Chapter 87: Come Here

Source: http://www.jjwxc.net/onebook.php?novelid=5896087
This translation was originally posted on https://love4baihe.blogspot.com please read it there. and check out other stories too.

The moon was bright, and the night wind passing over the fountain pool was excessively cold.

Ji Xiao sat on the platform and looked at Wei Qingyu. Neither of them knew what to say.  

Jin Nanfeng did not want to be the unwanted third guest. With his hands in his pockets, he said, “You two talk,” then turned and went back to the banquet.  

Ji Xiao never thought that one day Jin Nanfeng would bring Wei Qingyu to her on his own. She looked at the girl not far away. She took off her earphones and asked, “Why did you come?”  

“I want to explain what happened just now,” Wei Qingyu answered.  

When Ji Xiao heard this, she quickly thought of Jin Nanfeng brushing her hair and the moment they looked at each other by accident.  

But she could not expose it. She could only pretend she did not care and asked, “What happened just now?”

From Ji Xiao’s reaction, Wei Qingyu knew she held it in her heart. She explained, “There was a small diamond stuck on my hair. I tried for a long time but couldn't take it off. He only wanted to help me take it off.”  

The girl’s voice was cold and serious, devoid of any emotion.

Her relationship with Jin Nanfeng wasn't one of romantic intimacy, nor was it an ambiguous relationship between an Alpha and an Omega, it was simply about helping each other.

If she had to give this relationship a name, it would be just a reluctant friendship.

The light from the banquet hall behind them shone on Wei Qingyu’s skirt that was full of tiny diamonds, and Ji Xiao’s awkward feeling eased a little.

After a long quiet moment, she opened her thin lips and said in a light tone, “Then, did you take it off?”

Wei Qingyu seemed to realize something, and she shook her head like an obedient and innocent child.

The night wind blew and the bushes around them rustled. She stood on the barely green lawn, like a small rabbit that was gentle and easy to bully.

Ji Xiao watched her eyes move a little, and she reached her hand toward Wei Qingyu in the cool wind mixed with the fountain water. “Come here, I will help you take it off.”

The hem of the skirt brushed over the grass and left a trace like a galaxy.

Wei Qingyu dragged her skirt and stood in front of Ji Xiao. Ji Xiao’s sitting height was just right for her to reach Wei Qingyu’s hair.

The night and the lights marked this rare moment of contact between them in the past half year on the grass, and their shadows overlapped together.

It looked like she was giving her a crown, or like she was kissing her forehead.

Ji Xiao’s fingers lightly pushed aside Wei Qingyu’s slightly curled long hair. The girl’s warm scent wafted from within and stayed on Ji Xiao’s fingers and on her nose. The mint smell she had not smelled for a long time filled the empty space that had just caved in inside her heart.

Only this bit of mint could do that.

The tiny diamond cut a hard, unseen line on Ji Xiao’s soft fingertip, and the pain pulled her back.

She looked at Wei Qingyu’s calm and pale side face that was close to her own skirt. Her eyes were dazed and bitter.

But this mint will not belong to you.

Ji Xiao held the small diamond she found and said in a light joking way, “So stupid, you two really are…”

When Wei Qingyu heard Ji Xiao put her together with Jin Nanfeng again, she frowned.

She cut her off before Ji Xiao could say more. “When you talk about me, don’t bring him in. I don’t like it.”

Ji Xiao’s fingers passed the ends of the girl’s long hair. She held the diamond in her hand and froze for a moment.

A small laugh sounded in the quiet backyard. Ji Xiao pressed Wei Qingyu’s small diamond tight in her palm and lifted her head to the night sky.

“You think anyone likes to.”

The voice was tiny and broken, but even though Wei Qingyu was not near, she heard it clearly.

She never stopped looking for the answer to that question from that day, and right now it felt like she saw a bit of the chain that held her back through those words.

It was heavy and cold, and it pulled her so she did not dare move forward.

