Blind
In the pouring rain, a large, all-black umbrella couldn't shield him from the raindrops that were about to fall on him; he walked to the tree, put down the umbrella, and used it to shelter the raccoon from the rain.
Without his umbrella, Chen Sizhe ran back in a slightly disheveled manner. His expensive coat had become a damp, fuzzy mat. He quickly returned to his car, his once fluffy and smooth hair now dripping wet. Inside the car, there was the sound of the heater running and the rustling of tissues being pulled out. He roughly wiped his face with the tissues, and the car was started again and driven away from the spot.
Wen Dai glanced at him with surprise in her eyes. She lowered her eyelashes and twisted her body in the passenger seat.
She clung to the back of the chair, tilting her head back to look at the little raccoon dog nestled under the umbrella.
"You're quite generous." She straightened up again, glancing sideways at Chen Sizhe, who was covered in damp cold, and unconsciously asked herself, "How are you going to get home later? Oh, I forgot, your house has an underground parking lot."
The man had casually swept his wet hair back, the rain acting as hair gel, giving him a side-swept hairstyle with only a few strands falling out. He glanced at Wen Dai, who was facing him with her profile turned to the side, and said, "I don't usually live there."
"Oh? That's true, you own quite a lot of properties. You're lucky to have been born into such a family. So, are you going to get soaked on your way home again?" When Wen Dai asked this kind of question, it was easy to instinctively suspect that she was gloating—even if her gaze seemed to be full of concern.
He glanced at her again and said calmly, "No, my apartment also has an underground parking lot."
The feeling of choking up returned to Wen Dai, who pouted and turned to face the car door, muttering her resentment in a very low voice: "It's really unnecessary to ask this kind of second-generation rich kid..." She almost said that she gave him her umbrella just now.
"But to be honest, you're really lucky with money. I've become rich because of you. It's true what they say, you become like the company you keep. Spending time with you has made me a little more fortunate. Two hundred thousand... no, one hundred thousand." Her relaxed tone suddenly turned sour, and the corners of her mouth that had just curled up fell back down. Wen Dai hugged the backpack she was holding, her fingers tracing the surface of the bag.
Unfortunately, they ran into a red light ahead. Chen Sizhe turned his head, his fox-like eyes, slightly furrowed, held a hint of disdain for Zizi. "You talk too much."
"Why don't you speak if you have a mouth?"
"You just said you were going to tear my mouth apart."
That's because you can't speak properly.
"Are you very good at talking?"
It was slowly turning into a childish bickering again. Wen Dai raised her hand to cover her ears, turned her back to him, and pretended to be annoyed by his presence. "You're better at talking than me. Okay, I don't want to talk to you anymore. Don't talk to me."
In an instant, the hand covering her ears hurriedly reached into her pocket for her phone. Wen Dai quickly dialed Dong Ying's number. "Oh dear, I forgot to tell you, if you play otome games, you can buy a tarot deck and play around with it to communicate with your dream corner; you can learn online or buy some books to understand it. If you find that too troublesome, you can find a tarot reader. In short, don't do that linking with spirits thing anymore. This kind of communication can get you a response."
"Tarot cards can help you communicate with the energy that generates them, but the male protagonist's energy body will never appear beside you and do anything to you; if you feel any energy again, please tell me."
Having given Dong Ying her instructions and received a response, Wen Dai finally breathed a sigh of relief. She put her phone back in her pocket, but Chen Sizhe, who was driving, suddenly asked, "You should know that the so-called energy body is actually a reflection of the mind, right?"
"I know, I've already said it." She said casually.
His tone was more puzzled: "Why are you so concerned about a string of data? Are women's emotions that rich?" This extremely simple question, if posed to another person, would probably seem like Chen Sizhe's question was nonsensical.
Having understood, Wen Dai tilted her head and gazed at him intently. "For some people, the characters in otome games are not just data, but emotional support and spiritual sustenance, much like believers in gods, Buddhas, Christs, and so on. The spiritual companionship provided by a spiritual lover cannot be denied. It has nothing to do with the richness of one's emotions. It's similar to an ordinary person meeting their crush in real life. It also depends on fate. You just happen to fall in love with someone by chance."
"I don't deny that they were created by humans, but they have flesh and blood in the game and in the storyline, even if those are just data. Just like humans, we were also created. In the eyes of higher dimensions, is there much difference between us and ants? There should be. Sometimes we can still see ants, and sometimes they don't even look at us. Our lives are not lives to them, and our existence is to them just like data is to us. There is no need for double standards."
