Chapter 179 Chapter 179 She Was Wrong, And So Were You
Chapter 179 She Was Wrong, And So Were You
What can cause a person's personality to change so drastically?
A well-known sunny young man, Dongfang So-and-so, once said: “It could be encountering something devastating and unacceptable, or an underlying mental illness, or perhaps a second personality.”
And the current Fang Ning was clearly the former.
At noon, after saying goodbye to Su Tao, she went straight to the hospital. After inquiring about Chi Xiaocheng's room, she found the girl lying silently on the bed, her ECG a flat line.
The last shred of hope had completely vanished.
She stood by the bed for a long time, but she wasn't the only one in the room.
There was also a strange older brother she didn't know.
This strange older brother was shirtless in winter, and something like “Never Love Peaches” was written on his back. He didn't have to write it on his back just because he didn't like peaches.
However, considering that this strange older brother also knew Chi Xiaocheng, and had been watching over the body longer than her,
out of politeness, Fang Ning still greeted Si Chen.
Si Chen had originally only been waiting to see when Chi Xiaocheng's feigned death would end and she would wake up. He hadn't expected Chi Xiaocheng to have other friends who knew about her death.
One had to know that apart from him and his group, and Su Tao, they had completely concealed Chi Xiaocheng's death.
Even the teachers at school were unaware, only knowing that Chi Xiaocheng had taken a long leave of absence.
More importantly, when Si Chen met Fang Ning's empty, vacant eyes, he instantly understood what kind of girl stood before him.
A contingency plan left behind after Chi Xiaocheng's feigned death.
The thought suddenly sprang into his mind.
After all, weren't such empty and despairing eyes just like those of a yandere?
Si Chen looked at Chi Xiaocheng lying on the hospital bed, then beckoned to Fang Ning. “Little one, do you want to know how Chi Xiaocheng died?”
“Sister Xiaocheng… how did she die?”
“Yes, she died for someone, yet that someone didn't love her at all.”
Si Chen put on his shirt and glanced at Chi Xiaocheng's tightly closed eyes on the bed, his gaze deep.
Though I don't know what you're thinking, Chi Xiaocheng, if Su Tao continues like this, perhaps when you wake from your feigned death, she still won't truly like you or care about you.
Ye Liang's incident has caused a huge stir this time. If the news can be secretly spread to her War God father, perhaps that person will return from abroad.
I'm doing this for my plan, and for your relationship with Su Tao.
As long as you two don't get married, I can't rest easy!
Si Chen led Fang Ning to a hospital lounge and began to chat idly with her.
Like a puppeteer behind the scenes, he guided Fang Ning's thoughts.
Was Fang Ning foolish?
Of course not. After leaving the hospital, she went directly to Chi Xiaocheng's residential complex.
She knew that the strange older brother had said so much only to make her understand that Sister Xiaocheng had died because of Su Tao, and that Su Tao didn't even like Sister Xiaocheng.
She just couldn't accept that Chi Xiaocheng was dead, but this didn't mean she wouldn't calmly consider the circumstances of Chi Xiaocheng's death.
Because, even before this, she had already had a psychological expectation.
Standing at the complex entrance, waiting for the person involved to return, Fang Ning's thoughts couldn't help but drift back to those few warm nights.
She had been brought back from the heavy snow, to a place with warm hot water, comfortable air conditioning, rare genuine care, and concern for her life.
“Ning Ning, for me, can you pretend to be a yandere?”
At that time, she learned what a yandere was, and also heard Chi Xiaocheng say these words.
“Then what should I do?”
“First, become friends with Tao Tao. It's best if you can become someone she trusts relatively well. That way, if something happens to me one day, and she's lost, you can scold her awake. If she's about to break down, you can comfort her, but you're not allowed to become her pillar of support, okay?”
“After all, she's the person I like most, and she should like me too.”
Fang Ning didn't understand. “But in that case, isn't that not pretending to be a yandere?”
“You still don't get it. Only with emotion as a foundation and tragedy as a turning point can it be called a yandere. If you don't even know Tao Tao and just start acting crazy when you see her, that's not a yandere.”
“Too abrupt, and you'll just be seen as mentally ill.”
“Your groundwork of becoming her good friend is all for the future reversal. Anyway, if you don't understand, I'll teach you later. For now, the first step is to become friends with Tao Tao.”
She remembered Chi Xiaocheng's words. After becoming the administrator of Su Tao's dorm building, she also wanted to quickly get in touch with Su Tao.
