Chapter 42 I am disappointed with you. Why are you in this room?
Dai Shanyan's residence was quite far from the main hall, and the route was complicated. Fortunately, since the family didn't particularly like to see outsiders in their daily living quarters, Chang Xile encountered no nannies or security guards along the way.
Chang Xile couldn't see her, so she could only follow Dai Shanyan's instructions and go around and around, taking many detours. She asked with some concern, "Will I run into your parents?"
My deceased daughter's friend is sneaking around my house. Doesn't that seem a bit perverted?
"No, my parents and I don't live in the same house. I live on the third floor, and Dai Xigang lives on the fourth. He's entertaining guests out there and doesn't have time to come."
"Such a niche language...wouldn't it be hard for you to see each other?" Chang Xile, who had always lived with her parents in a residential apartment, seeing them constantly, found it hard to imagine such a life. At her home, she would sometimes sneak out in the middle of the night to buy barbecue and run into her father, who was also late coming home. They would then exchange accusations, then collude and go out together to buy a late-night snack, then pull her mother, who had stayed up late watching TV, up to enjoy a hearty meal together.
"I really envy you. My family only saw each other at dinner," Dai Shanyan said, unable to conceal her disappointment. "Later, Dad was busy, always meeting with business partners. Mom wasn't in good health, so meals were delivered to her room. Dai Xigang... After studying abroad, he only came home for Chinese New Year. Sometimes he didn't even come back for Chinese New Year!"
Chang Xile didn't know how to comfort her for a moment. She remembered that when she first met Dai Shanyan, she was lying alone in the ward with no one to take care of her.
Logically speaking, if a daughter is seriously ill, she should at least find someone to accompany her. In TV dramas, girls like Dai Shanyan live in the most luxurious single rooms in the best hospitals.
But Chang Xile didn't express these thoughts. She changed the subject and asked, "Why did your parents name you Dai Shanyan?"
At this moment, she walked through a corridor and stood in front of a large white door. Chang Xile raised an eyebrow and read the words written on the door: "Daisy Port and dogs are not allowed to enter."
...It seems that this is Dai Shanyan's room.
Then, Chang Xile pressed the doorknob. Feeling some resistance, he tugged desperately back and forth. However, the door only swayed slightly, showing no sign of opening. Chang Xile calmly said to Dai Shanyan, "It's locked."
"Locked? Why…" Dai Shanyan fell silent after asking. The Dai Family Villa was heavily guarded, so there was no need to worry about thieves. Her bedroom had never been locked, and the answer was obvious now—a room no one would ever use, like a storage facility for discarded items, seemed perfectly reasonable to lock.
Dai Shanyan, who had been muttering about going home, suddenly felt like she was poured with a bucket of cold water. She asked, "Could it be that the furnishings inside have changed a long time ago?" Her things no longer belonged to her, did that mean they could be disposed of by anyone?
"No." Chang Xile retorted subconsciously, but she didn't understand why the family locked the bedroom. However, since she was here, there was no reason to give up halfway. She asked, "Do you have a rough idea of your room key? I can go find it."
"I don't know." Dai Shanyan lost interest in talking and sat down dejectedly against the wall. Chang Xile hadn't realized Dai Shanyan was no longer with her and was still facing the direction where Dai Shanyan had spoken.
Dai Shanyan smiled silently. No one could see her because she was dead.
What was the point of it all? She hadn't achieved anything remarkable in her life, and certainly hadn't encountered any catastrophic disaster. At her funeral, there were no friends or enemies, only her estranged brother and her parents, who feigned illness. She had been here, but it seemed she had left no trace.
Chang Xile's question hadn't been answered yet, so she kept talking to Dai Shanyan, fearing she'd fall silent. "A lot of people find my name strange when they first hear it. Others, when naming their children, would desperately search the dictionary for the most meaningful character, fearing they'd have the same name as someone else. Mine, on the other hand, is just 'joy' and 'joy'—it's incredibly common."