Rainwater flowed across the car windows, and the tarpaulin confined them to a small space inside the car.
Moved, Chen Sizhe glanced at her in surprise, only to meet her solemn gaze.
No wonder her father took a liking to her. Although she has a very strong wild nature, her extraordinary comprehension cannot be denied. If her master saw her, he would probably hear the phrase "great potential" all over the world again.
-
The villa, covered in black, stood out starkly from the surrounding buildings. The uneven black cloth on the building body was stained with varying shades of dark and light gray. Upon closer inspection, the slightly bulging bubbles at the charred areas resembled the blisters on a person's body caused by fire, clustered together.
Standing in front of the long-unseen villa, Wen Dai crossed her arms and tilted her head slightly, as if she was so weak that her bones were stuck in a certain point and her head was hanging there.
The overcast sky was cloudless, devoid of sunlight, yet the ultraviolet rays were exceptionally glaring—she stared at it for too long, and her eyes began to sting. Perhaps it wasn't the ultraviolet rays that were hurting her.
The memories that surged forth were all blocked in my mind; Rong Shou was that great fire, an inextinguishable fire.
She couldn't remember how many sighs had escaped her lips. She didn't go inside, didn't reach out her hand, and didn't even touch the wall.
Eleven years ago, she was stopped outside the cordon, and now she doesn't even have the courage to step inside. In these long eleven years, she has tried to go inside before, but each time the oppressive feeling that swept over her almost took away all her strength, leaving her to die there.
She wasn't like the Dorland family; she didn't even dare to see them. What was she afraid of? Was she afraid their spirits would resemble their faces at the time of their death? Or... was she simply afraid of not being able to see them at all? For many years, she had neither sensed any spirits here nor attempted to summon them privately.
She helped many people, but never herself.
As Wen Dai turned her back to the villa and left, her steps were as heavy as when she arrived. The garden was devoid of the flowers her mother had once planted, replaced by withered soil, though unidentified weeds continued to grow.
As she stepped out of the courtyard and onto the asphalt road, a speeding Bentley blocked her path. It seemed only a black flash of light was visible just inches away, and her heart, which had been dormant, pounded wildly in her chest.
This place is truly bizarre. Eleven years ago, they took her parents away, and now they want to take her away too.
However, the Bentley that had almost taken her to see her parents came to a stop not far away, and then the car door was opened. The person who got out of the car was unexpected to Wen Dai, but she was not too surprised.
Chen Sizhe closed the car door, his chin still held high, his eyebrows furrowed on his slightly upturned face. His fox-like eyes first glanced at the burnt-out ruins of the villa behind her, then returned to her after a brief look. His stride dragged on the fabric of his trousers, and his leather shoes made a dull thud as they stepped on the ground.
"you……"
Wen Dai guessed that he wanted to ask, "What are you doing here?", but his mouth seemed frozen, and the words he was about to say stuck in his throat. He probably realized that he was asking a question he already knew the answer to.
Just as she was about to muster her lighthearted energy and feign indifference, she heard him ask—
"How are you?"
With just a few simple words, a sudden warmth welled up in her blank eyes in the cold, silent air. Wen Dai blinked several times before tears welled up, then turned her face away, raising her voice: "I'm fine, I'm perfectly fine. What are you doing here? Do you own property here again?"
"No, I'm just visiting a client who has difficulty moving around." He walked up to her, and turning his head away again would only be self-deception.
His gaze lingered silently on her reddened eyes before finally pulling away.
Chen Sizhe surveyed the dilapidated villa, seemingly offering his analysis purely out of professional habit: "For a house to burn to this extent, the concentration of leaked gas would have to reach the explosive limit, and it would also need to encounter an ignition source... An ordinary person wouldn't be unable to smell such a strong gas odor. How was this case classified in the first place?"
He swallowed the words "your family" before "case." Chen Sizhe knew immediately upon arriving that Wen Dai's parents had likely died in a fire. Otherwise, who would willingly travel from Feng'an District to Changhai District? As a long-established affluent area, Changhai District had the most famous residential complex here. It couldn't be that the owner of this villa told the security guard to open the gate for her—where would an owner be found amidst the ruins? Unless she was the owner.
