Chapter 61: Linlin’s Choice

Linlin came.

The moment she saw me, she immediately ran over and asked how I was.

I said, I killed them all.

She froze for a moment, then smiled at me. 

I had never seen Linlin smile like that before—so bright it felt like it could set a person on fire.

She threw herself into my arms and said we could finally be together forever.

I was so happy. 

I nodded hard in agreement.

She let go of me, stared into my eyes, and said word by word:

“Xiran, from now on, you belong to me.”

“I will protect you, take care of you, and give you happiness.”

“You have to listen to me, okay? Stay by my side forever.”

I said okay.

She smiled again, took my hand, and we ran out of the courtyard.

We ran toward the seaside. 

The setting sun was sinking into the horizon, wrapping us in golden-red light. 

I felt warm—warm from the inside out, warmer than I had ever felt before.

Linlin said that when I grew up, she would take me away from here.

To a place with no one else, just the two of us.

I didn’t understand why we had to wait until I grew up. I wanted to follow her right now. 

But I didn’t want to make Linlin unhappy, so I obediently agreed.

She said we had a deal and hooked pinkies.

When our little fingers linked together, I felt that everything was worth it.

Later, Linlin took me under the octopus slide and carved words into the concrete base. 

Her handwriting was much prettier than mine.

She said she carved: “Linlin and Xiran will be together forever, hehe.”

She also carved both our names as guarantors. She said this way, neither of us would ever forget.

I stared at those crooked characters and felt that even killing Dad and the others had been worth it.

As long as I had Linlin, everything was enough.

The diary ended here, with only a few pages left.

Linlin’s fingers were trembling so badly that she had to try several times before she could turn the page.

After that, many adults in uniforms came. They asked me lots of questions.

I said I didn’t know. I had been asleep, and when I woke up, they were already dead.

Everyone said I had a hard life, that I was pitiful—having lost my mother and now my entire family. 

But I didn’t feel that way at all. 

As long as I had Linlin, it was enough.

Later, I was taken away. 

They said they would send me to a place that could take me in.

But Linlin was still waiting for me. I wanted to wait for her. 

However, when Linlin came, she had told me to listen to her and go with those people.

I didn’t want to go, but I couldn’t disobey Linlin. If I wanted to be with her forever, I had to listen to her.

Linlin didn’t come to see me off.

She said she couldn’t, or she would be suspected. 

But I still waited for her for a long time. 

I waited until the sky grew dark, but she never came.

Later, I heard that her family had moved away to a very distant place.

Linlin never told me.

I thought, perhaps Linlin really didn’t want me anymore.

Perhaps she had long forgotten that promise.

Perhaps the guarantor carved under the slide had already rotted away along with the rust.

But I still remembered.

Every word, every sentence, every smile, every hug, every dusk, every sunrise.

I remembered them all.

Linlin said she would give me happiness. Linlin said we would be together forever. Linlin said I belonged to her.

“Liar!!!!!!”

The last page.

There was only one sentence.

The handwriting was carved so deeply it nearly tore through the paper, as if written with all the strength in her body.

“Linlin, I will find you. And then… we can be together forever.”

Linlin closed the diary. Her hands were still shaking uncontrollably. She lifted her head and met Ruan Yuan’s gaze.

Ruan Yuan looked at her and said softly, “Linlin, don’t get too immersed. This wasn’t you who did it.”

Linlin opened her mouth, but no sound came out.

Her mind was filled with those childish, earnest, devout words that had twisted and grown wildly over time.

So this was why Xiran had become the person she was today—all because of her.

She lowered her head and looked at the worn-out notebook in her hands.

The cover was blank, covered only in the fuzzy traces of being touched countless times. 

The corners were frayed and tattered, the pages yellowed and brittle, carrying the musty smell of many years. 

Yet every page had been flipped so often it had become soft, and some spots still held dried water stains—perhaps tears, or something else.

“Mm… I know…”

She heard her own voice, dry and hoarse, as if coming from very far away.

“Let’s go… home.”

Ruan Yuan took the initiative to hold her hand.

Linlin didn’t respond. 

Her hand was limp and powerless, allowing herself to be held. 

Ruan Yuan could feel that she was still trapped inside those words. 

She said nothing more, only tightened her grip on Linlin’s hand a little more.

She knew that at a time like this, Linlin needed to process it herself.

