Chapter 493 I have something strange to tell you
No! No!
Gu Jiayue waved her hands hurriedly, and the words were stuck as soon as they came out of her mouth.
The words for explanation got stuck in my throat and it felt awkward no matter how I said it.
She looked down at the simulated cockroach shell in her hand, her brows knitted into a knot, her fingertips unconsciously stroking the lines on the shell, her mind rapidly calculating.
Next, I have to ask Zheng Qinghe to handle my household registration, so I have to find a decent excuse to do it.
Just as I was struggling with this, Xiao Du's voice suddenly rang out in my mind: "Host, the strategy system has given Yue'er a new task, and this one is a bit tricky."
Gu Jiayue's eyelids twitched, and she lowered her voice to a very low level: "How tricky is it?"
"The system says the novice mission has been completed and we're entering the second stage. We need to collect Zheng Qinghe's favorability points. The higher the favorability points, the better the rewards you can redeem."
Gu Jiayue felt her temples throbbing and she felt numb.
She raised her eyes and glanced at Zheng Qinghe in the pavilion. He was staring at the cockroach shell in a trance, and the lines of his profile were tense.
He just accepted a cockroach as a pet, and now he has to accept a "Yue'er" with a new face. How difficult is that...
I'm afraid it's worse than asking him to accept cockroaches.
Zheng Qinghe is a well-known gentleman, and the one in his heart has always been "Gu Jiayue", but Yue'er is obviously the original Gu Jiayue. How can the twists and turns in this matter be explained in a few words?
Zheng Qinghe didn't notice her entanglement, his eyes were always glued to the cockroach shell. He touched the shell lightly with his fingers, feeling a surge of anxiety in his heart.
If I had known Gu Jiayue was so unreliable, I would never have let her take Xiaoqiang away no matter what I said.
He had raised Xiao Qiang for three days. He was clearly still alive and kicking in the morning, happily chewing on the peach blossom pastry. But how come he became so...
He really couldn't accept it, but the shell was right in front of him, cold and lifeless.
Zheng Qinghe took a deep breath, his voice a little hoarse. "Give me Xiaoqiang's body. I'll bury it, erect a tombstone, write an inscription, and then have a master chant sutras for three days and three nights. I hope it will be reborn into a good family in its next life and live a peaceful and stable life."
Gu Jiayue's mouth twitched when she heard this. She thought there was no need for such a grand ceremony. She quickly said, "Master Zheng, please sit in the pavilion for a while. I'll take care of something and come out to talk to you in detail later, okay?"
Zheng Qinghe waved his hand, his tone calm, as if his mind was completely focused on the shell. "It's okay."
He sat down in the pavilion and placed his handkerchief on the stone table.
He had never had a pet before, so this was a very novel experience for him. So when he saw Xiaoqiang's body, he couldn't accept it for a while.
Looking at the small shadow, my mind was filled with the image of Xiaoqiang.
Its life was too short. While it was alive, it had no great ambitions; a piece of peach blossom pastry would take half a day to nibble on. Occasionally, it would sneak onto the paper he was writing on, leaving a few small footprints. But when he was so busy that he forgot the time, it would crawl up his arm and gently rub his wrist with its tiny tentacles, as if reminding him, "It's time to rest."
How could such a sensible little cockroach just disappear?
Zheng Qinghe sighed, a lingering melancholy between his brows. It was pitiful, lamentable.
Gu Jiayue hurried back to her room and closed the door behind her: "Yue'er, how about... we tell Zheng Qinghe the truth? Otherwise, this mission won't be able to move forward."
Yue Er was combing her hair in front of the mirror when she heard this. She paused, pinching the ends of her hair with her fingers, her eyes flickering. "But I'm afraid he won't be able to accept it..."
If she hadn't experienced these recent events herself, she wouldn't have believed them if someone else had told her.
"The dead coming back to life, the soul changing bodies, sounds like something out of a storybook. How could he, a reader of sage books, believe it?"
