Chapter 76 The Truth: I Don't Want to Be a Ghost, I Want to Be a Human
"Le Jin" looked down at her, a smirk playing on her lips, and nodded.
"I thought you'd be scared to death, you're quite brave."
The face she looked at in the mirror every day was suddenly separated from her. Le Jin was indeed startled, but compared to everything she had experienced in this body, this was nothing.
She didn't care why "Le Jin" from the original book appeared; she only asked, "Where's the system?"
"Le Jin" shrugged, one eyebrow twitched unnaturally, and his eyes darted around nervously. After a while, he reluctantly squatted down in front of Le Jin.
"Sorry, there is no 'system,' only me."
"No system?" Le Jin's eyes widened, her tongue almost twitching as she forced a dry laugh. "How could that be? I've been doing missions the whole time, and I need to go home..."
"Le Jin" chuckled and raised her chin, revealing her neck.
Her slender, beautiful, fair neck bore a shocking purplish-red ligature mark.
"This is?"
“I’m dead. Meng Shutai did it.”
Le Jin propped her chin on her hand, her thoughts drifting back to the day Meng Shutai strangled her to death. After their marriage, they had always kept to themselves; she did her own thing, and Meng Shutai remained as ethereal as ever. But one day, she was brought home drunk by a courtesan and stumbled upon Meng Shutai, who had just finished his Buddhist prayers. His ethereal and otherworldly appearance stirred something within her.
Before marriage, she pursued him relentlessly, to no avail; after marriage, he became indifferent, refusing to even glance at her, let alone touch her. But they were married, after all. Was it too much for her to hug him? Was it too much for her to kiss him? And then…
He strangled her to death.
She only learned after her death that she had lived inside a book, and that everything in her past had been written by the author. But for some reason, her soul was trapped, not destroyed. Having lived a life of debauchery, her imprisoned soul was no different from being in jail!
There is no time, no space, no shape here. "Le Jin" would rather she perish completely, at least to end this suffering.
"So what's your way of ending your suffering?"
Le Jin thought it was all absurd, but what could be more absurd than her transmigrating into a book after her death?
"Le Jin" grinned at her shamelessly, pointing a semi-transparent finger at her.
"Have you ever heard the story of a water ghost abducting people? Later I discovered that the fates of characters in books cannot be changed, but they can be replaced. If you die in my place, I can be free!"
The woman in front of him, temporarily referred to as a "soul entity," was trembling with excitement. Le Jin was completely bewildered by what she was saying, but vaguely sensed a chill.
Was her only reason for coming here to die in place of a character in a book? What about her own life? San Niu is still waiting for her to go back!
Le Jin grabbed her with both hands, but found nothing. She could only anxiously ask, "What about me? What about me? You lied to me? You've been lying to me all along? I can't go back?"
"Le Jin" sighed, her brows furrowing with heartache. "You died too, silly girl. You died a long time ago, how could you possibly be 'resurrected' in that world?"
She glanced at Le Jin, then circled her finger around her. "You're... a ghost now, aren't you? Almost like me."
A ghost...? Her?!
The sound of a medium-sized truck's wheels scraping the ground suddenly rang in Le Jin's ears, sharp and piercing, like a dagger reaping fate...
Yes, she died a long time ago.
Rebirth is just a persistent dream; once life is lost, it can never be regained.
"What should I do... San Niu still needs to go to school and eat... Why did you lie to me? Why me of all people?"
Le Jin murmured absentmindedly, her head throbbing with pain, much like the pain when the wheels of a car ran over her head.
"You're just too worried about things, you can't even find peace after death. That's why your soul has drifted into my world."
"Le Jin" said, sitting down next to her, his empty shoulder bumping against hers. "After I died, I saw the tears you shed for Jiang Yingyun and Yuan Jingming. You were the kindest person I ever met, and also the most worried. Why did you have to care about Jiang Yingyun and Yuan Jingming? Why did you have to take care of your sister? You only had two shoulders, yet you had to bear the weight of so many lives."
Le Jin shook her head, utterly disdainful of such behavior. Her life was considered dissolute and wicked by the world, but so what? As long as she enjoyed herself, wasn't everything alright?
But this little girl with the same name as her didn't possess a single trace of her arrogant and domineering attitude. It was truly a headache. But it was also fortunate that she was like this, so that "Le Jin" could empathize with her death at Meng Shutai's hands and be certain that she would help.
"What kind of fate is this between us? We share the same name and surname, so we'll die together..."
"No, I don't want to die."
As Yue Jin was sighing, Yue Jin suddenly looked up, her eyes bright and stubborn like a newborn calf: "Why should I die? I don't accept it, I want to live!"
"Le Jin" led her step by step down a path to certain death, but Le Jin had a heart that yearned for life, carrying it like a torch in her chest, illuminating her whole body with a bright and clear light, as clean as the daylight.
Despite being mistreated by her parents, the death of her older sister, being hit by a truck, and being deceived and killed by Meng Shutai, she never considered dying.
She refused to bow to death. Having walked the country roads at night since childhood, Le Jin was least afraid of the elusive shadows.
"Your soul remains even after you die as a character in the book, but I am not from this world. If I really die using your identity, where will my soul go?"
"Le Jin" struck a pose of profound wisdom, stroked his chin, and after a long while said, "I don't know..."
