Gu Ci walked slowly, so the two of them lagged a few meters behind Big Black, who was leading the way in front.

Yan Luqing heard what Gu Ci said, and could not help but laugh twice: “Haha, you want me to talk about my past, huh…” She shifted her posture in Gu Ci’s arms, sitting up a little straighter, “Back then, I was completely different from how I am now. In high school, I had suuu—per many friends.”

She deliberately dragged out the word “super,” and even stretched out her arms to make a gesture, proving that it really was “many.”

Gu Ci gave a sound of acknowledgment.

Yan Luqing then continued chattering: “They all said I was naturally easy to get along with, very approachable, and that talking with me was fun, so it was always lively around me, full of chattering pretty sisters.”

Thinking of such pleasant things, Yan Luqing could not help but giggle again. Only after laughing did she say, “But even though I had many, many friends, there was really only one that I was truly close with… Ai, I still miss her quite a lot.”

Gu Ci naturally followed up: “If you miss her, then why not see her.”

“Because—” Yan Luqing choked for a moment, her voice halting.

She tried again: “Because—”

And once again, she got stuck there.

It was not that she did not want to say it, but that she simply could not say it at all.

Yan Luqing was made so vexed by this that, since this road was blocked, she simply changed to another phrasing: “It’s not like I can just see her whenever I want,” she shrugged her shoulders, “Anyway, at present, I can’t see her.”

Without waiting for Gu Ci to say anything more, she grew lively again and continued talking: “Eh, also! I still haven’t finished talking about my past, don’t interrupt yet!”

Gu Ci slightly turned his face and smiled, “Alright, continue.”

While speaking, they had already reached the car for their return.

Big Black helped open the car door, and the two of them sat in the back seat.

Yan Luqing was very exclusive, her desire to confide aimed only at Gu Ci—after getting in the car, she waited until the partition at the driver’s seat rose up, completely separating the front from the back, before starting to talk endlessly again:

“In the past, I didn’t know any boys as handsome as you.” Yan Luqing wrinkled her nose. “I used to think that the senior who pursued me was already considered very handsome in real life. Because back then, after I rejected him, my sisters all said I didn’t know what was good for me, that I would definitely never meet anyone more handsome than him again… Wah, I really should have let them see you!”

——Let them see what a real princess is like. A male princess is the most wonderful and best-looking.

But this last sentence Yan Luqing did not say out loud, because even under the precondition of being drunk, she knew such words must not be thrown in front of the very person concerned.

Listening to her descriptions, not only did she have many friends, she also had many pursuers.

Before Gu Ci could say anything, a flash of white suddenly passed at the edge of his vision, and right after that, he felt a weight on his leg—

Feeling dizzy from sitting in the car, Yan Luqing very naturally leaned to the side, and when she reclined down like this, the length was just right—her head landed precisely on Gu Ci’s lap.

The car fell silent.

“…Your friends were not wrong,” Gu Ci commented with objectivity. “You really are very quick to become familiar.”

Yan Luqing, lying on her back, looked up and let out a confused sound: “Ah?”

“It’s nothing,” Gu Ci permitted her to do this. “Continue.”

“Oh, continue…” Yan Luqing thought for a moment. “In the past, I wasn’t as rich as I am now.”

After lying down she felt much more comfortable, but her tone was clearly not as cheerful as before. As if her whole being had quieted down, only now carrying a faint taste of recalling the past.

“I never lived in such a big villa, never had so many people taking care of me.” Her voice then paused, as if sinking a little with a hint of dejection, the ending tone sliding downwards. “Nor did I have so many people fearing me.”

That faint, indistinct sense of dejection lingered in the narrow space, as if the clear sky of just now had suddenly turned cloudy, a fine drizzle falling.

The shift of emotion was too quick, leaving one caught unprepared.

“In the past, I also didn’t have so many… family members.”

Yan Luqing was lying on her back on Gu Ci’s lap, her face turned upward, her gaze straight toward the car’s skylight. The neon lights outside the car window kept flashing past, occasionally spilling inside, casting mottled shadows across her features.

Gu Ci looked at the small speck of light above her eyes, looked as she suddenly lifted her fingers, counting on them: “I counted, there’s only the dean, the dean’s wife, and a few friends and classmates I can think of. The rest… I actually don’t have many people that come to mind.”

After she finished, her expression appeared especially blank and hollow, completely unlike her usual lively and mischievous self.

In this kind of situation now, if one were to extend the questions even slightly, whatever was asked, she would probably answer.

But all the things Gu Ci originally wanted to ask—he suddenly did not want to voice any of them.

“Yan Luqing.”

“Mm?”

“So long as there are people you can think of, even if the number is few, even if you cannot see them, it is not something bad.”

Gu Ci’s voice, still steady and magnetic, carried within it many complicated emotions, every single word falling clearly into her ears.

He rarely spoke in such long sentences, so even with her mind running slowly at the moment, Yan Luqing still listened very attentively.

“The truly bad thing is…” Gu Ci’s voice paused, lips carrying their habitual trace of a smile, murmuring softly, “the people you think of are already no longer here.”

