Chapter 38: The Great Fire
“Wake up…”
“Wake up!”
Lina opened her eyes in a daze. What she saw was not Adele with a cold expression, but Aomo.
“You were almost pushed off the building!” Aomo’s expression was anxious. “Didn’t I tell you to protect yourself! You child, you’re going to scare me to death!”
A quarter of an hour ago, she had been standing on the third floor of the chapel and had personally seen Lina run up to the bell tower alone, talking to herself. Then, a person who looked exactly like Adele also went up.
“Were you scared? You fainted!” Aomo helped Lina up. “I also gave Adele a carnelian. The one who wanted to push you was not the real Adele. Don’t overthink it.”
Lina looked at her with a blank face, her memory completely jumbled.
She clearly remembered chasing the imposter up the stairs…
Lina looked down again. There was no blood in the empty courtyard at all.
Killing someone, was that her fantasy?
Being seen killing someone by Adele, was that also her fantasy?
?
“This place is too strange. You stay with me now. You’re not allowed to go anywhere.” Aomo held Lina tightly. “The person who wanted to push you actually disappeared into thin air…”
She had cultivated for over a hundred years and could only teleport.
A sense of crisis instantly welled up in her heart. Aomo’s subconscious told her that that person was probably not easy to deal with.
She pulled the bewildered Lina straight downstairs. “Let’s go find Adele. We can’t let her be alone anymore.”
Lina’s face was pale. Tonight, her mood had been like a roller coaster.
She should be happy. After all, in her teacher’s heart, she had not yet become a murderous bad rabbit.
But at this moment, her heart had sunk to the bottom. She vaguely felt that there was really something wrong with her mental state.
…
The two had just gone downstairs when Adele also happened to come out of the corridor. She was holding a two-meter-high metal staff.
A strong wind was raging, making the withered branches and rotten leaves rustle. Thunder rumbled in the dark clouds, and the sky was a sheet of blue light.
Aomo looked at the sky, then at the staff. The crystal ball in her pocket suddenly began to vibrate violently.
Summoning heavenly lightning, striking the flesh… starting a great fire!
Isn’t this the result she had predicted!
Adele would be burned to death in a great fire!
Aomo roared with almost all her strength, “Throw away the staff!”
But they were too far apart. The wind was howling. By the time Aomo’s voice reached Adele, it was only a few broken syllables.
Adele: “Huh?”
A blinding white light leaked from the distant sky. The lightning was about to strike. Just as Aomo was about to teleport, a black shadow was faster than her and pounced directly at the staff!
Adele was knocked back several steps, staggered, and fell into the flowerbed with a thud.
She looked at the person who had snatched the staff—
It was the madwoman who had appeared by her side several times!
The strong wind shook the heavens and the earth. Lina was brought by Aomo, teleporting to Adele’s side.
“Put down the staff!” Aomo said urgently.
The madwoman just shook her head calmly. Her voice was hoarse and raspy, every word as if polished by sandpaper. “Don’t come over.”
The madness had dissipated. Her eyes were clear again. She stared at Adele and said, “I am you, and you are me. Someone wants to erase our existence, to snatch our lover. Today, someone must die…”
Before she could finish, the sky exploded from the middle. A dazzling cold light, wrapped in a world-destroying aura, shot straight down, striking the staff with incredible precision!
The woman instantly began to tremble violently, like a fallen leaf in a strong wind, completely powerless. She looked at Lina, a smile blooming on her completely disfigured face.
She had many things she wanted to say to Lina, but there was no more chance.
She could only remember Lina’s appearance with her eyes.
Adele took half a step forward but was grabbed by Aomo.
“There’s no saving her.”
Yes.
There was no saving her.
In the blink of an eye, a great fire erupted.
Adele’s eyes trembled. Dream and reality intertwined. Her skin felt as if it were being seared by the flames. More memories surfaced.
She asked, “You saved Lina, but you failed, right? Or rather, I saved Lina, but I failed.”
“Right!” The madwoman’s voice pierced through the fire and wind, filled with the pain of being burned, and also with a heart full of resentment and unwillingness. “This is the last chance! You must protect Lina! Take her home! She doesn’t belong here!”
“None of us belong here!”
She roared with all her might, every syllable burning. “Go find…”
The color drained from Adele’s face.
That sentence again!
What on earth did she want her to find!
A few out-of-tune gasps rolled from the madwoman’s throat. She swayed, her eyes rolling back uncontrollably, as if an invisible hand were pulling her soul away, trying to force her to shut up.
“Find what?” Lina suddenly asked.
The madwoman shuddered. Her body, which was about to fall, stood firm.
She slowly turned to Lina, a faint smile on her lips, illuminated by the firelight.
