Chapter 93
Xiang Wan, playing the role of the tailor, looked at him with a fawning tone, but her eyes remained as indifferent as ever: "Please turn around, sir."
Chen Ruilin obediently turned around, and Xiang Wan only breathed a sigh of relief when their eyes no longer met.
She pretended to take his measurements, then recited his lines verbatim, staring blankly at the curtain that had been lowered again.
She didn't have any more lines in the rest of the play, so she was distracted the whole time. Even Shen Feiyang noticed her absent-mindedness: "What's wrong?"
"It reminded me of some things from the past."
"What's up?"
“When we were rehearsing stage plays before.”
Hearing this, Shen Feiyang turned to look at her with some confusion: "Isn't this our first time rehearsing a stage play?"
Xiang Wan didn't reply to her again, and remained silent with her head down.
This was their third stage play, but only she remembered it.
*
Shortly after the arts performance, the final exams began.
Everyone was extremely excited because the winter break would start right after the exams.
Beiyi Affiliated High School is a prestigious private school. Apart from a few outstanding students like Chen Ruilin and Mu Yiran who were admitted through the All-A program, there are basically no students who study for the exam.
The first exam was chemistry. In the half hour before the exam, everyone sat obediently in their seats, pretending to study.
When the bell rang, everyone got up and headed to the exam room with their stationery.
Although the exam was just a formality for these aristocratic children, it was still the final exam of the second year of high school, so the school shuffled the exam room numbers to prevent students from cheating.
The examination rooms were arranged according to the ranking of the previous exam. Xiang Wan was first in the grade, so she naturally sat in the first seat of examination room number one.
Although Chen Ruilin was a transfer student, his grades were second only to Xiang Wan, so he was in second place, behind Xiang Wan.
The two sat one behind the other, but just like during the physics competition a few months ago, they did not exchange any words.
Xiang Wan sat in the first row by the window, looking at Chen Yan's faint reflection in the window, and deliberately looked away.
Just as the proctor came over with the exam papers, Xiang Wan reached out to pass the papers to the back of the room, but accidentally touched his fingertips.
Both of them instinctively dodged, their exam papers scattering on Chen Ruilin's desk behind them. Xiang Wan, sitting in the seat in front, pondered for a moment but still didn't turn around.
She pretended nothing had happened, took out a ballpoint pen from her pencil case to answer the questions, but she was still a little worried about what had just happened.
But this did not hinder her speed in answering the questions; she finished in less than an hour.
The exam paper was placed flat on her desk. She sat by the window, letting the breeze ruffle her hair, her mind no longer on the exam.
With half an hour left before the exam was over, the proctor saw her spacing out but didn't make a fuss. He just glanced at her fully filled exam paper as he passed by.
Only when the bell rang to signal the end of the exam, everyone was seated, and the invigilator collected all the exam papers, did the students scream and rush out of the classroom.
"Damn, the exams are finally over!!"
"The later, more challenging questions were simply insane; not a single one was even humanly possible."
"The exam has drained all my life force! Someone save my life!"
Xiang Wan didn't like crowded places, so she planned to wait until there were fewer people before leaving. She put her pen into her pencil case, but then she heard someone call her name from behind.
"Xiang Wan—"
She paused for a moment, as if she was still hesitant, until she turned to look at him. His lips moved, but he still didn't say anything.
Xiang Wan recognized Chen Ruilin's voice as soon as the other person spoke.
Her back stiffened slightly, but she pretended to meet his eyes nonchalantly: "What's wrong?"
Chen Ruilin hid the hurt in his eyes very well, but Xiang Wan, who knew him well, still noticed it. She paused for a moment, somewhat regretting her earlier evasiveness.
He probably thought her avoidance stemmed from her disgust for him.
Sure enough, the next second...
Do you hate me?
Xiang Wan wanted to say no, but the words that came out still sounded somewhat distant: "You're overthinking it."
She wanted to make amends, but felt it was all in vain.
In this lifetime, they can't get very close, so perhaps Chen Yan's misunderstanding right now isn't such a bad thing.
