Chapter Thirty-Eight Nightmare 2
That year, Xiao Wei and Yun Xin entered junior high school.
Having escaped her suffocating family of origin, Xiao Wei ate well, slept soundly, grew taller, and became stronger.
"Run! The Witch of Misfortune and her lackeys are coming!" someone shouted, and the group scattered in all directions.
Yun Xin got angry as soon as she heard this, "How many times have I told you, she's a witch, not a sorceress!"
But others wouldn't listen.
Not only do they refuse to listen to any explanations, but they also have a knack for making up stories, fabricating things that Yunxin has never done.
Yunxin was exhausted, unable to understand why she was surrounded by people like this. They wouldn't listen to anyone, wouldn't listen to refutations, and were simply immersed in their own imagined world.
Xiao Wei liked it very much, and she would smile happily every time she was called that.
Yunxin once suspected that she had made the person stupid.
After some time.
One day after school, the two were walking home together. Halfway there, some people blocked their way.
They were a group of teenagers, the leader of whom was particularly burly. As soon as he saw Xiao Wei, he grinned maliciously, "Long time no see. I didn't expect you to be doing so well. Is that your girlfriend over there? Hey, she's quite pretty."
"Get out of the way." Xiao Wei stood protectively in front of Yun Xin, blocking the others from staring at her.
"Who do you think you are? How dare you tell us to get out of the way?" the leader roared in anger.
The two sides started fighting after a disagreement.
In the end, the five opponents were beaten black and blue, crying and screaming for their parents.
Xiao Wei wasn't in much better shape; he had several scratches and fist marks on his face.
Yunxin gently wiped him clean and led him home.
The next day, the two were called to the teacher's office, where the teacher immediately said, "How could you use your strength to bully your classmate?"
Xiao Wei corrected, "They gathered a group of people and came over to beat me up."
Yun Xin glanced around and noticed that the person standing next to her was the leader from yesterday. His face was badly injured, covered in bruises, which were quite noticeable.
"You lied to my face!" the teacher said, even angrier. "He's been beaten up like this by you, how could he have bullied you?"
Xiao Wei pursed her lips and remained silent.
At this moment, Yunxin burst into loud sobs, "He's bad! He wanted to bully me, that's why Xiao Wei beat me up. The teacher is helping the bad guy, the teacher is bad too! I'm going to find the police to help me get justice..."
The teacher panicked. Why would students need to call the police for a fight? Turning to the student who had complained, she demanded, "Is what she said true? Did you go and bully the girl first?"
The student who had been beaten panicked. His face flushed red, and he stammered, "N-no! We just wanted to beat up Xiao Wei, we didn't mean to be a thug..."
The teenager was not yet able to lie perfectly; his words were incoherent and the teacher immediately noticed.
The teacher was furious. "So it really was you who deliberately caused trouble for Xiao Wei? Several of you couldn't even beat him, and you still have the nerve to come to me complaining while you're injured??"
"I... just wanted to get revenge and teach him a lesson." The student's voice trailed off as he lowered his head.
"Bullying classmates? Write a self-criticism! You're the one who started it all! Call your parents!" The teacher was furious and reprimanded her sternly.
"Hey, no! Teacher, I was wrong!"
A desperate plea echoed through the office.
Yun Xin pulled Xiao Wei along and quietly went out.
"Don't cry," Xiao Wei awkwardly comforted, even trying to wipe Yun Xin's tears with her sleeve.
To everyone's surprise, Yunxin's eyes were brimming with tears just a second ago, but the next second she wiped them away, looked normal again, and whispered, "Idiot, next time you hit someone, don't hit their face. Hit those places that can't be seen, preferably places that hurt but won't leave a mark."
Xiao Wei: "...Huh?"
Looking at his silly expression, Yun Xin sighed, "Kind people are easily bullied. You need to learn to protect yourself, to make those bad guys stumble, and to make sure they can't find a reason to blame you."
Xiao Wei: "...Just like what you did just now?"
"kindness."
Xiao Wei was greatly shocked. "Is it really okay to do this?"
“Why can’t innocent people live better lives?” Yun Xin retorted. “If there’s anything wrong, it’s the environment that’s to blame, forcing perfectly good people to do this.”
A few months later, the child who had been beaten and accused of tattling was walking at night when he accidentally fell into a puddle and drowned.
Parents, heartbroken to see their child dies, wept uncontrollably.
When Grandma found out about this, she called Yunxin over and asked, "You're in the same school but different classes. Haven't you noticed the deathly aura surrounding him these past few days?"
Yunxin could have answered "no," but she chose to tell the truth: "I saw it."
"Why didn't you say it?" Grandma asked again.
"I don't want to," Yunxin replied.
"Kneel down!" For the first time, my good-natured grandmother was angry. "You are not a god, and it is not your place to decide who lives and who dies."
Yun Xin didn't move. "Then why should I, a mere mortal, always have to snatch people from the clutches of death? Can't I respect the (inevitable) fate of others?"
Grandma was stumped by the question.
“You’ve always done your best to save people and never thought about these things.”
“I used to listen to everything you said, but now I’m older and I’ve started to think for myself. I don’t agree with what you do,” Yunxin revealed her true feelings.
"I think even a shrine maiden should consider the circumstances before saving someone."
"A good person gets one chance, an exceptionally good person gets two or three chances. A bad person doesn't get a chance; they don't deserve one."
