Chapter 12: Happy

Bai Zhinuo watched it all happen.

Shen Qingci stood in the moonlight. She raised the baseball bat and swung it down three times. Three silent bodies lay on the floor.

It was only in this moment that a trace of fear finally stirred in Bai Zhinuo’s heart.

But the fear wasn’t of Shen Qingci. It was an instinctive fear of the bloody, mangled bodies on the ground.

She shrank her thin, small body tightly into the corner, trembling. Her small hand pressed hard over the pocket on her chest.

Shen Qingci stood amid the scattered wood shavings and blood. The baseball bat slipped from her hand and clattered to the floor.

She closed her eyes for a moment. Her chest rose and fell twice as she breathed out the stale air that had been pent up since her transmigration.

“System, clean it up.”

[Ding! Executing trace removal.]

Bai Zhinuo’s pupils contracted sharply.

She watched the blood on the ground, the large splotches that had splashed across the concrete floor and onto the wood shavings, start to fade.

It was like an invisible eraser sweeping from the edges toward the center, the color slowly peeling away, the marks disappearing.

Then came the three bodies.

Zhao Min’s curled form in the corner began to blur. Her outline turned translucent, like watercolor paper soaked by rain, the pigment dissolving into the floor.

Zhang Rui’s kneeling figure faded gradually too, from the feet upward.

Liu Jia vanished last.

In less than ten seconds, every trace of the three women’s existence was gone from the room.

The ground was clean. Not a drop of blood remained.

Wood shavings still littered the floor, and the remains of the wooden door were still piled at the entrance. But otherwise, the room was as spotless as if nothing had happened at all.

Bai Zhinuo watched all this with her mouth slightly open.

If Shen Qingci’s abrupt personality change could be explained away as someone who had been crushed to their limit and finally lashed out, this unnatural scene went far beyond anything Bai Zhinuo could comprehend.

Could a human being really do this?

Her mind felt like someone had pressed pause. The images from moments ago got stuck inside her head, refusing to turn.

Shen Qingci turned around.

She looked tired. She lifted a hand and wiped her face, and when her fingers scraped past the swollen handprint on her left cheek, she let out a soft hiss.

But when she saw Bai Zhinuo curled up in the corner, eyes wide and staring at her, a smile crept back onto her lips.

Bai Zhinuo watched Shen Qingci walk over to her. The few drops of blood on her skirt faded as well, and the fabric returned to its clean blue-and-white base.

She looked cool and detached, nothing like someone who had just taken lives.

Instead, she squatted down in front of her like a quiet older sister from next door, less than an arm’s length away.

“Little thing.”

Her voice slid back into the lazy drawl Bai Zhinuo was familiar with, laced with amusement and a dangerous sort of coaxing.

“Now you know another secret of mine.”

She reached out and lightly flicked a loose strand of white hair that hung beside Bai Zhinuo’s face, curling it around her fingertip, then tucked it behind her ear.

When her fingertip brushed against Bai Zhinuo’s soft earlobe, Bai Zhinuo’s whole body shivered.

“Are you happy?”

Bai Zhinuo stared at her.

Moonlight poured through the glassless window frame, illuminating half of Shen Qingci’s face.

“Ha… happy…”

Bai Zhinuo’s lips moved weakly, her voice hoarse.

“Happy… you, you just now, you…”

She couldn’t continue, her throat clogged with a sob.

Shen Qingci tilted her head. Her fingertip slid down from behind Bai Zhinuo’s ear to her chin, lifting it gently.

“Mm.”

She admitted it without hesitation.

“I killed them and sent them to reincarnate in another world.”

Bai Zhinuo’s eyes grew even rounder.

“They won’t be coming back.”

Shen Qingci brushed her thumb across Bai Zhinuo’s chin, as gently as if she were stroking a small cat.

“No one will even notice they’re gone. You’re safe.”

“I…”

Bai Zhinuo swallowed several times, forcing her fear down a little.

“Why did you…”

“Why kill them?”

