When Jiang Yin opened her eyes, the young man’s slightly cool fingers were slowly tracing along the lines of her palm, gentle and unhurried, as if he were painting a picture she could not understand.
Seeing that she had woken up, his fingertip fell with the final stroke, and he asked her with a faint smile, “Did you see Lin Mengyue?”
Jiang Yin had just noticed that the place on her palm he had traced still felt cold for a long while. She was about to raise her hand to take a look when she heard this, and instantly forgot about the strange sensation in her palm. Startled, she said, “How did you know?”
“Before entering the array, I heard Lin Yueying mention it.” Chu Nanci’s thumb gently rubbed against her wrist. When he saw her shrink back slightly, his brows knit faintly. “What’s wrong?”
“It hurts a little…” Jiang Yin lowered her head to look. Her wrist appeared as clean and fair as before, with nothing visibly wrong.
But when the young man’s hand had just touched it, there had indeed been a slight stinging pain.
Chu Nanci’s fingers covered it again, his movements gentler. “Here?”
Jiang Yin nodded. Watching his slender fingers encircle her wrist, she suddenly thought of something.
“Oh right! When I was in the dream, I was once shackled with chains. My wrist got rubbed raw at the time, it was exactly this spot.” After figuring out the reason for the pain in her wrist, she no longer paid it much mind. She excitedly patted Chu Nanci’s hand. “Ah Ting, do you know, in the dream, the three Lin sisters could actually see me!”
She recounted everything that had happened in the dream to the young man. She had thought he would be shocked as well, but he merely gave a soft acknowledgment, his gaze lowered as he focused on massaging her wrist.
Jiang Yin felt that his reaction was a bit too indifferent. “Ah Ting, aren’t you curious? Why could they only see me, but not Lin Yueying?”
“Your body carries a remnant of Lin Mengyue’s demonic consciousness. Within the array, that makes you half her. The Lin sisters can only see her within the dream, so after you entered the dream, it was natural that they could see you as well.” Chu Nanci held her hand, his brows tightly furrowed. “Tomorrow, when you enter the dream again, I will go with you and treat your injuries.”
Jiang Yin roughly understood. Because it was within the dream, the injury was to her soul, so only healing within the dream would be effective.
“Your internal breathing hasn’t stabilized yet. It’s not suitable for you to enter the dream. As for me…” She was just about to wave her hand and say it was only a minor injury and not worth worrying about, but then she met the young man’s lifted gaze.
She had only been here during the day before, and only now did she realize that at each of the four corners of the room, there was actually a long-burning lamp lit. In the airtight room, even the candle flames glowed with an eerie bluish light. The entire room felt like a massive ice cellar, cold and chilling, and even the young man’s usually gentle features seemed to have lost some of their softness.
In short, he did not look to be in a good mood.
And this expression immediately made Jiang Yin think of the palm that had come down in the room at the Flower Tower.
Before her mind could react, her body’s memory had already made her shiver. The words she had been about to say were swallowed back down, and she nodded repeatedly. “Alright, okay, sure, we’ll go together.”
Chu Nanci’s brows lifted slightly, his gaze fixed on her face, as if deep in thought.
Jiang Yin swallowed. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“You want it.”
The young man’s extremely certain tone instantly brought a flush rushing to Jiang Yin’s face. Her rebuttal came out unusually loud. “I do not!”
Chu Nanci looked at the brocade quilt beneath her, a faint, ambiguous smile curling at the corners of his lips. “Then what is this?”
Jiang Yin lowered her head to look, and her face instantly turned so red it seemed ready to drip blood.
The things in this room had not seen light for a long time and carried a damp, stale humidity. Once stained with liquid, it would spread into a patch of dark marks, especially obvious.
Even worse, the young man handed her a handkerchief, his tone gentle as he said, “Endure it a little. This is not a suitable place to do such things.”
Jiang Yin: “…”
Why was he being considerate at a time like this? Did he not see whose fault it was that her body was reacting like this?
Jiang Yin was angry but did not dare to speak. She could only grit her teeth, take the handkerchief, and walk behind the screen in the room to clean herself up.