"This time it was a child who died, so why do you assume he was a bad person?" Grandma couldn't understand.
"He bullied Xiao Wei because she didn't have any adults to protect her, and he beat her up many times in private. I asked him to apologize to Xiao Wei, but he refused," Yun Xin said emphatically.
"If a bad child grows up, won't he become a bad adult?"
“He was unwilling to take responsibility for what he had done and showed no remorse whatsoever, so I closed my eyes and pretended that I hadn’t seen anything.”
"The Yun family is a family of priestesses. Guiding humanity to escape from disaster is a priestess's duty. How can you do this to the bloodline that runs in your veins!" Grandma demanded.
"This blind bloodline has come after me, so they should bear some responsibility," Yun Xin said, spouting a twisted logic. "Some people live a life of good deeds and die young, while others commit heinous crimes and escape punishment. I'm just not living a particularly kind life, so what's the problem?"
Grandma was furious and scolded, "Go kneel in the ancestral hall! Don't get up without my permission."
Yunxin has left.
Xiao Wei secretly ran over and knelt down with him. She even asked, "Was it because of me that Grandma scolded you?"
"It's not because of you, it's for something else," Yun Xin explained simply. "I don't want to do what she says anymore, and she doesn't understand why I'm so cold and heartless."
"Different ideologies will inevitably lead to conflict sooner or later."
"Simply put, there's a huge age gap between us, and there's a generation gap between us."
“Grandma looks very angry. What if she doesn’t calm down?” Xiao Wei asked again.
“I’m not afraid! I have my secret stash with me at all times.” Yun Xin said, pulling out a card. “Anyway, I won’t compromise. If things don’t work out, I’ll just leave and move on to another place.”
Without a second thought, Xiao Wei replied, "Then remember to take me with you when you leave."
"good."
The two discussed and planned things out, even figuring out where to go and how to live in the future.
Grandma was worried that Yunxin's knees would hurt from kneeling for too long, so she wanted to go check on her. However, she overheard the two children talking outside, and her blood pressure immediately spiked.
Yunxin kept saying things like, "Adults only care about money," "I have pocket money, tens of millions," and "As long as I stay until I'm 18, even if they find me, they can't do anything to me."
Xiao Wei didn't object at all, and even praised her, "You're so smart, you've prepared much more thoroughly than I have for leaving home."
"That is..."
Before Yunxin could finish speaking, the door was pushed open with a loud bang.
Grandma said with a dark face, "Get up, let's talk some more."
Yunxin gestured for Xiao Wei not to kneel there like an idiot, then quickly stood up and ran after her grandmother out of the ancestral hall.
Grandma found a place to sit down, intending to have a heart-to-heart talk, "Tell me, what do you think?"
Yun Xin pondered for a moment, then asked, "If I have precognitive abilities, but have always pretended not to have them, never mentioned them to anyone, and never saved anyone, am I guilty?"
Grandma: "Innocent."
Abilities are like the money in your pocket; they are not something you absolutely have to use, and not using them is by no means a sin.
Yun Xin then asked, "If I have precognitive abilities but don't use them often and only save a few people, am I guilty?"
Grandma vaguely realized something, “...Innocent.”
Yunxin asked again, "If I have the ability to foresee the future, but I don't save everyone, and only save 80%, am I guilty?"
Grandma opened her mouth to speak, but Yunxin interrupted her first, "If you are innocent at first but guilty at the end, is it because you save people too often, and saving people has unknowingly become a duty? But in reality, I have no such obligation."
Grandma looked at Yunxin and didn't say anything for a long time.
After a long silence, she sighed, "I never thought that way. I just treat every life equally and save those I can."
“A belief that you hold onto for a long time is not necessarily right,” Yunxin disagreed.
"You knew someone was about to die, and you foresaw it, but you couldn't save them. Don't you feel guilty when you wake up in the middle of the night?" Grandma was genuinely curious.
To everyone's surprise, Yun Xin shook her head without hesitation, "No. Saving someone is an act of merit. If I fail to save someone, it means I haven't accumulated any more merit, but it doesn't mean I owe him anything."
In an instant, even the air became extremely quiet.
After a long silence, Grandma let out a soft sigh, "Perhaps... you are right."
A few more years passed.
Yunxin turned eighteen and was admitted to a university in another city, but her grandmother fell ill.
Yunxin wanted to take her grandmother to a big city to see a specialist, but her grandmother waved her hand and refused, saying, "No need to trouble yourself, this is a heart problem."
"Over the years, I have often thought about those people I couldn't save, and I always feel guilty."
"Everyone I knew either died or became estranged from me, leaving only you and Xiaowei in the end."
"I don't know when it started, but I began to feel that the ability passed down through generations of the Yun family was not a blessing, but a punishment. Maybe it was right to pretend that I couldn't see anything from the beginning."
I'm tired.
On her deathbed, Grandma warned Yunxin, "Take this as a warning and don't follow in my footsteps."
Yunxin said, "No, I'm not you."
She was cold-hearted and detached, unlike her grandmother who was overly kind-hearted or sociable.
Instead, she consciously avoided crowds. Apart from her grandmother and Xiao Wei, she didn't get too close to anyone else.
"That's good." Grandma closed her eyes in relief.
Yunxin woke up from a nightmare. She turned on the light and saw that it was only a little past 4 a.m.
"I haven't thought about the past in a long time."
Yunxin got up, washed her face, and then couldn't fall back asleep.
(End of this chapter)
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