At the instant Xia Yutian and Xia Xuetian saw her, their eyes lit up, “Let’s go, beauty! Just one look at your skin and it’s obvious you rarely get sun—we’ll take you to see what kind of street we commoners love to stroll the most!”
As they spoke, one on the left and one on the right, they pulled her toward the direction of the temple fair.
Wherever the two of them were, it was always bustling. Although Yan Luqing was a brainless sand sculpture, she also very much liked girls of this kind of personality.
Yan Luqing thought that since this was also the last outing, she could not resist asking the question she had long been curious about on the way: “By the way, I’ve always wanted to ask, do you have anyone in your family called Xia Bingbao [Hail]?”
Xia Yutian: “Yes, that’s our cousin!”
Xia Xuetian: “We also have a cousin named Xia Shuangshuang [Frost].”
Yan Luqing: “……” Your family really doesn’t use any brain cells in naming.
The sisters Xia Yutian and Xia Xuetian seemed extremely skilled in the way of amusement. They brought Yan Luqing to buy many novel trinkets—Nine Linked Rings, Hua Rong Dao, Kongming Lock… and also a kind of deformed multi-sided Rubik’s cube that Yan Luqing had never even seen in her previous world.
She bought a big bag of these trinkets similar to adult puzzles, as well as scenic commemorative items made at Dieye Mountain, then was taken by the two sisters to a place that looked from the outside like a temple, but upon entering she discovered there were many stalls inside.
“This is the main event!” The two sisters introduced to her one on the left and one on the right, “Look, every stall hangs a sign to show what it does. Some are related to fortune-telling, but most people come here to draw lots—not because it’s accurate, mainly because the lots are pretty, and tourists are happy to spend money.”
Yan Luqing followed their pointing to one place: “Every time we come we go to that tarot stall to have her read, and we can also learn divination by the way. Do you want to go?”
Yan Luqing felt indifferent about tarot cards, and said: “You two go ahead, I’ll look at other things.”
“Alright, then let’s contact by phone in a while!”
After the two sisters left, she wandered around the place once.
As they had said, the most people were drawing lots. It was not for how efficacious or authentic it was, but only because the lots here were beautifully made—one would choose whichever stall’s design they liked, then take a photo after coming out.
In the end, Yan Luqing became more interested in the coldest and quietest stall of all.
There were two signs set up there, one [Fortune-Telling], one [Hypnosis].
…She wanted to learn both!
It was the first time Yan Luqing had seen someone teaching hypnosis.
She had always had a knot in her heart about her golden finger being blocked by Gu Ci, longing to see into Gu Ci’s mind, but apart from punctuation marks she could see nothing. It had even become a sort of obsession—so at the very first sight of this stall, Yan Luqing thought: since he was a human shielding device, then she could only use another method.
Sitting at this stall was an old grandpa with snow-white hair, kindly brows and good-natured eyes, wearing several strands of beads around his neck, looking very much with a mystical air.
Yan Luqing stepped forward and greeted: “Grandpa, hello?”
“Do you take disciples? Do you teach online? How about adding WeChat?”
…
By the time Yan Luqing returned to the hotel with the two sisters, the sun was about to set.
Carrying a large bag of things, she opened the room door and saw Gu Ci sitting on the sofa, his fingers casually hooking under Wolf’s chin. The skin on his hand was very close in color to the white fur on Wolf, and the black clothes on his body were the same as the black fur on Wolf.
One man and one dog, both in black and white tones, the setting sun shining in through the floor-to-ceiling window, actually created a very strange harmony.
Yan Luqing: what a fine painting of a princess teasing a dog.
After sighing in her heart, she walked over while talking to Gu Ci: “Were you playing with it all afternoon?”
Gu Ci did not answer.
He first glanced at the big and small bags in Yan Luqing’s hands, then looked down at her face from top to bottom, and spoke coolly and coldly: “Where did you go.”
For some reason, with him holding that expression and asking like this, Yan Luqing had a kind of absurd feeling, as if she had sneaked out to play behind someone’s back.
Behind whose back? She had gone openly and upright, okay.
Yan Luqing put the bags on the ground, then carelessly sat down on the carpet in front of the sofa.
This way, Gu Ci was seated one level higher than she.
He lowered his eyes to look at Yan Luqing, who had begun to chatter nonstop.
“I went to the temple fair with the twins today.” She spoke while taking things out, “Eh, I originally didn’t want to buy so much, but then I thought, other than the day of climbing the mountain, you hadn’t properly gone out to play. Now your back is not convenient to move, and tomorrow we’re leaving, so I bought a pile… Ah, this Nine Linked Rings, we learned from the seller for a long time, I’ll take it apart to show you!”
