Chapter 39 Part 2

It was a dream.

In the dream, she was crying for some unknown reason, sobbing her heart out, when a woman approached. The woman stroked her head and pulled her into a warm embrace, softly comforting her.

Her voice was so gentle, like an angel singing.

Cradled in those arms, Yun Chun had stopped crying, her cheeks burning red.

That dream’s fluttering heartbeat stayed with Yun Chun after she woke, lingering for days. She craved the warmth of that embrace and the faint scent of her body.

From that point on, she gradually realized her feelings for other women were different.

Coincidentally enough, the woman in her dream had been Lu Qingxue.

“…”

Yun Chun’s eyelids twitched. If her mother hadn’t brought it up, she might never have thought of it again.

Now that she did, Yun Chun raised a hand to rub her nose.

A life without Lu Qingxue simply wouldn’t work.

Without Lu Qingxue, perhaps some other Qingxue might appear—one who could motivate her to learn to ride a bike, protect her from chasing dogs, make her confront her orientation early, show her that someone’s eyes could weep like rain, teach her just how hard true tolerance could be…

Someone else might fill those roles, but not all in one person.

Without Lu Qingxue, Yun Chun’s life would always feel incomplete.

This world couldn’t exist without Lu Qingxue.

Which meant she couldn’t exist without her.

Yun Chun’s heart clenched. This sensation… it felt just like that old palpitation from years ago, surging back.

Her wandering thoughts halted as the soy milk machine fell silent.

A breeze slipped in through the window that never quite latched shut.

It chased away some of the grogginess from just waking up.

With her mind clearer now, her hearing sharpened too.

She caught Yun Yueqin saying, “Of course it wouldn’t matter. Boy or girl, they just have to be someone who treats you well…”

“A person.”

Only after the words left her mouth did Yun Yueqin notice the slender figure standing at the kitchen door.

As their eyes met, Xu Lanmeng turned and walked away. But that parting glance seared itself into Yun Yueqin’s heart.

Once Yun Chun had left the house,

Yun Yueqin closed the door behind her. She turned toward the bedroom—and the bracelet within it.

She needed to escape.

But Xu Lanmeng wouldn’t allow it.

Just as Yun Yueqin reached the doorway, Xu Lanmeng blocked her path.

She looked up. Xu Lanmeng’s eyes were red-rimmed, and a bitter laugh escaped her lips. “I thought your views would never change in this lifetime. Turns out…”

“Girls really can be with girls, huh.”

Yun Yueqin’s pupils contracted sharply. She stared at Xu Lanmeng, her lips pressed into a thin line, silent.

The sight pierced Xu Lanmeng like a knife. Her chapped lips parted with effort. “I don’t know how much you overheard last night, but you must have guessed that Yun Chun and Lu Qingxue have something special going on. Why else would you go out of your way to urge Yun Chun to find someone to date?”

She bit down hard on the word “person.”

As if to drive home a deliberate point.

“So in your eyes, humans and ghosts just can’t be together? And because of that, the idea of girls with girls suddenly seems trivial? If you can change your mind so easily, what about me? What was the point of my holding on for over twenty years?”

Xu Lanmeng’s voice was hoarse. She hadn’t slept since waking in the early hours, and her face was deathly pale. “Or back then, if I hadn’t been such a pushover—if I’d threatened to die when you insisted on marriage—would you have chosen me instead?”

Yun Yueqin said gravely, “A Lan.”

That single call made tears well up in Xu Lanmeng’s already reddened eyes. Teetering on the edge of collapse, she tumbled fully into the abyss.

She let out a dry, hollow laugh. “So that’s it, Yun Yueqin. One casual remark that girls can be together, and it turns everything I went through back then into a joke. Just because there’s something even harder for you to swallow, you suddenly accept what you rejected before?”

No.

That wasn’t it.

Yun Yueqin wanted to insist it wasn’t true.

