Chapter 63
Fang Yi had not always been so silent.
Her past self was completely different from her present self.
It was only after she had set foot in Z City that she had truly found what she wanted to pursue.
Along the way, she had been lost, had failed, and had stumbled to smooth out her sharp edges.
Grandma had made a living in the countryside by relying on so-called folk witchcraft, but it was not easy to support a family of three.
At her poorest, Fang Yi had also thought of dropping out of school to earn money. Her good skills were her greatest asset. Her rich combat experience from her past life was more than enough to deal with those little hooligans.
She had calculated that it was not necessary to complete all of her compulsory education step by step. It was too much of a waste of time. It was not without precedent to save up enough money and skip a few grades.
Where does money come from quickly? Those gray areas on the edge of the city.
She was all too familiar with these things. Compared to the law of the jungle in the post-apocalyptic world, modern society was as docile as a little lamb.
Yu Jiufeng would always say, “Don’t worry about money,” but the more she said it, the more Fang Yi knew that the family was running out of money.
The accidental rescue of Grandma Xia had helped them move the whole family to the town, allowing her to receive a better education like her granddaughter. But the expenses had increased, and the number of people looking for Yu Jiufeng to “see things” had decreased.
Grandma Xia was an educated youth who had been sent down because of her background. In the winter, she would teach the two children “heaven and earth are dark and yellow, the universe is vast and desolate,” and would also read the newspaper to them. She was Fang Yi’s earliest enlightenment teacher.
After moving to the town, Grandma Xia had opened a clinic and had hired Yu Jiufeng and Fang Yi’s mother, Fang Yuan, to help look after the shop.
In fact, there were not many customers. In that era, people were poor. Even though Grandma Xia’s fees were not expensive, not many people patronized her. Sometimes, it was not as popular as Yu Jiufeng’s folk remedies and evil arts.
Grandma Xia’s identity was not simple. Fang Yi had known from the beginning, but when she had overheard their conversation, she had learned that the money to open the pharmacy was a pension. Grandma Xia’s children had all sacrificed themselves, leaving her with only a granddaughter, Xia Wenzhou.
Xia Wenzhou was six years older than Fang Yi, but she was even more childish than the chuunibyou Fang Yi. She had introduced herself by saying that her name meant to conquer the nine provinces, and that she would definitely change the world in the future.
This style of name reminded Fang Yi of her past life, a very famous lunatic from the base next door.
Later, she had found out that it was really her.
When fellow countrymen meet, there is inevitably a different kind of feeling. Xia Wenzhou had insisted on fighting her. Relying on her six years older body to press her down, she had the nerve to make Fang Yi call her “sister.”
Hearing that Fang Yi was short on money, Xia Wenzhou had immediately waved her hand and said, “Why don’t you join the army in Yanjing with me? Although you’re a little younger, we’re born to do this. You go and knock out our grandma, and I’ll contact someone. We’ll leave tonight. Do you know who my mom is?”
Fang Yi was a little intimidated by her. I don’t know.
Xia Wenzhou had looked up at the sky and roared, I don’t know either.
Fang Yi: …
Although Xia Wenzhou looked unreliable, a jeep had actually come to the small town that night.
When a path almost identical to her past life was laid out in front of her, Fang Yi had hesitated again.
The large car lights had stretched their shadows very long. Standing on the dilapidated street, in a daze, she had returned to the smoke-filled land of her past life.
Xia Wenzhou had said, “We are different from others.”
—You can never live like a normal person.
How do normal people live?
Fang Yi didn’t know.
She always wanted an answer to many things, but there were too many things in the world that had no answer.
Casually, fooling around, a lifetime would pass.
Why think so clearly?
To dissect confusion and pain was more akin to a kind of self-abuse.
But Fang Yi just couldn’t help but think. She had to have a safe plan before she would allow herself to land.
Including the future, including death, including… love.
What on earth is love?
This kind of complex thing had been very distant to her before, but when Lin Shuxing had hugged her, she had really considered many, many things.
Even more than that day, when she had been blinded by the headlights of the jeep.
It was too bright. She didn’t like things that were too bright. It was easy to lose sight of the road ahead.
It always made one suspect if there was a trap. A single misstep would lead to eternal damnation.
If a person appeared when you were at your saddest and most dejected, strong, gentle, and firmly leading you out of your predicament step by step, would you fall in love with her?
