Otome game male protagonist
To obey Heaven's will and follow its will.
"Just going with the flow." Those few words floated down with the sound of chopsticks tapping the porcelain bowl. It didn't matter at all.
These words were spoken by Wen Dai upon noticing the somber expressions on the faces of Chen's parents. What remained in her heart was—she had to accept things as they were, even if they seemed unacceptable. The edifice of fate had crumbled, and the rubble had barely paved a path for her to walk on; as long as she could walk, that was enough.
She accepted her fate; she resigned herself to it. But she didn't accept destiny.
The initial attempt to matchmake Wen Dai and Chen Sizhe was completely thwarted, and the meal perfectly embodied the principle of "not speaking while eating." The meal, with everyone harboring their own thoughts, was interrupted halfway through, but Wen Dai remained unchanged, as she seized the opportunity to achieve her goal; Chen Sizhe, who had changed his mind, volunteered to take Wen Dai home.
Being alone with Chen Sizhe felt incredibly strange. Wen Dai, sitting in the passenger seat, glanced at the man with tightly pursed lips and tried to lighten the mood, saying, "Hey, don't you think it's a coincidence? Actually, I didn't initially think Uncle Chen was your father. He mentioned his son, and it sounded like you. When I asked, it really was you—I have no ulterior motives towards you; it's purely coincidental." Her explanation was clearly indicative of PTSD.
Receiving no response, and seemingly not needing one, she slumped back in her chair, muttering, "But I really didn't expect your parents to be so strange today, acting like they're trying to set me up with you... I really don't have any ulterior motives towards you, that's just how I feel." She then abruptly turned to the side, her eyes filled with wariness as she looked at him.
Chen Sizhe's repeated explanations finally made the silent driver stop acting like a block of wood. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, and his tightly pursed lips were no longer sealed. "I know... you're pretty capable." The first three words were firm and resounding, while the rest of his words were as light as a gust of wind.
But this wind is the kind that comes and goes without a trace. He quickly brushed aside the praise that had just popped up out of nowhere and focused on the road conditions again. "The order you forwarded to me that's for country A, I have a visa for country A. If you think this order can't be processed online, I can make time to go there."
Wen Dai seemed not to hear his fleeting praise. She lazily leaned back in her chair, her legs crossed and swinging leisurely. Her arms, which were wrapped around her chest, were merely hanging loosely. The sunlight streaming in from the window made her skin glow and shine. "Oh, I forgot to tell you, it's not necessary. The client told me she'll be going back to China next week and will come directly to Lizhou. I can handle it myself then. If you have time, let's go together. We agreed to cooperate, so even if it's just a small profit, I'll share half with you."
"We agreed to cooperate, so even if it's just a tiny bit of meat, I'll share half with you." — The voice came from a distant place into his skull. Distant, as if from the past, like a previous life.
In a moment of distraction, a sharp cry from Wen Dai beside him caused him to instinctively slam on the brakes: "Stop the car!"
The screeching sound of brakes was much sharper than her earlier shout. As soon as the car came to a stop, she immediately unbuckled her seatbelt, leaving Chen Sizhe with the dull thud of the car door closing.
Staring blankly ahead, he saw a kitten lying on its side on the road, visibly frightened. Chen Sizhe loosened his grip on the steering wheel slightly.
Wen Dai, who had run back into his field of vision, knelt down and cradled the kitten in her arms. Her movements were so careful, as if she were holding a treasure that should be displayed in a museum. No one knew what special magic she possessed, but the little kitten just meowed softly and did not resist at all in her arms. She could even accurately locate the big cat that was secretly watching from the bushes.
Unlike other people who find cats, Wen Dai had no intention of taking the two stray cats she had encountered home to care for. From Chen Sizhe's perspective, she placed the kitten next to the mother cat, without reaching out to pet it, and silently retreated after putting the cat down. She stood in front of the bushes, glanced at them for a moment, and then turned back.
The sound of the door closing again snapped her out of her thoughts. Wen Dai, who was already in the car, fastened her seatbelt again and tilted her head to the side.
He looked at her and suddenly said, "Why didn't you bring him home to raise? Isn't it fate?" Perhaps it was out of habit, but his tone always sounded somewhat sarcastic.
