After My Death, Everyone Repented (Transmigration) - Chapter 26.1

Xie Shaoyun spaced out for a brief moment.

The reason why she had to die back then was already mostly forgotten. She only vaguely remembered that it wasn’t necessarily her choice to die, but rather that everyone had pushed her onto that path, the one that forced her to play the villain.

It was their fault.

The sharp edge of the door lock pressed against the small of her back. The stainless steel door was a little cold. Xie Shaoyun maintained her stance, hand raised to strike, but the slap never landed.

After a long silence, Chi Yi closed her eyes. Her lashes no longer trembled, and she waited quietly for a few minutes, as if already accustomed to waiting for things that would never come to fruition. Then, slowly, her peach-blossom eyes opened again.

By then, Xie Shaoyun’s back was already aching from the pressure. Her raised hand dropped onto Chi Yi’s shoulder instead, gripping both sides as she pushed her away.

Chi Yi didn’t resist, allowing Xie Shaoyun to shove her back. They didn’t look at each other. It was Xie Shaoyun who spoke first:

“Did you recognize me?”

Chi Yi didn’t answer. The wind outside howled, and the window in the room was blown open. A cold gust rushed in, hitting Chi Yi’s damp back and puffing up her silk blouse.

Xie Shaoyun glanced at her, deciding Chi Yi wouldn’t respond. So she said goodbye, stepped out of the room, and closed the door behind her.

That night, Xie Shaoyun called Xie Zangxing three times.

On the fourth ring, someone picked up.

“Xie Zangxing is in the shower,” the person on the other end said. “May I know your name? I’ll have her call you back later.”

At first, Xie Shaoyun didn’t think much of it and gave her name.

Then thud the sound of a phone hitting the floor.

Not long after, Xie Shaoyun heard Xie Zangxing’s voice through the receiver, speaking to the person who had answered earlier: “Damei.”

“You’re not being serious.” Xie Zangxing’s voice carried a noticeable hoarseness.

Xie Shaoyun’s mood turned complicated, and she hung up.

She figured that an adult woman who had been single her whole life had normal needs that shouldn’t be interrupted. Especially since Damei had been pining after a married senior for years at this age, finding Xie Zangxing was a good thing.

Though it would’ve been even better if they could’ve shown a little restraint tonight.

Xie Shaoyun decided to ask Xie Zangxing later if she could hand Chi Yi over to her.

After all, Xie Shaoyun truly was powerless in this situation. She wasn’t a professional psychologist and couldn’t understand Chi Yi’s erratic behavior.

Chi Yi had once said that those who were skilled should do what they were skilled at. Only if Xie Zangxing came could Chi Yi’s suicidal tendencies be stopped.

That was what Xie Shaoyun thought.

Her phone battery was dying, so Xie Shaoyun placed it on the nightstand to charge.

Unable to make sense of Chi Yi’s behavior, she stopped trying. Tilting her head onto the pillow, the familiar sensation of her soul detaching soon followed.

When she woke again, the room was brightly lit. In her field of vision were a tea-brown leather sofa, a luxurious living room, and an enormous desk.

Outside the living room was a massive balcony overlooking the coastal view of Colombo.

As the owner of the room moved, Xie Shaoyun caught sight of herself in the mirror, she had returned to the skull pendant necklace, hanging around Chi Yi’s neck once more.

Avoiding the sharp edges of Chi Yi’s collarbones, she settled in quietly, unlike last time when she had spoken.

Over the next while, Chi Yi moved back and forth within the hotel suite. Xie Shaoyun was surprised to realize that this wasn’t the same suite she had checked Chi Yi into earlier, though it was also an ocean-view room.

This suite came with a kitchen, a living room, and a bedroom.

Although the space couldn’t compare to their home, it was far more spacious, comfortable, and homely than the business suite Xie Shaojun had taken Chi Yi to earlier.

Xie Shaojun clicked her tongue inwardly, this was the first time she realized Chi Yi had such high standards for living conditions.

It was raining outside. After finishing a phone call, Chi Yi set the receiver down. Secretary Wang knocked and entered, carrying a thick stack of files in the hands of an assistant while holding two sets of tableware and some groceries herself.

Xie Shaojun was certain Chi Yi must be extremely busy, yet she put the phone aside, walked around the desk, picked up the groceries, and headed into the kitchen.

The stone clock overhead showed 6 PM. Chi Yi usually dined between 6:30 and 7.

Xie Shaojun couldn’t fathom why Chi Yi would choose to cook for herself.

The black countertop gleamed under the kitchen hood’s hum. Chi Yi, dressed in silk pajamas, cracked two eggs into the pan, splattering hot oil onto her fingers.

Xie Shaojun watched as the spots where the oil landed quickly turned red, forming blisters the size of mung beans.

Chi Yi didn’t seem to mind that cooking had “wronged” her contract-signing hands. Her movements were unpracticed, the eggs ended up slightly burnt, the greens oversalted, and the shrimp still had their veins intact.

Three dishes and a soup took a full hour, something that would never align with Chi Yi’s usual efficiency.