“……”

At this moment, Yan Luqing’s muddled brain grew clear for an instant.

In this instant, she clearly understood what Gu Ci’s two sentences meant.

Since childhood, he had a happy family, life smooth and fortunate, yet because of a sudden man-made disaster, his family was destroyed and his loved ones gone.

The people he could think of were all already gone.

He was using his own experience… to comfort her.

Gu Ci appeared no different from usual, the side profile of his face beautifully cold, yet his brows and eyes seemed very gentle.

Yan Luqing suddenly felt an inexplicable sadness. Understanding his comfort made her feel even sadder than when she had been recalling at random just now. She could not organize any words at this moment, only felt a heart full of the urge to say something, anything, to drive away this suffocating feeling.

“Actually, when I said those things, it wasn’t with envy, not at all.” Yan Luqing pressed down the heaviness, continuing along the thread of their earlier conversation. “Because in the past, I was much more beautiful than I am now—really, Gu Ci.”

Gu Ci lowered his eyes, his lashes like crow feathers casting a patch of shadow. With a trace of laughter in his voice, he replied: “Oh, how much more beautiful?”

Afraid he would not believe her, the young girl’s voice suddenly grew firmer. “So much that even my sisters told me, if it weren’t for my personality, just for my face alone they wouldn’t have been so close to me—because they feared the boy they liked would like me instead.”

Yan Luqing forgot whether her sisters had actually said this or not. In any case, she truly was not lying—her body in the past, in every aspect, had been much more beautiful than now.

“In the past, I also wouldn’t have been treated like a lunatic…”

“I didn’t used to start panting after walking two steps, didn’t used to have unexplained aches everywhere.”

“And also, I used to have so much hair, the hair quality was super good,” drunk and perhaps a bit forgetful, Yan Luqing rattled off several items, soon making herself sound happy again, “to the extent that even pretty girls from the class next door who weren’t close would come ask me what shampoo I used.”

Unlike now, when even sky-price shampoo couldn’t rescue hair that was dry from the roots; it could only be barely maintained.

Gu Ci’s smile deepened as he made a sound of assent.

That brief note caused his Adam’s apple to slide up and down, looking inexplicably sexy in the night.

Yan Luqing stared at him appreciatively for a while, then a sudden idea struck her.

But she was afraid the partition might not block sound and didn’t want the driver up front to hear.

So she tilted her face up and beckoned to Gu Ci with a finger:

“Gu Ci, come here, stretch your ear over.”

But Gu Ci did not follow her instruction.

Yan Luqing still lay on his lap; she looked up at him, he half-closed his eyes, and they gazed at each other in silence.

Yan Luqing looked into those dark, beautiful eyes—so deep they seemed to have a kind of magic that would suck a person in if stared at too long. Growing anxious, she ignored caution and hooked her hand around his neck, pulling him down until his face was level with hers—

Very close to his ear, Yan Luqing spoke in a very soft voice:

“I suddenly remembered, I used to have an amazing figure!” The girl’s voice could not hide her excitement. “Maybe not a C, but definitely top-tier B!”

“…………”

Yan Luqing had never thought that after drinking for so many years she would one day have the thought, “I will never drink again in my life.”

Now was the morning after Old Master Zhang’s big birthday.

A lover of alcohol conducting a profound confession about their behavior.

As she recalled last night, Yan Luqing buried her head deep into the quilt. She didn’t even want to get out of bed, didn’t even want to pick at the dream castle—Yan Luqing felt that perhaps jumping off a building to try to travel back to her previous world might be more appropriate.

She collapsed for a while, then raised her head from the quilt and called Makka Pakka again.

“Maria…” its voice sounded trembling, “I know you’re very distraught, but when Gu Ci is here, I really can’t connect to you…”

“I know, I’m not here to punish myself or blame anyone, I drank because I like drinking and I’ll bear the consequences myself.”

Yan Luqing thought of the times when Gu Ci questioned her and her throat inexplicably could not make a sound.

The scene felt familiar… Yan Luqing racked her brain and it seemed that not long ago, after she and Gu Ci fell down the hillside, when Gu Ci jokingly asked why she was so heavy, she tried to explain that she hadn’t fallen on purpose and was stopped in the same way—an as if sealed throat, a loss of voice.

She briefly described these two experiences to Makka Pakka: “What is going on?”

Makka Pakka: “Because the transmigration system will not allow the host to utter words related to ‘transmigration’ and ‘system.’ For example, the real reason you fell last time was the system; the real reason for the question you were about to answer last night is that you don’t belong to this world—these are also prohibited by the system.”

“……” Fine, at least this counted as leaving her the last shred of fig-leaf.

But—how was she supposed to explain the rest of those sentences that all began with “In the past I…”???

How could this be.

What would Gu Ci think??

The word “in the past,” would he interpret it as this body’s past?—No, even a fool wouldn’t understand it that way, much less Gu Ci.

But… if he really did understand what she meant by “in the past,” then why did he seem to accept it so quickly, accept it so well?