"But he has different feelings towards you." Gu Jiayue walked over to her, frowning. "You're using your current identity and name to approach him, but he still has Gu Jiayue in his heart. How can his favorability score increase? Accepting a pet and accepting a lover in a new identity are two completely different things."
She paused, trying to convince her. "Besides, he even treats cockroaches like treasures. Maybe his tolerance is better than we think?"
Yue'er bit her lip and hesitated for a moment, but finally nodded, her voice as quiet as a mosquito's hum. "Then... just tell him. If he really doesn't believe me, I'll think of another way."
The two made up their minds and walked out of the room together.
Zheng Qinghe was staring at the handkerchief bag, wondering how to write the inscription, when he suddenly felt his eyes go dark and two shadows blocked the sunlight on the stone table.
He slowly raised his head and saw Gu Jiayue standing on the left and a strange girl standing on the right.
The girl was wearing a moon-white skirt and had curved eyebrows. She looked a little unfamiliar, but the familiarity in her eyes pierced his heart like a fine needle, making him inexplicably stunned.
"Who is this?" Zheng Qinghe stood up, his gaze paused on the girl's face, then turned to Gu Jiayue.
"Master Zheng," Gu Jiayue took a deep breath and said solemnly, "I have something very strange to tell you."
Bizarre? How bizarre could it be?
Zheng Qinghe raised his eyebrows, but he felt a little curious: "Just tell me."
"Before I say anything, I have to ask you something. Do you have any heart problems? Or do you faint when you're emotionally agitated?"
Zheng Qinghe was even more puzzled by her cautious attitude and shook his head. "No, I'm fine. What's wrong?"
"Please sit down and talk first." Gu Jiayue pushed him onto a chair without saying anything, then pulled a stool and sat down herself. She then gestured for Yue'er to sit on the stone bench next to her, "Sit here, it's more stable."
If Zheng Qinghe really faints from fright later, a chair with a backrest will save him some pain.
This cautious look actually made Zheng Qinghe feel itchy.
What on earth could make her so nervous?
Could it be that something had happened at the imperial court? It didn't seem like it. If it was a serious matter, Gu Jiayue wouldn't be so calm.
Is that... there's something else behind Xiaoqiang's death?
He was just guessing when he heard Gu Jiayue speak, speaking very slowly, as if afraid he couldn't hear clearly: "Master Zheng, Xiaoqiang...is not dead."
Zheng Qinghe was stunned: "Not dead?"
"Yes...and no." Gu Jiayue considered her words carefully. "It turned into this girl. Or rather, this girl turned into Xiaoqiang before, and now she has turned back again."
She pointed at Yue'er beside her and continued, "This girl is also Gu Jiayue, who has been engaged to you since childhood. And I... am another Gu Jiayue."
Zheng Qinghe's brows slowly furrowed, and the doubt in his eyes grew more and more intense.
Gu Jiayue didn't pause, reeling off the whole story in one breath. "Two years ago, Yue'er, overwhelmed by the issue of the real and fake daughter, committed suicide. As soon as she died, my soul entered her body. Over the past two years, I've been the one running the school, the shop, and the rice farming in Taohua Village. Last time, Xie Qingyun gave me an injection of something, and I don't know what it was, but it actually awakened Yue'er's dormant soul. The person who called you Brother Qinghe the other day was actually her."
She paused, looking at Zheng Qinghe's gradually pale face, and continued with a stiff upper lip, "I wanted to return her body to her, but something went wrong during the operation, and she turned into a cockroach. Now that she has a new body, she doesn't want to use her old identity anymore and wants to start over... So, this Miss Gu Mingyue is your sweetheart, Gu Jiayue."
After she finished speaking, she held her breath and looked at Zheng Qinghe. Seeing his expressionless face and fixed eyes, her heart skipped a beat.
Could it be that you didn’t understand?
