Chapter 15: Let Me Forget Everything, Su Yuan

The afternoon sunlight filtered through the leaves, dappling the stone path with scattered spots of light.

Su Yuan hid behind the bushes, her fingers clutching her skirt so tightly that her knuckles turned white.

She gazed at the hunched white figure by the lake, shoulders trembling slightly.

Muffled sobs came in fragments, interspersed with indistinct murmurs carried on the wind.

Hearing that voice, Su Yuan’s heart felt as if it were being squeezed by an invisible hand—aching, bitter, suffocating.

Guilt tightened around her like a vice.

Those choked words of longing, those accusations laced with resentment—each one pricked her heart like a fine needle.

The rescue and abandonment three years ago.

The backstage manipulation and escape at the concert.

Every time she drew near, every time she retreated, she had added invisible cracks to the seemingly indomitable Bai Shimo.

And now, she could see, in the depths of those cracks, the truest sorrow.

As the strongest magical girl, Bai Shimo bore immense pressure.

As the ace magical girl, she carried the city’s safety on her shoulders and bore the weight of everyone’s expectations.

As the new transfer student—the center of attention, the de facto leader—she desperately tried to fit in, to handle every relationship perfectly.

Yet with Su Yuan, she had hit the hardest wall.

Su Yuan’s constant avoidance was like a silent denial of all her goodwill and effort.

“No matter how hard I try, people still criticize me…”

That sentence struck Su Yuan’s heart like a blow.

It wasn’t that she disliked Bai Shimo.

She was just afraid.

But her fear had become a blade that wounded the other girl.

Watching someone who usually radiated such brilliance now so fragile, so close to breaking—

A crack formed in the thick wall of self-protection Su Yuan had built around herself.

She didn’t want to see Bai Shimo like this.

Not at all.

After only a few seconds of hesitation, her feet moved of their own accord, stepping quietly out from behind the bushes.

She walked slowly, softly, afraid of startling the girl’s fragile heart.

Only when she was close enough to see Bai Shimo’s tear-dampened eyelashes did she stop.

“Bai Shimo, are you okay?”

Her voice was soft, tentative—and in the silence by the lake, it rang out with startling clarity.

The sobbing stopped abruptly.

Bai Shimo turned her head like a startled fawn.

Those amber eyes, usually so bright and smiling, were now red and swollen, filled with tears—and with unprepared shock.

She hadn’t expected anyone to find her here.

Least of all Su Yuan.

“Su-Su Yuan…?”

Her voice was thick with nasal congestion, laced with the panic of being discovered.

The next moment, she instinctively raised her sleeve and rubbed fiercely at her cheeks, trying to wipe away every trace of tears.

The corners of her mouth strained upward, but the smile she forced out was stiff and hollow—more painful to see than tears.

“I-I’m fine!”

She spoke hurriedly, her gaze darting away, unable to meet Su Yuan’s eyes.

“Why are you here?

D-do you need something?”

Su Yuan didn’t answer.

She simply walked over slowly.

After a moment’s hesitation, she sat down on the stone steps beside Bai Shimo, leaving a small distance between them—polite, but no longer unreachable.

The lake shimmered with rippling light, reflecting their silent profiles.

After a long pause, Su Yuan spoke softly, her gaze fixed on the water, but her voice carrying clearly to Bai Shimo’s ears:

“Bai Shimo, you’re sad, aren’t you?”

Bai Shimo stiffened.

The hand wiping her eyes stopped mid-motion.

Su Yuan turned to look into those eyes that pretended to smile but couldn’t hide their loss.

“You said before that if I had trouble, I could come to you,”

she paused, her fingertips curling inward as if gathering courage.

“So, if you have worries…

I’m willing to listen too.”

The moment those words left her mouth, even Su Yuan was surprised.

That wasn’t something the usual her—the one who wanted to shrink into her shell—would ever say.

Bai Shimo stared at her blankly, her eyes reddening again, but she stubbornly pressed her lips together and shook her head:

“I’m really fine.

I’m a magical girl—why would I be sad?

It was just sand in my eyes, really!”

She still wouldn’t admit it.

That pride, or perhaps the strength she had to maintain under the title of magical girl, was still putting up a fight.

Su Yuan let out a soft sigh.

This time, she didn’t look away from Bai Shimo’s gaze.

She looked directly into her eyes—into that carefully concealed, yet ultimately exposed, vulnerability.

“You don’t have to tough it out.”

