However, perhaps the constant switching between ‘acting’ and ‘reality’ over the past few days had drained too much of her mental energy, or perhaps the overly warm and tranquil atmosphere itself possessed a hypnotic charm, causing one to unconsciously let down their guard. After finishing her meal, an overwhelming and irresistible wave of drowsiness washed over her like a tide.
Lan Yucheng felt her eyelids growing heavier and heavier, her body becoming soft and weak.
Leaning back against the chair, she listened as Su Yiyi, seated opposite her, recounted amusing anecdotes from the community in a soft voice—stories about Aunt Wang’s clever cat opening doors by itself, or the latest exotic plant Uncle Li had cultivated in his garden.
Su Yiyi’s voice gradually became distant and indistinct, as if it were filtering through a layer of lukewarm water, losing its clear contours.
Lan Yucheng’s consciousness struggled on the brink of wakefulness and slumber, ultimately slipping into a dark abyss.
Her nerves, tightly wound for an entire day, finally relaxed completely in this excessively warm haven.
That name, which she had forcibly suppressed deep within her heart with immense willpower, a name that had tormented her thoughts day and night, now escaped her. It mingled with an intense, unyielding longing, an unbearable sense of grievance, and a buried despair even she hadn’t noticed. Like a trapped beast unleashed from its chains, it slipped from her slightly parted lips, still glossy with a hint of soup, faint yet exceptionally clear, accompanied by a choked tremor.
“…Xiao Xue…”
Immediately following, an even more indistinct yet heartbreaking murmur escaped her, carrying a childlike plea: “…Don’t go…please…hold me tight…”
The sound was light, like a feather brushing silent air, yet it struck like a sudden clap of thunder, abruptly shattering the cozy warmth of the dining room.
Sitting opposite her, Su Yiyi’s gentle smile instantly froze. Her right hand, holding a pair of chopsticks poised to pick up a green vegetable, became rigid in mid-air, the tips of the chopsticks trembling slightly. Her pupils abruptly constricted as she stared in disbelief at Lan Yucheng, who had already succumbed to sleep.
The warm yellow glow of the restaurant’s lights now shone like a spotlight, starkly illuminating Lan Yucheng’s defenseless sleeping face—long lashes casting soft shadows beneath her eyes, her brow subtly furrowed as if she were experiencing some painful scene even in her dreams.
‘Xiao Xue?’
This unfamiliar, intimate name pierced through months of seemingly harmonious warmth like a cold, pre-prepared needle, precise and cruel, exposing a potentially starkly different reality beneath.
Su Yiyi felt her heart being violently clutched by an invisible hand, then abruptly yanked downwards, plunging into a cold abyss. She recalled Lan Yucheng’s disoriented, vacant-eyed appearance after being discharged from the hospital, and how she would occasionally wake in the dead of night, repeatedly asking about a seemingly fictional ‘Qing Xinxue’.
It seemed that what she had dismissed as temporary post-traumatic confusion or simple nightmares was, in fact, something far more profound.
The person named ‘Xiao Xue’ was real.
They not only existed in Lan Yucheng’s past but occupied her heart with such profound, vibrant intensity.
So profoundly that even within the seemingly impregnable, warm haven Su Yiyi had meticulously created, at Lan Yucheng’s weakest moment of consciousness, the name she subconsciously called out, the person she longed to embrace, was still ‘Xiao Xue’.
In an instant, countless overlooked details flooded Su Yiyi’s mind: the deep, age-inappropriate pain that occasionally flickered in Lan Yucheng’s eyes when she gazed blankly out the window; her vague, understated evasiveness when discussing her past experiences; the detached, scrutinizing gaze that sometimes emerged from behind her apparent dependence.
A complex emotion, like a tsunami, swiftly swept over Su Yiyi. After the initial shock came immense confusion, a sharp sting of feeling used and deceived, and then… a subtle yet piercing sense of loss and bitterness that she instinctively wanted to resist and deny.
She had always believed she was playing the role of a savior, using patience and tenderness to help an injured neighbor emerge from life’s shadows and embrace the sunshine once more.
