After Being Reborn, My Ex-Girlfriend Became Obsessed - Chapter 43

Lin Duxi was originally walking slowly on the glass skywalk. The footsteps behind her, restrained and maintaining a distance, made her feel a pleasant sense of comfort. She wasn’t afraid of heights, and An Yu knew this, so there was no need to pretend to be scared, she thought.

After a few more steps, she reached the latter half of the skywalk. Two people ahead had already luckily made it to the end, lying on the ground, breathing heavily, still shaken. Seeing Lin Duxi alone approaching the second half, Yu Fei was about to warn her to be careful but was stopped by Feng Zhinian.

Looking up at Feng Zhinian’s sly expression, he immediately understood his intention and fell silent.

After all, who wouldn’t want to see someone usually calm and unresponsive get scared?

Lin Duxi’s attention remained focused behind her, so she didn’t notice the glass ahead that looked noticeably different. As soon as she lifted her foot, a faint cracking sound came from the glass beneath her. She froze for a moment and then realized: some of the staff on the skywalk, for publicity purposes, had installed a pressure-sensitive section that triggers the sound and visual effect of breaking glass when stepped on.

“Pretty realistic,” Lin Duxi thought, and continued walking without any reaction.

“Crack.”

Lin Duxi involuntarily looked down. Her gaze fixed on the fractured special effect, the realistic image of shattered glass filling her vision. A chill seemed to rise from her bones.

Suddenly, it felt as if she were wrapped in helplessness and fear, alone. Memories long buried deep in her mind surged back, damp and dripping, staining the scars in her heart.

The broken glass slowly changed color in her eyes, eventually merging into a drop of bright red blood at the tip of the shards, falling under the weight onto the worn floor.

“Bang.”

A distorted face was slammed into the glass door, shattering the intact glass. The shards cut across the woman’s face, some sliding down along the frame.

“Damn it, where’s my money? The money I spent on drinks! Did you spend it all? Why the hell did I marry a cheap woman like you?!”

The woman was pressed against the door. Behind her, the man kept yelling and hitting her. She remained numb, enduring all the pain silently. Only when she saw a little girl clutching a doll behind the door did her empty eyes panic.

Lin Duxi felt a wave of cold run through her body. She gripped the hem of her clothes, wanting to close her eyes and convince herself it was fake, that it was just a memory and had already passed. But the memories didn’t fade. The wind pounded her, breaking down the fragile barrier she had set up, making the memory feel even more real.

Little Lin Duxi hugged a half-human-height cat doll in her arms—the same doll her mother had taken her to the plaza to win on her birthday. She had loved it very much. Now, she clutched it tightly, staring at the woman pressed violently against the broken glass, trembling all over.

Seeing the woman’s face bleeding, she tried to step forward to help. With just the two of them, the man would have feared and retreated at the first sign of resistance. Surely, she could handle him.

But then she saw her own small hands and feet, and her body uncontrollably turned to run. It was as if the memory forced her to relive the fear and helplessness, leaving her completely powerless. She cried out in despair in her heart.

Lin Duxi crawled into the wardrobe beside her, closed the door, and covered her ears. Sunlight filtered in through the blinds, falling in strips across her body. Her cat doll was drenched in the tears she couldn’t stop.

Her whole body trembled. Outside, the sounds of broken furniture and the man’s furious shouts still came through clearly, hitting her small body like unbearable blows.

Go save her! Go save her! But she couldn’t. The last time she tried to help her mother, her small body was kicked to the ground by that man. She didn’t save her mother and only caused the man to beat her mother even more.

Her mother had said it was a game. But even though her makeup tried to cover the large, obvious bruises, Lin Duxi knew she had been lied to. Every time her mother said “hide-and-seek,” the man would start beating again.

She was too small, too weak to protect the person she wanted to protect, too powerless to defeat the one she hated. She clenched her tiny fists, wishing she could grow up quickly.

But when she grew up and had the strength to defeat the bad man and protect her mother, everything was gone. At six years old, under a brilliant sunset, all of it—the fear, the love, everything—was consumed in a raging fire, turning to ashes.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry… I couldn’t protect you… I’m sorry,” Lin Duxi lowered her head, sinking entirely into despair. Her whole body exuded decay and anguish.

