If The Persona Is Wrong, Everything Else Is In Vain - Chapter 14

The terrain of Shuihe Village was relatively high. The tea plantation essentially occupied one half of the mountain peak, backed by a steep, sheer cliff that plunged several hundred meters down. Below it lay a reservoir developed from a small branch of the Heshui River.

Although the distance from the front of the mountain to the back was only equivalent to climbing three flights of stairs, Zhou Wan had mobility issues, so Xiao Yang carried him on his back the entire way up.

“How about I carry him for a bit?” Lin Luo suggested when he saw Xiao Yang dripping with sweat, panting heavily from exhaustion, and turning pale in the lips.

Xiao Yang casually wiped the sweat away with the back of his hand. “No need… I can manage…”

Lin Luo glanced at him, said nothing more, and obediently followed behind.

After reaching the summit, Xiao Yang quickened his pace, heading straight toward a certain direction. He didn’t dare stop to catch his breath until he had carried the man all the way to their destination in one go.

Under an old pagoda tree by the cliff edge sat a person. It was Wei An, who had been driven home earlier by Uncle Li. He was hugging the tree trunk with one hand while holding a branch in the other, seemingly trying to poke at something along the edge of the cliff.

“Xiao An!” Xiao Yang called out.

Wei An turned his head. The moment he saw Zhou Wan, his eyes lit up. He tossed the branch aside and ran over, shoving past Lin Luo, who was pushing the wheelchair. With a face full of joy, he asked, “Are you here to see me?”

Zhou Wan imperceptibly pulled his clothes out of Wei An’s grasp and gave a perfunctory, “Yeah.”

“No,” Wei An took a step back, suddenly saying, “You didn’t come here specifically for me.”

He pointed at Lin Luo, his eyes full of hostility. “Otherwise, why would you bring him along?”

Xiao Yang explained anxiously, “No, no, Mr. Zhou came specifically to see you.” He extended a hand toward Wei An. “Why don’t you come back down with us, okay?”

“No.” Wei An shook his head and took a few more steps back, staggering as he muttered under his breath, “It’s not time yet. When I… then I can…”

His words drifted off into the wind, alternating between clear and muffled, broken and disjointed, making it impossible to catch his meaning.

He sat back down under the old pagoda tree, picked up the branch again, and resumed poking at the object on the cliff edge.

Frowning slightly, Lin Luo walked over with Xiao Yang. Peering toward the edge of the cliff, he asked in a low voice, “What is that?”

Xiao Yang dropped the old cloth bag he was carrying onto the ground, burying his head inside to rummage for tools as he replied, “A camellia flower.”

To be precise, it was a camellia flower that had been intentionally inserted into a crevice of the rocks on the cliff edge. The bright red blossom was the most eye catching splash of color on the entire sheer cliff face.

“A camellia flower?” Lin Luo murmured.

As Xiao Yang tied a hemp rope around the tree trunk and yanked it hard to test its strength, he explained, “Don’t you know the legend about the camellia cake in Shuihe Village?” He looked up at Lin Luo, appearing slightly surprised. “Your last name is Lin, so I thought you were a local…”

He continued, “I heard from the village elders that the flavor of the camellia cake can only be tasted by a small portion of people before their ABO attributes differentiate. Once the differentiation is successful, no matter which attribute they turn into, they can never taste it again.”

Lin Luo startled, then nodded. He truly didn’t know that the camellia cake carried such a legend.

Xiao Yang went on, “However, if they meet their true love later on, their taste buds will awaken. This is what the elders often say, those who pay the price of losing their characteristic sense of taste for their ABO differentiation will have that missing part compensated because of love.”

Lin Luo was utterly amazed. He hadn’t expected that the hometown where he had lived for over a decade would possess a legend that sounded like something straight out of a novel or a TV drama.

“Ever since Xiao An realized he liked men, he has been obsessed with proving to his parents and everyone in the village who opposed him that it is true love, a love that can compensate for the price paid during ABO differentiation, and not the abnormal, twisted, and disgusting thing everyone claims it to be. So every year when the camellias bloom, he goes everywhere searching for the flower that can restore his sense of taste.”

“Later, somehow, he found this place, and he comes here every year.”

He smiled awkwardly. “Of course, it can’t be ruled out that he read too many novels and watched too many movies, so he fantasized this place into a sacred land where a miraculous camellia grows that can save him.”

Lin Luo pointed to the camellia swaying in the wind on the cliff edge. “Then this flower…?”