The three supreme leaders of the post-apocalyptic world were all this kind of person. Their existence would make people believe that as long as there was a breath left, there was hope. Countless people were willing to sacrifice their lives for this.
They were lighthouses, leaders, a place where the spirit could rest.
At that time, people had called it faith, not love.
Fang Yi was all too clear about the charm of an older person, so she had no doubt about the “dependency transfer” mentioned on the small website.
Perhaps she herself was also subconsciously and clumsily imitating, imitating the guiding light she had hoped for.
In a lonely darkness, she hoped that she would shine.
The first time she had met Lin Shuxing’s eyes, she had had a faint feeling that they were the same kind of person.
So she had helped her.
What she had once held tightly and lost, what she had longed for and could not get, she wanted to give it all to her.
Those wish missions were not just a system requirement.
If Fang Yi was unwilling to do it, no one could force her.
When she had peeked into Lin Shuxing’s heart, she seemed to always be crying, whether it was watching the dust-like snow at the abandoned construction site, or under the cold water of the bathroom.
Their encounters always seemed to carry a faint sadness. With one look, they had seen their destination.
They had felt lonely at the same time as they had felt happy. In the moment of getting close, they were always thinking about parting.
Fang Yi’s suddenly boiling emotions quickly calmed down, and her clenched fists quickly loosened.
Lin Qingwan raised a victor’s smile and emphasized softly, “I’m kindly advising you to stay away from my sister. You have no future.”
Fang Yi looked up quietly and suddenly said, “I know.”
“But none of that matters, right? Whether she sees me as an object of attachment or something else.”
“As long as she needs me, I’ll be there. If one day she feels… tired of it, I’ll leave.”
Fang Yi swallowed, and only with a knife could she swallow the word “disgusted,” stirring it into a bloody mess in her heart, before changing it to a much gentler word.
“As long as she has a future, that’s enough. That’s also the meaning of my being here.”
As long as Lin Shuxing could live, they would all reach the shore of freedom. As for the rest, it was too insignificant compared to being alive.
Fang Yi’s deliberately slowed, cool voice sounded very calm, without any personal emotion, as if she were reciting the most boring regulations, a thick book condensed into a thin, two-line oath.
“These childish tricks of yours are completely meaningless. What do you want me to do? Get angry out of shame and hit you, and then logically kick me out?”
“But have you ever thought that if something like this really happens, the one you’re hurting is actually Lin Shuxing.”
“You are too selfish, completely a little brat who cries loudly when you can’t get your favorite toy.”
Fang Yi coughed and cleared her slightly hoarse throat.
The cat in her arms anxiously hugged her fingers, its tail wrapping around her tense jawline.
Under her obsidian-like, clear gaze, Lin Qingwan opened her mouth at a loss. The shame and shock of being exposed made her unconsciously lose her voice. She could only stare at Fang Yi.
Incomprehensible. She completely couldn’t understand Fang Yi.
A person must have a motive, right? Especially a smart person like them.
If the ending is bound to be failure, then everything will be meaningless?!
Why can Fang Yi talk about an intimate relationship so easily? Why doesn’t she hold tightly to what she desires, but instead holds it loosely?!!!
Lin Qingwan completely couldn’t understand. She couldn’t understand if Fang Yi’s love was light and careless, or heavy and submerged in the sea.
Fang Yi smiled, but it was hard to say if it was a smile. After all, there was no pleasant emotion on her entire face.
She held the cat and walked out. Little Whale, who was baring its teeth at Lin Qingwan, immediately followed, wrapping around Fang Yi’s feet and meowing.
The main door was not closed. Fang Yi also picked up Little Whale.
Now she had two small tanks in her arms. She would be invincible.
Little Whale, the tank, was surprisingly well-behaved at this moment. It gently licked Fang Yi’s fingers.
It meowed a couple more times. This time, Fang Yi could understand it without the System’s translation. The syllables were exactly the same. It was still calling her “fool.”
A very bad cat. It’s still cursing people like this. It should be sent to dig coal. Fang Yi tapped its head with her finger and viciously buried her face in it, rubbing it.
“Fool.”
This time, the crisp voice was very clear, and very close.
The cat spoke? She looked up in a daze.
“Are you using it to wipe your tears, you fool, Fang Yi?”