Chang Xile took advantage of the break to take a breath and listened carefully. Faintly, she heard the sound of someone sniffing in the corner of the wall next to the door to her lower right.
She squatted down, hugged her knees, and continued, "I've been a crybaby since I was born. The slightest noise or disturbance would scare me. I'd cry from morning till night, and my parents were completely overwhelmed trying to comfort me. So they named me Chang Xile, hoping that I would always smile."
Chang Xile waited for a long time after she finished speaking. Finally, the little girl in front of her was willing to speak.
Dai Shanyan said: "When I was little, some people laughed at me. They asked why my name was so rough, as if it was randomly chosen. I ran home crying and told my mother that I wanted to change it."
Chang Xile listened attentively and asked, "What happened next?"
"I had a fight with my mother. She said this name is a blessing and she wouldn't let me change it." Dai Shanyan spoke slowly, as if she was reminiscing about some past events that were originally hidden in her memory. "Later, my father told me that I was a premature baby. I was sick from birth and lived in an incubator. The attending doctor at the time judged that if I could live until the beginning of next spring, I would have survived." The implication was that if you couldn't survive, you would die.
"My mom cried all day, and my dad was busy taking care of her. I never had a name. After all, what's the point of giving a name to a child who could die at any moment?" Dai Shanyan said. "My brother was also young at the time. He told us in a book that a simple name is easier to raise. That day, from her hospital bed, Mom saw a solitary wild goose outside the window, flying across the mountains and heading south."
"They hoped I could be like that wild goose, able to reach the finish line even if I walked a little slower than others." Dai Shanyan smiled self-deprecatingly. "Unfortunately, I still disappointed them."
"No," Chang Xile refuted Dai Shanyan seriously, "The doctor said you wouldn't live past the year you were born, that you wouldn't make it past the age of eighteen. But you persevered step by step until you were twenty, which is really amazing."
"...Is that so?" she asked.
Chang Xile nodded vigorously.
"So, don't cry, Shanyan." Chang Xile stood up and stared firmly at the seemingly unbreakable door in front of him. "I can't wipe your tears. But I will definitely open this door for you today."
"Did you hear it?" Dai Shanyan wiped her tears, a little embarrassed, "But I don't know where the key is, how are you going to open the door?"
"I'm not very talented, but I just learned two little magic tricks, and one of them is the door-opening spell." Chang Xile pulled a blank yellow talisman from her shoulder bag. She had only brought a small bag with her to match her clothes before leaving. The finished talismans her aunt had given her were all left in the dormitory, and she hadn't brought anything like cinnabar or ink.
She smiled at Dai Shanyan soothingly, then hardened her heart and bit her index finger.
"Hey, what are you doing?" Dai Shanyan subconsciously tried to grab her wrist, but she only managed to pass through her body and grab a handful of it in the air. It's no wonder Dai Shanyan didn't know. During her time with Chang Leguan, she had been hiding in the brocade bag because she was afraid to face the gods and Buddhas. She completely missed Chang Xile's learning of talismans and his battle with Shu Nian.
"In an emergency, we must make decisions." Chang Xile didn't explain further. She slapped the yellow talisman on the door and raised her hand to draw the door-opening talisman in a smooth and flowing manner. Her movements were fast and precise, otherwise the wound on her hand would heal quickly.
During this time, Chang Xile had no distracting thoughts, only thinking: "Please let me open this door."
There was a little girl who wanted to go home.
Chang Xile took a deep breath, gently placed his hand on the door handle, then pressed it down hard and pulled it outward.
The door still didn't move.
"How could it be..." Chang Xile's eyes flickered. Was it because the talisman wasn't drawn smoothly enough? Or was she not sincere enough?
Shunian had indeed said that beginners rarely succeeded in improvising talismans. But Chang Xile firmly believed that hard work could make up for lack of talent. She frowned and was about to bite her freshly wounded index finger again, but Dai Shanyan stopped her, saying, "Wait!"
