Transmigrated as Jane’s Ghostly Godmother - Chapter 22

Chapter 22: The Time Missed — Jane: Where is Miss Ghost!

Rewinding time slightly to the edge of the woods, Jane had actually been just a few seconds away from seeing where Lin Zhao went.

Preceding Jane’s realization of her disappearance by mere moments, Lin Zhao had used her last ounce of strength to walk back into the forest.

Frequent use of her “abilities” to carry Beatrice up the pit hadn’t exhausted her physically, but the mental drain was inevitable. To put it simply, she needed to sleep.

She couldn’t hold on long enough to reach the dormitory, and she didn’t want Jane to see her like this and worry. While Jane was deeply engaged in conversation with her friends, Lin Zhao quietly slipped back into the trees.

Barely managing to lean against a trunk, she knew she wouldn’t make it to the ceremony in the hall. Before losing consciousness completely, her only prayer was that she wouldn’t oversleep through Jane’s individual competition.

Although the competition consisted mainly of academic exams and assessments, Lin Zhao felt that was exactly why it was so nerve-wracking. Exams, moving up grades, achieving good results—this was similar to what she had experienced in her own life.

She wasn’t worried about Jane’s results; after all, she had seen how hard the girl worked. She just wanted to be by Jane’s side at the moment it ended.

Like something she herself had never received.

“…Zhao-zhao?” The speaker was hesitant. Getting no response, they called again, “Zhao-zhao.”

Lin Zhao snapped back to reality. Her phone screen was still on the page for checking exam answers. She looked up slowly, her gaze landing on the face of the person in front of her. It took a moment before she could make a sound: “…Mom.”

“I know you’re unhappy, but this really can’t be delayed any longer.” Her mother’s face was blurry—she wasn’t sure if it was the effect of staring at her phone for too long. “Do you want to live with Mom or Dad after this?”

Oh, so it’s about this.

That final sentence made her fully remember the situation. Lin Zhao turned her head and saw her father sitting next to her mother, silent and stern-faced.

She had finished her Middle School Entrance Exams just yesterday. This morning, she had been woken up early to find the whole family sitting together at the dining table for the first time in a long while. Her parents had spent a lot of time “laying the groundwork” just to tell her a secret that had long been semi-public.

“We are preparing to get a divorce.”

After that sentence, she had buried her head in her screen, absent-mindedly checking her answers, unwilling to hear the justifications that followed. But avoidance was useless; they needed a resolution. So her mother called her, saying “everything can’t be dragged out anymore.”

Lin Zhao looked back at her mother. She probably hadn’t slept well last night; her eyes were bloodshot, and her eyebrows were slumped—guilt, pity, and sadness flowed from her gaze.

Over the years, Lin Zhao had seen this expression often. Her father was rarely home, and her grandmother often criticized her mother because of Lin Zhao’s gender. Yet, her mother had stayed in this unfamiliar land to take care of her, dealing with everything exhaustedly.

A year ago, when she first sensed their decision, she had skipped half a night-study session in the school clinic to think. In the end, she decided she wanted her mother to be happy. Facing her mother now, Lin Zhao had only one choice.

“…I’ll stay at Grandma’s house.” The implication was choosing to stay with her father.

“Zhao-zhao… do you blame Mom?” Her mother’s expression darkened, her voice trembling.

Her father, on the other hand, chuckled and didn’t forget to turn and blame the mother: “The child has made her choice, why are you still saying these things!”

Lin Zhao interrupted her father without hesitation: “Enough. I’m leaving.”

She simply felt that her mother deserved a more complete freedom for her bravery.

Leaving behind that one sentence, Lin Zhao grabbed her phone and left the table, and the house—if this place could still be called “home”—without looking back.

She left with flair, but she actually had nowhere to go. After walking for a long time, several messages from her mother popped up on her phone. Hardening her heart, she turned off the phone and headed to a bookstore. From a financial perspective, it was a great place to kill time without spending money.

She went straight to her usual corner, pulled a copy of Jane Eyre from the bottom shelf, and sat down against the bookcase.