It clearly wasn’t growing naturally on the cliff. Who could have put it there? Looking at how Wei An was struggling to pluck it, it obviously couldn’t have been placed there by Wei An himself.

Xiao Yang let out a bitter laugh. “I put it there.” He paused, probably afraid that his communication skills were limited, and added, “Because Xiao An said that miraculous medicines always grow in extreme places, like on cliffs.”

“Instead of letting him run around dangerously looking for it himself, it’s better for me to place it beforehand in a noticeable and relatively safe spot.”

He expertly began tying the other end of the hemp rope around his waist. When he lifted his shirt, multiple crisscrossing, years-old scars were exposed to the sunlight, looking absolutely horrific.

Right beside them was a spot covered with a piece of gauze. It looked like a new injury, with red blood slowly seeping out from the center.

Lin Luo finally understood why Xiao Yang, despite being young and looking physically fit, had been panting and pale-lipped just from carrying Zhou Wan up a distance equivalent to three flights of stairs.

Xiao Yang gritted his teeth as he wound the hemp rope over the gauze, failing several times in the process. Lin Luo stepped forward to help, and only then was the rope successfully secured.

“Thanks,” Xiao Yang said.

After tying both ends of the rope, he yanked it hard again to test it. Once he confirmed it was secure, he patted Wei An on the shoulder and said gently, “You can’t reach it. Let me help you.” He nodded his chin backward. “Go wait in the back first.”

Wei An, who had been talking to himself like someone possessed just a second ago, actually listened obediently and retreated to the back.

Though the position of the flower wasn’t excessively tricky, one still had to lean their entire body out over the edge to reach it. Relying on just a single hemp rope… the danger factor was actually quite high.

Lin Luo stepped forward, stopping Xiao Yang just as he was about to go down. “Do you really have to go down?” He glanced at Wei An behind them. “Can’t we just…”

Can’t we just find any random flower?

“No,” Xiao Yang said with a smile. “He’s just sick, not stupid. Don’t worry. I’ll have to trouble you to keep an eye on Xiao An for a moment.”

Lin Luo let out two dry laughs. He turned around and immediately passed the job to Zhou Wan, who was restricted to his wheelchair, while he himself nimbly ran over to the pagoda tree to help hold the hemp rope.

As Xiao Yang gradually lowered himself, the rope tightened, soon bearing his full weight and stretching taut like a lifeline.

Looking at the knot, Lin Luo felt it looked more and more precarious. And as fate would have it, exactly what he feared most happened.

The sudden slipping of the knot gave him a fright. He hurriedly gripped the rope tightly. “Have, have you got the flower? Are you okay?”

Xiao Yang’s voice drifted up from below. “Just a little bit more…”

Immediately following that, the rope suddenly went heavy and slack. Xiao Yang had untied the knot around himself.

“Are you crazy?! If you can’t reach it, just forget it and come up right now!” Lin Luo cursed in a low voice, shouting down. He focused all his attention, not daring to relax even a single bit, his hands gripping the rope with a death-grip.

After a moment, “I got it!” Xiao Yang’s voice came through, finally releasing the tight knot of tension in Lin Luo’s nerves.

“I’ll pull you up.” Lin Luo wrapped the rope around his hands a few times.

Xiao Yang gripped the rope and climbed up with difficulty. Just as he was about to reach the top, Wei An’s face suddenly appeared in front of him. Staring at the flower, Wei An said excitedly, “Give it to me, give it to me quick.”

After getting the flower, he was as happy as a child, completely mismatching the delinquent like outfit he wore.

But right after, his smile faded.

Zhou Wan slowly rolled his wheelchair over, his head throbbing painfully. He only wanted to end this farce of a playhouse as soon as possible.

Perhaps it was his physically and mentally exhausted state, or perhaps it was his instinctive tendency to lean toward Lin Luo, but it instantly enraged Wei An.

Everyone was occupied with their own tasks, and no one noticed the sudden, deep resentment in the gaze Wei An directed at Lin Luo.

Lin Luo was huffing and puffing, focused entirely on pulling the person up. Zhou Wan came forward to help, but right at that moment, Wei An silently untied the knot on the old pagoda tree.

The sudden surge of unsupported weight caught them completely off guard.

The skin on Lin Luo’s palms was instantly scraped raw, leaving a streak of blood on the rope as his entire body was yanked forward, stumbling.

“What are you doing!” Zhou Wan shouted at Wei An, who had just stabbed them in the back.