Lina read comfort in her eyes, and also an endless pity.
The madwoman gripped the staff tightly and, with the last of her strength, said to Adele, “Find everyone who appears around Lina! Stay with them! Create as many connections as possible! That will destroy this story! This is the key to saving Lina! We are destined to have this calamity… I’ll die for you… you must protect Lina… she is my lover, and also your lover! Please!”
From stuffing the book into Adele’s hands at the market to remind her to find people, to Adele’s fall from the cliff, where she had lured Yuan You to the rescue, to now snatching the staff and, on the very day she herself had died, changing Adele’s fate of being burned to death—she had done all she could.
The madwoman looked at Lina for the third time and said to her silently, “I wish you happiness, my baby.”
The flames completely engulfed her figure.
She was completely dead, using her own body to carve out a path to life for her lover.
The staff broke in the middle. The huge impact sent the three of them flying. By the time they climbed back up, the world had returned to calm.
The great fire, the madwoman—nothing was left.
The monastery was still deathly silent. It was as if only they had been part of what had just happened.
Unconsciously, Lina was already streaming with tears.
Adele’s mind was in a mess. She sat paralyzed on the ground, unable to come to her senses for a long time.
【Do you guys know why this author closed the comment section?】
【Someone commented last time that there was some drama.】
【I know.】
【Lend me an ear.】
【Private message.】
【Just say it. All this private messaging, like a snake…】
【What is it, so secretive?】
【Hahahahahaha.】
【This author is suspected of plagiarism.】
【Ah!?】
【It’s said she plagiarized someone else’s character design. The other party even provided a color palette comparison, but the platform didn’t rule in their favor.】
【Then it’s not plagiarism.】
【No, I went to look at the other book. The character designs are very similar. You don’t need a mother’s eye to see it.】
【I took a look. It’s a sweet little story. The lop-eared rabbit and the white wolf are a couple?!】
【So… this author stole the lop-eared rabbit to make her suffer, and the white wolf came over to save her!】
【OMG! What is this? A wife-saving mission in progress!?】
【Is it really plagiarism? If so, I won’t follow it anymore… It’s too disgusting.】
【Didn’t the platform not rule on it? Don’t just believe everything you hear.】
【Person above, I hope everything you like in the future is someone else’s dismembered corpse!】
【Not being ruled on doesn’t mean she didn’t plagiarize! Maybe it just didn’t reach the threshold for a verdict!】
【Even if she plagiarized one word! It should be taken down immediately! Originality first!】
【Support!】
【I get it! I get what Adele has to find!】
【Find what?】
【A plagiarist definitely doesn’t just plagiarize one book! She must have plagiarized others too! As long as we find more evidence and everyone unites, we can protect our rights!】
【Oh my! If only the rabbit and the wolf could see this…】
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…
Adele was losing control.
The single bed in the monastery was too narrow for two people to sleep side by side.
Lina could only lie on top of her.
Adele encircled her, squeezed her, locked her.
Very tight.
So tight that Lina could only take small breaths. She brought out her ears and, in place of her hands, flapped them twice. It felt good, but she was about to suffocate.
Adele loosened her grip slightly, caught one of the ears, and brought it to her nose. The fur, softened by the sun, exuded the scent of a lop-eared rabbit.
Dry, warm, reassuring.
A heart in disarray could not control the nature of a white wolf. Faced with a lop-eared rabbit that could be swallowed in one bite, it was hard to remain elegant.
Restraint?
That was also a thing of the past.
Adele shamelessly bullied her domesticated rabbit ball. The unresolvable anxiety made her even more excessive. Her out-of-control hands, due to extreme unease, explored a softer harbor.
She also needed shelter.
Fragmented memories slowly pieced themselves together.
The hand that had pulled her into the book was the madwoman’s, which was another version of herself, another version that had tried to save Lina but had been burned to death in a great fire because she had failed.
The woman’s hate-filled roars and Lina’s trembling breaths intertwined. Adele squeezed her own harbor. Her thoughts, in a chaotic loosening and tightening, became clear. She crushed the pathetic gasps and, as she wished, found a train of thought.
She had to find the people who appeared around Lina and create connections.
That was the sausage-loving Herlkin, the meticulous physician Haia, the witch Aomo, and the soon-to-be-selected Lina’s Huaguang… and perhaps her knight.
After all, the two of them seemed to be inseparable.
Adele didn’t forget Dilys. She held the ripe person in her mouth. While thinking, she made a mental list of these people. Occasionally, when she thought of a strange point, her mind would focus, and the force in her teeth would loosen.