But it turned out that the other person’s heart might never have truly opened to her; that door had remained tightly shut, concealing another world and another person entirely beyond her reach. Was her perceived ‘healing’ merely a meticulously orchestrated performance?
Where did her sincere efforts stand in all this?
The dining room fell into a dead silence, so quiet that the faint gurgle of residual heat in the soup pot and the distant, indistinct hum of traffic outside the window were audible. The warm yellow pendant lamp, which had initially created a cozy ambiance, now cast a light that seemed exceptionally harsh, brightly illuminating Lan Yucheng’s flushed, sleeping face, and mercilessly exposing Su Yiyi’s suddenly bloodless, somewhat pale complexion.
Su Yiyi slowly, painstakingly slowly, lowered her chopsticks. The delicate ‘tap’ of ceramic meeting the wooden table was starkly clear in the stillness.
Her gaze upon Lan Yucheng was no longer merely gentle and compassionate; it had become incredibly complex, profound, swirling with scrutiny, hurt, confusion, and a newfound distance that sought to re-evaluate everything.
All her previous vague unease and inexpressible intuitions seemed to find a clear direction at this moment.
What untold story was truly hidden within the heart of this seemingly innocent ‘younger sister’ who appeared so dependent on her, so in need of her protection? And who exactly was ‘Xiao Xue’?
The warm dinner, beneath its facade of happiness, finally cracked open, revealing a deep, bone-chilling fissure from which cold air seeped.
Meanwhile, Lan Yucheng, deep in slumber, remained oblivious to the sudden drop in temperature and the impending storm around her.
She was immersed in a brief yet real dream featuring ‘Xiao Xue’, her brow furrowed even tighter, a subtle dampness seeming to gather at the corners of her eyes, as if even in her dream, she was desperately trying to grasp a fading phantom.
Su Yiyi remained seated, motionless for a long time.
After the initial sharp pang in her heart, a more complex, subtle emotion quietly took root—a surge of anger at being deceived, and an impulse to… tear everything apart.
A dangerous thought, like a vine growing in the darkness, quietly entwined itself around her heart: ‘Since you are by my side, yet your heart belongs to someone else, since your dependence and intimacy are merely a performance, then… perhaps I, too, no longer need to adhere to the boundaries of being a ‘sister’?’
‘What would constitute being ‘more excessive’?’ Would it be to shake her awake directly and demand to know who ‘Xiao Xue’ was?
Or would it be to continue feigning ignorance, yet transform this tenderness into an invisible cage, leaving her nowhere to escape within her ‘kindness’, making her incur more unpayable emotional debts until she was utterly lost in this false warmth she had personally woven, unable to distinguish between performance and reality?
Su Yiyi’s fingertips unconsciously tapped lightly on the cool tabletop. She watched Lan Yucheng’s eyelashes flutter softly with the unease of her dream, like fragile butterfly wings.
If, at this moment, she were not merely smoothing her hair, but gently caressing her cheek, or even… with an unyielding, probing force, jolting her awake from that dream of ‘Xiao Xue’, what would her reaction be?
Would genuine panic and aversion flash in those eyes, which always shimmered with deliberately practiced dependence and gratitude?
This thought, carrying a nearly masochistic pleasure, caused Su Yiyi’s breathing to quicken slightly.
She had always believed she was the one giving warmth, but now, she realized she might also possess the power to inflict pain.
This power stemmed from the other’s meticulously constructed deception, and from her own recently pierced sincerity.
She slowly rose, her movements so light they made no sound. She walked to Lan Yucheng’s side, looking down at the face still immersed in another world.
Shadows fell, and the distance between them was so close she could feel the warmth of the other’s breath.
Su Yiyi extended her hand, hovering in mid-air, hesitating—should she, as usual, gently wake her and send her back to her room to sleep peacefully, or… should her fingertips descend, carrying a hint of punishment, to shatter this heartbreaking dual dream?
Ultimately, her fingers merely brushed a stray strand of Lan Yucheng’s hair from her forehead, her movement even softer than ever before.
But her gaze was cold and clear.
She was no longer in a hurry to reveal her hand; she suddenly wanted to see how long Lan Yucheng could ‘perform’ if she secretly raised the stakes in this play.