From a distance, An Yu noticed something was wrong with Lin Duxi. Frowning, she strode over without worrying about the “cracking” glass beneath her feet.

“Lin Duxi, Lin Duxi, what’s wrong? Lin Duxi!” She held Lin Duxi’s shoulders and called into her ear. Lin Duxi shivered, her eyes filled with pain, and a sharp pang of sorrow welled up in her heart.

The dark, painful images from her memory surged through her mind like knives piercing her heart. She trembled all over, her eyes filled with misery.

Then she heard a voice—anxious but unwavering—calling her from the haze. It briefly awakened her consciousness. Lin Duxi struggled to escape the memory, opened her eyes, and saw An Yu.

“Ah Yu…” she stared at An Yu in shock, her emotions turbulent. Her eyes reddened as she suddenly hugged her tightly, all her insecurities disappearing at once. She clung to An Yu with all she had.

An Yu let Lin Duxi hold her tightly, feeling her trembling body gradually calm down. Her hands lifted to gently wrap around Lin Duxi, one hand patting her back to soothe her. Her gaze was deep.

“It’s windy here. Let’s go over there first, okay?” An Yu patted Lin Duxi’s back, asking gently if she wanted to leave without inquiring what had happened.

An Yu’s embrace was warm. Lin Duxi gradually regained her senses, leaning wearily against An Yu’s shoulder and nodding lightly.

The cameraman at her side, scared by the special effect underfoot, had fallen on the glass and missed capturing Lin Duxi’s moment of distress. When he picked up the camera again, he only recorded Lin Duxi and An Yu embracing.

“Whoa! What happened?!”

“Cameraman, you missed it! Tell us what happened!”

“Blame the wind on the mountain—it was too strong, we didn’t hear anything.”

“All I heard were footsteps, then An Yu calling Lin Duxi. Can’t analyze more—wait for later commentary.”

“Is Lin Duxi afraid of heights, or was it the glass effect?”

“An Yu: My fragile, helpless wife.”

“Got it, Yu Yi!”

Shi Yu glanced at her phone, seeing the two of them tightly embracing, their hair and clothes blown by the wind, adding to the atmosphere. She took a screenshot and put her phone away.

“Shi sister, can you teach us to draw?” A little girl ran to Shi Yu, looking up at her with clear eyes.

Shi Yu rubbed the girl’s hair gently. “I can’t draw, but I have a friend who is really good at it. Next time, I’ll have her teach you, okay?”

The little girl nodded happily and ran off to play. Shi Yu smiled as she watched her go, then took out her notebook.

She was at a welfare center in Jiangcheng, preparing a script for a charity video per the organizer’s request. As she opened her pen, a dark figure flashed across her vision. She instinctively looked up and saw the back of a long-haired woman disappearing around a corner.

She looked familiar.

“Yue,” she called to the little girl, asking her to look in the direction the woman had gone. “Who was that, in dark clothes?”

The girl frowned, thinking, then suddenly brightened. “It was Aunt Jiang!”

“Aunt Jiang?”

“Yes,” the girl nodded firmly. “Aunt Jiang is very kind to us. She comes every week, and we all like her very much.”

Hearing this, other children playing nearby also ran over, chattering excitedly.

“I really like Aunt Jiang. Every time she comes, she brings lots of treats.”

“She came? Let’s go find her! Last time she taught me to make a little car—I want to show her.”

“Aunt Jiang won’t like your little car. She will like my sword more!”

“Shi sister, why did you ask about Aunt Jiang?” Little Yue asked, curious.

Shi Yu smiled. “You call her Aunt Jiang, you call me Shi sister.”

“Because Aunt Jiang told us to call her Aunt. At first, we called her sister.” A little boy answered.

Shi Yu nodded knowingly, resting her chin in her hand as she watched the woman vanish around the corner.

“Aunt Jiang,” she whispered, letting the words dissolve into the air.

Support After Being Reborn, My Ex-Girlfriend Became Obsessed