Chapter 21
“You really are special. I’m very curious, why are you, someone from a small village, so vigilant?”
Shui Wuding stepped forward gracefully, a nonchalant smile on her red lips. She hooked Fang Yi’s chin with her white jade pipe, lifting it slightly.
All the address information Fang Yi provided was fake. She even used aliases for most of her names. The Lin family had been tracking them since they left the manor, yet Fang Yi had managed to shake them all off.
One day and one night. This was the limit of Lin Lan’s patience.
The drainpipe gushed with the tears of the downpour. Water was already seeping in on the first-floor steps.
Fang Yi flicked the pipe away with her umbrella handle, studied Shui Wuding carefully for a moment, and said faintly:
“Put out the smoke.”
“Hm?” This was a bit unexpected. Shui Wuding tilted her head, the smile in her eyes deepening. “What if I don’t?”
“You’re here to take Lin Shuxing away, aren’t you? Don’t let her inhale your secondhand smoke.”
Fang Yi paused and drew a line in front of the stairs with the tip of her umbrella. “Otherwise, don’t go up. Let Lin Lan come herself.”
“What makes you think you can stop me?”
The woman laughed as if she had heard a joke. “Even your godmother-aunt has to be respectful when she sees me. What will you use to stop me? This broken umbrella?”
“If the godmother-aunt you’re talking about is my grandmother, Yu Jiufeng, then you’ve got one thing wrong.”
“With her character, it’s impossible for her to be respectful to anyone.”
Fang Yi took a step back into a more open space, her feet slightly apart. She raised the tip of her umbrella, her presence suddenly sharpening.
She swung the dark, long umbrella down with a gentle flick. Swish—
All the water droplets were flung to the ground, forming a sharp line of water.
“Wow,” Shui Wuding’s smile became even more subtle. “I’m really starting to like you more and more.”
Fang Yi repeated, “Put out the smoke.”
“Are you going to fight me? Just because I won’t put out my smoke? That’s a bit too childish.” Shui Wuding said.
“Not entirely. I’ve disliked you all for a long time.”
“Us?” Shui Wuding savored the word, a playful smile on her face. “Including Lin Lan? Are you standing up for Lin Shuxing?”
She ignored the threat of the umbrella and took a step forward. “You haven’t really fallen in love with Lin Shuxing, have you?”
Fang Yi didn’t speak, her calm eyes quietly reflecting Shui Wuding’s shadow.
The next second, the wind suddenly picked up. The tip of the umbrella drew a line on the ground, sweeping up towards Shui Wuding’s wrist.
The dark green vertical pupils blinked. With a boneless turn, she just managed to dodge the attack.
When Fang Yi advanced, she retreated. When Fang Yi retreated, she entangled her, slowly wearing down her forceful momentum, and even deliberately teased her, taking a deep breath and blowing a smoke ring right in Fang Yi’s face.
It was unknown what was mixed in the cigarette. The pungent smell stung her eyes, forcing out a few physiological tears.
“Again!”
Fang Yi gripped the umbrella handle, her slightly red eyes adding a touch of cute, embarrassed anger to her serious face. Her attacks gradually became chaotic.
Young people are so reckless, and so self-righteous.
Shui Wuding smiled and shook her head, continuing to tease her unhurriedly. But Fang Yi’s umbrella suddenly changed direction in mid-air, stabbing towards one of her pressure points.
Shui Wuding’s expression changed slightly. She no longer held back, and like a phantom, she wrapped herself around Fang Yi’s umbrella-wielding arm and twisted it down hard.
Now—!
Fang Yi simply didn’t defend. The moment the pain arrived, she shifted her position and swiftly flicked her hand.
Shui Wuding only felt a numbness in the hand holding the white jade pipe. The next second, her precious pipe was sent flying, drawing a beautiful arc in the air and landing heavily in a puddle.
The woman stood in the rain in surprise, her green pupils glowing in the darkness, her cold blood gradually turning hot.
The smile on Shui Wuding’s face vanished completely. She raised her hand and casually pinched Fang Yi’s neck. Under the absolute pressure of her strength, the young lady was completely powerless.
Shui Wuding pressed Fang Yi onto the rain-soaked concrete floor. Her sharp nails gently drew a line on her cheek, and soon, beads of blood seeped out.
“You bad child, there’s a limit to being naughty… This is a divine artifact. If it’s damaged even a little, your life won’t be enough to compensate.” The woman’s demonic tone was filled with a thick contempt and majesty.