The book was still at the part where she had last left off. After eight years at Lowood, Jane’s peaceful routine of being a “good child” according to her teacher’s arrangements was thrown into turmoil by that teacher’s marriage.

People always said marriage was a hall leading to happiness, but from Lin Zhao’s current mood and this part of the plot, she could only draw the opposite conclusion. The things marriage stripped away were perhaps no fewer than what it brought.

She skimmed the pages, watching the storm rise in Jane’s heart. Jane was once again weary of her life.

“I desired liberty; for liberty I gasped…”

Staring at this sentence, Lin Zhao felt her heart race as if it were about to jump out of her chest. The Jane in the book soon escaped the narrow confines of Lowood with a job advertisement.

But she couldn’t. If she had to make a comparison, she was likely still in that year of desperate helplessness following Helen’s death. But one day, she would eventually be able to bid farewell to a life she didn’t want. As long as she could persevere and continue to enrich herself…

“Don’t run away from the present. Time will prove everything.” Lin Zhao murmured, pulling this sentence of encouragement for herself from her conflicted heart.

Having regained a bit of mental strength, she couldn’t help but sigh at the plot: “But seriously, Jane, it would have been better if your advertisement had been seen by a different, better family.”

Forgive her current bias against marriage for even targeting the book’s ending.

“Jane” crouched beside her. The eighteen-year-old girl was half a head taller than her. Hearing this, Jane shook her head. “Don’t you like the people at Thornfield? I think they’re quite alright.”

Lin Zhao’s hand tightened on the book. She couldn’t explicitly state that her main bias was directed at a certain gentleman. She hemmed and hawed for a while before blurting out: “At the beginning, after staying there for a while, even you felt it was a bit boring—in my opinion, it would be better for you to follow your uncle to see the wider world.”

“Jane” shrugged. “I can’t help it; I never received that letter. If I had the chance, perhaps it would be nice?”

Yes, if. Life always has too many “ifs” and “supposes,” but there is no turning back on any step taken.

Lin Zhao fell silent. She was holding her breath, unsure if it was because of her parents or Jane. She decided to think of nothing and immersed her consciousness back into the book.

But “Jane” wouldn’t let it go. She blocked the page with her hand and poked her head forward to ask: “If you don’t like it, why not try to rewrite it?”

Lin Zhao ducked back helplessly. She wasn’t the author; how could she rewrite it?

The other person seemed to see through her thoughts—perhaps because she was born of her own imagination. “Jane” leaned in, her green eyes reflecting Lin Zhao’s face like the wind blowing through a shimmering forest.

“How about you become that letter?”

“Let me see what a happy ending you’re satisfied with would look like.”

Too close! Lin Zhao was startled. Losing her balance, the book fell from her lap. With no support behind her, she slipped to the side—

And fell beneath a tree permeated with the scent of earth and grass.

There was no pain, but she was much clearer now, realizing she had returned from a dream to reality. The sky was completely dark; the woods were shrouded in gloom.

Lin Zhao climbed up from the ground, brushed off her clothes, and looked up to see the lit-up buildings not far away. The lights in the assembly hall were particularly bright, casting many intersecting shadows through the long windows.

She had slept much shorter than expected this time; it seemed she could still make it to the banquet for the end of the league?

She wondered how Jane was, and if John Reed and the others had come to cause trouble again. She didn’t delay any longer and began walking toward the hall.

But when she actually reached the hall and looked inside, she immediately realized something was wrong.

“…In that case, I hope the students have a pleasant holiday,” Mrs. Victor stood at the front, elegantly concluding her speech.

Wait, what holiday?

Lin Zhao suddenly realized her sleep hadn’t been short at all; it could be described as sleeping through heaven and earth. She had slept through the entire individual competition.

She grew anxious, searching everywhere for Jane, but from the back, everyone present seemed to be senior students. She turned and ran toward the dormitory building.

The Jane she was worrying about was indeed in the dormitory. She was in her logbook, marking today as “MISSING.”

Beside it, four diagonal slashes had been drawn, crossed through by a fifth. Now, she was drawing the second slash for a new set.

It had been a week since Lin Zhao disappeared after the “Woodland Exploration.”