Le Jin stood up abruptly, this time looking down at him.
"You've been lying to me from the very beginning, forcing me to do things I don't like at all. What do I owe you? And now you're telling me you don't know? Fine, when I wake up I'll tell Meng Shutai that I'll spend the rest of my life with him and make him stop taking the poison. I won't die, so you can just wait to be trapped for the rest of your life!" In the end, Le Jin snorted heavily, crossed her arms, and turned away to the other side.
"Le Jin" panicked and flew in front of her, clasping her hands together. "Please, please! Being trapped here is too torturous! But I really don't know if it's like me, waiting for a new soul?"
"I don't want to be a ghost, I want to be a human."
Le Jin wouldn't do something like using someone to get involved in a series of deceptions.
"people……?"
Le Jin stared intently at "Le Jin" and said meticulously, "You once helped send Le Zhao back to the Le family, so you must be able to do something else in this book world, right?"
I guess so.
A bright light flashed in Le Jin's dark eyes. She smiled, her youthful voice calm and measured: "You've always guided me; this time, I'll take the lead."
"Let's make a deal."
——
The metallic taste of blood stuck in her throat again. Le Jin's nose twitched, and she opened her eyes to see the same pinkish-white bed curtains.
Fortunately, Meng Shutai didn't know what was wrong with her and thought that using that "soul-capturing" poison would imprison her soul. His plan was destined to fail with her.
She smiled dismissively, suddenly realizing that Meng Shutai was quite foolish when he was bewitched.
The room was quiet. The arrogant and ruthless image of "Le Jin from the book" floated into Le Jin's mind. Truly worthy of being called a vicious female supporting character; how could she have been so naive as to believe she had her reasons?
It seems that Meng Shutai was the only variable in the book before.
Le Jin lay there, barely breathing, when the door was suddenly opened and then quickly closed again, and someone tiptoed toward her.
She tilted her head slightly, and her gaze met that of the person who had just arrived.
"Meng Cizhang...what brings you here?"
Meng Cizhang's gaze lingered on Le Jin's deathly pale face, and he trembled. When did she become like this? The once pretty and radiant lady was now like a thin slice of cake, probably melting away the moment someone put her in their mouth.
"I...I..."
He stood by Le Jin's bed with his hands clenched, stammering and unable to get a coherent answer.
But before Le Jin could urge him, Meng Cizhang clenched his fist, made up his mind, squatted down by Le Jin's bedside, and whispered in her ear:
“I saw Baoyin being taken to the Buddha relic pagoda by the people from the manor.”
As soon as Meng Cizhang returned from the Prince of Pingning's residence, he saw a group of people binding and tying up Baoyin, pushing and shoving her into a box and carrying her into a carriage.
This is very strange. Baoyin is from her sister-in-law's family and follows her around every day. Who would dare to touch her? Without saying a word, Meng Cizhang quietly followed, only to see the carriage travel all the way to the Buddha Relic Pagoda, where the box containing Baoyin was carried into the pagoda.
He hid to the side, speechless with astonishment. This was a vital piece of land overseen by his elder brother; only he could have done such a thing. But why would he do it?
Meng Cizhang couldn't understand it, but he vaguely felt that it was a big deal, and he had to tell his sister-in-law at least.
After hearing his explanation, Le Jin felt a surge of turmoil in her heart. She tremblingly grasped Meng Cizhang's shoulders, barely managing to stand up and lean closer to him, "Take me there, to that tower."
"But you're sick..."
Meng Cizhang reached out to press Le Jin back onto the bed. "Why don't you tell me why Bao Yin was taken away by my brother? If she really did something wrong, maybe I can plead for her?"
“No, she did nothing wrong.” Le Jin closed her eyes and took a few breaths, letting the metallic taste of blood in her throat dissipate before continuing, “I suspect your brother did something bad at the altar…”
"Impossible. My brother was an upright and honest man his whole life, as pure as an orchid and as steadfast as a pine tree. How could he commit evil deeds while making offerings to the pagoda?"
Le Jin smiled almost imperceptibly, laughing at his naivety, just like her former self.
"If you don't believe me, we can go and see for ourselves. Seeing is believing."
Meng Cizhang trusted his brother completely, but seeing Le Jin's fragile and pale appearance on the bed, he couldn't bear to refuse her.
Strangely enough, every time he faced Le Jin, he couldn't bear to refuse her no matter what she wanted to do, even though she always brought him bad luck or deceived him, as if he owed her something in the dark.
"It's fine to take a look, but at least you should get better before you set off. By the way, how did you suddenly become so sick?"
Le Jin smiled silently, revealing a row of small white teeth, and said each word with utmost seriousness: "This is not an illness, your good brother poisoned me. I am really dying soon, I don't have time to wait any longer, I'll go today."
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Author's Note: This chapter is quite abstract, but it was the first part I decided on when conceiving "Yandere". The premise is "transmigration into a book", but it's actually more like Yue Jin being stranded in a new world. The previous "transmigration-mission" trope contained a lot of deception and falsehood.
As for the original character "Le Jin", simply put, she really is the "evil woman" that Le Jin read about in the novel, who tricked Le Jin into becoming her scapegoat.
My writing skills are currently limited, so I'll have to offer some explanations. Thank you for your understanding.
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