Chapter 21: Am I Your White Moonlight (End) Part 2

Half a year passed in the blink of an eye. The pretty dresses she once loved had given way to shirts and suits, and Lin Yiren carried herself with increasing maturity.

Her princess had been harmed. She could no longer stay in the castle. She needed to become a knight and protect her.

Only, she was so tired. Relearning everything she didn’t know, planning every single step, it turned out to be this hard. Had Jiang Ning felt this exhausted too? Back then, wolves and tigers had surrounded Jiang Ning on all sides, salivating to tear a piece of flesh from her, and one wrong step would have meant Jiangtian Entertainment being snatched away.

“The court hearing was yesterday. The Chen Family is finished completely, and Xiao Lin was blacklisted long ago. No one knows where he went now.” Over the past six months, Xiao Yisheng had used certain means to take over Chengxing Entertainment and transform it, and he had helped her a great deal. Father Xiao had brought Xiao Lin back home, and the trouble Xiao Lin stirred up afterward had damaged the Xiao Corporation’s image as well. It was Xiao Yisheng who had stepped in to steady things, and now the Xiao Corporation answered entirely to him.

“And that mysterious force, was that your arrangement too? Uncle Wang still has the Will in his hands. Did you guess the Chen Family would retaliate?” The reason Lin Yiren could involve herself in Jiangtian Entertainment at all was that Wang Chenyu had produced a Contract: if anything happened to Jiang Ning, Lin Yiren would be given full authority over Jiangtian Entertainment’s affairs. There was also a Will, spelling out in precise detail how her shares would be handled if Jiang Ning died.

Lin Yiren had no memory whatsoever of signing any such agreement. But once, Jiang Ning had pretended to be a little fan and asked for her autograph, deliberately signing right beside her name. At the time, Lin Yiren had been delighted by that little bit of everyday ceremony. Now she realized Jiang Ning must have planned it all long ago.

Lin Yiren looked at Jiang Ning’s hand. After half a year lying in a hospital bed, she had grown much thinner, the bluish veins standing out against sickly pale skin.

Lin Yiren took a sip of water to moisten her lips, then kissed Jiang Ning, her voice low. “You arranged for so many things. Why didn’t you arrange anything for me?”

Was it that she didn’t trust me, or that she didn’t think it necessary?

Lin Yiren pinched Jiang Ning’s cheek and said fiercely, “When you wake up, you’re dead!”

“And how exactly would I be dead?” Jiang Ning had woken up long ago. Lin Yiren had just kept chattering on and on, so she had stayed silent to see how long the girl would talk. She hadn’t expected her to start getting handsy, too.

Hearing Jiang Ning’s voice, Lin Yiren thought she was hallucinating. Only when their eyes met did she startle awake, her voice trembling with excitement. “Sister Jiang!”

“You’re awake?? Do you want some water? Are you uncomfortable anywhere? I’ll go get the doctor…” The words spilled out of Lin Yiren in a rush, almost incoherent, and only when she noticed Jiang Ning still hadn’t answered did she stop, flushing as if realizing she’d lost her composure.

“I’m fine. Sit down first.” Jiang Ning smiled, though her mind was on other things.

Jiang Ning noticed Lin Yiren had changed a great deal. Her hair was pinned up, giving her a crisp, capable look; she was probably headed to work afterward, and she wore refined makeup that paired perfectly with her fitted blazer. Anyone who saw her would have to offer a word of praise.

Without the events that followed, Lin Yiren’s life would have moved from the entertainment world to the business world just like this. Jiang Ning felt a flicker of guilt over what Lin Yiren had become, but she didn’t regret it.

In these six months, she had only woken three times. That was the Item she had purchased from the System at the moment of the car accident: Virtual Vegetative State. Her body fell into dormancy, but she had three chances to act through the System Space, and since she could manifest as a Data Stream, it was very convenient. The only problem was that the moment such interference appeared, this world’s World Consciousness would treat her as an anomaly and eject her, returning the Original Host to the body.

From within the System Space, Jiang Ning had watched the Chen Family’s feeble counterattacks in the aftermath. The accident really had been an accident, but Jiang Ning had been prepared to turn that accident into something long premeditated.