Shen Qingci laughed. The laugh carried a hint of helplessness.

“Because they touched you. I don’t like others touching my things. Toys don’t get a pass either.”

Bai Zhinuo froze. The tears that hadn’t dried in her eyes welled up once more, blurring her vision.

She watched Shen Qingci crouched in front of her. That almost unbearably beautiful face was etched with exhaustion and a faint, unhealthy smile.

The swollen bruise on her left cheek caught the moonlight as a dark shadow, but when those eyes fixed on her…

All of a sudden, Bai Zhinuo felt that the small patch of warmth at the very bottom of those eyes had grown a little bigger than it was this afternoon.

“Shen Qingci…”

She heard her own voice, soft and tiny.

“Does your face still hurt?”

Shen Qingci froze.

She probably hadn’t expected that to be what Bai Zhinuo would blurt out after holding it in for so long.

Those wine-red eyes widened for a split second, then curved even deeper than before.

“It hurts.”

She said it with a cheeky grin. She lifted a hand and touched her swollen left cheek, hissing softly when her fingers pressed against the bruise.

“What, you want to blow on it for me?”

Bai Zhinuo’s face flushed bright red.

She shrank her neck and buried the lower half of her face in the crook of her arm, revealing only her wet lavender eyes as she looked at Shen Qingci.

“If… if you don’t mind, then I could…”

Shen Qingci laughed out loud at that, a short, hushed laugh as if she were afraid of startling her.

“Alright, alright. I’m not that fussy.”

She stood up and offered a hand to Bai Zhinuo.

“Stop curling up. The floor is cold. It’ll be a hassle if you get sick.”

Bai Zhinuo looked at the hand stretched out in front of her.

The fingers were fair and slender, neatly trimmed nails, palm turned upward as if waiting for her to fall into it.

She hesitated for two seconds, then slowly extended her own hand.

When that hand, so thin it was almost just skin and bone, landed in Shen Qingci’s palm, warmth seeped up through the skin. Bai Zhinuo’s nose stung for no reason.

Shen Qingci took her hand and pulled her up off the ground.

Bai Zhinuo’s knees were still weak as she rose. Her whole body pitched forward, her forehead nearly colliding with Shen Qingci’s shoulder.

Shen Qingci quickly grabbed her arm, and her other hand braced Bai Zhinuo’s lower back.

The two of them ended up pressed close together.

Bai Zhinuo had practically stumbled into Shen Qingci’s arms.

She caught that cool, faint floral scent on Shen Qingci, mixed with a trace of blood. But even that blood smell was gradually fading, something drew it away bit by bit.

Shen Qingci looked down at her. They were so close that each breath could wash over the other’s face.

“What happened to your face?”

Shen Qingci spoke suddenly, the amusement in her voice thinning.

Her gaze settled on the distinct handprint on Bai Zhinuo’s left cheek. She studied the red, swollen skin and the broken corner of her mouth. The idle playfulness in her eyes was gone entirely.

Bai Zhinuo instinctively raised a hand to cover it, but Shen Qingci gently caught her wrist, keeping it still.

“I asked you a question.”

Shen Qingci’s voice held clear refusal to be disobeyed.

“Did she hit you just now?”

Bai Zhinuo’s lips moved, and finally she gave a tiny nod.

Shen Qingci said nothing more.

Her thumb swept across the split at the corner of Bai Zhinuo’s mouth, rubbing away a dry patch of blood scab. The touch was gentle and careful, not hurting Bai Zhinuo at all.

“Where else?”

Bai Zhinuo shook her head, but the movement sent a sharp sting through her scalp, and she instinctively winced.

Her whole body trembled from the pain.

Shen Qingci’s sharp gaze landed on her hairline. The scalp there was red where Zhao Min had yanked at it. Several strands of white hair had been torn out at the roots, leaving tiny blood beads oozing from the follicles.

Shen Qingci’s eyes went cold in an instant.

📚 Also on NHV Novels

Our Guide to the Second World

CapableDevotedGuideverse

Read Now →
Not interested