They walked out of the dilapidated courtyard, through the weed-choked streets, past the hopelessly rusted octopus slide, and followed the narrow road back.

The sun had completely set. Only the last trace of dark red light remained on the horizon, pressing heavily against the sea like a bleeding wound.

The waves crashed against the reefs again and again—crash, crash, crash.

The sound seemed both distant and right beside her ears.

Linlin didn’t speak the entire way back.

She simply let Ruan Yuan lead her, taking one slow step after another. 

Her feet made soft rustling sounds on the dirt path, but in her mind, there was only that line exploding across the paper.

“Liar!!!!!!”

Those five sharp exclamation marks were like five needles stabbing into her temples, buzzing relentlessly.

She thought of Xiran’s dark, deep eyes.

That eleven-year-old girl who had killed her entire family.

The little girl who, after murdering them, washed the blood off her face, then sat quietly in the courtyard waiting for dawn, waiting for Linlin to come and praise her.

Did she wait in vain?

Linlin closed her eyes tightly.

That vow carved so deeply it nearly tore the paper echoed in her mind once again—she had found her. She had really found her.

And then?

She hadn’t taken revenge. She hadn’t gone hysterical. She had simply looked at her and said softly, “Linlin, let’s play a game. From today onward, you have to ‘bully’ me every day…”

Linlin opened her eyes. They felt sore. She took a deep breath and forcibly suppressed the surging emotions.

The tram rattled its way back.

The scenery outside the window changed from wilderness to towns, then from towns to a brightly lit city. Neon lights turned on one by one. 

Traffic and voices poured in through the window, but Linlin kept staring outside, not saying a word.

Ruan Yuan sat beside her in silence. She simply held Linlin’s hand the entire time, never letting go.

By the time they got home, the sky was completely dark.

Linlin went straight into the bedroom, threw herself onto the bed, and buried her face in the pillow.

A’Li had been lying by the edge of the bed. 

When she saw Linlin come in, her amber eyes lifted and quietly watched her for a few seconds before silently lying back down. She didn’t come over to rub against her like usual.

Ruan Yuan stood at the door for a few seconds, then gently closed it.

They both knew she needed some time alone.

Linlin buried her face in the pillow for a long time before finally rolling over and staring at the ceiling.

The lights were off. 

The room was dark, with only a sliver of moonlight leaking in from the window, casting blurry, shifting shadows on the wall.

She was thinking about one question—a question she had to figure out.

Now she knew the whole truth. She knew where Xiran’s near-mad obsession had come from. 

She knew what kind of cause and effect had been planted that evening when they were eleven. So what now?

Her task was to “resolve Xiran’s obsession with Bai Linlin.”

But how?

How do you resolve the obsession of someone who had taken the words “together forever” and turned them into the only pillar keeping her alive for over ten years? How do you make her let go?

It sounded far too easy.

Linlin stared at the ceiling, her fingers unconsciously gripping the bedsheet tightly.

There was an even more suffocating question.

If she really “resolved” this obsession.

If Xiran truly let go of the past and stopped obsessing over being “together forever” with “Bai Linlin.”

Then what?

Once the task was completed, she would leave this world.

What would happen to this world? Would it stop functioning, or would it continue?

Would the original “Bai Linlin” return? Or would a new “Bai Linlin” appear to take her place in this world?

If there was one.

Would that “Bai Linlin” fulfill the promise from back then? Would she truly stay with Xiran until the end and really be “together forever”?

If not.

Then what about Xiran?

Would she be abandoned once again?

A second time?

Linlin squeezed her eyes shut.

That vow written in the depths of despair echoed in her ears once more.

It was the only light Xiran had been able to grasp in the endless darkness.

If she seized this light, only to be brutally abandoned by it in the end.

What would happen?

Linlin didn’t dare think about it.

She rolled over again and buried her face back into the pillow.

Her mind was a tangled mess. 

Only one thought kept spinning around and around, like a fly trapped in a glass bottle, buzzing and slamming against the walls with no way out.

She didn’t even dare consider it deeply.

If, in order to soothe this obsession, she promised Xiran that they would be together forever, only for her to disappear once the task was complete—wouldn’t that be yet another complete and utter deception for Xiran?

This time, the one deceiving her wouldn’t be the innocent little girl who had broken her promise back then.

It would be her—the person she was now.