Transmigrated as the Villain and Driven Crazy by the Vengeful Male Lead - Chapter 38

Chapter 38: A Dream Within a Dream — A younger brother should protect his older sister, after all.

“Sister, Sister! What are you drawing on me?”

A young child’s face appeared in the mirror, shouting and clamoring against the glass. On the other side of the reflection, a girl with a delicate face was smiling warmly at her younger brother.

Su Cheyue and Lü Shuyao suddenly backed away. They looked toward the bed—it was empty. Chang Huaichen was nowhere to be seen!

“What happened??”

“The scene changed again,” Su Cheyue said. “It’s broad daylight outside. Look closely at the furnishings in this room; they’re different from when we first entered.”

Indeed, the room was more cluttered. A lady’s vanity box sat before the mirror, filled with simple yet exquisite jewelry, suggesting the owner was a romantic girl who loved beauty. Beside it, a bamboo incense burner emitted a curling fragrance, and the remains of a Southern-style pan-fried bun breakfast sat on the desk—living traces of a home.

A boy and a girl sat before the mirror. The girl was older, perhaps eleven or twelve. She asked, “This is called a floral design (huadian). Is it pretty?”

The younger brother looked into the mirror gloomily. “It’s pretty, but I’m a boy. Why are you giving me a girl’s makeup, Sister?”

The sister burst into laughter, pinching his cheek. “Our little Chen is just too good-looking. I always forget you’re a boy.”

The boy, called Little Chen, pouted half-indignantly. “Then I want to draw on Sister too.”

Standing on his tiptoes, he rummaged through her vanity box and pulled out a jar of rouge. His hand, holding a brush, trembled. As soon as the vermilion touched her forehead, it smeared into an ugly red streak.

The sister covered her forehead, and he chased her around the room. “You’re too small! Your handwriting still looks like dog scratches, let alone your drawing—stop chasing me, Chang Huaichen!”

It was Chang Huaichen as a child!

The siblings played until they were out of breath. Finally, the sister raised her hands in surrender. “Alright, alright, I’ll let you draw! When you’re a bit older—this coming New Year—once you’ve practiced your writing well! Then you can help me. We’ll draw the most complex three-petaled peach blossom, okay?”

The tiny Chang Huaichen brandished his brush, splattering blood-red rouge everywhere, looking immensely proud.

“Okay, it’s a promise. But only if you practice your writing. Come, pinky swear.”

A tall, middle-aged man with short stubble entered from outside, scolding them: “Chang Huaichen, look at you, making a mess again. Chang Xianni, he’s a child, but you’re older—why do you let him in here to cause trouble?”

Chang Xianni mimicked her father’s tone: “Exactly! Nothing but trouble!”

The man pointed toward the bed, directing Little Huaichen: “Go bring in the bedding drying outside and tidy it up.”

Chang Huaichen shouted, “I want to sleep with Sister!”

“How old are you? Still sleeping with your sister? Aren’t you afraid people will laugh at you!”

“I’m not afraid! I want to sleep with Sister!”

Chang Xianni looked troubled. “Little Chen, you’re growing up. You can’t sleep with me anymore.”

“No!”

The man grew angry. “Chang Huaichen, be a man! Why act like an unweaned infant! Your sister was much younger than you when she stopped sleeping with your mother—”

He suddenly realized he had said the wrong thing and shut his mouth. He glanced over; Little Huaichen’s eyes were already red.

Chang Xianni leaned down and stroked the boy’s head. “Sister will sleep with you tonight. But we agree: after this year, you sleep by yourself.”

Chang Huaichen instantly beamed. “Go on then,” she said.

He ran out, but then doubled back to eavesdrop behind the door.

…This habit of eavesdropping really has been with him since childhood.

The man said, “If this continues, he’ll really start treating you like his mother.”

“An elder brother is like a father; an elder sister is like a mother. I only hope he stays safe and happy,” Chang Xianni replied.

“Xianni, you’ve worked hard.”

Chang Xianni said, “If we’re talking about hardship, Little Chen is the one who truly suffers. Who would want their birthday to be the anniversary of their mother’s death?”

Chang Huaichen froze. He looked down, sniffing, and silently kicked the floor tiles with his toes until his shoe fell off. Only then did he run out of the house.

The afternoon courtyard was quiet and filled with bright sunlight. Chang Huaichen was dusting the quilts, staring blankly at the dust motes dancing in the air.

Suddenly, he heard the sound of laughter approaching.

