Chapter 18
Her consciousness drifted like a leaf floating on water, sinking and rising with the current.
Lin Xiaogu vaguely heard the door open—
Click.
The sound was very soft, as though whoever entered was afraid of disturbing something.
She tried to open her eyes, but her eyelids felt as heavy as though they had been soaked through with water. After struggling for a moment, her awareness scattered again, and she slowly sank back into that haze.
Half-asleep, she heard someone moving beside her.
The footsteps were quiet, but they stopped somewhere and remained there for a long time. Then they began moving again, going back and forth as though searching for something.
She wanted to ask who it was, but no sound came from her throat.
After an unknown amount of time, the noises finally disappeared.
When Lin Xiaogu awoke again, the living room was still completely dark.
The curtains had not been drawn over the floor-to-ceiling windows. Night seeped in through the glass, dyeing everything dark blue. Even the outlines of the floor were indistinct, like old objects submerged at the bottom of the sea.
She shifted slightly. Her neck ached as though she had slept in an awkward position.
Her gaze casually moved to the side—
Someone was sitting on the sofa.
It was Yu Baiyi.
Lin Xiaogu did not know when Yu Baiyi had returned or how long she had been sitting there. She had not switched on the lights or made a sound. She merely sat silently in the corner of the sofa, her face deathly pale in the glow of the phone screen.
Lin Xiaogu was startled.
“When did you… come back?”
Yu Baiyi did not answer.
She kept her head lowered, staring at the screen in her hand. The cold light carved sharp lines across her brows and eyes. Her fingers remained motionless, and her entire body resembled a statue devoid of warmth.
Lin Xiaogu rubbed her eyes as her vision gradually cleared.
Then she looked more closely—
It was her phone.
“Baiyi, what are you doing?”
She instinctively leaned closer, trying to see what was displayed on the screen.
Before she could finish speaking, Yu Baiyi suddenly shoved her shoulder.
The force came so abruptly that Lin Xiaogu fell backward, her elbow striking the armrest of the sofa with a muffled thud.
Pain seeped through the gaps between her bones, fine and persistent.
“Lin Xiaogu.”
Yu Baiyi finally spoke.
Her voice was as cold as tap water in winter, each word forced from her throat one by one.
Lin Xiaogu held her injured elbow and said nothing.
She recognized that tone. It meant Yu Baiyi was angry.
But she did not know what she was angry about.
There had never been a password on Lin Xiaogu’s phone. She had never guarded it from Yu Baiyi. There was nothing inside she needed to hide, and Yu Baiyi could look through it whenever she wished.
So what was making her angry?
Lin Xiaogu could not understand.
“Lin Xiaogu,” Yu Baiyi called her name again, lowering the final syllable even further. “Don’t you have anything you want to say?”
She raised her head and stared directly at Lin Xiaogu.
The glow from the screen could not reach her pupils. There was only a heavy darkness inside them.
Lin Xiaogu thought for a long time.
“I don’t know.”
After a while, she shook her head.
“You don’t know? Fine.”
Yu Baiyi laughed in fury.
“Then explain this message and the person in your photo album!”
The screen remained illuminated, displaying the message Luo Yu had sent the previous night.
Yu Baiyi opened the photo album and swiped through the pictures one after another.
They were photographs Lin Xiaogu and Luo Yu had taken at the aquarium that day.
In the first picture, Luo Yu stood against the glass beside the beluga whale, turning back with a smile.
The second was a selfie of the two of them with their heads pressed together, each wearing a beluga-shaped hair clip.
“Lin Xiaogu,” Yu Baiyi enunciated through clenched teeth, “how dare you cheat on me?”
Lin Xiaogu froze.
It took three full seconds for her to understand what those words meant.
“What… do you mean, cheat?”
The haze of having just awakened had not yet cleared, and the accusation thrown at her only made her thoughts more confused.
“No, Baiyi. We’re only friends—”
“Friends?” Yu Baiyi interrupted, her voice rising. “Since when did you have so many friends without my knowing?”
She switched off the phone screen, then switched it on again, as though desperately restraining herself.
“Xi Bingye, Lin Ziyue, and now some woman I don’t even know. Lin Xiaogu, when did you suddenly become so fond of making friends?”
The accusations struck her one after another.
Lin Xiaogu opened her mouth, then closed it again.
For some reason, a faint ripple suddenly appeared in her usually quiet, undisturbed heart.
Why did Yu Baiyi never listen to her explanations?
She said softly, “Baiyi, whether you believe me or not, we truly are only friends. I was in a bad mood today, so she invited me out to help me relax. We took a few photographs. That’s all.”
“If you were upset, why didn’t you tell me?”
“…”
“Why did you go out with an outsider?”
Lin Xiaogu turned her face away.
“Fine. Don’t speak.”
Yu Baiyi turned her back in anger and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, pacing once before suddenly spinning around.
“Lin Xiaogu, answer me!”
Lin Xiaogu’s shoulders trembled slightly.
She did not turn back. She merely spoke toward a random point in the darkness.
“I’ve explained everything I can explain. I don’t know what else I’m supposed to say.”
Yu Baiyi took a deep breath.
A moment later, her tone suddenly became calm.
“Lin Xiaogu, I’m giving you one final chance.”
She bent down and stared directly into Lin Xiaogu’s eyes.
“Delete her now, and I’ll consider this matter over.”
Lin Xiaogu looked up.
In the darkness, she met those beautiful eyes.