Only then did she not know that Chi Xiaocheng's pressure on Su Tao was exactly at its peak, and Chi Xiaocheng herself was becoming increasingly abnormal.
Su Tao rarely returned to the dorm, and they only met a few times, with no communication whatsoever.
Let alone becoming friends.
Until now.
She saw Su Tao swaying back in the darkness.
Her formerly empty eyes now held a hint of disgust.
“I'm sorry, Sister Xiaocheng, I can't listen to you anymore. You loved Miss Su Tao like that, and I should have stood by you and helped you, but I think... she doesn't deserve you!”
Everything she wanted to know, Si Chen had already told her.
And Sister Xiaocheng, if you want to scold me, please wait until I come find you before you do.
After all, you're already dead, so I don't have to do as you said anymore, do I?
“Miss Su Tao, please don't come here, okay? This isn't your home, and you don't deserve to live in Sister Xiaocheng's home.”
This wasn't her home, but it was a place full of her memories.
Su Tao tried to take another step forward, but Fang Ning pushed her forcefully. “Miss Su Tao, you don't even like Sister Xiaocheng. She died, and you did nothing. How can you shamelessly live in her house?”
Stumbling two steps back, Su Tao quickly retorted, “I... I didn't do nothing. And I'm not shamelessly trying to live in her house.”
As she spoke, her voice grew a little louder. “Xiaocheng is already gone. Of course, I need to keep her belongings in her house. Nothing should change. Besides, I have to take care of Dawang, I...”
“Aren't those just excuses you're making for yourself?”
Fang Ning took a step closer. Though much shorter than Su Tao, she looked more like an aggressor as she tilted her head up. “I know everything. Sister Xiaocheng gave so much for you, even died for you. If you had regretted it after her death and tried to redeem her past, that would be one thing.”
“But you did nothing.”
“Don't take her affection for granted!”
It wasn't just Fang Ning; even Si Chen and Chen Qian had told her the same thing.
Today she had also learned about Sister Long and her mentor, realizing she had misunderstood Chi Xiaocheng.
The various emotions in her heart were already overflowing.
Even though Fang Ning's incessant words were similar to what others had said, each phrase pierced her heart.
Saying I didn't care about Xiaocheng.
Saying I did nothing.
Saying I'm selfish and everything is for myself!
What do any of you know!
Can you stop speaking from a bystander's perspective!
She cut herself in front of me, locked me in the house, and whenever I reacted in a way she didn't like, she would darken and do something bad. What do you want me to do?!
Everyone says I don't like Xiaocheng, that I don't deserve her, but what could I do? I'm just afraid of her bloody, terrifying yandere state!
To accept her, I'd have to accept her yandere nature, endure her pathology.
If I didn't accept her, she would become a yandere, and I'd be forced to endure her pathology.
What could I do?
Did I even have a choice?!
I... I didn't try to cure Xiaocheng for my own sake. I just... I just wanted Xiaocheng to get better.
And now you're saying I don't regret her departure?
What a joke!
Su Tao suddenly looked up, tears brimming in her eyes. Gritting her teeth, she yelled loudly at Fang Ning, “Don't say it so easily, okay? Since she left, I've regretted it every single moment, regretting why it wasn't me who died!”
“But what good is saying all that now?”
Fang Ning tilted her head, her dark, empty eyes fixed on Su Tao. “What did you do after Sister Xiaocheng died?”
“I...”
Su Tao staggered back two steps and plopped down onto the snow.
She had done nothing.
Claiming to seek revenge, it was actually Dongfang Yang and Si Chen, and even Brother Chi Song, who were putting in the effort. She had only found Ye Liang's location because of a note.
Everyone's perspective was different, and the information they saw varied.
In Fang Ning's eyes, Chi Xiaocheng had died because of Su Tao.
And her greatest wish before dying was for Su Tao to like her.
But in the end, that wish was never fulfilled.
So, don't you simply not deserve her?
Fang Ning didn't continue speaking, but Su Tao saw deep disappointment in her eyes.
She wasn't resentful or hateful of herself.
Rather, she felt that Chi Xiaocheng's death was in vain.
After all, even now, her affection for Xiaocheng wasn't much.
Let alone love.
Su Tao hunched her body, turning around forlornly.
If she wanted to enter the complex, Fang Ning surely wouldn't forcibly stop her.
It's just that...
She truly didn't have the face to go back.
The snow was quite heavy, making one feel rather cold.