She changed her words to a more straightforward one, telling the story of soul swapping and cockroaches turning into humans again.
But Zheng Qinghe still looked dazed, as if his soul had been taken away.
Scared? Gu Jiayue was panicking and waved her hand in front of him: "Master Zheng? Master Zheng?"
After shouting several times, Zheng Qinghe suddenly blinked, as if he had just woken up from a dream.
He looked at Gu Jiayue, a wry smile playing on his lips. "Jiayue, is this your new storybook? It's quite interesting, almost as good as that Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio."
"It's not a storybook! It's real!" Gu Jiayue said anxiously, her voice rising. "I'm not the Gu Jiayue who was engaged to you. I've been occupying her body for the past two years. It wasn't intentional, but it's the truth! Yue'er's soul hasn't left yet, sleeping in this body. It was Xie Qingyun's needle that woke her up. Then she turned into a cockroach, and now she's in a new body. It's all real!"
The smile on Zheng Qinghe's face gradually faded. He looked at Gu Jiayue's anxiously flushed face, then turned to look at Gu Mingyue, who had been silent, with a complicated look in his eyes.
After a long while, he finally sighed, his tone a little helpless. "Jiayue, I know you don't have that kind of feelings for me, and I understand you want to distance yourself from me. But there's no need to make such a lame excuse."
He paused, his voice deeper, a hint of relief in his voice. "I heard everything you said to Jiang Luli that day. Your ideal is to educate children, and mine is to ensure that the people have enough food and clothing. We have different paths but the same goal. Even if we can't be husband and wife, being companions is fine. Really, you don't have to be like this..."
"I didn't lie to you!"
Yue'er had been biting her lip without saying anything. Her eyes had already turned red, and now she could no longer hold back her tears, which rolled down her cheeks.
She looked at Zheng Qinghe, her voice filled with tears as she called out softly, "Brother Qinghe..."
Zheng Qinghe froze and turned to look at her suddenly.
Then I heard the moon raise its tearful eyes and recite word by word: "The blue clouds roll in, my thoughts hidden in the distant sky. I do not follow the long wind to seek a vast landscape, but rather my white shadow sleeps with the stars. The bright moon in front of the window is cut into sentences, and the lines of poetry on the pillow are folded into paper. I want to express my feelings but cannot open my mouth, so I follow the clouds and the moon to share the beauty of the moon."
"Bang—"
Zheng Qinghe lost his grip on the teacup and dropped it to the ground, shattering it. Tea splashed down the hem of his robe. He was completely oblivious, his eyes wide open, pupils constricted, staring intently at Gu Mingyue, his lips trembling, unable to utter a single word.
This poem... was what he had read to her in the Gu family garden on their engagement day. To keep them alone, the maids and servants had kept watch from a distance. Apart from him and Yue'er, there was absolutely no way anyone else could have known about it!
"Brother Qinghe," Yue'er looked at his shocked expression, tears streaming down her face even more fiercely, but her voice was filled with a hint of certainty, "I really am Yue'er..."
Zheng Qinghe took a deep breath, as if someone was strangling his throat, and his chest heaved violently.
He stared intently at the strange yet familiar face in front of him. The expression between his eyebrows and the slightly pouting corners of his mouth when he cried were clearly the little girl in his memory who always kept her head down.
"You..." He opened his mouth, his voice hoarse as if it had been sandpapered.
"Brother Qinghe!" Yue'er called out again, her voice was tearful, but so clear that it seemed to have penetrated two years of time.
Zheng Qinghe stood up suddenly, and the chair slid back half a foot, making a harsh sound.
He staggered forward two steps and stretched out his hand, but stopped half an inch away from Yue'er, his fingertips trembling violently.
The yard was so quiet that one could hear the rustling of leaves in the wind and Zheng Qinghe's heavy breathing.
The sunlight filtered through the gaps in the branches and leaves and fell onto his face, making his eyes red, as if something was about to burst out of them.
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