When a Yandere Cannon Fodder Meets a Dark, Twisted Villain - Chapter 28

As the night deepened, Shi Yining gazed at the only jade couch in the room, her fingers unconsciously clutching her sleeves.

“There are no extra beds in the room.”

Her voice held a hint of unease. “Wait a moment, Daoist Mo. Let me set up a temporary one.”

Just as she was about to head outside, her slender wrist was suddenly caught in an instant.

A voice as melodious as pearls and jade reached her ears. “This couch is quite spacious; it is enough to accommodate two people.”

The tone was calm, yet it made Shi Yining’s heart skip a beat.

Seeing her remain silent, Shu Mo spoke again, her voice dropping slightly, carrying an indiscernible trace of bitterness. “Does Daoist Shi… despise me for my blindness and feel unwilling to share a bed with me?”

“No! I meant no such thing,” Shi Yining denied hurriedly, her voice raising reflexively.

At that moment, the candlelight flickered, casting a warm glow over the tall, elegant woman standing before her. Her eyes were closed, and her long, butterfly-wing lashes trembled slightly.

Shi Yining suddenly remembered that Shu Mo had lost her sight to save her. It felt as if something had gently knocked against her heart. “In that case… I shall do as Daoist Mo says.”

A faint, nearly imperceptible smile flickered across Shu Mo’s lips as she walked slowly toward the jade couch.

Reaching the bed, her fingertips brushed past the hanging bed curtains as if by accident. The tassels on both sides were pulled by this slight movement, swaying gently in the candlelight.

Shi Yining stood rooted to the spot, a sense of tension rising within her for no reason, her fingers instinctively curling into her sleeves to grip the cool fabric.

Sleeping on the same couch… such intimacy was something she had never experienced, whether in her past life or this one.

Her gaze followed the elegant figure involuntarily. For a moment, another figure began to overlap with the woman before her… she inevitably thought of Jiang Liuyue once more.

If that possessive evil spirit were to find out, she would surely be overturned by a tide of jealousy…

Shi Yining’s heart jolted. She suddenly recalled the night before the demon outbreak in the Nine-Fold Abyss, when Jiang Liuyue had also accompanied her to sleep on this very bed. In her hazy consciousness, she seemed to hear the spirit’s low murmur: “If Miss Shi dares to share a bed with another, I shall lock her away in a place where no one can find her. From then on, Miss Shi will belong to me alone, day and night…”

“Daoist Shi, why don’t you come over?”

The clear, cold voice reached her ears, shattering the silence of the room and disrupting Shi Yining’s tumbling thoughts.

She snapped back to her senses only to see that Shu Mo had already removed her shoes and socks, revealing her jade-like feet. She was sitting peacefully at the edge of the bed, her ink-black hair cascading like a waterfall over her shoulders. Her plain white inner robe was slightly loose at the collar, faintly revealing her delicate collarbones.

Shi Yining felt her cheeks suddenly burn, and even her breathing grew a bit ragged.

“I… I am not sleepy yet…” she replied hastily, her voice carrying a flustered tone she hadn’t even noticed herself.

“Even if you are not sleepy, you can come to the bed to rest first.” Shu Mo tilted her head slightly, “looking” toward her direction, a shallow smile playing on her lips.

Shi Yining bit her lip, her face growing even hotter.

She hesitated before shuffling forward, slowly reaching the bedside. Just as she was about to speak, she saw Shu Mo reach out and accurately touch her sleeve.

“What is Daoist Shi afraid of?” Her fingertips slid slowly down the sleeve, grazing her wrist as light as a feather. “Could it be… you are afraid of me?”

The touch at her wrist was light as gossamer, yet it made Shi Yining tremble all over.

She looked down at the woman’s closed eyes, her mind once again replaying their recent experiences… the resolute rescue from the demon’s claws; the refusal to let go when they were swept into the vortex; being trapped in the cage together where Shu Mo used her pupil technique to trap the enemy; and finally, the avalanche in the Great Frozen Realm where Shu Mo shielded her with her own body.

Every scene was stained with this person’s warmth.

All of this was something Shu Mo didn’t have to endure…

“Daoist Mo has saved me more than once…” Shi Yining said softly, her fingers unconsciously curling and uncurling. “How could I be afraid of you?”

She finally took off her shoes and socks, lifted the brocade quilt, and slowly lay down.

“Does Daoist Shi usually sleep in her outer robes?” A playful inquiry sounded in her ear. Shi Yining instinctively clutched her collar. “I… I prefer it this way.”

She turned her head away, but her earlobes turned a faint red uncontrollably.

Shu Mo gave a soft laugh and lay down beside her. A clear, cold scent drifted past Shi Yining’s nose. Shu Mo groped blindly until she touched the hand clutching the collar, her fingers gently probing into the gaps of her fingers, slowly interlocking their hands.

“Under that hot spring…” Her voice grew lower, carrying an indiscernible hint of ambiguity. “I have already touched Daoist Shi’s garments.”

Shi Yining’s breath hitched. Those suppressed memories came rushing back in an instant… the breath exchanged between their lips, the ripples that rose in her heart during their soft contact……

At this moment, as they lay side-by-side on the couch, she could clearly feel the warmth radiating from the person next to her… This was the person for whom she had given everything in her past life, yet had ultimately failed to reach.