He seemed familiar with the voices. He skipped to the gate and called out excitedly.

“Hello, sisters! The sisters are here!”

Lü Shuyao and Su Cheyue followed his gaze and saw a group of girls, roughly the same age as Chang Xianni, walking into the courtyard hand-in-hand. Little Huaichen was a ball of energy; his earlier melancholy vanished instantly as he dashed back inside. “Sister! Sister Feng and the others are here!”

After shouting, he ran back out to welcome them with a grin.

“Hello, Little Chen!”

The girls entered, each patting his head. One praised, “Oh, who drew this floral design on you? You’re getting more handsome by the day! Do you want to marry me and come home?”

Chang Xianni came out and swatted her companion’s hand away. “Don’t talk nonsense, he’s still small!”

Someone pointed at the messy red streaks on Chang Xianni’s forehead and laughed. “What happened? Did your hand slip?”

Chang Xianni symbolically covered it. “Don’t look, don’t look!”

After a round of laughter, the topic returned to Chang Huaichen. “Little Chen isn’t that small. Look at our families; only Xianni has a brother. Our Little Chen is a treasure in Huailing!” The girl surnamed Feng pinched his nose. “In a few years, people will break down your door trying to get to him!”

Chang Xianni said, “You make it sound like he’s the one being married off.”

Chang Huaichen turned serious. “I won’t marry out, and I won’t marry anyone in. I just want Father and Sister.”

Everyone roared with laughter. “You won’t marry, but your sister will! When the time comes, we’ll let her take you along as part of the Chang family dowry, alright?”

“Feng Yingying, you’re asking for it—!” This time it was Chang Xianni’s turn to chase her friend around the yard.

Lü Shuyao and Su Cheyue watched this warm scene, both unable to suppress a soft smile.

The young girls, their faces blooming like flowers, worked up a sweat in the small courtyard before sitting under a tree to rest.

“What are we playing today?” Feng Yingying asked.

The chasing game had just been the appetizer. Chang Xianni said, “More games? Your father will be furious if he comes back and can’t find you.”

“He doesn’t care about me.” Feng Yingying picked up stones from the ground. “He’s focused on trying to have a son with my mother; he has no heart for my business.”

“Same at my house,” the girl next to her said. “My father tells me to run outside more, to get hurt and bleed a bit, to ward off ‘evil spirits’ for the family.”

“My father says I’m bad luck. Every time I go home, he splashes dog or chicken blood on me. It’s filthy; I don’t want to go back.”

“The Ghost Festival is in a few days. My father told me not to come home until it’s over.”

They were only eleven or twelve, yet they spoke of these miserable things with such indifference, as if they had experienced them too many times to care.

Is this… the situation for most women in Huailing?

Lü Shuyao thought of Rourou and Meng Shijie’s attempted filicide. Back in Yangshuo, so many people were outraged. But here in Huailing, despite being in the same era, the societal mindset was worlds apart.

Little Huaichen sat nearby, listening silently. It wasn’t clear if he understood, but eventually, he stopped smiling.

Lü Shuyao looked at his innocent face, which gradually began to overlap with the face of the man painting “Yin-Attracting Makeup” in the torrential midnight rain.

The words he had said to Jiang Zhiqing echoed in his ears again: “The ghosts of Huailing haven’t taken them yet, but they have already become incompetent walking corpses themselves.”

“Stop talking about that, let’s play!” Feng Yingying stood up boldly, clenching her fist. “How about ‘Seven Stars Gathering’?”

“Fine, I’ll definitely beat you this time!” Chang Xianni said. “Where are the stones?”

Feng Yingying opened her palm. “I already picked them up! Five of us, seven stones.”

Little Huaichen immediately raised his hand to interject: “Sisters! Me too! That makes six people!”

Chang Xianni looked at his dirty bare feet with mock disgust and pointed inside. “If you want to play, go wash your feet and put your shoes on properly first.”

Chang Huaichen didn’t dare disobey his sister and ran back inside.

Feng Yingying asked, “Xianni’s forehead is dirty too, aren’t you going to wash it?”

Chang Xianni said proudly, “My brother drew this for me. I’m not washing it off.”

“Are you obsessed with your brother?”

“So what? Who else has such a cute and handsome little brother?” Since Chang Huaichen was further away, Chang Xianni stopped acting like a little adult and stuck her tongue out.

