Chapter 69: Slacking Off, Day 69
Sheng Qing’s “plunge” startled everyone around her.
The reason for the shock wasn’t her fall itself, but the fact that the river had no water.
But the river lanterns were still floating on the dry riverbed.
A sudden silence fell over the crowd. After a moment of stunned silence, everyone returned to their usual state.
“River Lantern Festival…” A vendor glanced at the dry river and quickly corrected himself, “The ‘Pit Lantern Festival’ is starting! Come and see!”
The crowd laughed and flocked to the bank, seemingly having no trouble at all accepting the new name.
As the only two people who weren’t under the spell, Lu Xiaojie once again almost choked on his own spit.
What… what was that? A “Pit… Pit Lantern Festival”?
Just how powerful was the mind control in this town, that people could accept something so ridiculous?!
Though Wen Ying didn’t care about the mission, she found the whole scene quite amusing.
So, what was Sheng Qing going to do now? Accuse her of pushing her… into a pit?
But this was such a shallow pit. To accuse her of trying to harm her would be a bit far-fetched.
Sheng Qing exerted all her strength, finally managing to pull her head out of the ground.
With dirt all over her head, face, and even in her mouth, Sheng Qing spat a couple of times before realizing—
Her veil!
She frantically touched her face and looked towards the pit her head had made in the riverbed—
The veil was deeply embedded in the wet mud of the riverbed, completely tangled and ruined. Even if she pulled it out, she wouldn’t be able to wear it again.
Sheng Qing’s mouth snapped shut.
No matter what, she absolutely couldn’t let anyone see her toothless face!
Seeing Sheng Qing fall into the pit, Cao Ruobing hurried down to the riverbed and asked with concern, “Qingqing, are you alright?”
Sheng Qing lowered her eyes and gently shook her head.
“That’s a relief…” Cao Ruobing said, letting out a sigh. “What exactly happened?”
Cao Ruobing hadn’t been standing very close. With the crowd blocking his view, all he had seen was Sheng Qing speak to Wen Ying before falling into the pit.
Though falling into a pit was no big deal, that loud crash… sounded like it had hurt.
“Mmm…” Sheng Qing’s hum was tinged with what she hoped sounded like grievance. She gave a quick glance towards Wen Ying, then lowered her head, pursing her lips tightly.
Since she couldn’t speak, Sheng Qing had no choice but to use what she hoped was a very expressive act, implying to Cao Ruobing that Wen Ying had pushed her forcefully into the mud.
Even if the injury was nothing compared to falling into a river, she couldn’t have eaten all that dirt for nothing!
The soil was pungent, gritty, and a little smelly. It was absolutely disgusting!!!
As a woman who had once been so poor she felt she was “eating dirt” every month, Wen Ying finally saw what it was actually like.
Now, with her mind-reading ability, Wen Ying knew that the soil was indeed not very tasty. It seemed she should stop saying she was so poor she was eating dirt.
“What’s wrong with your eyes?” But Cao Ruobing didn’t understand her theatrics at all. He only noticed that there was something wrong with Sheng Qing’s eyes.
Sheng Qing quickly shook her head, then hummed a denial, indicating that she was fine.
After that, Sheng Qing shook her head even more dramatically, glancing towards Wen Ying to imply that her current state was all her doing. She then quickly lowered her head, looking utterly wronged.
“Could it be your neck…?” Cao Ruobing thought Sheng Qing’s head shakes looked very unnatural.
Sheng Qing shook her head once more, then glanced at Wen Ying again. This time, she even added a slight “Mmm” to point directly at Wen Ying.
“Could it be… your throat…!” Cao Ruobing finally noticed the biggest problem—Sheng Qing hadn’t spoken a word since she fell in! He asked anxiously, “Is it clogged with dirt?”
Sheng Qing: “…”
Wen Ying thought Sheng Qing’s silent act was not bad at all.
Unfortunately, Cao Ruobing was a straightforward man without a shred of subtlety.
No wonder Sheng Qing was shaking her head so wildly and rolling her eyes; they were symptoms of choking!
Cao Ruobing didn’t hesitate. He wrapped his arms around Sheng Qing’s waist and gave a series of forceful thrusts to her abdomen, trying to dislodge the dirt he thought was stuck in her throat.
Wen Ying was familiar with this move.
It was the Heimlich maneuver, which was a perfectly appropriate treatment.
The only problem was that Sheng Qing wasn’t choking on dirt.
Sheng Qing was being thrashed around so much that her stomach churned violently. She finally couldn’t take it anymore, and with a sudden retch, she started throwing up.
Seeing Sheng Qing finally spit out whatever was in her throat, Cao Ruobing let out a relieved sigh and released his grip.
A pungent, sour, and foul smell instantly filled the air.
“What is that smell?”
“Did someone soil themselves?”
Sheng Qing had “fallen” in a very conspicuous spot. The crowd had no trouble at all pinpointing the source of the terrible smell.
They didn’t know why Sheng Qing was suddenly throwing up, but the smell…
“Mom, did she eat poop?” A child, with the simple curiosity of youth, asked his mother.
The child’s clear voice carried just enough for everyone to hear.
His mother didn’t answer right away.