She wanted to explain that the moment she’d realized she loved Xu Lanmeng, she’d known they could be together—and believed it utterly.

But somehow, her mother had found out. Just like Xu Lanmeng had described, her mother had threatened suicide, leaving her no choice…

Yet after burying this secret for over twenty years, when the moment came to finally speak it aloud, Yun Yueqin found herself utterly speechless.

Especially now, with her dead and Xu Lanmeng still alive.

This truth was meant to die with her.

Let there be misunderstanding or hatred—it was her failing toward Xu Lanmeng.

All she could manage was, “I’m sorry.”

Xu Lanmeng froze at those three words. After pouring out so much, this was all she got? Speechless, Yun Yueqin pressed on. “Little Yun is human, so she needs to date a human. I didn’t specify boy or girl—as long as it’s someone she likes, that’s what matters.”

“And what about me?” Xu Lanmeng shot back. “What about me?!”

Yun Yueqin’s gaze flickered; she turned her head away, refusing to meet Xu Lanmeng’s eyes. “You don’t need my permission to date whoever you want.”

Xu Lanmeng laughed bitterly in fury. She seized Yun Yueqin’s neck, forcing her to look. Staring into those cold, pitiless eyes, she demanded, “Don’t you know who I want to be with?!”

Yun Yueqin dropped her gaze to the hand at her throat. She felt no pain, and she knew Xu Lanmeng wasn’t gripping hard. No matter how angry she got, Xu Lanmeng would never truly hurt her. And yet she herself had wounded this little sister’s heart again and again.

While sitting on the little hillside, gazing at wildflowers, Yun Yueqin had often wondered: if she ever got the chance to see Xu Lanmeng again, could she at least say “I’m sorry”? If Xu Lanmeng brushed it off as fine, she’d leave it there. If Xu Lanmeng cursed her, hated her—then maybe she could finally say, “I love you.”

But right up until her death, that chance never came.

In her very last second, she’d seen Xu Lanmeng standing by her bedside with a smile, saying she deserved it.

And she had.

Yun Yueqin lowered her eyes. Slowly, she raised her hand to rest it on Xu Lanmeng’s arm and smiled softly. “A Lan, I’m already dead.”

The morning light, brimming with promise, flooded into the room.

It should have felt warm, but to Xu Lanmeng, everything was ash-gray.

Dead gray.

Her fingers loosened from Yun Yueqin’s neck, one by one.

That single word—”dead”—seemed to drain away the hatred. Her mind filled instead with the first stirrings of her heart for Yun Yueqin, memories of her flower-like smile atop the little hillside.

The little yellow flowers on the table bloomed vividly, greeting the new day.

That brilliant hue became the sole color in Xu Lanmeng’s vision. She gazed at Yun Yueqin, gradually painting her in yellow—as if it could breathe new life into her, let her bloom resiliently like a flower.

Xu Lanmeng’s eyes glimmered in the light. Hoarsely, she said, “Yun Yueqin, I can finally let go of the past now. Will you… be with me?”

Those last words came out almost as a plea.

She waited ages—long enough for the color she’d imagined to fade—yet Yun Yueqin remained silent.

Years of bottled emotions had swollen into a bomb primed to detonate. On this seemingly ordinary morning, Yun Yueqin’s silence ignited it.

Xu Lanmeng staggered back, roaring, “Why won’t you say anything?”

In that moment of the shout, her throat shattered, her eyes shattered, her heart shattered.

A surge of salty sweetness welled up in her throat. Xu Lanmeng forced out the words in a hoarse, rasping voice, clutching at her heart as she wept, as if that might dull the agony ripping through her chest. “Say something, Yun Yueqin! Why can you let Yun Chun chase what she loves, let her be with a girl? Why can’t you be with me? Is it because… you don’t love me?”

Xu Lanmeng’s body went limp, her legs giving way until she sank to her knees on the ground.

