The Seductive Pretender: Sister-in-Law is Turning Gay - Chapter 29

Chapter 29: “Zhong Manjing, Don’t Pull my Hair.”

“Don’t tell me that after drinking last night, you spent all morning thinking and only came up with that,” Zhong Manjing said. She held the straw of her juice box in her mouth, naturally taking the cup back from Lin Yuqing’s hand and walking forward. “Keep up.”

Lin Yuqing followed slowly by her side, her gaze drifting aimlessly. She hadn’t touched her drink. She had spent the entire morning trying to discern whether the things in her dream were mere delusions or actual memories.

She realized something.

No matter which option it was, it felt incredibly surreal. If it was a memory, why had she lost it? If it was a delusion, Lin Yuqing found it difficult to accept that she was capable of having such fantasies about Zhong Manjing.

Food and sex are human nature, but this was too absurd.

She closed her eyes, only to feel a cold sensation on her cheek. Zhong Manjing had pressed the other cup of green grape lemon juice against her face.

“The ice will melt if you don’t drink it soon.” Zhong Manjing let go. “I made it myself, don’t waste it.”

Seeing Lin Yuqing remain motionless, Zhong Manjing leaned in closer to inspect her.

“What’s wrong with you? You’ve been absent-minded all day,” she said with a hint of a reproach. “Thanks for boiling the water for me, by the way. Did you feel unwell this morning too?”

Lin Yuqing gave a quiet “mm” and said, “We shouldn’t go swimming outside anymore. Washing up out there never feels as clean as washing at home.”

Zhong Manjing gave a huff. “That’s called ‘fun’.” She ran ahead again.

This time, Lin Yuqing quickened her pace to keep up, slowly eating her half of the milk pastry. The soft, waxy taro filling was rich, complemented by the chewy texture of mochi. She noticed that Zhong Manjing loved these soft, sticky textures and always added plenty of them when she cooked.

Zhong Manjing asked point-blank, “I came here from Yibei City for a vacation. Did you do the same?”

Lin Yuqing fell silent for a moment before answering honestly, “I don’t know.”

“I noticed you didn’t bring many things with you.”

Lin Yuqing said, “Because I don’t know why I came here. When I regained consciousness, I found myself at the train station here, carrying that backpack. Maybe… I had more things, but I lost them. I don’t even know how I got off the train.”

Zhong Manjing arched a subtle eyebrow. “Drunk?”

“Don’t treat me like a drunkard just because I overdid it last night.” Lin Yuqing frowned helplessly. Walking with Zhong Manjing in the mountains made her less guarded. The thoughts hidden deep in her heart were easier to voice here.

“Back then, it felt a bit like suddenly sobering up, but I’m certain I wasn’t drunk.” Lin Yuqing recalled the chaotic scene. “I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. I didn’t have much money, no bank cards. I just found a place to stay by instinct to settle down temporarily.”

What she had found was Xiaoying’s Noodle House, which was about to close down.

The shop was up for transfer, so that day Xiaoying happened to be clearing out the storage room upstairs. She never imagined anyone would want to rent such a crude space, so she leased it to Lin Yuqing for a very low price.

“You got a new ID, a new phone, a local bank card, and after observing for a few days, you decided to take over the noodle house.” Zhong Manjing easily deduced Lin Yuqing’s trajectory. Lin Yuqing nodded. “Later, the swimming center happened to be looking for part-time help, so I went.”

Zhong Manjing asked, “Did you never think of going to the police station to check your records? Your ID has your home address; you could have gone back.”

Lin Yuqing: “If I could trust the address on that ID, I probably wouldn’t have appeared here in such a pathetic state.”

It was more of a subconscious resistance. Her desire to break away from that past was real and deeply rooted. Even if she remembered nothing, she didn’t want to touch it.

Lin Yuqing saw Zhong Manjing looking pensive.

“So that’s why you said you were worried you weren’t a ‘good’ person. But Lin Yuqing, have you considered that the past is the past? Since you’ve decided to break away, why care what people in a new place think about it?”

For the first time, Lin Yuqing felt a sense of embarrassment. The person she cared about… didn’t seem to be “other people.”

Zhong Manjing asked, “How is life here?”

“Good. I’m slowly getting used to it.” Whether it was the rhythm of life or interacting with others, everything had become familiar. And every corner of that familiarity held a shadow of Zhong Manjing.

Zhong Manjing: “Will you leave?”

Lin Yuqing didn’t answer.

“If you think life here is good, then be a deserter for the rest of your life. Just live here forever, isn’t that nice?” Zhong Manjing looked at her and smiled. “Since you’ve forgotten, just never think of it again.”

Lin Yuqing stared at her, seemingly weighing the logic of her words, but the tremor in her eyes betrayed her.

Being a deserter for life wasn’t the problem. The problem was that Lin Yuqing had now realized that if her past was connected to Zhong Manjing, she couldn’t not go back.

Lin Yuqing asked, “What about you? Why did you come here, besides a ‘vacation’?”

Zhong Manjing smiled as she finished the last bite of bread. The question had finally come.

“I’m an escapee too.” Zhong Manjing blinked. “I escaped from a cage that kept me locked up.”

Lin Yuqing nodded. “A jailbreak.”

“Actually, it was a release! A release!” Zhong Manjing sternly corrected her. “Jailbreakers get caught sooner or later. I’ve been released, so I’m never going back.”

“…Never going back?”

Zhong Manjing nodded emphatically. “Of course.”

“The persimmon trees are up ahead! Lin Yuqing, hurry up.” She ran forward. Even her trekking pole couldn’t hold her back; she held it as if she were about to take flight. She ran incredibly fast, and with a downhill slope ahead, she vanished like the wind.