Before she even finished, Lin Yueying’s voice came from outside.
“Jiang Yin. Jiang girl. Immortal from the Clouds.”
The voice drifted, sounding like she was shouting at the top of her lungs. Jiang Yin quickly responded, “I’m here!”
Lin Yueying had found her faster than she expected and stood outside the courtyard gate, calling for her to come out.
She was calling urgently, and Jiang Yin did not have time to throw away the handkerchief. She could only grip it in her hand and hurriedly went downstairs with Chu Nanci.
By the time they reached the courtyard, the sky outside was already beginning to lighten, tinged with the pale white of dawn, making the dark pool in the courtyard look even more chilling.
Lin Yueying was dressed in white. The wound on her neck had already scabbed over, making her look even more unsettling. She stood there outside, waving at her. “Come quickly.”
The atmosphere was simply terrifying.
Jiang Yin silently moved closer to the young man’s side.
After finally waiting for them to come out, Lin Yueying complained, “Why did you come here?”
“There’s peace and quiet here. No one disturbs us.” Jiang Yin said, “I was just about to ask you. Why didn’t you go in? Standing at the door like that is terrifying.”
Lin Yueying rolled her eyes. “Obviously. Lin Mengyue was drowned here by Huaying. No one in the entire Lin Residence dares to come, of course it’s quiet.”
“This is Lin Mengyue’s room from when she was alive?!” Jiang Yin was startled again and turned back to look at the pool in the courtyard.
The sky was dim, and the filth floating in the water was unclear. Perhaps influenced by Lin Yueying’s words, when she looked again, those shadows vaguely resembled a person.
Black hair spread out, the face pale and swollen from soaking in water, a pair of eyes wide open, staring straight at Jiang Yin.
Jiang Yin’s heart clenched. Frightened, she staggered back a few steps and bumped into a wall that felt cool to the touch. The icy temperature carried no sense of a living person. Her whole body trembled, and she was nearly scared to tears.
“Ah Ting…” She held onto the young man’s hand and steadied herself, asking with a miserable expression, “How much longer until your internal breathing is adjusted?”
Cold and lifeless, it was simply too frightening.
And it was strange. Normally, adjusting one’s internal breathing should take a single day, but after an entire night had passed, the young man’s hair was still half white and half black, without the slightest improvement.
She was starting to wonder what he had been doing during the time she was asleep. Had he really been properly regulating his breathing?
Only then did Lin Yueying notice that Chu Nanci’s white hair had not faded. For a moment, she did not know whether she should remind Jiang Yin.
This was far from something that could be resolved by simply adjusting internal breathing. The nine-tailed fox was currently suffering multiple torments. His heat cycle, the backlash, the severe injuries to his nine tails. Compared to those, his disordered internal breathing was only a minor issue.
But it was not strange that Jiang Yin did not know any of this. Judging from the nine-tailed fox’s reaction, it was hard to imagine just how much torment he was enduring at this moment.
Faced with her question, Chu Nanci could even smile and comfort her. “It should be soon.”
‘He should be dying soon.’ Lin Yueying added silently in her heart.
No, if this continued, his condition would only worsen. How would they break the array then?
She had to think of a way.
As the first light of dawn appeared, the silent Lin Residence also began to awaken. Servants filed out one after another, cleaning the estate from top to bottom, not even sparing a single grain of sand on the paths.
Jiang Yin had been here for ten days, and this was the first time she had seen so many servants appear all at once. It was likely because of what Lin Yueying had said last night, that Lin Yueying’s father would be returning to the residence today.
“Are we going to the front courtyard now to wait for your father to come back?”
“We are going to wait for my father, but not in the front courtyard.” Although five years had already passed, Lin Yueying still remembered clearly what happened today. “After he returned, the first place he went was Huaying’s courtyard. If we wait in the front courtyard, we won’t see him.”
As she said this, Jiang Yin happened to see the seventeen-year-old Lin Yueying dressed in a brand new lotus dress, smiling brightly as she headed toward the front courtyard.
A maid followed behind her. “Miss, slow down. Master’s letter said he would only arrive around noon.”
“It’s fine. I’ll go to the gate early to welcome Father.”