She could have simply logged out of this world, but during the System’s evaluation, she’d been warned that a direct departure would create unstable factors. So she had come back.

As Lin Yiren helped her sit up, Jiang Ning glanced at the countdown and smiled. “You’ve gotten even prettier…”

Finding Jiang Ning’s gaze fixed steadily on her, Lin Yiren, who had already been a bit flustered, now went bright red. Whatever grand ambitions she’d harbored flew clean out of her head.

Lin Yiren told Jiang Ning everything that had happened over the past half year, and she wanted to ask about other things too, but remembering that Jiang Ning had only just woken, she swallowed the words.

Jiang Ning, however, saw at a glance that Lin Yiren was keeping something bottled up, and sighed helplessly. “Ask whatever you want to ask.”

At that, Lin Yiren’s eyes reddened. Staring at Jiang Ning’s calm face, she drew a deep breath. “Did you know someone was going to hurt you? You’ve been investigating your parents’ car accident, haven’t you?”

When Jiang Ning didn’t deny it, Lin Yiren’s eyes dimmed. Then, recalling that the Chen Family had already fallen and Jiangtian Entertainment was thriving, she lifted her smile again and helped Jiang Ning to the bathroom to freshen up.

“System, why does the Female Lead seem a little off?” Throughout the whole ordeal, Lin Yiren had kept smiling, asking nothing, gentle to the point of being uncanny. She even changed her clothes without a flicker of expression, leaving Jiang Ning feeling vaguely uneasy.

By her expectations, Lin Yiren should have clung to her demanding answers, probably in tears. She’d already prepared how she would comfort her. This calm felt less like peace and more like the stillness before a storm.

【Because the Female Lead’s Favorability is maxed out.】

【Now that Host 0368 is awake, the Female Lead has already made up her mind to keep her eyes on you from now on. No matter what you do, she will never let you leave.】If Lin Yiren’s love before had been willing to follow Jiang Ning’s wishes, then now she intended to keep the woman locked at her side, safe and whole.

The System’s words sent an inexplicable chill down Jiang Ning’s spine. Sure enough, over the following days, Lin Yiren stuck to her side without letting her out of sight, even sleeping on the caregiver’s cot at night. When Jiang Ning casually asked why she didn’t need to go to work, Lin Yiren’s eyes darkened for an instant before her voice turned even softer. The switch happened so fast that if Jiang Ning hadn’t been watching closely, she would have missed it entirely.

After the discharge, Lin Yiren moved straight into Jiang Ning’s home. She did all the cooking and forbade Jiang Ning from setting foot in the kitchen; she wasn’t even allowed to peel fruit. If Jiang Ning pushed back even slightly, Lin Yiren’s eyes would immediately redden, tears hovering on the verge of falling, and the System’s blaring alarms gave Jiang Ning a headache. That was when she finally understood what the “unstable factors” really were.

“Why do you think I’d kill myself?” With this kind of round-the-clock watchfulness, and her limbs working perfectly fine, Jiang Ning truly couldn’t stand being waited on hand and foot any longer. She decided it was time to have a proper talk with Lin Yiren.

Lin Yiren stayed silent for a long time. Jiang Ning didn’t press, just kept looking at her. Seeing there was no escape, Lin Yiren’s lips moved soundlessly before she turned her head away.

“Because I think you planned that car accident yourself.” This was the thing that gnawed at Lin Yiren most. She had watched the surveillance footage that day, and the car had been inspected with nothing wrong. Jiang Ning could clearly have avoided it, but she didn’t.

She didn’t know about the System behind Jiang Ning, nor about her private information channels. In Lin Yiren’s eyes, Jiang Ning had been nursing a long-suppressed despair beneath a mask of strength. She could have dodged that day but didn’t, then went and wrote a Will, and afterward some mysterious force fanned the flames to pin the whole accident on the Chen Family. If that wasn’t someone bent on revenge who no longer wanted to live, what was it?