How much she wished... she could embrace that warm small body one more time.
...
It wasn't exactly an argument, just different perspectives and different things that each person cared about. After Su Tao left, Fang Ning turned to look at Chi Xiaocheng's house.
After standing in the snow like that for ten minutes, she wiped away the tears that had fallen after Su Tao left.
Finally, she bowed towards the house and departed into the snow.
Neither of them noticed that inside a small snowman piled by the entrance, a scarecrow was hidden, clearly overhearing their conversation.
[Host, this is completely outside the plan.]
The system's voice slowly brought Chi Xiaocheng back to her senses.
She crawled out of the snowman pile and watched Su Tao's retreating back, silent for a long time.
“System, do you think I did something wrong?”
[...]
How am I, this system, supposed to evaluate that?
Chi Xiaocheng pursed her lips. “I just wanted Tao Tao to like me too. I died, and she's still like this. I... I just feel so disappointed, so awful.”
Even now, the affection rating displayed by the status glasses still hadn't reached the passing mark of 60.
Before, it was 49, now it's 51.
What if Su Tao overthought it one day and started to hate her?
I died for you, why can't you like me a little more?
Chi Xiaocheng fell silent, then whispered, “I... I'm not blaming Tao Tao. I'm just... thinking about how to make her like me faster.”
[Host, feelings like love can't be rushed.]
[Your methods may indeed be a bit extreme.]
“But, she didn't change even after I died. Even if I wake up a month from now, won't it just be this endless cycle?”
She was very anxious, because she was already a bit abnormal herself, perhaps truly a bit of a yandere.
Precisely for this reason, she urgently wanted to change the current situation.
She wanted Su Tao to fall for her.
And not be influenced by the male leads who would appear later, nor by the world's will.
The system sighed.
[Host, liking is a two-way street. You need to give Su Tao some time to figure out her feelings. Right now, she's a boiling pressure cooker.]
[Rather, she's just been set off, but hasn't shown it.]
Anyone could see she needed to let off some steam.
Otherwise, she would never be able to rationally think about the problems in this relationship.
She would only continuously constrict her thoughts under this high pressure, then subconsciously make excuses for herself and protect herself.
She wasn't a rational type of person like Si Chen, who would stop at nothing to achieve his goals. Like many people, she was soft-hearted, easily swayed, and indecisive when faced with issues.
One couldn't demand absolute perfection from every normal person.
[Host, both of you have areas that need to change.]
“I'm already trying.”
Chi Xiaocheng shook the snow from her body. “I'm trying my best to become normal.”
Normal, as in when not using intermediate acting skills.
Because I thought, if I did that, Tao Tao would accept me, right?
Chi Xiaocheng scrolled through the system store and then picked something she had wanted to buy for a long time.
[Dream-Inviting Red Thread: Can bind one person and construct a dream, pulling the target into it. The target will also clearly feel that it is a lucid dream.]
[Disposable item, can only be used once.]
[Price: 1500 emotional points.]
“System, buy this.”
[Host, this is too expensive. It's getting harder and harder for you to obtain emotional points now.]
The greatest provider of emotional points was undoubtedly Su Tao.
However, Su Tao had grown more resilient to pressure, gradually becoming numb. The emotional points provided by her stress and breakdowns had significantly decreased.
With 1500 points, it would be better to draw a random skill from the lottery.
However, Chi Xiaocheng just shook her head. “I really did put too much pressure on Tao Tao. I think... at least let her have a beautiful dream.”
Chi Xiaocheng clicked 'purchase'.
A hint of anticipation lifted the corners of her lips. “Besides, I want to see Tao Tao.”
Even if it's only in a dream.
The red thread pulled, yet Su Tao wouldn't immediately fall asleep.
At this moment, she was walking aimlessly along the road, wearing a coat, letting the wind and snow beat against her cheeks.
It was very cold, and very uncomfortable.
But this helped clear her mind significantly, preventing her from escaping and forgetting what had happened today, what others had said.
With confusion visible in her eyes, she unknowingly arrived at the riverside. The cold weather had already frozen most of the river surface.
A small portion remained a mixture of ice and water, shimmering under the streetlights.
She gazed at the city across the river, but didn't notice that a figure had appeared beside her at some point.
“It's rare to see someone here so late.”
The figure beside her chuckled softly, as if they had found a kindred spirit. Leaning on the cold iron railing, they sighed and asked, “Miss, are you thinking of jumping into the river too?”
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