When the banquet that night ended, the allied schools left the next day in a grand procession of carriages, just as they had arrived. John Reed hadn’t come to cause her trouble; it seemed Eliza had said something to him. Jane didn’t believe Eliza could convince that stupid, malicious head with a simple warning and suspected another plot. But with Lin Zhao absent, she out of caution ignored them.

As for Georgiana, she had wanted to come say goodbye to Beatrice, but Eleanor stepped in again, leaving no opportunity and intercepting every conversation.

On the third day, the individual competition opened with small exams for each subject. The three students from 3-B all achieved quite good results.

On the fifth day, Beatrice missed out on the top three. The score difference between Jane and Eleanor was very close as they began to vie for first place.

On the sixth day, the individual competition concluded with Jane answering a few more questions correctly in the final exam. With a narrow margin, she secured first place in this year’s individual league.

Actually, Jane had felt somewhat hesitant about competing with Eleanor. It wasn’t a fear of failure, but rather a worry about whether she should be competing against the friend who had helped her catch up. Even though Lin Zhao was absent, the schedule she had left behind seemed to have anticipated this, precisely answering Jane’s concern.

“School Survival Guide #9: Never be afraid of competition, even with friends.”

This was the influence of living together; Jane could almost see the slight curl of Lin Zhao’s lips as she said it.

The disappearance of Miss Ghost made her realize just how accustomed she had become to the other person’s presence. Jane knew very well that the reason the other person could stay with her was exactly because she wasn’t human—but she occasionally forgot this, caring for her as much as she valued everyone else who was good to her.

Unlike the previous time Lin Zhao’s whereabouts were unknown, Jane wasn’t worried about being abandoned. She just grew increasingly eager for her return. Where is Lin Zhao now, what is she doing, and does she feel a bit guilty for leaving me here alone?

On the seventh day, because the league had officially ended, the atmosphere at school was very relaxed, and the teachers didn’t hold classes. Jane tactfully declined Eleanor and Beatrice’s invitation to the shopping street, worrying that Lin Zhao wouldn’t find her if she returned.

Unfortunately, even by the evening, when Mrs. Victor presented awards to the ranking students in the hall and announced the upcoming 7-week summer holiday, Lin Zhao still hadn’t appeared.

As an expensive public school, Wheelwood had a very strict schedule for terms and holidays. Jane had enrolled during the transition between autumn and winter and had already gone through two term breaks. Now, a fairly long summer holiday was approaching.

During the holidays, she naturally wouldn’t return to Gateshead and would stay at school to study. With Lin Zhao’s company, it wouldn’t have been too hard to endure, so she thought this upcoming summer holiday wouldn’t be any different.

But if Miss Ghost continued to stay “missing,” she really wouldn’t know what to do. Jane sighed at the letters she had written and prepared to go to bed as usual.

Eleanor, looking at a letter sent from home, called out to her.

“Jane, would you like to come home with me this time? I told my mother about the results of the league, and she wants me to invite you and Betty to join us.”

“Mrs. Harrison has already written to Mrs. Knox; I will be going with you, Lena,” Beatrice’s voice came from her bed. She was always the first to sleep.

Jane pursed her lips, her first reaction being to refuse. She truly had a lingering shadow about “staying” at these wealthy homes, and Lin Zhao was still missing.

Eleanor saw her intention and added earnestly before she could speak.

“Staying at school for all seven weeks of the summer holiday is too boring! Mother says we are going abroad for a holiday—to the Madeira Islands, I think. Come with us! Betty is coming too; it will definitely be fun!”

Abroad. Then Lin Zhao would lose her completely.

Jane had just shaken her head when her heart suddenly throbbed violently, causing her to freeze. She instinctively looked past Eleanor’s shoulder, staring straight at the closed door.

Her intuition was still working.

Through the door passed a face she had yearned for day and night. Her Miss Ghost had appeared just like the first day—sudden and eerie, but the look in her eyes was full of sincerity and apology.

“Jane.” Lin Zhao’s eyes met hers the moment she looked up, and she cried out, “I’m back!”