The jarring negative question made Wen Dai lift her eyes. She took her hand off the seatbelt, glanced at Chen Sizhe for a moment, then looked away, straining her throat as she spoke: "The nature of all things is to seek freedom. Stability and freedom are often mutually exclusive. It depends on whether they prefer long-term stability and limited freedom, or a thrilling life and unlimited freedom. Everything has its own destiny. I've only met them by chance. I won't interfere in a cat's life. Who knows if 'being good to them' is just wishful thinking?"
Her tone was completely indifferent, and her demeanor suggested that she viewed the cat and herself as equals. Or perhaps, she viewed everything as equals.
While Chen Sizhe remained silent, Wen Dai turned towards the car door, turned her head to look at the blue sky and vegetation outside the car window, and suddenly whispered, "Besides, I don't have the energy to take care of small animals."
How can someone who is still learning to love themselves spare love for small animals? All she can offer is possessiveness and "what she thinks is good," which are landmines—they might turn into something harmful someday.
-
After half a month of sunny weather, a heavy rain fell on the weekend when Dong Ying returned to China, followed by a drop in temperature.
A phone call early in the morning woke Wen Dai from her bed. Forced to say goodbye to her warm blankets at six in the morning, she called Chen Sizhe while washing up, expecting him to be another sleepy buddy. But to her surprise, he was up at four in the morning. When she called Bi Yi, all she got was a reply—
"Okay, I'm taking a shower. I'll come pick you up in a bit."
When this self-disciplined individual who gets up at four in the morning to exercise arrived at the apartment building, Wen Dai had just prepared the ritual implements and the talismans and other tools needed afterward. Her waist-length hair was tied up in a very casual way, forming a low bun at the back of her head, which swayed loosely with her jogging movements. When her shoes stepped over puddles, the splashes of water didn't even get on her clothes.
Chen Sizhe's perspective was that she ran towards him in the torrential rain, quickly got into the car, and apart from the water droplets that flew onto her when she closed her umbrella, there were no other raindrops.
He instinctively asked, "What rain-avoidance techniques do you know?"
"Huh?" Taken aback by the question, Wen Dai turned her head and looked at him strangely. She flipped the bag on her shoulder from behind to the front and hugged it, throwing the umbrella to the ground. "You've been reading too many supernatural novels. What rain-avoidance technique? Do you think I know that? I just didn't get too wet this time. Don't treat low-probability events as everyday occurrences. On rainy days, I usually stay at home. If I go out, I'll become a water ghost."
Realizing he had asked a stupid question, Chen Sizhe pursed his lips, gripped the gearshift, and propelled his Maybach away from the dark, old-fashioned cement-gray earth washed by the torrential rain.
Wen Dai, holding her phone, forwarded the hotel location Dong Ying had sent her to Chen Sizhe. Feeling relieved, she said before closing her eyes, "I've forwarded the location to you. Navigate there. I'm going to sleep. Goodnight." She closed her eyes naturally, shifted her body to a more comfortable position, and drifted off to sleep with a clear conscience.
Just as "Goodnight" slipped out of his mouth unconsciously, Chen Sizhe glanced at the person already asleep in the passenger seat. His burning heart made him uncomfortable—perhaps he should ask his master.
Chen Sizhe, acting as the driver, took on multiple roles, becoming a human alarm clock while the car was parked in the hotel parking lot.
"Wen Dai, Wen Dai—" Chen Sizhe called out several times in a monotone voice, his brows furrowed. He stared at the person dozing in the passenger seat, who remained unresponsive. After hesitating for a long time, he finally reached out and placed his hand on Wen Dai's arm, nudging her several times.
The latter woke up slowly, but her reaction was surprisingly quick.
"Okay, let's go."
Wen Dai picked up her umbrella and bag, opened the car door with her right hand, and jumped out of the car without even glancing at Chen Sizhe.
After a moment of stunned silence, Chen Sizhe, who had been left alone in the car, got out and followed Wen Dai, who was walking ahead. His gaze swept over her repeatedly, and he noticed that she seemed to be half-awake.
It wasn't until they stepped into the elevator that Wen Dai finally managed to utter, "I'm so sleepy," a phrase that had been stuck in her throat for who knows how long.
She rubbed her eyes, which were drooping, and yawned repeatedly as she followed Chen Sizhe out of the elevator. She muttered, "I really envy people with high energy like you. My energy is so random. I'm so sleepy today... Do you work out every day?"
"Hmm." Chen Sizhe glanced at her.
Wen Dai yawned, which was the next thing he said.
He couldn't help but ask, "What did you do last night?"