Feng Yingying said, “Actually, I kind of hope my parents have a son. If I had a younger brother, I could play with him every day. I—”

A dull roll of thunder suddenly rumbled through the cloudless, sunny sky.

Feng Yingying looked up in surprise. “Is it going to rain? No way.”

“Impossible! It’s been sunny for days!”

They waited for a moment, but the thunder didn’t sound a second time.

“Must have misheard?”

“Probably.”

“Forget it,” Feng Yingying waved her hand. “The stones—start by grabbing one, then after you’ve grabbed them all, grab two at a time…”

“We know, we’ve played it a thousand times. Stop nagging, Yingying.”

Feng Yingying said, “I’m not finished! How about we increase the difficulty? While one person is grabbing, the stones are held by the others. Out of seven stones, two people hold two each, and the rest hold one. After one is grabbed, the next is placed randomly.”

Chang Xianni’s eyes widened. “Won’t they be placed anywhere then? If I place mine inside the house while you’re grabbing, how will you reach them?”

“We’ll set a boundary! Just here, the area enclosed by these branches.”

“Fine, agreed!”

Lü Shuyao asked Su Cheyue: “Do you feel like… since Chang Huaichen went back inside, the sights and sounds here have become strange? Like they’re covered in a gray mist?”

Su Cheyue replied, “There is no perspective from Chang Huaichen here. What happens after he goes inside is likely being imagined by him.”

Feng Yingying volunteered to go first. her fingers danced nimbly; picking up one stone was as easy as flipping her palm. By the second round, Chang Xianni had a look of “I’ll give it to you” as she placed two stones down. Feng Yingying smirked and snatched them up instantly.

After a moment, she frowned.

“Who else has two stones? What’s the matter, too scared to put them down for me to grab?”

The others shook their heads in confusion.

“No one has them?”

Everyone opened their palms. Including the stones inside the branch circle, there were only six stones.

“Strange… we counted seven at the start. Didn’t I grab seven in the first round?”

“Where did the last stone go?”

As the circle of girls looked at each other, a thick, ink-black cloud rolled over the mountains from nowhere, blotting out the sun.

“It really looks like rain.” The girls were disappointed.

Chang Xianni said, “Let’s call it a day. How about dinner at my house tonight?”

“Sure!”

Feng Yingying said, “After being in the sun so long, I’m thirsty.” She looked up at the large tree that had been silently shading them. “Xianni, I remember this is a fruit tree?”

Chang Xianni replied casually, “Yes, it is.”

“I’m so thirsty. Let Little Chen come out and pick some fruit. What’s taking him so long?”

Chang Xianni rolled her eyes. “Always thinking about bossing my brother around.”

“Exactly. A younger brother should protect his older sister, after all.”

At that moment, a voice came from nowhere: “I’ll do it. I can climb.”

“Someone else among us can climb trees?”

Chang Xianni and Feng Yingying turned in surprise, only to see a figure in white already scrambling up the lower trunk.

They couldn’t see clearly who it was. Because Lü Shuyao and Su Cheyue were seeing an imagined scene, they couldn’t see clearly either. They could only hear the girls shouting, “Careful! Don’t fall!”

“I won’t fall. I’m not afraid of heights.” The white figure’s voice was sweet. She was already beside the branches heavy with fruit.

“Almost there! Go for it!”

The white figure nimbly plucked fruit into her lap. Every time she plucked one, she threw it down with perfect aim. In the blink of an eye, each girl held an orange.

“Taste it. Is it sweet?”

Feng Yingying popped a segment into her mouth. “Sweet! It’s delicious! Come down quickly!”

Before the white figure could descend, Chang Huaichen emerged from the house behind his father, and the scene became clear again.

The girls gathered around, calling out “Hello, Uncle.” Feng Yingying ran up eagerly to offer him an orange. “Uncle, have an orange.”

She then turned to Chang Huaichen. “Little Huaichen, what took you so long?”

Chang Huaichen said, “I didn’t just wash my feet, I washed my face too, so you sisters wouldn’t laugh at me!”

“You’re so silly. You washed your face but didn’t dry it. It’s all wet and dripping, like you’re crying!”

“I am not crying!”

His father took the orange and suddenly asked, “Yingying, where did this orange come from?”

“Picked it from the tree.” Feng Yingying pointed casually.

“Where?” The man still didn’t see it. Chang Xianni, still standing under the tree, patted the trunk. “Father, here! This orange tree!”

The man froze.

“That… isn’t an orange tree.”

“…Huh?”