A silver shadow passed across Ji Xiao’s sight. The thick mink coat on her shoulder was pulled twice by some force.

She turned her head in confusion and looked beside her, and she saw that Wei Qingyu had somehow sat down next to her in silence. She pulled over the coat on Ji Xiao’s shoulder like it was nothing.

Maybe she felt Ji Xiao look at her. Wei Qingyu spoke to her in the most indifferent tone, “I’m cold.”

After she said that, Ji Xiao did not move.

The winter night was bleak and cold, and she still had no way to deal with Wei Qingyu. She could only be gentle to her.

Under the moonlight, a small curve slid across the girl’s lips.

Since she did not dare walk forward, then she might as well walk two steps more herself.

Wei Qingyu thought this and boldly pulled the mink coat on her shoulder again. Their two round and pale shoulders touched lightly or not, and their warmth passed between them.

The wind blew the black clouds away from the sky above them, and more stars came out in the sky covered by dry branches.

Wei Qingyu suddenly remembered that she and Ji Xiao had also sat together and watched the stars when they were little. She didn’t know why, but for some reason she always felt that things were different now than in the past.

Even so, Wei Qingyu still tried to start a topic. “Ji Xiao, do you remember, when we were little in that village, the time we beat the big goose? We also sat together like this and watched the stars. You even cried while you protected me, and you threw that goose so far.”

After she said it, Wei Qingyu looked at Ji Xiao with a small smile.

But to her surprise, she could not find any fondness of remembering the past on her face.

Ji Xiao’s starting point in this world was the summer when she was sixteen.

The time before that was like someone else’s life. It didn't belong to her.

But it belonged to Wei Qingyu.

Maybe liking someone was always a selfish thing. You could not stand anyone taking the part that should be yours.

But the one making Ji Xiao feel jealous was not the male lead from the original story. It was the body where her soul resided.

Ji Xiao raised her eyes and looked at Wei Qingyu sitting beside her. She thought of the diary that hid all kinds of small things written in childish handwriting about Wei Qingyu.

Her heart, filled with many emotions, grew another one. It was even worse than knowing that in the future Wei Qingyu would hold hands, hug, and kiss Jin Nanfeng.

Ji Xiao started to fear that Wei Qingyu’s liking for her was not pure.

She feared that Wei Qingyu liked not only her, but also the little Ji Xiao from before she was ten, the one who held her hand and walked through the withered flower field.

But that little Ji Xiao is not her.

“Wei Qingyu, you must have also liked me from childhood, right?” Ji Xiao softly called her name. Her heart hurt when the last sound of her voice fell.

The breeze suddenly stopped, and the aroma of peach brandy slowly wafted in.

Wei Qingyu looked at the girl beside her. She felt something wrong with that question, but she still followed that thought of loving the house and the crow, and she answered softly, “Mm.”

A bitter laugh came from the sound of the fountain’s running water.

Wei Qingyu’s answer hurt her more than the sudden twist of pain just now.

She knew it.

Her liking for her was mixed with the feelings for the childhood friend of the original Ji Xiao.

The split and loneliness this world gave Ji Xiao covered the ache in her heart. It made her brain numb yet clear.

She shouldn’t be hung up on this question now.

She was already telling her not to like her, so what was the point of trying to make sure?

Ji Xiao looked at a dark cloud drifting toward them. She looked like a monk who just understood something and let out a long sigh.

She clenched the hand on her knee tight, like she was giving up something important.

“Stop liking me. I’m not the me from before.”

“The little Ji Xiao you liked died a year ago.”

Maybe those words were too cruel, or maybe the pain in her chest was too much. After she said them, the corners of Ji Xiao’s eyes were already red.

Wei Qingyu’s heart, which was used to Ji Xiao speaking this way, suddenly hurt sharply for some reason.

It felt like Ji Xiao was really going to take something important away from her this time.

The dimness was not only in the real sky above.