If it had been her past self, facing the current situation, she likely would have been unable to suppress the searing heat in her chest; she would have pulled the woman tightly into her arms, refusing to let her escape by even half an inch…

Suddenly, a series of unpleasant memories surfaced. The bitterness of unrequited longing in her previous life—the past where love turned into obsession, and obsession into madness, leading her to commit grave errors—caused a fine, needle-like pain to bloom in her heart.

Unobtrusively, Shi Yining turned over, attempting to put some distance between herself and Shu Mo to calm the sudden, turbulent tide of her emotions.

However, she had forgotten that at this moment, their fingers were still tightly interlocked.

The moment she turned, Shu Mo applied a slight pressure to her wrist. The force was not heavy, yet it carried an undeniable firmness, drawing Shi Yining into her embrace.

“Daoist Shi is avoiding me…”

A soft, somewhat aggrieved inquiry drifted into her ear. Warm breath brushed against the side of Shi Yining’s neck, causing her to freeze instantly.

Her forehead was forced against a slender shoulder, and she could clearly feel the steady, powerful heartbeat thrumming through the fabric.

This sudden embrace caused the obsessions of her past life and the palpitations of her current life to collide violently.

The emotions that she hadn’t had the chance to savor while on the brink of death were now quietly flourishing.

Some boundaries had perhaps already become blurred when they were depending on each other for survival…

The night wind drifted through the half-open window, bringing the bitter medicinal scent of the spiritual herb garden from afar. This breath of air was like a cold spring flowing through her heart, making Shi Yining snap back to clarity.

Between her past and present lives, too many questions remained unanswered. How could she easily fall into this, indulging in this fleeting moment of warmth?

Channeling a sliver of spiritual power, she leaned back slightly. “Daoist Mo… I am not avoiding you, it is just…”

Her fingertips curled unconsciously, yet they were still held firmly in the other woman’s palm.

“Just what?”

“Just that I feel it is better for us to maintain some distance.”

Shi Yining shifted her gaze toward the window and continued, “Previously, Daoist Mo told my Junior Sister that fellow disciples should not be too close. Since we are neither from the same sect nor related, we should be even more… mindful of boundaries.”

The moment those words left her lips, she felt the jade-like hand holding hers stiffen for a second.

Taking advantage of this opening, Shi Yining hardened her heart and completely broke free from the other’s restraint.

Shu Mo leaned in again, closing the distance, her clear and cold fragrance enveloping Shi Yining like a net.

“Daoist Shi speaks of… boundaries? Then, under the hot spring, after I shared my breath and you regained consciousness, why didn’t you push me away immediately? Instead, you held me as we flew out of the water together.”

“The situation was urgent then…” Shi Yining’s defense sounded pale and weak.

“And what about interlocking fingers in the cage? At that time, Daoist Shi likewise did not push me away… And during the avalanche, when my spiritual power was exhausted from blocking Ruoying’s attack—though you had little strength left yourself, you didn’t push me away. Instead, you cast a spell to add a layer of defense for me, struggling to hold on… Were all these things truly forced by circumstances?”

The barrage of questions left Shi Yining speechless.

“Ning’er.” Shu Mo suddenly changed the form of address, her fingertips gently stroking the woman’s cloud-like hair. “May I call you that?”

“Mm…” A tiny response, as quiet as a mosquito’s hum.

“Is Ning’er truly rejecting me, or is she afraid… to admit her own heart?”

Shi Yining suddenly turned her head away, her voice carrying a suppressed tremor that seemed like a mix of anger and sorrow.

“My heart… I expressed my feelings to Daoist Mo as early as two months ago. Isn’t Daoist Mo well aware of that? I, however, would like to ask Daoist Mo: you used to ignore me so much, treating me with such coldness and distance. Why the sudden change in attitude now?”

Shu Mo remained silent for a moment, the pad of her thumb slowly grazing the delicate skin.

“Does Ning’er know of the grievances between the Yuehua and Xuanqing Sects?”

“I know some.”

“Actually… long before I met Ning’er at the Immortals’ Teahouse, my mother forced me to swear a toxic oath: that in this life, I must never be close to a cultivator of the Xuanqing Sect, especially… the disciple of Sect Leader Qin.”

Shi Yining froze.

After the initial shock passed, a deep chill surged from the depths of her heart, spreading through her entire being… It turned out that whether in her past life or this one, there was never any possibility for her and Shu Mo from the very start. An unbridgeable chasm lay between them.

“If that is the case…” Her voice was so light it seemed it might shatter in the air. “Then what do Daoist Mo’s current actions amount to?”

Shu Mo pulled her deeper into her embrace, her voice carrying a vulnerability never heard before.

“That day, seeing Ning’er rush forward regardless of her life to save her Junior Sister… do you know how afraid I was? Afraid that I would lose you forever like that…”

She admitted she harbored hostility toward Ning’er’s Junior Sister, Yu Chang… she could tell that the girl liked Ning’er.

More importantly, Ning’er had risked her life to save that person. Without Yu Chang, Ning’er would not have fallen into danger.

When she saw the demon’s claw reaching for the person she loved, Shu Mo’s heart was filled with desperate panic. That single sword strike against the claw had far exceeded the strength she was normally capable of…

Warm tears fell silently onto Shi Yining’s neck.

“I regret it so much… I regret being bound by that toxic oath, hesitating to get close to Ning’er, not daring to speak my heart… Does Ning’er know? Even before we met at the Immortals’ Teahouse, I had seen Ning’er’s portrait and heard of her many deeds. My admiration for Ning’er began even then…”

Support