She had often said, “A wise manager doesn’t waste time on things they’re not good at. They delegate to those who excel.” For instance, when she and Xie Shaojun married, neither knew how to cook, nor did they want outsiders intruding.

So Chi Yi hired a temporary chef a former five-star hotel master who, lured by generous pay, became their on-call private cook.

Xie Shaojun used to grumble occasionally that they lacked shared activities, that their home felt lifeless. But since she herself wasn’t skilled in cooking and hated the smell of grease, her complaints were few.

Most of the time, she agreed with Chi Yi’s approach. Cooking for leisure might be fun, but if dinner turned out like Chi Yi’s current attempt, Xie Shaojun firmly believed it was better to dine out or hire a personal chef.

Even now, she couldn’t grasp why Chi Yi had suddenly changed her stance.

Only when the meal was laid out on the table did it dawn on her. Chi Yi dried her hands, meticulously sterilized two sets of tableware with hot water, then served two bowls of rice placing one opposite her own.

Chi Yi didn’t eat much, as if lacking an appetite. Yet she tasted every dish, setting aside the better ones for the opposite plate while leaving the less palatable ones untouched.

After dinner, Chi Yi began clearing the table. As she bent down, Xie Shaojun slipped from her neck and hovered midair.

She heard Chi Yi sigh softly, “This week, today was the only free time I had.”

“The taste isn’t good,” Chi Yi said flatly, gazing at the empty seat across from her. “Xie Shaojun,” she murmured, “next time, don’t say things like ‘I recognized you’ out of spite, alright?”

The Xie Shaojun in the air gave no reply.

The Xie Shaojun inside the skull tilted her head slightly, watching as Chi Yi earnestly conversed with thin air before forcing out a faint, apologetic smile.

With no progress to speak of, Xie Shaojun thought this feeling was truly wretched.

The temporary cleaner came to clear away the dishes and, at Chi Yi’s request, replaced the tablecloth.

As the cleaner opened the door to leave, Chi Yi followed her out and stood in the hallway for a brief moment, confirming that there was no trace left of the person she had encountered earlier in the day, someone with warm breath, whose every expression and feature resembled Xie Shaoyun unmistakably.

She closed the door and returned to her desk but didn’t start working immediately.

Taking out her phone, she tapped the screen a few times, then played a video.

This was the same video Xie Shaoyun had seen earlier, the one Lin Dan had shown her in the café.

Xie Shaoyun didn’t understand why Chi Yi would play this heart-wrenching video while working.

A small doubt arose in her mind shouldn’t this be something watched before bed?

Though she wanted to ask, Xie Shaoyun decided against speaking to Chi Yi through the skull pendant, not wanting to revisit past conversations.

Then, under the lamplight, Xie Shaoyun watched as Chi Yi calmly opened her laptop, a cup of coffee at her side, and settled into work.

The phone was propped upright against a pen holder, placed at a distance that wouldn’t disrupt Chi Yi’s efficiency. She didn’t glance at the video often—only occasionally during breaks, sometimes just listening to the sounds from it.

After the video looped for three hours, Chi Yi finished her work. Instead of picking up her phone, she reached into a file folder and pulled out a notebook.

It was a thick one, locked. Xie Shaoyun recognized it was the same notebook she had returned to Chi Yi earlier.

Chi Yi flipped directly to a blank page.

The notes were sparse.

“Flight from Nan City to Colombo at 10 AM, landed at 15:08. A tour guide met me upon arrival—she said her name was Xie Shaoyun.”

After writing this, Chi Yi frowned, then crossed it out with her pen.

The nib hovered over the blank page, leaving six silent dots in its wake.

Finally, at the end of the entry, she wrote: “On the second day of deciding to see the ocean, it feels like the seasons have returned to me. I know it’s not real, but… Xie Shaoyun, it’s been so, so long since I last saw you.”

Chi Yi had had many dreams. some where she sank into mud, suffocating in the sludge; others where she was abandoned on a desolate island at dusk, surrounded by the lonely cries of gulls; and still others where she was trapped in endless darkness, unable to tear through the thick, oppressive night.

Xie Zangxing had told her these were the most realistic reflections of her mental state.

Yet in all these bizarre, painful dreams, not a single one had been about Xie Shaoyun.

But in the two days since deciding to see the ocean, she had encountered hallucinations of Xie Shaoyun.

Chi Yi had to restrain herself with great effort not to seek confirmation from anyone whether the illusion was real, nor to recklessly let her go.

But luck wouldn’t favor someone insatiable.

Chi Yi felt sorrow for her own relentless pursuit of answers. As much as she wanted to convince herself it was just an illusion, the person she had touched earlier had warmth, breath, she was real, existing in this world. Fluent in eighteen languages, Xie Qingcheng’s younger sister, her every mannerism uncannily like Xie Shaoyun’s.

Only one flaw, she wasn’t the Xie Shaoyun conjured by Chi Yi’s mental illness.

She couldn’t hold her hand, couldn’t love her, couldn’t even get close.

Chi Yi set down her pen, took off the skull pendant necklace, and stared at it for a long while. Then she asked, “She’s not real. What about you?”