In the past, she had seen tenderness in them, laughter, and the damp haze of desire.
Now, there was only a cold, unwavering light that permitted no objection.
She shook her head.
The movement was faint but resolute.
“I can’t delete her.”
“You’re making me angry over an outsider?” Yu Baiyi asked, emphasizing each word.
Lin Xiaogu sighed softly.
“I’ve never wanted to make you angry.”
“Then why didn’t you ask me before making friends with her?!”
Lin Xiaogu did not speak.
She simply looked at Yu Baiyi.
She had looked at that face for six years. She could trace its contours even with her eyes closed.
They had shared countless meals in this house and woken and fallen asleep in the same bed.
Lin Xiaogu believed she knew Yu Baiyi very well.
Yet the person standing before her now gradually overlapped with a certain shadow from her memories.
Yu Baiyi had always been like this.
Irritable and suspicious, becoming furious over the smallest matters.
Lin Xiaogu had endured all of it before—the unreasonable demands, the groundless accusations, the sight of her slamming the door and leaving.
She had silently swallowed everything, choosing to digest it alone before getting up the next morning as though nothing had happened and making breakfast.
She had only wanted to prevent Baiyi from becoming angry.
But when had her tolerance become her own wrongdoing?
She had merely gone out with a friend and taken a few photographs.
Had she truly done something wrong?
What would happen if she stopped tolerating it today?
What if she said the words she had suppressed for two years?
Where would their relationship end up?
Lin Xiaogu heard her own heartbeat.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Each beat was heavier than the last.
“Silent again.” Yu Baiyi’s voice came from above her. “Lin Xiaogu, I hate it most when you act like this.”
“What is it? Are you too guilty to speak? Or did you truly cheat on me?!”
Lin Xiaogu bit her lower lip.
The taste of iron spread across her tongue.
The pain pulled her out of her chaotic thoughts.
She raised her head. Her face was perfectly still, but something inside her eyes had shattered.
“You always say,” she began quietly, her voice like a leaf falling onto the surface of a lake, “that I didn’t ask you before making friends.”
She paused.
“But Baiyi, you didn’t ask me before getting engaged either.”
The moment those words fell, the living room became deathly silent.
Lin Xiaogu’s entire body shook violently.
She had truly said it.
She had finally spoken the words that had remained trapped inside her heart for far too long and said them directly to Yu Baiyi.
She did not know what kind of storm she would have to face next, but the damp, suffocating mass that had blocked her chest for so long suddenly disappeared.
Even her breathing became easier.
Lin Xiaogu lowered her head, not daring to look at Yu Baiyi’s reaction.
But she did not need to look to know that Yu Baiyi was probably glaring at her viciously with those beautiful eyes.
Sure enough, Yu Baiyi suddenly erupted.
“You probably still don’t understand why I became engaged, do you? Haven’t you always asked whether I was serious when I said I wanted to marry you? I’m telling you now—it was true!”
Yu Baiyi paused, her chest rising and falling violently.
“But I can’t do it!”
“Lin Xiaogu, do you think I don’t want to marry you?” Yu Baiyi’s voice trembled. “You dare question why I didn’t tell you before getting engaged, but before questioning me, shouldn’t you first ask yourself—”
She clenched her teeth, forcing every word through them.
“Why you had to be a Beta?”
Lin Xiaogu abruptly raised her head.
She could scarcely believe what she had heard.
Yu Baiyi—Baiyi—had just blamed her…
Blamed her for being a Beta?
“Do you know how humiliated I am in front of my family because you’re a Beta?” Yu Baiyi continued, unable to stop now that the floodgates had opened. “They all know that the person closest to me, Yu Baiyi, is the most ordinary, most useless, most insignificant Beta!”
Every word Yu Baiyi spoke was like a blunt knife.
Again and again, it cut into Lin Xiaogu’s heart.
She had thought—
She had always thought—
She had believed Baiyi was the only person who did not care about her classification.
Because she did not care, she had given Lin Xiaogu warm food, allowed her to live in this home, and embraced and kissed her late at night.
Lin Xiaogu had believed Baiyi was the gentlest and most fair-minded person in the world—the person least likely to look at her with that kind of contempt.
Yet this person had just said—
Her very existence humiliated her.
Lin Xiaogu suddenly felt the belief that had supported her for so many years begin to collapse piece by piece.
Agonizing pain tore through her chest.
Every second felt as though someone were slowly carving the flesh from her heart with a small knife, then casually throwing it onto the ground for passersby to trample.
Those bloody wounds told her with perfect clarity—
Just how laughable all her years of devotion had been.
Yu Baiyi’s voice seemed to come from far away.
“Why aren’t you speaking? Do you know what I was thinking when I became engaged to Lin Ziyue?”
“Please… don’t say anything else…”
Lin Xiaogu begged, her voice nearly breaking into sobs.
Yu Baiyi looked at Lin Xiaogu’s violently trembling body and suddenly felt a trace of satisfaction.
She knew this reaction meant Lin Xiaogu was afraid.
Yu Baiyi bent down, moving closer to her face.
Even if these words did not reflect what she truly felt, anger had already clouded her mind.
At that moment, she only wanted to use the most vicious, extreme words possible to vent her fury.
“When I became engaged to Lin Ziyue, I was thinking that no one would finally be able to laugh at me anymore…!”
The sentence fell into the darkness without an echo.
Lin Xiaogu lowered her eyes.
She could no longer see anything.
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