Su Yuan’s voice was gentle, but it carried a piercing quality that broke through Bai Shimo’s last facade.

“I know.

You were crying just now.

Really hard.”

Perhaps it was Su Yuan’s persistence, or that clumsy but sincere concern, that finally pried open a crack in Bai Shimo’s defenses.

She gazed at Su Yuan, dazed—those amber eyes, always filled with sunlight or sharpness, now misted over, shimmering with unshed tears.

Her long, slightly curled lashes trembled once.

A single, clear teardrop fell without warning, tracing a wet path down her fair cheek.

“Su Yuan…” Her voice cracked, trembling with disbelief.

“You really want to listen?

But… weren’t you avoiding me before?”

“No.”

Su Yuan shook her head firmly.

She took a deep breath.

Even though her calves were trembling with nervousness, she tried to keep her voice steady, not letting too much of her timidity show.

“Bai Shimo, I’m sorry for avoiding you the past couple of days.

That was my fault.

I actually… I’m really glad you were willing to come talk to me.”

Those words, offered with careful sincerity, were like a small pebble dropped into still water—ripples spreading through Bai Shimo’s heart.

Bai Shimo sniffled hard, as if she had made up her mind.

She looked away, back toward the shimmering lake, and her voice dropped low, carrying both the ache and the longing to confide.

“Su Yuan, you know…

I actually have someone I really, really hate.”

Su Yuan’s heart gave a jolt.

Her fingertips went cold.

But she forced her face to remain calm, maintaining a listening expression.

“That person… saved me when I was at my most desperate.”

Bai Shimo’s voice drifted, lost in memory.

“Then… just when I had begun to regain a sliver of hope—she abandoned me cruelly.”

“It took me… so long, so much effort, and just when I was about to give up hope, I finally saw her again.

But she… she…”

Her voice caught.

Her shoulders began to tremble again.

Su Yuan hesitated for a moment, then pulled a clean pack of tissues from her school uniform pocket.

She took one out and gently offered it to Bai Shimo—even hesitantly dabbing at the corner of the other girl’s tear-streaked cheek with the tissue’s edge.

“Bai Shimo… take your time.

No rush.”

That unexpectedly intimate gesture made Bai Shimo pause, but she didn’t pull away.

She took the tissue and clutched it tightly in her palm, as if it were an anchor.

“She deceived me again!”

Bai Shimo’s voice suddenly rose, thick with grievance.

“I wish… I wish she had just told me she hated me, or that she had let go of the past…

But why?”

She turned her head, looking directly into Su Yuan’s eyes, her gaze filled with the sting of betrayal and incomprehension:

“Why did she kiss me?

Why give me that kind of… illusion, only to abandon me again?”

“Ahem…”

Su Yuan was too cowardly to speak.

“Sorry, Su Yuan…” Bai Shimo seemed to realize she had grown too emotional.

She pressed a hand to her forehead, her voice weary.

“You probably don’t understand what I’m rambling about…

My mind is just so chaotic, and my heart is so confused…”

“Tell me…” She tilted her face up slightly, those tears-washed eyes—now clearer and more pitiful than ever—looking at Su Yuan with helpless hope.

“What should I do?”

A faint, almost imperceptible twitch flickered at the corner of Su Yuan’s mouth.

Cold sweat was practically beading on her back.

She couldn’t even begin to imagine the terrifying expression Bai Shimo would wear if she ever found out that the “heartless woman who hurt others” was actually the nervous girl sitting right beside her, trying her best to offer comfort.

“Um… well…” Su Yuan cleared her throat, trying to make her voice sound objective and sympathetic.

“That person… really was awful, wasn’t she?”

“I understand how you feel.

Someone who hurts others so heartlessly, so capriciously… the worst kind of person.”

Even as she said it, she felt an absurd pang of guilt.

“Maybe… maybe,” she fumbled for the right words, “Bai Shimo, you could try… something else?

Slowly let it go.

Forget that person…”

“Besides, someone as outstanding as you—that person… that person not knowing how to cherish you is their loss.”

Half consolation, half Su Yuan’s deepest wish—if Bai Shimo could truly let go of her obsession with the “succubus,” then the Sword of Damocles named “Bai Shimo” hanging over her head might finally disappear.

“Loss… really?”

Bai Shimo’s eyes suddenly lit up.

She blinked her tear-laden lashes and took Su Yuan’s hand.

“Su Yuan, you understand me, don’t you?”

“Mmn…”

“Then, Su Yuan… please.

Help me forget everything.”

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