According to Huaguang’s hint, the little rabbit would definitely be selected. Her fate of a tragic death today had already been changed. Why did another version of herself still emphasize saving her?
Could it be that there was still danger awaiting Lina?
Did they not belong to this book?
Then where did they belong?
The person deep in thought was too much. Lina whimpered softly, feeling like a new mother who had just started nursing.
The wolf cub had been hungry for too long.
A strong sense of role reversal made her dizzy.
Adele’s train of thought was interrupted by a violent tremor. She looked at Lina.
“I’m not your instructor, and I’m certainly not an elder of the Sacred Cult,” Adele said.
Lina let out a whimper in the afterglow, clearly not having recovered yet.
Adele explained the matter of her “transmigration” in detail. “…So, the things the original Adele did have nothing to do with me. I didn’t do anything to other girls. I came back late at night because I was kept for tea.”
Lina shrank back and lay on Adele’s chest, looking at her with moist, red eyes.
Her own face was reflected in those dark green eyes.
Lina was very satisfied with her teary-eyed appearance. She secretly pinched herself, and the crying tone that had not yet faded grew thicker. “Teacher, will you leave me in the future?”
She liked to use the polite form of address with Adele. It made her feel more like Adele’s student…
She liked the unequal, slightly weaker position, just because she wanted to be protected, to be controlled, to completely become Adele’s…
Puppy.
In Adele’s breath, the scent of the lop-eared rabbit was magnified between her lips and teeth.
How could she not get enough?
“Perhaps there are some memories that I’ve temporarily lost. But I think it’s just the difference between me loving you and me loving you more.”
Adele touched the corner of her eye, wiping away the tear that was about to fall, and said with pity, “Thank you for giving me the chance to love you.”
I have witnessed your growth, felt sorry for your past, and worried about your future.
I finally understand that the heart-wrenching pain I felt at first sight was because in another world, you were my baby.
Sorry, I came too late.
Adele wiped away Lina’s tears, but her own tears flowed uncontrollably.
Lina’s sensitivity, probing, and unease all dissipated before these two streams of clear tears.
A stable happiness was enough to trap a soul that wanted to go mad.
Lina cupped her face. “Don’t cry.”
She took the initiative to nudge her tail into Adele’s hand. “Does squeezing it make you a little happier?”
“It does.”
“Then you can squeeze it anytime, anywhere. With just one order, I’ll—” Lina retracted her tail, then popped it out again. “Like this.”
Like this, I’ll become your toy.
Lina didn’t say the whole thing.
Adele was so captivated by her cuteness she was about to faint. In the mingling of their breaths, she poured her affection directly into Lina’s ear.
“I love you very much, Lina.”
“You are my baby.”
Baby…
A word that made one’s heart soften.
Just hearing it could make one feel cherished.
Lina was stunned for a moment. “Me?”
I’m a baby?
From childhood, she had been worth less than a weed.
“Yes.” Adele turned all her anxiety and unease about the unknown into a gentle whisper to Lina. “You are my baby, my only baby.”
She would say it a thousand times.
Ten thousand times.
A hundred thousand times.
Until Lina believed that she was the most precious baby in the world… she would not stop.
“I like this name.” Lina nuzzled Adele’s face. She couldn’t wait to do something with Adele.
Feed her a little more.
Or eat something else.
“Let’s break the rules,” Lina said.
“As you wish, my baby.”
*
On the day of the Monastery Open Day, the long street was very lively. Everyone was waiting for the selected nuns. But the real selection site was absolutely confidential.
Lina, wearing a sacred robe, stood in a corner. Her gaze was calm, her mind clear.
At three quarters past noon, the main door of the second floor of the chapel slowly opened. Huaguang, wearing a velvet long dress that symbolized the top nobility, with pure gold buttons fixed with pure gold embroidery thread, and a five-pearl imperial crown on her head—that was not just an ornament, but also represented that she had an army, real power.
She stood on the second floor, surrounded by a dense crowd of royal family members. Yuan You stood behind her, one hand on her sword, stern and serious.
The Grand Elder of the monastery whispered in Huaguang’s ear, “That is the daughter of the permanent deputy foreign minister… that is the daughter of the director of the Inspectorate… that is…”
The nuns below, those who knew what was going on, were waiting silently. Those who didn’t were praying secretly.
But this selection was never based on luck.
“Please, Grand Princess Huaguang, make your choice.”
There were a total of five spots. Huaguang first chose the daughters of three ministers, then chose one who caught her eye. Finally, her hand stopped on Lina.
“Just these five.”
Just as Lina had relaxed, a voice full of anger suddenly tore through the superficial peace!
“Your Highness! She is the elder’s lover!”
“Choosing someone with connections! This is not fair!”