"It's okay, I'll draw the talisman again. If the first time doesn't work, I'll try twice. If the second time doesn't work, I'll try three times. There's always one that will work!" Chang Xile's eyes were shining as if there was fire in them. She was so stubborn that it was almost unlike her.
"Listen to me." Dai Shanyan wished she could grab Chang Xile's hand, which had suffered for no reason, and remind her, "Open the door inward."
"Huh?" Chang Xile was stunned, and tentatively pressed the door handle and pushed it inside.
With a "click", the door lock opened.
Dai Shanyan giggled secretly: "You..."
"Oh..." Chang Xile blinked and stared at his injured hand silently.
Just now, she felt a cool breeze starting from her fingertips, giving her goose bumps.
But Chang Xile didn't have time to think about it. As she walked in, she was attracted by a huge photo wall on the side. There were family photos, various personal photos of Dai Shanyan, and pictures of small Dai Shanyan and medium Dai Xigang fighting in the garden, and hugging her mother with a smile on her face in the kitchen with a creamy face.
Dai Shanyan's voice appeared in front of the photo wall. She said, "Xi Le, can you go to my desk and find a small statue of the bunny lady?"
Chang Xile quickly found her target by the makeup mirror on the desk. She picked up the small and exquisite rabbit figurine holding a teacup and asked, "And then?"
"Hold her waist and bend her back."
Chang Xile cautiously followed the instructions and was surprised to discover that the ornament was actually a jewelry box. Inside the rabbit lady's abdomen lay a pair of silver rings. Upon closer inspection, two small words were written on each ring.
[Su Nu] [Yonghui]
"I learned how to make a ring half a year ago. I spent a long time engraving the name on it. I was planning to give it to my parents on their anniversary." Dai Shanyan had originally only wanted to visit her home once more, but now she was desperate to leave something behind. "Would you give it to them for me?"
"Okay." Chang Xile blinked hard, trying to hold back her tears.
"Also, can you help me ask Daixigang..." Dai Shanyan hesitated for a moment, then changed the subject, "Forget it, it's nothing."
She immediately changed the subject: "Go under the pillow on the left side of my bed. There's a bank card there. The password is my birthday, which is easy to remember. Just search it on Baidu Encyclopedia. You can spend the money in it as you like. It's private money, and no one knows about it."
"Shanyan, I'm helping you voluntarily without asking for any reward." Chang Xile shook his head and refused.
"I just want to give it to you." Dai Shanyan was very persistent. "Xile, I want to feel my existence."
In the days immediately following Dai Shanyan's death, she was conscious but formless. She could see the people around her, some weeping, some indifferent, yet they could not notice her. She seemed to exist, yet she seemed to have vanished.
Until she inexplicably came to Chang Xile. The girl who saved her life was the only person in the world who could see her.
"You can spend this money, donate it to charity, or just keep it. It's up to you. When you see it, you'll remember that you once had a friend like me," Dai Shanyan said half-jokingly. "I don't have many good things. I'm so poor that I only have money left."
The joke was a success, but Chang Xile remained remarkably silent. She took the light card as instructed, yet it felt incredibly heavy. She then asked, "Is there anything else you want to do? Over at Daisy Harbor..." What did she want to ask him?
"Why are you here?"
A male voice, not belonging to this room, suddenly rang out, like thunderclap. Chang Xile looked up suddenly and saw that the door to the room had opened at some point, revealing a tall man standing in the doorway. His once-straight black suit had become wrinkled. He gripped the doorknob in one hand, a piece of paper tightly clutched in the other.
Just now, he heard his own name when he passed by this room that was supposed to be locked. He pushed open the door and saw this beautiful and strange guest staying in his sister's room.
Dai Xigang's almond-shaped eyes stared straight at Chang Xile, and he asked again word by word:
"Why are you in this room?"
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