That was impossible.

If Yan Luqing hadn’t transmigrated into a book, and her best girlfriend by her side told her she had been reborn, then even if Yan Luqing were stingy to the extreme, she would definitely pay out of her own pocket to send her friend first for a psychological consultation.

Ah, psychological consultation—

Yan Luqing’s eyes suddenly lit up: she had a way, she had a way!

She immediately got out of bed, washed and dressed at top speed, and informed Big Black: “Contact Doctor Qu immediately, I want a face-to-face consultation in an hour.”

During this time she very smoothly avoided running into Gu Ci inside the villa.

As for whether he heard her leaving, Yan Luqing didn’t know.

When she arrived at Doctor Qu’s, it was almost the same as last time when she had just transmigrated. Yan Luqing still first did all kinds of tests according to his instructions—she never filled them in truthfully, always choosing the most absurd answers.

Doctor Qu asked her questions, and Yan Luqing answered in a rather bizarre way.

“I… recently I always suddenly wake up in the middle of the night, mm… I always feel like, in the darkness, there’s another me, watching me constantly.” She stared at Doctor Qu with that half-confused, half-serious look. “Tell me, why is that?”

She switched so quickly that Doctor Qu seemed startled by her sudden acting and words, pushed up his glasses, and continued guiding her to talk.

Yan Luqing continued to make things up: “Also? Sometimes I feel like I’ve slept a very long sleep, but then my bodyguards around me will tell me I was clearly awake the whole time… Why is that?”

Doctor Qu stared at her for quite a while, flipped through the materials in his hand: “According to what your bodyguards have said recently, you’ve also had cognitive confusion, color-blindness, memory loss, feeling like there are flowers on people’s faces, thinking there is a robot in your room that doesn’t exist at all—do you admit to all these phenomena?”

Yan Luqing obediently nodded: “I admit to all of them, Doctor Qu.”

“……” She saw the two giant characters of speechless written across his face.

After that, Yan Luqing answered a few more harmless questions as required, did another round of testing, and was then allowed to go home.

She had the psychologist’s WeChat on her phone. As soon as she sat down in the car to go home, Yan Luqing impatiently opened WeChat and found the chat with him.

On the screen, gray, blue, and red bubbles were popping up like crazy.

Yan Luqing tapped three times in a row, and to her astonishment she found that although the colors and moods were different, the content was exactly the same sentence—

No hope left

No hope left

No hope left

“……” Yan Luqing, after seeing that, confirmed the objective was achieved. Most likely, very soon she would be receiving a rather severe diagnosis report.

She thought it over, and once the car was steadily on the road, she called Little Black. The very first thing she asked was: “Is Gu Ci by your side?”

Little Black replied: “No, he just got up not long ago, right now he’s having breakfast in the dining room.”

“Good,” Yan Luqing instructed, “Little Black, go and subtly tell Gu Ci that I’m now very ill, the kind of illness where I can’t control whatever I say anymore.” After a pause, still uneasy, she added, “You know what ‘subtly’ means, right? It’s like—forget it, I’ll teach you, just do as I say.”

Inside Yan Luqing’s villa.

Little Black put down the phone and returned to the dining room.

Gu Ci was still eating breakfast the same as before he had left, though dressed casually, his manners still faintly revealed a cultivated elegance.

Little Black let out a sigh.

He saw Gu Ci’s hand, the one holding the water glass, pause, then he sighed again.

Sure enough, just as Miss Yan had said, Gu Ci raised his eyes toward him, asking gently: “What is it?”

Little Black at once answered in a flustered tone: “You don’t know, Miss Yan went to see the psychologist early this morning—”

Little Black felt he was acting very well.

Miss Yan had said that at this time, Gu Ci would ask, “What about going to see the psychologist,” and Little Black only needed to answer, “Miss Yan’s illness is quite severe, perhaps to the point where she might keep spouting nonsense”—though he didn’t know why she wanted him to stage this scene, Little Black had basic professional integrity, so he would carry out the order as instructed.

“……”

Who would have thought that after he spoke the first sentence, the dining room fell into silence.

For a while, just as Little Black was growing anxious, he suddenly saw the corners of Gu Ci’s eyes curve slightly, and within the depths of those jet-black pupils was an obvious hint of laughter. Slowly, he repeated: “Your Miss Yan went to see a psychologist?”

Little Black blankly nodded: “Mm.”

“And then,” Gu Ci leisurely wiped his hands, “she had you tell me that this time she’s very ill?”

Little Black: “……?”

Isn’t that my line??

On the other side.

In the car, Yan Luqing was nervously staring at Little Black’s WeChat avatar, closely monitoring his psychological state.

At first, there was a whole string of: I acted really well, Mr. Gu Ci indeed responded exactly like Miss Yan said he would—all yellow, confident bubbles.

Then suddenly, a blue and a gray one popped up—

Gray panic: How did Mr. Gu Ci know?!

Blue sadness: ? Why do I feel like they’ve teamed up to mess with me???