In her mind, a normal person wouldn’t eat poop, especially not the second young miss, Sheng Qing. But the smell…
“Mom, she’s like me! She has two missing front teeth, too!” The little girl suddenly made another discovery and once again announced it to her mother in a clear voice. “I broke mine on a corn cob, but did she eat sh…”
Her mother quickly covered her mouth, stopping her from saying the last word.
By this point, Sheng Qing had finished throwing up. Whether from the vomiting or from the sheer embarrassment, her face was pale, even under the coating of dirt.
Just now… in order to take a walk with Cao Ruobing… she had eaten stinky tofu, durian, and luosifen from every roadside stall.
Sheng Qing could feel the crowd’s strange gazes, she could smell their disgust, and she could hear them agreeing with what the little girl had said…
“Qingqing, your teeth…” Cao Ruobing also saw Sheng Qing’s two missing front teeth and asked with concern.
Cao Ruobing’s voice was the final straw.
“Ah—!” Sheng Qing finally snapped. She let out a scream, covered her face, and ran out of the crowd.
She no longer cared about framing Wen Ying; all she wanted was to find a hole to hide in!
Wen Ying thought that if she wanted to find a hole, she was running in the wrong direction.
After all, the hole she had just been in was still right there…
In the end, because of some unexpected smells, the “Pit Lantern Festival” ended abruptly.
When Wen Ying turned back to find Shen Linfeng and Lu Xiaojie, Lin Ruge was no longer there.
“What happened to that unimportant person?” Wen Ying asked casually.
“Huh?” The distracted Lu Xiaojie finally snapped back to reality. “Oh, right, what about the person who wanted to marry you, Senior Sister?”
That’s right, he was supposed to be blocking that person… but he had been so curious about the “Pit Lantern Festival” that he had forgotten all about him when he didn’t try to force his way past.
Wen Ying: “…”
Was she asking Lu Xiaojie questions or was she talking to herself?
“Little brother, do you know where he went?” Wen Ying asked Shen Linfeng, her last remaining hope.
Shen Linfeng gently nodded, quickly wrote on a note, and handed it to Wen Ying: “He went back to the mountain stronghold.”
Wen Ying took the note.
The mountain stronghold…
Lin Ruge had even told Shen Linfeng about his origins?
What had happened between Lin Ruge and Shen Linfeng while Lu Xiaojie was distracted? Not only had Shen Linfeng convinced him to go back, but he had also learned the truth about the stronghold?
Seeing Wen Ying’s thoughtful expression, Shen Linfeng handed her another note: “He knew that you were avoiding him, and since he knew that love was unrequited, he asked me to pass on a message that he was returning to the mountain.”
Having spent this time with Shen Linfeng, Wen Ying knew that it was in his nature not to ask questions or reveal much.
If that was the case, the whole thing seemed to make sense.
And yet…
All the little coincidences strung together, Wen Ying still felt that something was off.
But no matter how much she thought about it, she couldn’t pinpoint what it was.
In any case, it was a good thing that Lin Ruge had left.
…
Wen Ying had originally planned to go up the mountain to find the Hua Pi couple the next day to confirm her suspicions about the puppet strings.
But after the river-turned-pit incident, she changed her mind.
There was probably more to the strange phenomena in Ping’an Town than just the puppet strings and mind control.
For instance, the “missing Aunt Wu’s house” might be connected to the “river-turned-pit.”
And the only clue she had about Aunt Wu was Li Xiangyue.
Wen Ying decided that tomorrow, she would go and find Li Xiangyue.
Just as Wen Ying was about to go to sleep, the familiar mission box popped up.
[Mission… a success, but not a success, is that okay?]
This was the result of a long, internal struggle within the system.
On the one hand, Wen Ying had successfully completed the mission. But on the other, Sheng Qing had indeed fallen into the river. But if Wen Ying had failed… Sheng Qing hadn’t successfully framed her.
Seeing the cautious mission box, Wen Ying, for the first time, felt a little sorry for the system.
“Fine,” Wen Ying replied.
[That’s great! Host, are you finally going to cooperate with the missions?] The system finally dared to speak.
“No,” Wen Ying said, uncompromising. “Do you really think that a reincarnation that I couldn’t escape after fifty-two times of diligently completing missions can be escaped by just cooperating?”
[That…] The system’s voice was once again accompanied by the sound of flipping pages. [Logically, if you just honestly complete the missions, you should no longer have to start over in this world… But why is it that you always fail at the very end…]
Huh?
This was the first time Wen Ying had heard the system say this.
On the surface, these words sounded no different from its usual perfunctory excuses, but they revealed a lot.
After she had noticed the oddities in the system, Wen Ying had initially thought that her mission failures were all due to the system’s interference, and that the missions themselves were just a way to lead her to failure.
But it seemed that wasn’t the case.
The previous system had indeed tried to stop her from finding the truth behind her reincarnation. But keeping her in a state of failure wasn’t its goal.
So, did the system really want her to successfully complete all the missions?
And if so, did that mean that even if she did succeed, what awaited her wasn’t an escape from reincarnation, but… something even more terrifying?
Author’s Note:
I’ve been thinking about a very boring question lately:
If you could go back in time, how would you prove that you were from the future?
If you were to say a few things that might happen in the future, would the butterfly effect prevent them from happening?
I feel like I’m very bored, haha.
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