Lin Yuqing quickened her pace. When she arrived, Zhong Manjing was preparing to climb a tree.

A large grove of wild persimmon trees stood there, laden with bright orange fruit a literal sea of vermillion.

“Be careful!” Lin Yuqing rushed up to guard the area beneath her. “Pick what you can reach first, then come down. I’ll handle the rest.”

Zhong Manjing refused, not even looking down. She plucked two or three ripe persimmons. “Someone once told me: do your own work yourself.”

Of course, it hadn’t been said in such a gentle tone back then.

It was the “hateful” Lin Yuqing of years ago, who said it when Zhong Manjing went to beg her.

“Is this how you look when you beg someone?” Lin Yuqing had looked at her coldly. Surrounded by people, she hadn’t let herself be too embarrassed, but she had taken Zhong Manjing outside. “Miss Zhong,” she had called her. “Miss Zhong, it’s better to rely on yourself than others. If you expect someone to protect you, it shouldn’t be me.”

That person had been so cold back then, showing no regard for the fact that Zhong Manjing had cooked so many meals for her at the Zhong house. She was just still angry, wasn’t she?

Looking at the Lin Yuqing below the tree now, urging her to come down, Zhong Manjing forced herself to pull away from the memories. The current Lin Yuqing seemed to have a strong aversion to her former self. In truth, Zhong Manjing had never interacted with her while she was at the Lin family; she only knew that her life there had been miserable.

Combined with the fact that Zhong Suyuan later conspired against her along with everyone else, Lin Yuqing had eventually become “crazy”—which Zhong Manjing actually found quite reasonable.

She was a woman who had been ruthless enough to discard her own past and throw herself into this unfamiliar place.

But to Zhong Manjing, no matter which version of Lin Yuqing it was, it was still Lin Yuqing. There was no “preferred” version.

“Come down, it’s unsafe,” Lin Yuqing said. “I’ll climb up.”

“I’ll do it. I can climb trees too.”

The persimmons were ripe and needed to be picked carefully by hand. If she knocked them down with a pole, they would smash. Zhong Manjing had climbed to a lower branch, but her legs were weak and she didn’t know where to step next.

Lin Yuqing was genuinely worried. She thought about just grabbing Zhong Manjing and hoisting her up, but she hesitated for a second. She stepped closer and said, “Step on my shoulders. Hold on tight. I’ll catch you; if you fall, fall toward me.”

Zhong Manjing jumped down and kicked off her shoes. Lin Yuqing crouched in front of her. She sat on her shoulders without hesitation, and Lin Yuqing gripped her ankles, standing up steadily.

The sudden height difference caught Zhong Manjing off guard. She instinctively grabbed a few stray locks of Lin Yuqing’s hair. Lin Yuqing’s head tilted back slightly, her eyes meeting Zhong Manjing’s. Her voice was low: “Zhong Manjing, don’t pull my hair.”

Because it was too much like the dream—her on top, her below—Lin Yuqing found it hard not to make the association. She didn’t know when she would finally forget last night.

“Sorry, sorry,” Zhong Manjing apologized. Lin Yuqing steadied herself, and Zhong Manjing grabbed a branch, standing up on Lin Yuqing’s shoulders. As she climbed onto the branch, she looked down at the effortless Lin Yuqing and smiled. “You really are strong…”

Lin Yuqing remained unfazed. “Pick them. I’ll catch them below.”

She took out a mesh bag and soon filled two large ones. It wasn’t realistic to keep hiking with so much fruit, so once they had enough, Zhong Manjing didn’t come down immediately. Instead, she leaned against a thick branch to enjoy the breeze.

When she finally came down, Lin Yuqing again served as the princess’s loyal staircase.

“So satisfying.” Zhong Manjing lay directly on the grass and let out a long breath, thinking about how many jars of wine she would brew. Suddenly, she heard Lin Yuqing ask: “Who was that person? The one who told you to rely on yourself?”

Lin Yuqing hadn’t expected her to care at all. She turned her head and said, “A villain. But also my benefactor.”

She beckoned Lin Yuqing over and reached out a hand. Lin Yuqing moved to pull her up, but Zhong Manjing only lazily squeezed her fingers. She asked playfully, “Why aren’t you wearing that ring from yesterday?”

“Lost it.” Lin Yuqing withdrew her hand calmly. Fortunately, Zhong Manjing didn’t press further. Instead, she let out a yawn in the summer breeze. “Can you get the sketchbook out of my bag? It’s so beautiful here; I want to draw.”

Lin Yuqing dutifully walked over to rummage through the bag. A few persimmons fell out of her pocket, and she picked them up one by one. But when she returned with the sketchbook, Zhong Manjing’s eyes were closed; she was fast asleep.

A gust of wind blew past, flipping the pages of the sketchbook in Lin Yuqing’s hand. She couldn’t help but look down.

The sketchbook was filled with her.

Page after page of lifelike sketches all of her, Lin Yuqing.

The wind died down, and the paper stopped on the final page. It was a drawing of her and Zhong Manjing from last night in the water, her hand reaching out to block Zhong Manjing’s bite.

This was the only sketch featuring Zhong Manjing, and the only one with a date: yesterday.

Lin Yuqing flipped through the pages quickly. The person in those sketches felt like a stranger; though it was her own face, she didn’t remember ever acting like that.

Buzz— Buzz.

Lin Yuqing’s phone vibrated. She froze in place, almost stiff, and answered the call subconsciously.

“Is this Ms. Lin Yuqing? Hello, this is the Xizhou Private Mental Health Center in Yuqiu City. You are a follow-up client of our institute. May I ask how your recovery is progressing? Do you require a third follow-up appointment, Ms. Lin…?”

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