All this time she had stayed by Jiang Ning’s side, never knowing she was doing something so dangerous. Why did she still not care about her own safety? Did she really mean so little to her that she couldn’t change her mind about dying? That question mattered more to Lin Yiren than whether Jiang Ning loved her. And so she had already resolved that Jiang Ning would never leave her sight again.

Seeing that Jiang Ning seemed about to argue, Lin Yiren pressed on. “And you tricked me into signing that Contract.”

“You told Uncle Wang but not me. And you hid it from me that you were working with my Older Brother.”

At that, Jiang Ning refused to take the blame. “Hold on. You knew I was cooperating with your Older Brother.”

“But you never told me it was something this dangerous!” Glaring at her, Lin Yiren’s tone grew considerably fiercer.

To Jiang Ning’s eyes, this adorably fierce Lin Yiren was far easier on the eyes than the permanently smiling one.

Sensing that Lin Yiren’s attitude still had room to soften, she said at once, “That day, I genuinely zoned out and didn’t react in time. The road was slippery, and that’s why I didn’t dodge.”

“As for the Contract, I always felt something was off about my parents’ deaths. Those articles were prepared just in case, in case something happened to me too. I didn’t tell you because I was certain we’d be together just fine. If I told you, wouldn’t that just worry you for nothing?”

“And I didn’t tell you what the Contract said because your Older Brother told me not to. He was afraid you’d be in danger and made me promise to keep it secret.”

Better a Fellow Daoist Die Than Me. She would just have to sacrifice Lin Zhiyuan.

Sure enough, Lin Yiren’s expression eased somewhat at that. She silently cursed Lin Zhiyuan, though she still kept her face stern and refused to look at Jiang Ning.

“Besides, look how positively I live my life. I stopped thinking about dying the moment I met you. Can’t you feel that?” When it came to turning the tables, Jiang Ning would never admit defeat.

Lin Yiren had only ever sensed that Jiang Ning sometimes seemed slightly unreal, but she truly hadn’t detected any such sign. With each explanation, her doubts dissolved completely, and she began to wonder if she really had overthought it all. After they talked a while longer, Lin Yiren sniffled, then buried herself in Jiang Ning’s arms and burst into tears. This past half year had scared her half to death.

After crying for a while, she hiccupped, “In any case, you’re not allowed to do anything stupid. You have to stay by my side forever, and marry me, and work with me, and hand me the remote when we watch TV, and open the yogurt bottles for me. When I lick the lid, you’re not allowed to call me childish. When I kiss you, you’re not allowed to resist…”

As the demands grew more and more outrageous, Jiang Ning knew Lin Yiren’s knot had more or less come undone. She hauled the girl out of her arms. Her eyes were still rimmed with red. Glancing at the countdown, Jiang Ning saw she had a little over a minute left, and sighed. Fine. She’d humor this kid one last time before she went.

“Silly thing.” With that, Jiang Ning reached out and wiped the tears from Lin Yiren’s face, then kissed her cheek. Worried the girl would notice something wrong in a moment, she rose, intending to hide in the bathroom, but was pulled back.

For some reason, Lin Yiren simply didn’t want to let Jiang Ning leave right now, and her voice came out sulky. “Don’t you know you’re supposed to kiss both cheeks?”

“You just kissed the left one. Now my right cheek is jealous.”

She looked up at Jiang Ning expectantly. When Jiang Ning indulged her and did as asked, joy bloomed through her chest. She rather wanted to do some proper smooching with Jiang Ning now, but seeing that only her cheek had been kissed, she declared that her nose was jealous too, then her forehead.

“Alright, alright, I know your whole body is jealous.” Exasperated, Jiang Ning looked into Lin Yiren’s beautiful eyes and felt something stir strangely in her chest, yet she only smiled. “Close your eyes first.”

She was afraid that if she kept looking, she wouldn’t have the heart to leave. Lin Yiren shut her eyes, then began sneaking peeks, trying to open them again, and Jiang Ning covered them with her palm, blocking her view. Watching the final three seconds tick down, she took Lin Yiren’s left hand, kissed her fingers, and said her farewell in her heart.

“Goodbye, my Young Princess.”