Not receiving a response, Chi Yi didn’t wait any longer. Unfazed, she went to the bathroom to shower and changed into a new set of silk pajamas.

With little desire to sleep, she lay down on the bed, not taking any of the medications Xie Zangxing had prescribed for her illness. She placed the necklace beside her pillow and played an edited video clip that featured only Xie Shaojun.

Chi Yi held it to her ear, listening over and over again.

“Give me a seat.”

“Sakuragi Hanamichi.”

The last line was: “Brain cancer.”

Chi Yi only closed her eyes when dawn was nearly breaking.

Once her breathing steadied, Xie Shaojun turned the skull and hopped over to the endlessly looping video. She rolled around in front of the phone screen several times, trying to turn it off.

But all the rolling threw her off balance, and she ended up tumbling onto Chi Yi’s pillow, pressed against her cold cheek, unable to move.

The glow from the phone screen cast an incomplete light on Chi Yi’s profile.

Her sleep was poor, with faint shadows under her eyelids, though they weren’t very noticeable against her unhealthy, pale complexion.

Her nose wasn’t as high as Xie Shaojun’s, and her lips weren’t as pretty thin, giving her a somewhat aloof appearance.

The only distinctive feature was the pink hue of her lips, her warm exhales. When she lectured, she liked to take her time, enunciating each word deliberately.

In the past, if she kept torturing Xie Shaojun’s ears with those incredibly soft pink lips opening and closing relentlessly, Xie Shaojun would kiss her, pin her hands down, press the back of Chi Yi’s head into the pillow, and seal her lips with her own, making her gasp deeply.

Back then, Xie Shaojun would occasionally grumble that Chi Yi didn’t live like a normal partner. that Chi Yi never once let her sleep peacefully and comfortably by her side at night.

Now that Chi Yi had quieted down, watching videos before bed, taking notes, even cooking seemingly reducing her lecturing frequency, Xie Shaojun felt that all of this was utterly wretched.

After a night of suffering beside Chi Yi, Xie Shaojun didn’t leave during the day either.

Chi Yi went downstairs for breakfast. While eating, she tasted a particularly delicious ice cream dessert and, before leaving, asked the waiter to pack an extra portion, which Secretary Wang carried for her.

At nine in the morning, the scheduled departure time arrived.

Chi Yi didn’t let Secretary Wang accompany her. She carried a document bag on her back, a laptop in her left hand, and the packed dessert in her right.

Once in the car, Chi Yi glanced around and asked the driver, “Isn’t the tour guide coming?”

The driver replied, “She’s not coming. Her friend asked for leave on her behalf, said she wasn’t feeling well today.”

Chi Yi said, “Oh.”

“I see.”

After that, she didn’t speak for the rest of the trip.

She didn’t ask why Xie Shaojun hadn’t come, nor did she try to extract more information from the driver to verify Xie Shaojun’s identity or personality, something that would have been normal under other circumstances.

Chi Yi dismissed the driver first.

She boarded a local bus, heading toward the southwestern bay Xie Shaojun had once visited a relatively bustling port area in Colombo.

The bus was crowded, people pressed against each other, which made Chi Yi extremely uncomfortable. Frowning, she got off at the next stop, expressionless.

Two men in suits hesitantly jogged after her, asking for her phone number. Chi Yi didn’t refuse, giving them her deceased wife’s number instead.

When the taxi arrived, she ducked inside. The young men held up their phones, calling after her: “It doesn’t work!”

Chi Yi stopped in her tracks and turned back to them, saying, “Got it. I can’t get through either.”

Xie Shaojun, inside the skull, sneered. She remembered the day she went to die, two young girls had asked for her phone number, and Xie Shaojun had given them Chi Yi’s number instead.

Now Chi Yi was doing the same. Xie Shaojun thought she was getting her revenge.

Yesterday’s storm had passed, and today the weather was fine.

Chi Yi walked alone, carrying a large briefcase, all the way to the seaside. The sun was scorching, and there was no wind. She wasn’t wearing sunglasses her gold-rimmed glasses couldn’t block the UV rays.

So her eyes remained squinted, making it hard for her to focus on any single point.

Unlike the tourists around her, Chi Yi showed no interest in admiring the ocean view. Instead, she took out her phone, comparing it to the seaside photos Xie Shaojun had posted on Instagram, pacing back and forth to find the exact spot where Xie Shaojun had once stood.

The harbor was vast, and locating the right angle for the photo required constant adjustments. An hour later,

Chi Yi found the spot Xie Shaojun had stood years ago, under a row of lush, shade-providing palm trees near the beach.

She stopped, rented a beach chair and umbrella from a local, set them up, and then didn’t move again.

She didn’t go closer to the ocean, nor did she take any photos. Instead, she pulled out a laptop from her briefcase, placed a stack of documents beside her, and sat absurdly on the beach chair, working.

From the skull’s perspective, Xie Shaojun could see Chi Yi engrossed in her documents. She must have been busy during a call with Secretary Wang, Xie Shaojun learned that this was Chi Yi’s busiest time, as the Hai Mi equity transfer was happening in the next couple of days.