Zhou Wan wasn’t doing any better himself. In his desperation to grab Lin Luo just now, he had recklessly kicked off against a large rock with his casted leg, directly straining it. The pain turned his face stark white.

Startled, Wei An abruptly dropped the camellia flower. As if he had just realized what he did, he waved his hands frantically. “It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me, I didn’t do it.” With that, he ran off toward the front mountain and vanished.

“Fuck!”

Lin Luo gritted his teeth and exerted all his strength, finally pulling Xiao Yang up.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” As soon as Xiao Yang got up, before he could even stand steadily, he hurriedly apologized to the two of them. His panicked expression made it look as though he was the one who had done wrong.

“It’s all my fault. Please don’t blame Xiao An.”

The look he gave Zhou Wan, in particular, was practically begging.

Zhou Wan pulled Lin Luo’s hand over to check it, completely ignoring everyone else as he repeatedly asked if it hurt. He quickly pulled out a roll of clean gauze from his pocket to wrap it.

Although Lin Luo felt angry, he knew it was a nameless fire with nowhere to be directed, no one was truly at fault. He looked at Zhou Wan’s casted leg, mumbled something, but couldn’t bring himself to say it out loud.

Withdrawing his hand from Zhou Wan’s grasp, he forced a smile and said to Xiao Yang, “It’s fine. Go look for him quickly, otherwise something else might happen.”

“Right, right, right.” Only then did Xiao Yang realize, squatting down in front of Zhou Wan. “Please get on, I’ll carry you down.”

“No need, I’ll carry him. Go on quickly,” Lin Luo said.

Xiao Yang looked at him, then at Zhou Wan, a look of hesitation on his face.

“If you don’t go now, something might happen to Wei An,” Lin Luo reminded him again.

Xiao Yang had no choice but to grit his teeth, pick up the camellia flower from the ground, apologize and thank them several more times, and then sprinted away.

“You’re going to carry me?” Zhou Wan raised an eyebrow.

“Is there a problem?” Lin Luo squatted in front of him. “How much could you possibly weigh…”

The moment the weight pressed down, Lin Luo admitted he had been overly arrogant.

“Pfft,” Zhou Wan glanced at him sideways, a smile playing at the corners of his lips. “That’s what you get for talking big.”

“What… what do you mean talking big?” He hoisted Zhou Wan a bit higher. “Am I not… carrying you… right now?”

“Lin Luo, am I very heavy?” Zhou Wan asked suddenly.

Lin Luo shook his head. “No.”

“Then why did you put me down so casually after going through all that trouble to pick me up?” Zhou Wan rested his head on Lin Luo’s shoulder, turning to look at him. His warm breath brushed softly against Lin Luo’s neck as he spoke in a low, muffled voice, “Once you make a choice, you can’t regret it. Don’t you know that?”

“Yeah,” Lin Luo said. “But when we reach the finish line, you have to get down eventually.”

Zhou Wan fell silent. His gaze fixed upon the back of Lin Luo’s neck, where there used to be a wound that belonged to him. Now, the wound had healed, but a faint tooth mark still remained in place.

Scars fade over time and would one day disappear completely, as if nothing had ever happened. Yet, he was greedily unwilling, the mark he left behind shouldn’t just vanish like this…

Zhou Wan gently rubbed that faint mark with the pad of his finger. Lin Luo instinctively shuddered, and then heard him ask, “Does it hurt?”

“It did before,” Lin Luo said honestly. “But it’s fine now.” After saying that, fearing Zhou Wan might dwell on it, he added, “You don’t need to mind it.”

He couldn’t see the predatory, wolf like look in Zhou Wan’s eyes behind his back, otherwise, he would definitely be startled.

Zhou Wan wanted so desperately to leave that mark there forever. That way, perhaps Lin Luo would keep him around for the sake of his slight usefulness and wouldn’t abandon him so easily.

But he couldn’t do it. He was an Alpha too, and he couldn’t mark Lin Luo, who was also an Alpha. Just like how Lin Luo didn’t dare to love him simply because he was a man, it was both laughable and tragic.

Zhou Wan really wanted to take another bite out of that non-existent gland. So, he slowly pressed his lips against it, giving it a gentle peck. His eyes were dark and unreadable as he whispered a word in a voice so quiet only he could hear, “Sorry.”

At the same time, a tiny “snap” broke the silence. Lin Luo had happened to step on a dead leaf. His body stiffened for a fraction of a second, but he quietly returned to normal and continued walking down the mountain.