Her gaze passed over his face and landed on his back reflected in the window. Her eyes still held a hint of longing, but she quickly composed herself and looked away. "I'm leaving now."
Behind him, Chen Ruilin watched Xiang Wan's departing figure without saying a word for a long time until someone came into the classroom, at which point he remembered to walk towards the door.
Before leaving, he glanced in the direction of her gaze, trying to see what she had been looking at, but all he saw was the curtains fluttering in the wind…
*
After the last English exam, the entire corridor was packed with people, all rushing down the stairs.
Xiang Wan sat in the back seat of the private car, watching the students file out of the school gate, her eyes somewhat dazed.
Seeing that she was lost in thought again, Wang Yidong, who was standing next to her, also came over and asked, "What are you looking at, Miss?"
"I didn't see anything."
"Where would you like to go for winter break, Miss?"
"I want to go diving in Jingnan; the winters in Beiyi are too cold."
"Okay, I'll make the arrangements."
"Um."
Xiang Wan nodded and looked away from the window: "What has Xia Yueshen been up to lately? I haven't seen her in a long time."
"She went to Xijing for a seminar and should be returning to Beiyi tomorrow."
Despite the cold winter, Xiang Wan, Wang Yidong, and Xia Yueshen were enjoying a warm vacation in Jingnan.
Unlike the snowy weather in Beiyi, the islands in Jingnan are warm like spring, with daytime temperatures even approaching those of midsummer.
Xiang Wan is an excellent swimmer, so diving is no problem for her. Although Wang Yidong and Xia Yueshen like to look at the sea, they don't really like to go into the water, so she was the only one who went into the water with an oxygen tank on her back.
Beneath the surface of the sea, she looked at the corals and schools of fish in the shallow waters, her eyes filled with relaxation.
She reached out and approached the school of fish, and they didn't flinch. Some of the bolder ones even brushed against her fingertips.
Xiang Wan smiled, looking at the sunlight shining directly into the sea, her expression relaxed and at ease.
Until she felt the resistance to the oxygen she inhaled from the oxygen tank gradually increase...
She remained calm at first when she realized that the oxygen was running out.
She first pushed upwards with all her might, but when she was still halfway to the surface of the sea, her vision became blurry due to exhaustion.
Xiang Wan did not give up on survival, but her consciousness gradually weakened, and even her legs became stiff.
She fell to the bottom of the sea again, her lips pale and sickly.
As if she could no longer feel suffocation, drowsiness came one after another, and her eyes gradually closed.
In her chaotic consciousness, Xiang Wan saw a woman—
A woman who was unfamiliar yet somewhat familiar.
Xiang Wan looked at her and recognized who she was.
She was the fairy tale writer who told fairy tales to the child patients in the hospital that day; she also wrote the fairy tale about the princess and the knight.
But unlike the day I saw her at the hospital, when she had impeccable makeup, her dark circles were now alarmingly heavy.
When the children's author saw her, his eyes suddenly became a little moist. Looking at the woman's reddened eyes, Xiang Wan was initially a little puzzled, as if she didn't understand what she was sad about.
But Xiang Wan's intuition told her that this woman knew her.
It was like an inexplicable entanglement, and Xiang Wan guessed her identity.
And what the woman said next proved that her guess was correct.
"I never thought you would die, Xiang Shuhan."
The woman's voice sounded somewhat calm, but upon closer listening, one could detect a tremor within it.
It was only when Xiang Wan thought of that fairy tale that she realized the woman in front of her was the one who orchestrated her destiny—
The author who always wanted to kill her.
The author who brought her into this world, yet only wanted to eliminate her.
Just because she wanted to clear a path for her male lead, Zhou Chengze, the beloved female supporting character had to die.
The woman was still murmuring to her, "You were once the heroine I spent sleepless nights thinking of..."
“Every time I wanted to kill you, I couldn’t bring myself to do it… but I never expected you to commit suicide…”
"Xiang Shuhan..."