She answered truthfully, "It's a live-streaming job. I took a consultation order; she wanted my fortune told, from wealth and career to marriage and health. Of course, I have to sacrifice sleep to make money."
"Don't you have plenty of money? You're reluctant to spend it and keep making more?" After walking a few steps, Chen Sizhe arrived at the room number Dong Ying had given him. He rang the doorbell twice, his gaze fixed straight ahead.
Wen Dai, standing wearily beside him, hugged her bag, her umbrella hooked on her little finger, and said listlessly, "It doesn't conflict with anything. I don't lack money but I'm reluctant to spend it. It's precisely because I'm reluctant to spend that I need to earn it. It makes me feel very secure."
To overturn her conviction and fight against those in power, she needs a lot of money—even if she doesn't use it to cultivate connections. Her savings are far from enough to cover those connections; hiring a top lawyer would be barely feasible.
The door in front of them clicked open, and a face was revealed through the gap in the solid wood door.
Her long, loose hair draped over her chest, her eyes were lifeless on her thin face, and the tear troughs under her eyes were extremely obvious. Her skin was not pale, but rather sallow, and even her lips seemed to be covered with a layer of white film. Dong Ying's haggardness was striking, and her body, even though it was warmed by the heating, still exuded a sense of dejection and coldness. She opened the door and said, "Come in."
There were two bottles of mineral water on the coffee table in the suite. Dong Ying walked over and pointed to them, saying, "Have some water." She sat down on the sofa, her thin pajamas swaying, making it seem as if there was nothing underneath.
Wen Dai turned her head toward Chen Sizhe beside her and whispered, "Whether that spirit is present or not, it might take some time today."
Chen Sizhe, who had opened his third eye, was also aware of this. At this moment, Dong Ying's flames were extremely low.
Wen Dai sat down on the sofa and looked around to observe the surrounding environment, but still could not sense the magnetic field of the spirit.
Sitting on the single sofa to the side, Dong Ying was holding a doll in her arms. She rested her chin on the doll's head, her already lifeless eyes as black as if they could swallow light. She slowly moved her eyelashes, then looked at Wen Dai. "I found a psychic fortune teller a few months ago. I was abroad at the time, so I found a domestic psychic fortune teller online. Because she could describe the characteristics of my Mengjiao brother, and the key is that I didn't tell her who my Mengjiao brother was at the time, so I thought she was reliable."
“Actually, I didn’t think that much at first. I didn’t think about connecting with Dream Horn. She told me she would teach me so that I could be with Dream Horn in my dreams. Sometimes I would even feel his presence. She said Dream Horn was right beside me.” Dong Ying tightened her two thin arms around the doll, as if she had exhausted all her strength. She turned her face and rubbed it against the doll’s head, and said slowly, “At the time, I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I just trusted her a lot. And the connection method she taught me only cost eight thousand. Eight thousand wasn’t a lot for me, so I thought I’d give it a try.”
Her hand moved down from the doll, touched the inside of her thigh, then rose up and moved up her side waist. "These are places I've had physical sensations in."
The girl, who looked about eighteen or nineteen, glanced at Chen Sizhe twice, and he turned his head away on his own.
"It's that feeling... well, I'm a little embarrassed to explain it clearly. During the first month, I was very immersed in it, my mind was full of images of my dream character. The most amazing thing is that I really dreamed about him every night. My dream character was dating me in my dream, and it was really blissful. When I was awake, I would tell him not to make trouble if I had a physical sensation... These things are really easy to be fascinated by, so I went to that psychic fortune teller for more readings during that period. She could really describe some of the content of my dreams."
Although Chen Sizhe looked away from Dong Ying, his brows furrowed involuntarily as he listened to her narration. They were both adults; even the most naive among them should understand the unspoken meaning.
As Dong Ying pointed out the parts of her body she had felt, Wen Dai's face grew even uglier, her hands hanging at her sides forming clenched fists. "Tsk...and then?"
"Later... in the second month, my roommate said I looked terrible and asked if I was okay. To be honest, I didn't know what was wrong at the time. I looked in the mirror quite often, but I never paid attention to my complexion until my roommate reminded me. I went to the mirror and looked at myself carefully—I couldn't believe that the person in the mirror was me."
Dong Ying raised her hand to her forehead and pressed it against her cheek. With her other hand, she released the doll from her arms and ran her fingers along her cheekbone. "This area is all concave, it looks even more like I've been smoking. And I don't smell of leaves on me. At the time, people suspected that I had been using some kind of illegal substance, you know what I mean."
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