Who Wants to Be the Affectionate Cannon Fodder?! [Quick Transmigration] - Chapter 39

Yu Lin’s mental world was a mess of chaos. The sky, the earth, and the sea were being torn apart by a hurricane, entangled in a broken, jumbled heap. His elongated mental form wandered aimlessly through this narrow, turbulent world.

The howling winds raged and collided. His scattered consciousness was stirred into a tangled knot. 007 had disappeared after saying he was going to find someone, and Yu Lin did not intend to pin all his hopes on the system. He figured he could endure it if he just held on long enough.

In a daze, he seemed to hear a sound: the muffled steps of someone pacing near his ear, a sigh, and intermittent whispers: “No; will resist; strangulation; only Lu.”

Irritated, Yu Lin struggled to open his eyes, only to find no one else in the room.

Was this it? He wondered. Pain so intense it causes hallucinations?

After an unknown amount of time, a warm current pushed into his chaotic mental world. It carried the crisp, cold fragrance of fresh snow and a gentle, calm woody undertone.

(It is my first time seeing such a bizarre mental world.) It was 007’s voice.

(What should be done?)

007 said: (Gather it first, then try to soothe it.)

That warm current captured Yu Lin’s scattered, wandering mental fragments one by one. Those uncontrolled fragments instinctively tried to resist, but for some reason, the moment they were enveloped by the warmth, they surrendered as if touched by a gentle spring breeze.

The gathered mental fragments took on a human shape: Yu Lin’s original appearance, with long, narrow, indifferent eyes and pale, soft lips. The warm current suddenly lagged for a moment, then also coalesced into a human figure in front of Yu Lin, enveloping him.

Yu Lin never expected his mental form to be so sensitive. Everywhere he was touched felt like it had been set ablaze: warm and comforting, making his body feel weak and melting.

He could not help but murmur softly: “Mm, feels so good.”

The stinging pain in his brain was smoothed away. A phantom touch fell upon his hair, pulling back with a light contact only to return again, rhythmic and steady, smoothing down to his spine. The touch suddenly recoiled as if it had hit something it should not have, snapping away like an electric shock.

Then, after a brief daze, it slowly covered him again.

Yu Lin’s mind was blank; he had no strength left. His only thought was that he likely knew this person, and he instinctively sought the warmth that brought him comfort.

The person’s hand gently stroked his back, like smoothing a cat’s fur or coaxing a child to sleep.

Tiny glimmers of light drifted across the chaotic sea. The wind died down. Yu Lin let out a comfortable hum, rested his chin on the person’s shoulder, and fell into a deep sleep.

He slept heavily, his dreams filled only with vast, soft light and a cedar tree that swayed without any wind.

However, recklessly using mental power was a massive drain on Yu Lin’s current state. When he woke up the next morning, though the discomfort and pain had subsided, he felt sluggish and lacked energy.

But it seemed someone was in an even worse state than him.

Perhaps due to an inability to adjust to the environment, Ning Jinghe’s face looked even more exhausted. From the moment they set out, Yu Lin noticed something was off. Ning Jinghe’s phoenix eyes were half-drooped and weary, and he radiated a low-pressure aura, giving off a decadent, “do not approach” beauty.

When Yu Lin boarded the car, he saw Jiang Shiyan approach Ning Jinghe to offer some concern, but he was quickly and coldly brushed off.

Seeing Ning Jinghe rubbing his temples as he walked toward him, Yu Lin rolled down the car window and poked half his head out. He hung his arm casually over the frame and asked lazily, “Want to ride together, Ning-ge?”

Unexpectedly, Ning Jinghe’s footsteps faltered. His expression went momentarily blank and dazed. Then, as if remembering something, his gaze turned complex: “No, I will take the car behind.”

Yu Lin: “?”

Before he could even react, he watched Ning Jinghe turn around and walk toward the following vehicle.

(Why is he like this every time?)

007: (Shen Xingzhuo and Ning Jinghe never got along. Why are you constantly trying to hover around your rival?)

Yu Lin leaned against the window, watching Ning Jinghe’s departing back and Jiang Shiyan following him. He replied thoughtfully: (But I do not think it is a matter of not getting along.)

Since Ning Jinghe was not coming, Yu Lin did not care who his cabin mate was. He found a comfortable position against the window, put on his headphones, and began to feign sleep. He might as well have written “Leave me alone” in big letters on his forehead.

The person who joined him was quite cooperative, not disturbing him once during the trip. That was until the production car was suddenly cut off by another vehicle, forcing a hard brake. The phone on Yu Lin’s lap was thrown to the floor by the inertia.

The wired headphones unplugged, and the AI’s mechanical voice blasted through the speakers: “I died. I died on the night he blocked an arrow for his white moonlight, in the hometown I could never forget. From the distance came”

Yu Lin expressionlessly picked up his phone and plugged the headphones back in. Just as he was about to lean back against the window, he caught Tang Mo’s startled gaze.

Seeing Yu Lin looking at her, Tang Mo did not bother hiding her surprise. She asked: “What on earth are you listening to?”

Yu Lin recited tonelessly: “After Rebirth, I Made the Gloomy General Pursue His Wife in the Crematorium.”

