Chapter 34
Back in her dorm room, Bai Nan still felt hot all over.
She only snapped out of her daze when Xu Xin pulled out several talismans from under her bed.
"What is this?" She took the talisman, unfolded it, and carefully examined its contents.
"It was written by Master Huang Li. I only got in touch with Master Huang Qi after he passed away."
"Contacting him...is it to break the curse on me?"
Bai Nan still remembers how suspicious Huang Qidao's death was, with its striking red color and an overwhelmingly pungent smell of blood.
This became her nightmare.
“It wasn’t like that at first. Seven years ago… my mother passed away unexpectedly…” Xu Xin pulled up a chair and sat down, recounting the past that the Xu family has never wanted to reveal.
......
"So, the Peng family is the culprit who killed your mother, but at that time, Master Huang Li's skills were not enough. Even though he was seriously injured, he could only drive the murderer insane, not kill him?"
Bai Nan suddenly realized something, and thought of someone: "Peng Lei... is he a descendant of the murderer from back then?"
Xu Xin nodded, his eyes empty: "Five people in the Xu family are gone in total. My mother was the first, and also the last..."
The other one is my cousin, Yangyang. She's always been very clingy to me. Before her sixth birthday, she kept following me around, chattering and clamoring to be Elsa. That day...
It's only three days until she puts on her princess dress...
Looking at Xu Xin like this, Bai Nan couldn't help but tear up. She knew that the most painful thing in life was to reopen a wound that had already healed.
Bai Nan didn't interrupt him; she simply placed her hand gently on the back of his hand and slowly tightened her grip. She wanted to comfort him, but didn't know where to begin or what to say.
“There are actually many styles of princess dresses. The one she wanted, with a fur collar and a trailing cape and a magic wand, was something I couldn’t find even after searching for a long time. My mom asked her privately if she could change it, but she only wanted that one.”
Xu Xin looked up at her, his eyes unfathomable, but a smile played on his lips as he spoke: "Do you know? Princess Elsa has 14 princess dresses in total, but no manufacturer was willing to make the one she liked. When Yangyang found out, she finally stopped crying. She just kept her head down, clutching my clothes and refusing to let me go out."
Finally, having no other choice, my mother and I had to ask Mr. Chu next door, a master tailor. He initially refused, but seeing how pitiful Yangyang looked, holding back her tears, he finally agreed.
Sometimes, she's really like you, just as stubborn...
After a moment of silence, he lowered his head, took her hand, and said softly, "The last time I held her hand, I realized that her little hand was less than half the size of mine, and it felt much harder and... much colder than before."
In fact, Yangyang really likes to sunbathe. When she was three years old, she pointed at the sun and said, "Why is the sun called Grandpa? I think it's Grandma. It's warm and cozy, just like Grandma's hands."
But her body... is in the wine cellar in my basement...
Xu Xin's voice gradually choked up, "The one who deserves to die is actually me. Huang Li said that the Peng family really wants to target the Xu family's son."
"If I were there then, if I hadn't gone out to play that day, if I hadn't ignored my mother who had just recovered from a cold, and if I hadn't left Yangyang, who was pestering me to listen to fairy tales—"
His eyes were red-rimmed, bloodshot: "They wouldn't have died! They didn't need to die in my place! I'm the one who killed them..."
"But seven years ago, you were just a child under ten years old." Bai Nan looked into his eyes, helplessly trying to comfort him. "There was nothing you could do. Don't be so hard on yourself, okay? Your mother and Yangyang certainly wouldn't want you to think like this..."
For the first time, she hated her own inarticulateness and emotional poverty.
Then it suddenly dawned on me that Xu Xin hadn't mentioned his father at all. "Where's your father?"
"Oh."
Xu Xin first sneered, then said with a mocking look, "He's busy making another son in his mistress's bed."
As he spoke, his jaw tightened, and several veins bulged on his forehead. Bai Nan also noticed a fleeting, almost imperceptible hint of hatred in his eyes.
After a moment of silence, Bai Nan heard herself say, "Do you...hate him?"
"Don't you hate them?" Xu Xin replied.
Without warning, Bai Nan instantly understood who the 'they' he was referring to was. She lowered her head and pondered for a while, then looked up at him and nodded: "Hate."
Upon hearing this answer, the corners of her peach blossom eyes curved slightly.
After a long silence, a voice finally rang out from inside the room again: "So, you transferred to City C..."
Xu Xin replied, "I came with Huang Qi. Huang Li was seriously injured and no longer came out of the mountains. I investigated privately for a long time before I found his junior brother. They are from the same lineage and are most skilled in talismans, especially incantations."
Bai Nan fell into deep thought. If that's the case, then Master Zong's first wife was Xu Xin's aunt, who also died in that case seven years ago.
“No wonder…” she murmured. No wonder Zhang Zhen and the others knew there was something wrong with her talisman, but they didn’t investigate further.
The Xu family's case back then was clearly much more tragic than the Bai family's.
It takes courage to talk about the past, but once that courage is exhausted, one loses their soul.
