Chapter 23: If the Liar Leaves, It Won’t Hurt So Much, Right?

“Vanessa.”

“Hm?”

Vanessa looked at her, her fingertip gently brushing the back of her hand.

“What’s wrong?”

Ke Leya pulled her hand back.

Vanessa’s hand stopped in midair.

She slowly curled her fingers into a fist and lowered it onto her own knee.

Ke Leya turned her face away, no longer looking at Vanessa.

“Don’t take what I said earlier and those things seriously.”

“What words?”

Vanessa countered.

“Why can’t I take them seriously?”

“In the room, you asked if you could kiss me, and I said yes.”

Ke Leya lowered her head, licking her slightly dry lips with the tip of her tongue.

“And the three kisses I gave you this afternoon.”

She paused, waiting for Vanessa to respond, but Vanessa didn’t make a sound.

“That was just to get you to help me,” Ke Leya continued, her pace a little faster.

“You’re strong, you could kill them. I needed your help, so I did that.”

“I was just using you.”

[Host, you…]

“Shut up.”

[Sob]

“I know,” Vanessa replied.

Ke Leya’s next prepared words got stuck in her throat.

She turned her head to look at Vanessa, and Vanessa was looking back at her, expressionless, impossible to tell whether she believed it or not.

“You know?”

“Mm.”

Vanessa nodded, her gaze sweeping over Ke Leya’s face—from eyes to lips and back to eyes.

“So what?”

“So I’m not really…”

Ke Leya swallowed the word and changed her phrasing.

“I don’t have that kind of feeling for you.”

“What kind of feeling?”

“Like, liking,” Ke Leya said, her ears a little hot.

“I don’t like you, Vanessa. All those reactions I showed were an act.”

Vanessa didn’t speak immediately.

She looked at Ke Leya for a few seconds, then suddenly let out a small laugh.

A very shallow curve, a twitch at the corner of her mouth, with no real amusement.

“An act?” she repeated, leaning back, hands propping on the stone beside her.

“You sure did a good job acting.”

Ke Leya’s fingers dug into the rough particles on the edge of the stone.

“I’m good at acting,” she nodded.

“Elizabeth taught me for a year, and I learned well.”

Vanessa couldn’t hold it together for a moment.

She stared at Ke Leya, her gray eyes deep in the night, the wind swaying a few stray strands of hair from her forehead.

“So now you’re telling me that your reactions before—blushing, trembling, not daring to look at me, and just now when you couldn’t find me and hid to cry…”

“All an act too?”

Ke Leya pressed her fingertips hard into the stone crevices, the tips stinging.

“Yes,” she replied stiffly.

“That was an act too.”

Vanessa fell silent again.

She realized this little cutie was treating her like an idiot.

She looked at Ke Leya for a long time.

So long that Ke Leya couldn’t hold onto the emptiness she was trying to maintain and wanted to look away.

Then Vanessa suddenly reached out, her hand moving toward her face.

Ke Leya stiffened, instinctively wanting to shrink back, but there was stone behind her, nowhere to retreat.

She watched that hand approach, fingertips almost touching her cheek.

But at the last inch, it stopped.

Vanessa’s hand hovered next to her face but didn’t touch her.

“Then act one now,” Vanessa raised an eyebrow.

“Act like you hate me touching you.”

“……”

Ke Leya looked at that hand so close to her.

She thought she should dodge or swat it away, like when you truly hate someone getting close.

But she couldn’t move.

She felt awful.

Vanessa’s hand moved forward another half inch, fingertips tapping her cheek and then pulling away.

Ke Leya held her breath.

“Dodge, why don’t you dodge?” Vanessa said, her voice close, tone amused.

“Isn’t it an act? Then act better.”

Ke Leya closed her eyes.

She couldn’t do it.

She couldn’t make a disgusted or resistant reaction when Vanessa’s hand touched her.

That hand finally fell.

The palm pressed against her cheek, a little warmer than her own skin.

The pad of the thumb gently brushed under her lower eyelid, which was still slightly swollen from crying.

“Can’t act anymore?” Vanessa’s voice sounded by her ear.

Ke Leya didn’t open her eyes, nor did she answer.

She felt Vanessa’s fingers move on her face, lightly touching the tip of her nose.

“Ke Leya.”

Vanessa called her name again, this time her tone softening.

“Look at me.”

Ke Leya slowly opened her eyes.

Vanessa’s face was very close, her brows furrowed, expression puzzled.

“Why?” Vanessa asked.

Ke Leya’s throat tightened.

“Why what?”

“Why suddenly say all this?”

Vanessa’s hand was still gently stroking her face.

“Everything was fine just now, why say these things now?”

“What happened?”

Ke Leya’s heart clenched.

She looked at Vanessa’s eyes, filled with worry.

She wanted to pour everything out, but she couldn’t say it.

She could only shake her head, the tips of her silver hair brushing her shoulders.

“Nothing happened,” she said, trying to make her voice sound colder.

“I just don’t want to act anymore. It’s tiring.”

Vanessa looked at her.

The girl’s deliberately cold voice was laced with an obvious sob.

“So you don’t like me. Everything before was acting, to get me to kill people for you.”

“Now that the people are dead, the act doesn’t need to continue—is that what you mean?”

Ke Leya nodded, her chin brushing against Vanessa’s palm.

“Yes.”

Vanessa’s hand withdrew from her face.

Suddenly losing that warmth, her cheek exposed to the cool night breeze, Ke Leya instinctively wanted to tilt her head in the direction of the retreating hand, but she held herself back, forcing herself to stay still.

Vanessa leaned back to her original position, hands on her knees, eyes turning back to the darkness in the distance.

“Fine,” she said.

Just one word.

Ke Leya waited for her to say something else—question, get angry, or simply get up and leave.

But Vanessa just sat quietly, looking into the distance, as if the conversation never happened.

The wind picked up a little, pressing Ke Leya’s skirt against her legs.

She hugged her knees, curling up a bit.

“Then…”

“Then what?”

Vanessa didn’t turn around, her voice drifting over.

“Then you…”

Ke Leya’s fingers twisted the fabric of her skirt.

“Will you still help me? Elizabeth hasn’t…”

“I will,” Vanessa interrupted, her tone crisp.

“I’ll finish what I promised you.”

Ke Leya lowered her head, looking at her own tangled fingers.

There was a bit of gray dust under her nails from scratching at the stone.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

Vanessa didn’t acknowledge the thanks.

Another silence settled between them.

But this silence was different from before.

Before, there was starlight and the glow of fireflies.

Now the silence was like a cold stone lying between them.

Ke Leya felt a growing tightness in her chest, so tight she could barely breathe.

She opened her mouth, wanting to say something to break the suffocating quiet, but she didn’t know what to say.

‘Say sorry? But sorry for what? Everything she said was the truth.’

‘She really did approach Vanessa for the mission. Those kisses and compliance had been purposeful from the start.’

‘It was only later…’

‘Those racing heartbeats, the burning cheeks, the panic and tears when she couldn’t find Vanessa—those had been real too.’

‘But she couldn’t say these truths now.’

‘If she did, Vanessa would remember, and it would hurt.’

‘And she was about to leave soon, depart with an unexpected death.’

‘Rather than having Vanessa remember someone who liked her but died, it was better to let her remember a liar who had been acting all along.’

‘Once the liar left, it wouldn’t hurt that much, would it?’