The way she uttered the name 'Xiang Shuhan' sounded so tender. Who would have thought that the person calling her so gently was the author who had tried to kill her time and time again?
The woman called her by her pet name, a term reserved for the closest friends, lovers, and family.
Xiang Wan listened in silence. She was already exhausted, but the way she was called "little" enraged her. She coldly questioned her, "If that's the case, why did you kill me?"
“Because I’m so scared.” The woman looked at Xiang Wan, her eyes also filled with tears. “You’ve developed self-awareness, and that’s why I’m so terrified.”
“When I discovered that you hadn’t followed the plot in Xinbei Town, but instead took a different route to bring Chen Yan back to Beiyi, I realized that the heroine I was writing had developed self-awareness… So after much thought, I decided to kill you.”
The woman bit her lip, her eyes filled with despair: "But when I saw you walk into the sea and commit suicide, I completely panicked."
As the woman spoke, she couldn't help but recall the scene when she saw the news of Xiang Wan's death that day.
She didn't fall asleep until dawn the night before, and when she woke up it was almost evening. She turned on her computer to write, but saw a few more lines of text that had appeared out of nowhere on the screen.
She guessed that something must have happened while she was asleep, but she never expected it to be the news of Xiang Wan's death.
She walked into the sea herself.
She was a struggling writer in the real world. After discovering that Xiang Wan had developed self-awareness, she did want to kill Xiang Wan. However, the other party was the female protagonist she had been revising and polishing day and night, the female protagonist she dreamed about.
She still couldn't bring herself to do it.
Every time I come up with a plan, I still soften my heart at the last minute.
She had always thought that Xiang Wan was her biggest threat, but after Xiang Wan committed suicide, she became despondent and could no longer live a good life.
She felt that Xiang Wan had developed self-awareness, and that her actions constituted murder; that she was the one who killed a living person.
From then on, she was unable to fall asleep and relied on sleeping pills to barely fall asleep every night.
She hadn't written anything for several months until her editor repeatedly urged her to finish and her landlord kept pressing her for rent. Under pressure from reality, she turned on her computer and saw that Xiang Wan had been reborn.
The plot once again spiraled out of her control, but this time she felt no fear, only genuine relief.
I'm so glad that Xiang Shuhan is still alive, and I'm so glad that I still have a chance to make amends.
Looking at Xiang Wan across from her, whose forehead veins were bulging from suffocation, she quickly typed a few lines on the keyboard, and Xiang Wan's complexion immediately improved.
Xiang Wan realized that she was saving her this time. She looked at her, her voice hoarse from the suffocation she had just experienced: "Since you said I was the female lead you painstakingly wrote, why did I become a supporting female character?"
"Just so the male lead, Zhou Chengze, can grow, why should I have to leave the story?"
The woman seemed a little embarrassed upon hearing this: "Because I was too poor. Novels had to cater to the market to make money. At that time, male-oriented novels were more popular."
Upon hearing this, Xiang Wan neither got angry nor questioned her further.
Since what has happened has already occurred and she is powerless to change it, she shouldn't dwell on it anymore.
Her grandfather had taught her that getting caught up in worries is something only the weak do; the strong simply accept it and move on.
Xiang Wan looked at the woman with such heavy dark circles under her eyes that she looked like she was about to die: "I will not forgive you."
She wasn't a saint; this woman had tried to kill her five times, so of course she couldn't forgive her.
The woman wasn't angry when she heard this; instead, she breathed a sigh of relief: "As long as you're alive, I'm grateful to God."
"Xiang Shuhan, I've thought it through. I won't interfere with your ending anymore. From now on, you will write your own ending."
After saying that, she left.
Xiang Wan watched the woman's figure disappear into the sea, and when she opened her eyes again, she was still at the bottom of the sea.
This time, however, the oxygen cylinder was full of oxygen.
She swam ashore somewhat disheveled, but the first thing she did after her feet touched the sand and she took off her diving mask was not to marvel at her narrow escape, but to pick up her phone and dial a number she knew by heart…
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