The girl’s fingers moved back and forth between the rings, struggling for three minutes, unable to take the rings apart, ending up with a face full of impatience. “What the… I obviously had learned it…”
Gu Ci suddenly smiled, reached out and took the rings from her and placed them on the table to one side, freeing her hands.
“What else?”
Then Yan Luqing continued to introduce those strange and novel puzzle toys. Just like the Nine Linked Rings, the locks could not be unlocked, the Rubik’s cube she had learned could not be pieced together before Gu Ci, and in the end she simply placed all the fun things and tasty things one by one on the table.
Gu Ci was at least giving her face, watching with genuine interest, occasionally even speaking up to ask about the principles, and finally smiling gently as he said: “Thank you, Miss Yan, for your hard work.”
At this moment.
Yan Luqing suddenly felt like she was a character in some strategy game—the kind where you had to run all over the map, at Location 1 buying Treasure A, at Location 2 buying Treasures B and C, at Location 3 learning new tricks. After going through everything, you would go into the palace to present Treasures A, B, and C to the princess, and then even perform the newly learned tricks for the princess.
“…………”
Especially with Princess Ci sitting on the sofa while she sat on the carpet—this angle made it look even more so.
Yan Luqing silently stood up, circled around to Gu Ci’s side, and sat on the sofa as well.
“By the way, I also learned…” She had not finished showing off her tricks, and was about to demonstrate to Gu Ci, when a sweep of her peripheral vision caught sight of two books placed by her leg.
They must have been what Gu Ci had been reading that afternoon.
Yan Luqing casually picked them up and glanced at the titles.
“Twenty-Four Personalities”
“Studies on Hysteria”
Yan Luqing: “………………?”
Fuck, although she didn’t really understand, just by the titles, weren’t these books the same sort of thing as abnormal psychology?
Could it be that Gu Ci knew mental patients besides her?
That was it.
Yan Luqing, now no longer in the same relationship with him as back when it was just abnormal psychology, could not hold back her words, and directly blurted out: “No way, Gu Ci, with our relationship like this, you’re still researching me???”
Gu Ci had been fiddling with that deformed Rubik’s cube, his fingers set against its colorful pieces looking as fine as white jade.
Hearing her, he turned his head, looked at her, and asked one word at a time: “Research you?”
“These books,” Yan Luqing lifted them up, “dare you say you’re not researching me?”
Gu Ci suddenly relaxed his spine, leaning back against the sofa cushion, lazily asking: “Why do you think I am researching you?”
Yan Luqing was about to answer smoothly: “Because I—”
But before she could finish, Gu Ci interrupted her, his lips carrying that faint smile as he spoke again: “Yan Luqing, are you multiple personalities? Or hysteria?”
Yan Luqing was stunned by the question.
She suddenly felt something was strange—not just one thing, but everything felt strange—because she even felt that Makka Pakka seemed to be trying to contact her again.
Looking into Gu Ci’s eyes, she steadied her voice to answer: “Don’t you know what my symptoms are?”
The room fell silent for an unknown length of time.
When Yan Luqing was nearly unable to sit still anymore, Gu Ci finally spoke again.
“How could you think I was researching you?” He still leaned back on the sofa, speaking in a tone as if joking. “I thought you were A.”
…A?
Hearing this letter, Yan Luqing suddenly remembered—back at home, that day when she couldn’t stop overthinking, she had gone to ask Gu Ci about the post she had made herself.
[A is a normal person, who transmigrated into mentally ill B. Then is A mentally ill?]
——Back then he had answered: if A feels they are not, then they are not.
Yan Luqing’s eyes slowly widened, her heart racing wildly, but she still put on an expression of great shock as she looked at him: “What are you talking about? What A? Don’t tell me… it’s that post I showed you before?” Then she emphasized convincingly, “Gu Ci, that post was just something I casually scrolled across—”
Yan Luqing’s words suddenly cut off—because Gu Ci suddenly sat upright, his fingers reaching straight toward her collar.
The distance was so close, Yan Luqing almost felt her chin brush against that cool jade-like skin, a touch and then withdrawal.
Gu Ci had taken off a tiny, tiny leaf that had somehow stuck to her clothing.
He placed the leaf in his hand to toy with, his pitch-black beautiful eyes fixed on her, the corners of his lips faintly lifting, his voice soft as if comforting someone:
“Don’t be nervous, I was only joking.”
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