The Lady I Flirted With Is Here - Chapter 52

Chapter 52: Save Me

Now, Lin Xian was truly angry. In broad daylight, her girlfriend had been inexplicably attacked, and then they were called “disgusting dykes.”

Lin Xian stepped forward and slapped Chen Yu across the face. “Keep your mouth clean!”

The slap was actually quite light, leaving no mark on Chen Yu’s face. Nevertheless, Chen Yu screeched, her voice cracking with strain: “You hit me?”

Lin Xian let out a disdainful snort. “I didn’t provoke you, Chen Yu. You injured my friend and insulted us. Who else should I hit?”

“Friend?” Chen Yu repeated as if she’d heard a joke. She hissed back venomously, “You disgusting dykes! Just wait, I’m going to tell everyone in the village that Grandma Lin’s granddaughter is a lesbian!”

This truly pushed Lin Xian over the edge. She stepped up and delivered a much harder slap. Chen Yu’s head snapped to the side, and Lin Xian’s palm stung with a burning heat.

After the slap, a heavy silence fell. Chen Yu lowered her head, looking disheveled and defeated, her cheek slowly reddening.

Lin Xian froze. She had never slapped anyone before, let alone a former classmate. Her palm throbbed with the residual shock of the impact. Fang Daiyu watched thoughtfully. Seeing Lin Xian staring blankly at her hand, she asked, “Should we let her go?”

Lin Xian nodded slowly. She didn’t want to deal with Chen Yu or her threats. Deep down, she knew that as long as there was no proof, people wouldn’t just believe a random accusation. But she was still afraid—she knew all too well how powerful and destructive rumors could be in a small village. Especially since her grandmother still lived here.

Daiyu didn’t release her grip on Chen Yu. Instead, she said, “Let’s take her to the police station, Xianxian. She doesn’t seem mentally stable.”

“If she spreads rumors in the village, we can also sue her for defamation.” Daiyu had been observing Lin Xian’s reactions. Seeing Lin Xian rush over to strike Chen Yu had convinced her that these two were definitely nothing more than old acquaintances.

“No! I’m not going to the police!” Chen Yu struggled to get up, her demeanor suddenly shifting.

“Lin Xian, we’re classmates! Please, let me go. I was wrong, I just… I just lost my mind for a second!” The hatred on Chen Yu’s face was replaced by a look of pleading and forced tenderness as she smiled at Lin Xian.

That smile, however, only confirmed Daiyu’s assessment in Lin Xian’s mind. She had another idea. “People will be passing by this path soon. Chen Yu, we won’t take you to the station.”

“I’ll have my friend let you go. You know you’re no match for us alone. Why don’t we go to my house? I’d like to catch up on old times.” Lin Xian had originally intended to hand Chen Yu over to her parents, but now she was intensely curious about why this girl had lunged at Daiyu.

Chen Yu thought for a long time before looking up. “Fine. But she can’t be there!” She pointed at Fang Daiyu.

Lin Xian glanced at Daiyu, who gave a small, reassuring nod.

“Deal.”

…

The second floor of Lin Xian’s family home was an attic with three rooms, one of which was her childhood bedroom.

While Lin Xian took Chen Yu upstairs, Fang Daiyu waited in the living room. Once the bedroom door closed, Daiyu, feeling uneasy, quietly walked up to the second floor and waited in the hallway.

Inside the bedroom, it was dark until Lin Xian flipped the switch. She pointed to the chair at her desk. “Sit.”

Chen Yu didn’t sit. Instead, she dropped to her knees with a loud thud. Lin Xian jumped back a step.

“Lin Xian, you have to help me.” Chen Yu kowtowed, her forehead hitting the floor.

“Are you crazy?” Lin Xian struggled to process Chen Yu’s behavior. She pulled her up. “I remember you go to university in Shanghai. We’re both just students. How can I help you? Isn’t this a bit strange?”

Before she could finish, tears began streaming down Chen Yu’s face. “My parents… they’ve locked me in the house. They won’t let me leave!”

“Why?” Lin Xian hadn’t seen Chen Yu since they started university. They weren’t even close, though they had been in the same class in primary school and lived in the same village. She remembered they hung out a bit back then.

But in middle school, they were in different classes and drifted apart, only to be reunited in the same class in the tenth grade. She remembered Chen Yu sitting behind her. Chen Yu had always been pretty, and many boys liked her, but she used to cling to Lin Xian, saying, “I’m so happy to be in the same class as you again.”

Then, when they split into arts and science tracks, Lin Xian chose arts, and they became strangers once more. That was the extent of Lin Xian’s memories of her.