The young lady’s voice was even closer, and the intoxicating, unique fragrance suddenly enveloped Fang Yi.
“I heard everything.”
Lin Shuxing took the little cats, one in each hand, and then ruthlessly placed them on the floor.
This position was hers.
“You…” You heard everything.
Fang Yi’s fair cheeks were instantly dyed with an embarrassed blush. The belated emotions all surged in her eyes.
She felt that she should say something, but the next second, the young lady stood on her tiptoes, and a soft lip pressed against hers.
Lin Shuxing drilled into her embrace, wrapped her arms around her long, slender neck, and all the unspeakable words were condensed in this deep kiss.
Her kissing skills had improved since before. With a blink of her dark eyelashes, she could instantly pull a person into a river of love, creating turbulent ripples.
As cool as Fang Yi was, she was as passionate, wishing she could pass a ball of fire from between her lips and teeth and burn all her unnecessary reason and thoughts to ashes.
“Why do you have those ridiculous misconceptions?”
The young lady’s moving voice brushed past Fang Yi’s ear, with a slight gasp, like a bottle of overturned perfume or jam, all drizzled on Fang Yi’s body.
“You are too noble, so noble that I want to break you.”
She took her hand, wrapped it around herself, and wanted her to feel the most real temperature and palpitation.
Fang Yi’s hand subconsciously supported the young lady’s soft waist, and she stiffly let her sweet scent sprinkle on her neck.
“Even so, you still think my feelings for you are just dependence?”
“The last time you rejected me, wasn’t it also because you were afraid of this? Because I mentioned my mother, you think I’m lacking love?”
The young lady laughed, and tears even seeped from the corners of her eyes. She then lightly kissed Fang Yi’s tense cheek from shame.
“Baby, then I’ll call you baby. How can you be so cute? If we have to say someone seduced someone first, then it was me, not you.”
“Let me tell you a secret.”
The young lady’s tender fingers gently climbed onto Fang Yi’s ear, triggering a tingling sensation. Her fine figure got a little closer, completely sticking to Fang Yi.
Fang Yi felt her soft chest trembling with her light laughter. The sweet scent invaded all the surrounding air, making it a little difficult to breathe, but her gaze could not move away from her sparkling face.
She was very cute just by not moving. When she was asleep, she was like a little angel, leaning on a cloud and looking down on the mortal world. But now, she had a blatant, wicked smile, not hiding her hot thoughts at all.
“I, on the contrary to your nobility, the first time I saw you, I wanted to sleep with you.”
Something exploded in her ear with a boom.
A young person’s immaturity and boldness mixed together, a green apple-flavored cannonball, firmly locking onto the woman’s rarely revealed true heart, and taking a further step with a bewitching charm.
“You’re so pretentious, holding a silver coin between your fingers, and suddenly smiling at me with that cool face.”
She often looked into the claw machine arcade through the glass. Rather than looking at the dolls, she was actually looking at Fang Yi most of the time.
Under the pink lights, the woman had a simple high ponytail, her tall figure covered by that ridiculous little bear work apron. But when she moved those huge dolls, a section of her fair arm would be shallowly revealed under her white shirt.
Her cool temperament was out of place with her surroundings. When it was time to stock up, she would always take the initiative to do those physical tasks, moving and placing the huge dolls, and putting them on the top shelf of the cabinet.
The top shelf was to attract customers.
And Fang Yi would always climb very high on the ladder, and then, with a whoosh, she would jump down with ease.
She was like the highest-level prize in this shop, but she would dodge when the claw fell, making her very hard to catch.
It wasn’t that Lin Shuxing hadn’t seen other girls go up to Fang Yi to ask for her contact information. She looked dazed and had given the shop’s official account. If you scanned the code, you could even get ten game coins.
Lin Shuxing had once suspected that this was the shop owner’s conspiracy, but she had still stepped in, and had even played a reverse game, and had fished out this big prize.
“At that time, I was thinking, you look so cold, but you must be very comfortable to hug.”
“I dreamed of you, in many dreams, with soft and warm arms.”
“It was only much later that I knew that it was called liking, and also—”
Lin Shuxing took Fang Yi’s hand, her eyelashes raised slightly, and she bit her wet lips again. The two chaotic syllables touched between their lips and teeth, the most intimate and unreserved transmission.
“Desire.”