A light came on to the side. Shui Wuding finally saw the expression of this mortal under her hand—she was actually smiling, a smile that was almost indifferent.
Fang Yi raised her eyebrows at her maliciously and repeated, “Put out the smoke.”
Shui Wuding took a deep breath and belatedly realized that Fang Yi had not wanted to fight her from the beginning. Her target from start to finish had been that white jade pipe.
Shui Wuding felt a sense of absurdity from the bottom of her heart.
“What good will this do you?”
“This little bit of smoke won’t affect anything. Your persistence is meaningless.”
Fang Yi lifted her face, a rare look of a young girl’s fearlessness and arrogance on her face. “Who said it has to be meaningful? I said I don’t like you all. I have to make you unhappy too.”
“…” Shui Wuding’s fingertips tightened. For a moment, she really wanted to strangle her.
The rain above her head was suddenly blocked.
“Let go.” A woman’s cold voice cut through the night. “Why is this so ugly.”
Fang Yi looked up and saw Lin Lan’s face, frosty with coldness.
A man in black was holding an umbrella for her. Although the umbrella was not large, the downpour seemed to deliberately bypass them. Even the heavens seemed to yield to her power. Not a single drop of water wet her leather shoes.
“Fang Yi.” The woman called out coldly.
Fang Yi lay quietly, looking up at this arrogant woman from the sewage. After a long while, she grinned, revealing a brilliant smile.
“What are you smiling at?”
Fang Yi said, “I’ve discovered that Lin Shuxing is really not like you at all.”
They really didn’t look alike. Lin Lan and Lin Qingwan both had single eyelids, while Lin Shuxing had double eyelids. Her eyes were also rounder…
It was that Lin Shuxing had admired Lin Lan since she was a child. She had even secretly practiced Lin Lan’s half-smiling expression in the mirror. Over time, she had developed a three-tenths resemblance.
But Lin Lan relied on power to suppress others. Lin Shuxing’s sarcastic smile lacked the precipitation of time and often looked a bit arrogant.
“Get up,” Lin Lan said. “I don’t understand what you’re angry about.”
“Li Sinian just misspoke. I say Lin Shuxing is my daughter, so she is my daughter. No one has the right to say otherwise.”
“After that night, no one will care about this absurd question.”
“You are an adult. You should think before you act. Did you ever think about what would happen if something went wrong when you rashly took Lin Shuxing out of the Lin family’s territory?”
“Now, tell me, what are you angry about?”
Lin Lan’s questioning was too light and breezy, condensing all the surging emotions into a light “angry,” making it seem as if they were the ones being unreasonable.
Fang Yi retorted, “I’m not angry. What do I have to be angry about? You should ask your dear daughter if she’s angry.”
“Oh, I forgot. Your dear daughter is someone else.”
“…” Lin Lan remained silent.
With such a stalemate, Fang Yi also felt it was meaningless. She got up and wiped the rain from her face. “Lin Lan, I want to know, do you love Lin Shuxing?”
“…”
“You can continue to be silent, but I must remind you, Lin Shuxing loves you, even though you seem to only treat her as a pet.”
Words were the lightest form of confrontation.
“If you really treat her as your daughter—”
Fang Yi watched as Lin Lan’s lips moved. She spread her hands and lowered her tone, a little unwillingly. “Can you be a little nicer to her?”
Although the day had been uneventful, and there were no traces of sadness on Lin Shuxing’s face.
But when she saw a mother holding her daughter’s hand at the supermarket, she would still be slightly stunned and then tighten her grip on Fang Yi.
“…”
It felt as long as a century before Lin Lan finally spoke, “I know.”
Fang Yi breathed a sigh of relief. “Then I’ll go call her down.”
She shrugged. The arm that had been dislocated by Shui Wuding’s grip throbbed with pain. She slowly turned to Shui Wuding. “Give me your hand.”
“For what?” Shui Wuding was a little curious and did as she was told.
Fang Yi bit down on it without any courtesy, and at the same time, with a flick of her other hand, she snapped the dislocated joint back into place.
The intense pain of setting the bone was transmitted through her teeth as she bit down hard. The woman’s cold skin trembled with the sound of Fang Yi’s huff.
Watching Shui Wuding’s elegant smile twist in pain, Fang Yi smiled, her bloodless lips curving into an arc:
“We’re even.”
Even? Even for what!
Shui Wuding was so angry her face turned pale. When had she ever suffered such a loss? She hissed, her red tongue flicking out, but Lin Lan, beside her, pressed down on her wrist and gently shook her head.
Fang Yi went upstairs and stood at the door for a while before knocking three times.
