried Yuan Ming home. If I make a crown for Yuan Ming now, wouldn’t Shi Jinlan get angry all over again? Ugh, why is Shi Jinlan suddenly so possessive? That wasn’t part of the character profile Thirteen gave me.

She squatted down and propped her chin in her hands, her slightly chubby cheeks etched with worry.

Or, to put it another way, why would Shi Jinlan suddenly become so possessive? Why would she care whether the things that happened between us were unique?

It was like a root, ever-growing and burrowing deeper, had struck a hard, unyielding core, sending a sharp, twisting pain through her chest.

Her eyes flew open. Suddenly, she couldn’t figure it out.

Or rather, she didn’t dare to think about it.

In this relationship—or rather, this mission—she had always been the passive one. The system’s mission wasn’t her choice, and neither was Shi Jinlan.

It was as if a program had been written into her brain. The moment she entertained certain thoughts, it would pop up to remind her.

Thirteen had used hundreds, thousands of past stories as examples to teach her a very heavy lesson.

She wasn’t allowed to fall for Shi Jinlan; she could only wait for Shi Jinlan to show that she had fallen for her. Anything else was off-limits, forbidden. It was like being the princess in a fairy tale, forever waiting for the prince to arrive.

But if I could choose, who would want to be that princess!

Chi Qian was going to be Thirteen’s hundredth surviving host. She couldn’t let herself become one of the thousand-plus hosts who were sent to be annihilated.

She had to survive.

At the very least, I have to find out what happened to myself in my original world and how I was pulled into the system in the first place.

Reason reasserted its control over her mind. As the sunlight grew more intense, her confusion scattered and fled.

No matter what Shi Jinlan is thinking, Chi Qian thought, I’ve finally managed to close the distance between us. I can’t let it go back to how it was.

Yuan Ming, I’m sor—

The word sorry hadn’t even fully formed in her mind before Yuan Ming’s voice came from behind her.

“Ah Qian.”

You really can’t think about people. Speak of Cao Cao, and Cao Cao arrives.³

Chi Qian turned to see Yuan Ming walking toward her.

“Making a flower crown?” Yuan Ming asked, squatting down naturally beside Chi Qian.

“Yeah,” Chi Qian nodded, her movements stiff.

After all those days in the mountain stream, she had finally managed to relax around Shi Jinlan. Now that Yuan Ming was here, she was back to square one⁴; the old tension she used to feel came rushing back.

Yuan Ming seemed interested in making flower crowns, too. She searched around for colors that suited her taste, then pointed to a patch of deep blue wood sorrel. “This patch is lovely.”

“Oh, it is. I didn’t even notice it before,” Chi Qian said, moving over to pick a few of the prettier blossoms.

Her movements were deft as she plucked them by the stem.

The small, deep blue flowers were interspersed among the bright, warm colors. They couldn’t be the main color, only an accent.

Yuan Ming watched the color combination in Chi Qian’s hands, her gaze soft.

She then moved closer to Chi Qian, picked a few light-blue flowers, and began weaving her own crown as she spoke, as if making small talk. “I heard from Teacher⁵ that you’ve started reading books on Chinese medicine recently?”

“Mhm,” Chi Qian nodded. “I just got interested in it lately.”

It was the truth.

Chi Qian was genuinely curious about Chinese medicine. Though she had no foundation or talent for it, she figured that with such a great resource nearby, she might as well take the opportunity to learn something and enrich herself.

“Teacher is quite happy, you know,” Yuan Ming said gently. “He told me that when you were little, you were so interested he thought you were a promising talent worth cultivating. He never knew why you lost interest later on and was quite sad about it.”

“But now that he sees you’ve picked it up again, he says that even though it’s a little late, learning a little is better than learning nothing at all.”

This was the downside of being alone with someone who had been close to the original owner of her body. Yuan Ming and the original Chi Qian had been inseparable, and she was also Chi Qingyan’s best student. She knew more about Chi Qian’s past than Chi Qian herself did.

A few thin clouds drifted across the sky, casting fleeting shadows over the field of flowers.

Chi Qian’s movements became more careful as she wove the crown. Listening to Yuan Ming, she tried to explain it away with a half-joke. “Maybe my rebellious phase is just over.”

“Rebellious phase…” Yuan Ming watched Chi Qian’s hands as she worked, her gentle voice unusually flat.

She reached out, plucking a cool-toned flower from Chi Qian’s line of sight. The corner of her mouth curved up slightly as her gentle eyes met Chi Qian’s. “Did your rebellious phase start in the sixth grade, Ah Qian?”

Chi Qian had previously told Shi Jinlan about how she and Yuan Ming first met, so the mention of “sixth grade” felt particularly pointed.

She didn’t quite understand what Yuan Ming meant, but a sense of unease settled in her heart.

“Ah Yuan, what are you talking about?” Chi Qian forced herself to look at Yuan Ming calmly.

“It’s nothing,” Yuan Ming said softly, beginning to weave the flower she’d just picked into her own crown.

Her slender fingers worked the stem into the circlet, deftly tucking the end in. She seemed to focus all her attention on the task, her lowered lashes hiding her expression. The sunlight fell on her like a soft white mist, making her impossible to read.

But Chi Qian’s conscience was pricked.

She felt that Yuan Ming knew the original owner too well; she couldn’t be alone with her for too long. With that, she took her nearly-finished crown and stood up.

A breeze rustled through the flowers and grass, lifting Chi Qian’s long hair and revealing her ears.

And amidst the rustling of the wind, Chi Qian thought she heard Yuan Ming’s voice.

The meaning was unclear, but the tone was still soft and dense, like a quiet whisper or words spoken in a dream.

It said to her, “I just feel that you’re not like her.”

The sunlight was blinding. Chi Qian froze, her head swimming.

She had always been afraid of the grim, oppressive aura that clung to Shi Jinlan, but she had never imagined that a voice so gentle and mild could one day say something that terrified her so much.

She didn’t know if it was shock or if her legs had just fallen asleep from squatting for so long.

Her knees gave out, and she started to fall.

“Careful.”

Yuan Ming reacted instantly, rising to her feet and catching the unsteady Chi Qian from behind.

The cool-toned flower crown fell to the grass, a dark splash of color.

A cane pressed through the lush field of flowers, leaving two small indentations in its wake.

The shadows of the clouds receded. Under the sun, Shi Jinlan finally, slowly, made her way to the back of the ancestral hall.

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The author has something to say:

Yuan Ming: Something’s not right.

Qianqian: Finished calf.⁶

Lanlan: I’m not jealous (dun dun dun⁷).

A world where only Lanlan is jealous has been achieved.

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