The younger Lin Yueying lifted her skirt and ran past Jiang Yin. Jiang Yin could see the deep affection in her eyes, along with the joy of soon seeing her father, as she hurried toward the front courtyard.
Lin Yueying watched her younger self run off and shrugged. “See? That’s exactly what I did back then. I waited in the front courtyard for most of the day. The sun made me dizzy, and I got heatstroke. I was sent back to my room, and only then did I learn that my father never passed through the front courtyard at all.”
Her tone was casual, as if she were talking about something trivial. “But thanks to me being in the front courtyard at the time, I didn’t run into that person immediately.”
Jiang Yin looked at the back of her head, which seemed slightly lowered compared to before. She pressed her lips together, quickened her steps to walk beside her, and asked, “Who?”
“An absolute scumbag.” Lin Yueying spat, not saying anything more as she lowered her head and walked forward.
Jiang Yin did not feel it was appropriate to press further, so she simply followed closely behind her.
Before long, the group arrived at Lin Huaying’s courtyard.
The courtyard was not large, and its layout was similar to Lin Mengyue’s. There was also a small pond in the yard, with a few lotus flowers planted as decoration.
At this moment, Lin Huaying was sitting by the pond in a daze, her eyes occasionally revealing traces of struggle and pain.
Lin Yueying commented on her, “It must be because you mentioned Mengyue’s drowning in the dream last night, making her conscience uneasy… how laughable. After doing something like that, she still has a conscience?”
She simply sat down beside Lin Huaying, as if wishing to scrutinize and criticize every slight change in her expression.
Jiang Yin stood under the corridor eaves, staying far away from the pond. She reached out and poked the young man beside her. “Do you think that after entering the array, Lin Mengyue’s demonic consciousness can still continue to affect me?”
“Perhaps.” Chu Nanci caught her restless hand. “It seems you already knew about this?”
When he had brought it up earlier in the morning, she had not seemed surprised.
“Not exactly early. I only guessed a little after entering the array.” With one hand caught, Jiang Yin raised the other and pointed toward the pond in the courtyard. “Before entering the array, I kept having headaches, and I would occasionally see things.”
She had thought it was a side effect of the original host’s memories merging with her own, until after entering the array, when she gradually discovered the truth.
“In those visions, there was always a pond full of lotus flowers, exactly like the ones in the Lin Residence. And for some reason, I’m also afraid of water.” As she spoke, Jiang Yin took another step back, moving even farther from the pond. “I can’t look at it. If I stare for even a bit longer, my heart starts racing and feels suffocated. I’m terrified.”
With her current reaction, the question she had asked Chu Nanci earlier did not even need an answer.
Lin Mengyue’s demonic consciousness could still influence her.
Chu Nanci pinched her fingers lightly. “Ah Yin, what are you trying to say?”
Jiang Yin lowered her voice. “I, or rather Lin Mengyue, is extremely afraid of water. But when facing Lin Huaying, the one who drowned her, there isn’t the slightest fear. Instead, there’s still attachment and dependence. Putting that together, I have a bold guess.”
Chu Nanci also lowered his voice. “You suspect the real killer is someone else?”
“Exactly!” Jiang Yin gave him a look that said ‘you really get me’. “And Lin Huaying also knows who the real culprit is. That’s why she stopped me from saying it last night. She isn’t afraid because of guilt, she’s afraid Lin Yueying won’t be able to bear the truth!”
“Mm.” Chu Nanci leaned closer and closer, his presence completely enveloping her. “Who do you think it is?”
“Someone Lin Huaying would protect must be extremely important to her.” Jiang Yin’s gaze swept past Lin Yueying beside Huaying and landed on the middle-aged man walking in from the entrance. She raised her hand and pointed. “It’s him! I felt it. I… I… I…”
Her finger trembled slightly, and her fingertip shifted toward the refined-looking man beside the middle-aged man. Tears flowed out without warning.
“I… love him.”
The smile on Chu Nanci’s face vanished abruptly.
Author’s Note:
Chu Nanci: Asking online, my wife fell for someone else right in front of me, how should I punish her?