**
Downstairs.
The man in black picked up the white jade pipe, carefully wiped it clean with a velvet cloth, and handed it back to Shui Wuding with both hands.
Shui Wuding clicked her tongue and twirled it between her fingers in annoyance. Lin Lan glanced at her faintly. “Put it out.”
The woman’s dark green vertical pupils narrowed into a slit. She helplessly threw it back to the panicked man in black and said lazily, “Put it away.”
This was a long downpour. The water on the ground was as deep as the heel of a shoe. Lin Lan raised her watch. It had been thirty-seven minutes since Fang Yi went up.
The car lights came on. In the rain, only Lin Lan was left waiting alone, the lights barely outlining her silent figure.
Time seemed to stand still until the fluttering corner of her clothes was soaked by the rain, and a few footsteps were heard in the narrow corridor.
The young lady who had been coaxed downstairs raised her hand to block some of the light. When she saw the woman in front of the car lights, the smile on her face suddenly froze.
Fang Yi hadn’t told her that the person downstairs was Lin Lan, only that she was going to give her a “surprise.”
Lin Shuxing stared blankly at the proud figure in the beam of light, then turned to look at Fang Yi.
A light rain drifted in. The sticky, cold clothes clung to her body, which was uncomfortable.
Fang Yi took a restrained step back, her face expressionless.
That beam of light was like a spotlight on a mime stage, starkly cutting the world apart. The entire world became blurry, leaving only their figures.
Lin Lan said nothing, just stood there in silence, gently tilting the umbrella towards Lin Shuxing.
The downpour froze at this moment, and the world was suspended with her movement.
A moon as sharp as a blade should be hidden behind the clouds. A single glance was enough to dissect the surging emotions in her chest.
The young lady’s tightly closed lips trembled. The psychological defense she had built up overnight collapsed so easily.
Under Lin Lan’s gaze, she subconsciously ran towards her, just like the thousands of times she had in her childhood.
Fang Yi had never had such a tightly intertwined relationship, so of course, she couldn’t understand what the throbbing pain in her chest meant.
But she could understand Lin Shuxing’s sparkling eyes.
“…”
The food isn’t finished yet.
Fang Yi put one hand in her pocket and turned to go home.
Her thin figure gradually blurred into a ball in the darkness, but the young lady suddenly looked back, her clear gaze piercing through the rain, illuminating her lonely back.
“Fang Yi—!”
Lin Shuxing ran back, splashing through the water, completely ignoring the torrential rain.
She lightly stood on her tiptoes and pressed her wet palm against Fang Yi’s cheek.
The rain was too heavy, and her voice was also crushed, becoming indistinct.
Fang Yi bent down, trying to get her voice a little closer.
However, the young lady’s lips moved, but she said nothing more.
She exhaled a hot breath under the cold rain. Without any hesitation, without any warning, she pressed her lips against hers.
The young lady’s kiss was chaotic and without any order. She wrapped her arms around Fang Yi’s neck, her fingertips digging deep into her hair, pulling her lower, and lower, as if they could drown together in this endless night.
Fang Yi’s suddenly constricted pupils reflected the young lady’s slightly uneasy desire. She clumsily and crazily broke through her defenses, letting the taste of blood and a slight pain spread on her soft tongue.
Fang Yi’s throat trembled rapidly. Reason screamed at her to push her away, but her fingertips unconsciously supported the young lady’s softening, sinking waist.
The car lights behind them had long been extinguished. The night swallowed all the light, and the darkness around them surged like a tide. They had no time to think about what Lin Lan’s expression would be now.
Rainwater, body temperature, and fragrance intertwined, their breaths becoming more and more entangled.
In the slight dizziness brought on by the lack of oxygen, the young lady finally let go.
She stubbornly looked up at Fang Yi’s somewhat blank expression, her blood-stained lips curving into a displeased arc. “You don’t like it?”
Fang Yi was silent for a long time before she squeezed out a word from her thin lips: “…No.”
Was she refuting the statement, or rejecting the kiss?
The young lady’s eyes dimmed, her long eyelashes hiding the flush that had not yet faded. She gritted her teeth, unspeakable emotions surging in her heart, but in the next second, her hand was taken.
The cool and restrained woman in front of her lowered her head. The rain wet her cascading black hair. The two looked at each other for a moment through a layer of misty rain.
Finally, very, very lightly, she placed an almost weightless kiss on the back of the young lady’s fair hand.
The heavy rain was still falling. They were completely soaked.
Their clothes, their souls, and this silent, long night.