Tang Mo’s lips twitched: “What a… straightforward title.” One look was enough to know exactly what kind of trashy drama it contained.

Yu Lin tilted his head and asked: “You want to listen?”

Tang Mo shook her head like a rattle. She simply found it hard to imagine that on the surface, Shen Xingzhuo was arrogant, pampered, and overbearingly Alpha, yet in private, he enjoyed listening to such melodramatic ancient romance novels.

“I did not expect your hobbies to be so unique, Little Treasure. Liking this kind of… hm,” Tang Mo said. “Though I also like using melodramatic novels as background noise when I am free.”

“Oh, it is not like that.” Yu Lin tapped the pause button. “I am just curious what people think about when they are in love.”

He had the same thought when observing various romance novels in his previous world.

Yu Lin knew his emotions were atypical. He did not know the cause of this abnormality and had no intention of digging deep into it. However, this defect was sometimes disadvantageous. For instance, he could never decipher Lin He’s hot-and-cold behavior, nor could he understand the profound depths of affection from Lin Zhou or Shen Xingzhuo.

He had tried observing couples on campus, whether they were shy and pure or acting as if no one else existed, and he could not understand any of it. Only text would describe the origins and processes of emotions in detail. Yet, even with these ups and downs, he still could not comprehend the act of loving and hating, living and dying for someone who, in his eyes, was not even that impressive.

Take the one he was listening to now: the male lead was essentially a solid bastard wrapped in reinforced concrete.

“Xingzhuo, have you never been in love?”

“Hm?” Yu Lin raised his eyelids, looking somewhat confused.

Tang Mo pointed at his phone and smiled. “Normal people in love do not act like this. Take this male lead: if any man dared to say to me, ‘Know your place, you are not even worth a ten-thousandth of her,’ I would have slapped him across the face long ago. There would not be a story afterward.”

Yu Lin glanced at the progress bar in confusion. He had not heard that line yet, so he looked at Tang Mo with a bit more scrutiny.

“You know what happens next?”

Tang Mo belatedly realized she had exposed her own secret. She awkwardly covered her mouth and stammered: “Well… I admit, sometimes it does sound quite exciting. For example, the more you scold the characters, the more you want to listen just to see what kind of mess they will make next. But when I found out the female lead forgave the male lead so easily at the end, I was so angry I could not eat for three days.”

Yu Lin did not care much about that. He thought for a moment and asked tentatively: “Are you an expert in these things?”

Tang Mo blinked and said playfully: “Sister has seen more pigs than you have eaten bowls of rice.”

Yu Lin did not quite understand the strange metaphor, but he asked anyway: “Then do you know why someone who used to be very good to you would suddenly become distant for no reason?”

Tang Mo was stunned. Her first instinct was to look at the driver. Seeing that the driver was focused on the road and completely indifferent to their conversation, her eyes sparkled. She whispered: “Does a friend of yours have relationship problems?”

Yu Lin said blankly: “Does this count?”

“Male or female?”

Yu Lin: “Male.”

Tang Mo paused. “How good was the relationship before? Did anything happen before he started ignoring your friend?”

“He cooked for him, bought him whatever he wanted, and liked to pat his head. Nothing happened” Yu Lin paused, a sudden spark of realization hitting him. “There was one thing. It should be considered adolescent troubles? It felt like the sudden arrival of spring.”

Tang Mo did not understand what adolescent troubles or the arrival of spring meant; surely it was not the dirty thoughts in her head? But looking at Yu Lin’s serious expression, it did not seem like that was the case.

“Generally, sudden distancing only happens for two reasons: either they hate you to death, or they love you to death. The former might be because they have endured too much for too long and were already tired of it beneath the surface, and a single trigger caused an explosion. As for the latter”

Tang Mo spoke with great authority, continuing to analyze the situation for Yu Lin all the way until they reached the airport.

Ning Jinghe, who arrived shortly after, ignored Jiang Shiyan’s lingering gaze. His eyes instinctively sought out the two of them. He watched as Tang Mo leaned into Yu Lin’s arm, whispering more and more intimately. Yu Lin seemed to hear something that made his face freeze in shock, his eyes blinking in a muddled, obedient daze.

Ning Jinghe lowered his eyes and pressed his hand to his forehead again. His head was starting to throb again. Likely because he had not slept well last night, the pain kept coming in waves this morning.

“What is wrong? Carsick again?” Jiang Shiyan asked nearby, feigning casual concern.

Ning Jinghe shook his head and did not speak.

He did not know what kind of dream he had in the middle of the night. He only remembered a voice telling him to go and comfort someone. Then, his body had been mysteriously transported to a strange, treacherous sea.

A beautiful young man had leaned into his arms, obediently letting him touch his head and back. Occasionally, a low, soft groan escaped the boy’s lips, like the cry of a kitten, stirring a restless, straying impulse in Ning Jinghe’s heart.

And this morning, from the very first moment he saw Shen Xingzhuo, despite them having two completely different faces, they had overlapped in that instant.

Ning Jinghe thought to himself: If I have not gone crazy, then it can only be…