She drooped her eyelids, then suddenly chuckled softly, a sinister tone laced with sarcasm: "So, that's how it's classified, an accidental fire caused by a gas leak." The word "accidental" was emphasized.
The redness in her peach blossom eyes faded, and Wen Dai raised her face, meeting his gaze. Her tone was sharp with a hint of amusement: "My dad is the deputy manager of water resources, and my mom is a middle school chemistry teacher. Isn't this case interesting?"
The fingers hanging at his sides twitched slightly, and Chen Sizhe's gaze towards her held a hint of complexity.
A gust of wind rose and rolled in, catching a few fallen leaves from the trees. The leaves grazed Wen Dai's cheek, but instead of cutting her face, it felt like a gentle caress.
She raised her hand to catch the leaf, and subconsciously glanced sideways at the villa.
Everything was blurry through the shattered window, and Wen Dai couldn't see clearly in the distance.
The truth from eleven years ago remains buried deep in our hearts. Knowing it wasn't an accident, everyone pretends to be blind.
-
On another day off, Wen Dai received an invitation from Chen Wenkang, who said that he had made an appointment with the Taoist priest of Zhong'an Temple a year ago to have a chat, and asked if she had time to go together.
I had heard of Zhong'an Temple and Wen Dai. It was the only Taoist temple in Lizhou that was not commercialized. It was usually not open to the public, and people were only allowed to enter on the first and fifteenth of each lunar month.
She definitely wanted to go; she didn't want to delay any longer and hoped to take this opportunity to reveal her past.
After quickly packing her things, she stopped in her tracks as she passed the bag containing talismans and protective magic items. After hesitating for a few moments, she still slung the bag over her shoulder—just in case she needed it.
Luxury cars frequently parked downstairs in their small, dilapidated apartment building. Even the neighbors who weren't familiar with Wen Dai had come to recognize her face during these days, and would linger their gazes on her whenever they bumped into her; whether those gazes were good or bad depended on the individual.
As Wen Dai hurried down the stairs, taking two steps at a time, she brushed past a mother leading her son up the stairs. The child's innocent voice echoed through the stairwell: "Mom, is that the mistress you were talking about who's been with a rich man! Fickle and promiscuous, I still remember that idiom!"
Wen Dai nearly stepped into empty air as she went down the stairs, her peach blossom eyes widening slightly. She turned around and happened to meet the eyes of the woman who reached out to cover the little boy's mouth.
"Your son and you are probably referring to me, right? I don't see anyone else alive here... Do you even know me? You're calling me a mistress, don't be so quick to label people, you'll get your comeuppance. You're so prejudiced." Having grown up relying on her brute strength for so many years, Wen Dai's offensive power was not low. She turned her head and swiftly launched into a couple of attacks. Seeing that the woman was pursing her lips and couldn't speak, she didn't linger any longer.
The phrase "a word becomes a prophecy" was temporarily forgotten by Wen Dai, but it wouldn't be long before she would remember it deeply.
Chen Wenkang was sitting in the car parked outside the building. Wen Dai ran over and slipped into the passenger seat. She flipped her backpack over and put it on her lap. As she fastened her seatbelt, Chen Wenkang in the driver's seat scrutinized her.
His gaze swept over the girl's defined jawline, then lingered on her prominent wrist. Chen Wenkang recalled her lighthearted words at the dinner table earlier, and his hand gripping the steering wheel twitched slightly. "Xiao Dai, it's like this. As you can see, my husband and I only have one son, Chen Sizhe. Actually, we've always preferred daughters, and we were hoping for a girl for our first child, but we ended up with a boy. My husband and I are thinking of adopting you as our goddaughter. We wonder if you'd be willing?"
"Huh?" The seatbelt had just been fastened when Wen Dai felt the click sound in her head, and her face, filled with astonishment, looked up. "This..."
This is so sudden.
She was just smeared as a promiscuous mistress who dated rich men. Or perhaps it wasn't just now, but just recently reached her ears.
Chen Wenkang, who had started the engine, looked ahead again and sighed softly, "At first, my wife and I wanted to introduce you to my son; but after discussing it carefully, we felt it would be nice if you were willing to be our daughter. After all, marriage is a matter of fate, and we feel that you and we have a deep connection. My suggestion might be presumptuous to you, right? It's alright, if you don't want to, just say so. We can just be friends despite the age gap."
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