It was also in Wei Qingyu’s heart that had just begun to see sunlight.

She looked at the girl beside her and called her name in disbelief, “Ji Xiao… what are you saying? Why would you say the you from the past is already dead?”

The dark cloud stopped in front of the moon. Light snow began to fall from the sky on this Thanksgiving night.

Ji Xiao reached out and caught a snowflake. She watched it melt at once on her fingertip and said in a quiet, sad voice, “Do you believe that there are two snowflakes in this world that are the same?”

Wei Qingyu listened to her words and also reached out her hand.

What did this mean? Was she saying there were two Ji Xiaos in this world?

….

The Thanksgiving snow brought freshness to the dry city, and it also made the long-silent campus forum light up with posts about the Jin-Wei CP.

Among the classmates Ji Xiao saw at the banquet, some had also noticed the moment when Jin Nanfeng touched Wei Qingyu’s hair, and they had taken photos and posted them on the forum.

Although Jin Nanfeng and Wei Qingyu didn’t have much close contact, the two outstanding people inevitably met at various school events, and that was enough for others to ship them. The Jin-Wei CP, as described in the original text, became the school’s trending topic.

Wherever Ji Xiao went, she could hear people talking about Wei Qingyu or Jin Nanfeng, or both. Everyone was smiling in the story, except for her.

Fang Yiming might have noticed something. From the beginning, she would angrily curse beside Ji Xiao, but later she no longer insisted on making peace. She, along with Miss Rabbit and Qiao Ni, would occasionally bump the old Ji-Wei pairing posts to the top. In the forum, they stood out, like three clear-minded people outside the control of the plot.

Ji Xiao went about eating, sleeping, going to school as usual, climbing over walls to skip class with Fang Yiming, preparing for an ending she might not control, and keeping silent in the car when she was with Wei Qingyu.

Source: http://www.jjwxc.net/onebook.php?novelid=5896087
This translation was originally posted on https://love4baihe.blogspot.com please read it there. and check out other stories too.

The black hole in Ji Xiao’s heart kept breaking and spreading, long since swallowing her whole.  

She stood quietly in the dark flood of fate, letting herself slowly adjust.  

Sometimes Ji Xiao thought this wasn’t so bad. At least the constant pain made her feel alive.  

Christmas Eve came as expected, with light snow falling. Even the high school senior evening study couldn’t stop students from sneaking out to celebrate.  

Ji Xiao finished her homework and felt bored. Like many bold classmates, she mingled with the streams of second- and first-year students after school and took on the responsibility of buying milk tea alone.  

“Hey, that girl from the experimental class is interesting. Who’s she with now?”  

“Who knows? I heard she was with a female Alpha before, now it’s that male Alpha. I say, this Omega has some tricks up her sleeves, she’s always hooking up with the city’s top S-class Alphas.”  

“Maybe because her family went bankrupt, she’s looking for a rich husband! And she’s an Omega… maybe she’s even…”  

In the dim corner alley, cheap yellow lights shone. A few thugs’ loud and vulgar words carried continuously from inside.  

Ji Xiao sipped her taro ball grass jelly as she passed. Her brows immediately knitted. Such coarse talk disgusted her, and she quickened her steps back to school.  

But just as she was about to leave the alley, a louder burst of laughter came from inside.

Those vulgar, offensive words grated on her ears.  

"Hahahaha, Brother Chen, you've been watching too many movies. Even if Wei Qingyu is the worst, would she stoop low like that? They're still minors."

“Fuck off, they say a plucked phoenix is worse than a chicken. How about we, brothers, try the taste of this phoenix chicken before her rich husbands do?”  

“Alright, I just think back to when she first entered high school, acting like she looked down on everyone. It's a pity, I graduated just as she became an Omega. Damn, I say we should pin her down and let her feel what we’re capable of.”  

….

The cold wind howled out of the alley entrance. Ji Xiao stopped immediately.  

It was like she heard Wei Qingyu’s name from their mouths.