In the very end, one will fall into an even deeper state of consciousness.
Bai Nan leaned against the headboard and gently placed Xu Xin's drooping head on her shoulder. The room was completely dark, and even the balcony had lost its outline.
Before she completely closed her eyes, she felt a lightness in her body, as if a wisp of her soul had floated away.
Much later, she heard a sigh in her dream.
Early Sunday morning, Bai Nan was awakened by the noise outside the window.
She straightened up, trying to stretch, but her stiff neck held her back. Then a round object slid from her shoulder to her chest.
Bai Nan suddenly remembered what happened last night, and hurriedly opened her eyes. Then a silent scream rang in her mind, which she barely managed to swallow.
Xu Xin! Last night! Shoulders! Chest!
Once she finished sorting out the keywords, she immediately breathed a sigh of relief. Thank goodness, she was still on Bai Di's body, and there wasn't much flesh on her chest.
After realizing what was happening, she stiffened her neck and looked down at Xu Xin. He was still asleep, and his usually unsmiling peach blossom eyes were tightly closed, making him look cold.
At this moment, her long eyelashes suddenly trembled. Bai Nan quickly turned to face the balcony and looked out the window, but she couldn't get a good look out because she was craning her neck.
Xu Xin slowly opened her eyes, a flash of surprise crossing her gaze before she calmly stood up. When she saw the smile on Bai Nan's lips, she couldn't help but chuckle along.
It was very subtle, but Bai Nan, with her keen ear, caught it.
She carefully turned her neck: "What are you laughing at?"
Seeing her stiff neck, Xu Xin immediately understood and suppressed a laugh: "Pfft, it's nothing, it's nothing..."
Bai Nan really couldn't understand what he meant by being funny, so she simply ignored it and stretched her neck to get out of bed. Just then, there was a knock on the door.
"Knock knock knock"
"Is Bai Di here?"
Someone was looking for her? Unfortunately, the door was too soundproof, and she couldn't immediately tell who was outside.
As she hurriedly got out of bed to open the door, she didn't notice the crooked slippers under the bed and tripped over them.
At the same time, the person outside lost patience; the doorknob turned, followed by a question:
"Xin-ge, what are you guys doing?"
For a moment, the four people inside and outside the room stared at each other in complete silence.
Bai Lu stared wide-eyed in astonishment: "Wait, Brother Xin, Bai Di, what kind of position are you two in?!"
Huang Wang, standing behind him, looked dazed, as if he hadn't reacted yet.
Five seconds ago, Bai Nan stepped off course and, with her neck stiff, was about to fall to the ground.
Upon seeing this, Xu Xin instinctively reached out his hands and, without thinking, stopped her falling body.
By the time he realized what he was holding in his hands, the door had opened.
The two were seen by Bai Lu and Huang Wang in this slightly 'ambiguous' posture.
"Wow! You two are so close? Sleeping together last night is one thing, but this groping thing first thing in the morning, tsk tsk tsk, the world is going to the dogs, even Xin-ge has been corrupted by Bai Di~"
Bai Lu kept talking nonstop, his eyes filled with teasing, and his hand pointed mischievously at Xu Xin's neatly made bed.
Bai Nan was so embarrassed that she wanted to cover her face and run out the door, never to see them again.
Seeing that Xu Xin and Huang Wang's expressions had changed, she quickly called for a stop, and then fled into the bathroom, claiming it was an escape to pee.
Xu Xin was left alone to face this awkward situation.
Ten minutes later, Bai Nan came out with a calm expression, pretending to be composed as she washed her hands and dried them with a towel.
Aside from his still stiff neck, it didn't look awkward anymore, at least from Bai Lu's perspective.
"Bai Di, Wangzai said he'd tutor you, and I also wanted to get tutoring. Here, I brought your books with me." Bai Lu took out his textbooks and test papers from his bag.
Huang Wang, who was standing to the side, nodded in agreement, indicating that he was doing it voluntarily.
“No need, I’ll make it up for her.” Xu Xin suddenly spoke up, then pulled Bai Nan’s wrist and made her sit down in the chair.
"If you have a stiff neck, you should treat it as soon as possible, otherwise it will take at least a week to get better." As he said this, he began to massage her neck quite naturally.
At first, Bai Nan subconsciously resisted for a few seconds, but the force in his hands was just right. While kneading the muscles, it didn't hurt much. Instead, it relieved the soreness.
She obediently lowered her head and let him rub her.
"Snap!"
The test papers in Huang Wang's hands scattered all over the ground, and Bai Lu was so shocked that his jaw almost dropped to the ground.
The two were stunned for a moment, but Bai Lu was the first to react. He covered Huang Wang's eyes, shook his head repeatedly, and looked incredulous.
"This can't be real, the 'heartfelt' pairing can't be real! —No—!—"
Bai Nan: "......"
What's going on here, guys?
She looked up at Xu Xin, as if to say, "What are you up to now? Don't you know what kind of persona you usually project?!"
Damn it—it's an iceberg! A cold, frosty iceberg!
A massage is one thing, but what's with that doting auntie smile on her face?
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