Tears splashed onto the floor. She lifted her gaze to the figure standing before her and forced a bitter smile. “Of course. You’ve never once said you loved me. We’ve never even truly been together. I thought our feelings would flow naturally into place, but it was all one-sided—nothing but my own wishful thinking.”

A shadow fell across her vision. Yun Yueqin knelt before Xu Lanmeng, wrapped her arms around her, and drew her close. In a soft voice, she murmured, “Of course we have been together.”

Xu Lanmeng’s body went rigid.

Yun Yueqin sighed helplessly. “A Lan, if I felt nothing for you, I would have pulled away that first time you kissed me on the Little Hillside.”

The memory steadied Xu Lanmeng’s emotions, if only a little. She had never forgotten the scene of that first kiss with Yun Yueqin. Now it rose vividly before her eyes: the vast white clouds drifting across an endless blue sky, the green grass rippling in the breeze that day.

“Weren’t you asleep at the time?” Xu Lanmeng asked.

Yun Yueqin replied, “I was pretending.”

“You…” Years-belated embarrassment left Xu Lanmeng speechless.

After a few seconds, as Xu Lanmeng fell silent, Yun Yueqin tried to soothe her. “A Lan, what happened with Little Yun is entirely different from us. Don’t let your thoughts spiral like that.”

Yun Yueqin gently stroked Xu Lanmeng’s cheek. “The reason I can’t be with you is that I’m already dead, while you’re still alive.”

In a flat voice, she delivered words that fell like ice in Xu Lanmeng’s ears. “A person and a ghost simply can’t be together.”

Xu Lanmeng’s fragile calm erupted once more, like water boiling over. Blinking through her tears, she cried out, “I don’t care whether you’re dead or alive. All I care about is having you by my side.”

Yun Yueqin didn’t waver for an instant. “It can’t be done.”

She continued, “Once Little Yun returns, I’ll leave.”

That tone pulled Xu Lanmeng back more than twenty years, to the day Yun Yueqin had ended things between them. The same gentle persuasion, the same apparent concern for her feelings, the same… heartbreak that left her soul in ruins.

“I knew you’d say something like that, so before I even found you—”

Staring into Yun Yueqin’s seemingly placid eyes, Xu Lanmeng declared with near-mad intensity, “I arranged a Ghost Marriage for Yun Chun.”

Yun Yueqin’s pupils dilated in shock, her gaze trembling as she stared at Xu Lanmeng.

She was stunned by the words themselves—and even more by Xu Lanmeng, who no longer resembled the adoring little sister who had once orbited her every step.

Xu Lanmeng seized Yun Yueqin’s arm in a vise-like grip, her voice laced with obsession. “Your daughter can be with a ghost, so surely you can be with me.”

She saw the disbelief flickering in Yun Yueqin’s eyes. Before Yun Yueqin could shove her away, Xu Lanmeng let out a low chuckle. “If you don’t want Yun Chun tied to that ghost anymore, it’s simple. Just agree to be with me, and I can sever her bond with Lu Qingxue. But if you leave my side… I can’t promise what I might do to Yun Chun.”

The mention of Yun Chun shattered Yun Yueqin’s composure. In horror, she gasped, “Have you lost your mind?”

Xu Lanmeng’s lips curved into a smile. “I lost my mind the moment I fell in love with you.”

Her hand rose to caress Yun Yueqin’s cheek. The devotion in her eyes twisted into something darker, a thick veil of possessiveness. Her tear-drenched gaze narrowed. “Come back to me. I won’t lose you again.”

Her fingers lingered on Yun Yueqin’s lips. Gazing intently, Xu Lanmeng leaned in slowly and whispered, “Sister Yue…”

In the next instant, she was shoved flat onto the ground.

Yun Yueqin rose gracefully into the air, harsh words rising to her lips. But when she met Xu Lanmeng’s tear-filled eyes, they died unspoken.

In the end, all she could say was, “The matters between us have nothing to do with Little Yun.”