“Lin Xian, I’m just like you. I’m a lesbian!” Chen Yu’s words snapped Lin Xian out of her reverie.

Only her closest childhood friend back home knew about her sexuality. Lin Xian looked at Chen Yu guardedly. “Don’t talk nonsense. What you saw earlier was just us playing around.”

Instinctively, Chen Yu’s sudden appearance felt dangerous. Lin Xian denied her orientation and lied.

Chen Yu gave a cynical laugh. “Stop pretending. You might not know my business, but I know everything about you.” The coldness in her voice made Lin Xian’s skin crawl.

“Do you remember in primary school when you brought me here to play? In this very room, I found a magazine on your desk. I flipped through it and found a story about a lesbian. I told you then that I liked girls, and you laughed and said you did too.” Chen Yu’s eyes were glazed as she recounted the memory. Lin Xian didn’t remember it at all.

Yet, a blurry fragment of the past flickered. She had been in the fifth grade. At that age, she probably thought the other girl was joking. Maybe she had joked back. She wouldn’t have believed the other girl, and she assumed the other girl wouldn’t believe her.

“I… I think I remember,” Lin Xian said, feeling a mix of helplessness and irony. “I thought you were joking.”

“No, it wasn’t a joke,” Chen Yu shook her head. “What I said wasn’t a joke, and what you said wasn’t a joke either.”

Chen Yu continued to mutter to herself. “From that moment on, I knew there was someone else in the world who liked girls just like me. Do you know how happy I was? For you, I transferred to your middle school. I studied like crazy to get into the same high school. But you? You betrayed our friendship. You forgot our secret.”

Chen Yu was lost in her own tragic narrative. Lin Xian began to seriously doubt the girl’s mental state. She had never seemed unstable before, but now?

Chen Yu’s gaze was vacant. Lin Xian remembered she hadn’t gone to the local township middle school because her father was doing business in the city, so she had moved there. Then her parents divorced, and she naturally got into one of the top high schools in the city. It all seemed so normal to her. If Chen Yu was telling the truth, she had done a lot to follow Lin Xian, but…

“What does that have to do with me?” Lin Xian asked. “If you felt I betrayed your friendship, why didn’t you just come and talk to me?”

It felt absurd. Because of a passing comment made as a child, she had been labeled a “traitor” for years?

“I was waiting for you to find me again!” Chen Yu spoke like a character in a tragic play, her eyes full of sorrow.

If she stayed in this conversation any longer, Lin Xian felt she would go mad herself. “I just want to know one thing: why did you attack my friend?” That was the only thing that mattered.

Chen Yu beat her chest. “Because I was angry!”

“We’re both the same, we should be suffering together! When I was at university, I searched your school’s forums, I went on your BBS. Why? Why are you alive and well when you were supposed to be depressed?”

“You’re in love. You were acting all lovey-dovey on the road. You even brought her home! It’s not fair!” Chen Yu broke into hysterical sobs. “Why am I the one locked in my house? Why? Why?”

Then, she dropped to her knees again, kowtowing repeatedly. “Lin Xian, you understand me, don’t you? Right?”

Chen Yu was becoming erratic. She gripped Lin Xian’s ankle so hard it hurt. In the struggle to pull away, Lin Xian accidentally tripped and hit the floor.

Outside the door, Fang Daiyu had been listening to the shouting and crying. When she heard the loud thud, she immediately knocked. “Xianxian? Are you okay in there?”

The door was locked from the inside. Lin Xian lay on the floor, looking at the weeping, terrified Chen Yu, unsure what to say. To keep Daiyu from worrying, she called out, “I’m fine!”

Chen Yu’s vacillating behavior between mania and terror suggested she really was suffering a mental breakdown. Lin Xian didn’t know if it was related to her sexuality or not.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Before the situation inside was resolved, a violent pounding erupted at the front door downstairs. Lin Xian heard muffled voices and called out to Daiyu.

“Daiyu! Can you check the door? Maybe Grandma forgot her keys?”

Daiyu hurried downstairs. Outside, there was a commotion of voices. A frantic middle-aged man was shouting through the door: “Xianxian! Open up! Someone saw you with my Xiaoyu. Is Chen Yu in there?”

Daiyu opened the door without hesitation. The man outside froze for a moment, then nodded awkwardly at Daiyu. “You’re… Xianxian’s classmate, right?”

Daiyu nodded. “She’s upstairs.”

She scanned the group behind the man—several young men carrying ropes, duct tape, and rags. They looked incredibly dangerous.