After Transmigrating As The Mother Of The Pitiful Female Supporting Character in a Campus Novel - Chapter 46

Because the rules hadn’t explicitly forbidden such behavior beforehand, the production crew found it difficult to pull a straight face. They allowed this blatant “cheating” to happen in silence.

The guests, having been teased and toyed with all day, weren’t entirely without a temper; they didn’t leave the director even a shred of dignity when it came to eating and drinking.

Xia Shibai plated separate portions of child-friendly food for the two little girls. Most of the remaining “spoils” ended up on Qin Zhijin’s plate. She urged Qin to eat more, while she herself…

Xia Shibai kept a watchful eye on the crew, lest they pull any more nonsense during the meal.

While everyone was eating, the TV screen in front of them suddenly flickered to life. The show’s logo flashed, followed by the introduction of the next set of rules.

“The four families are divided into two camps. Completed tasks are calculated into the daily task score; failed tasks count as zero. The camp with the higher total score earns 1 point. Similarly, within each camp, the individual family with the higher score earns 1 point.”

“Children, please come forward to draw your task cards for tomorrow.”

Xia Yaozhou, who was busy battling a plate of spaghetti, looked up suddenly. With sauce still smeared around her lips, she tilted her head and asked Gu Mingyi what the director meant.

“Tomorrow, we’ll likely be doing tasks separately from the adults,” Gu Mingyi said, handing her a tissue and gesturing for her to wipe her mouth. “If I haven’t guessed wrong.”

“Oh, I see…”

Xia Yaozhou’s eyes moved slightly, but she didn’t seem to care much. She took two more bites of pasta before sliding off her stool at the director’s repeated urging. She trotted over to the table on her short legs.

“After the children draw their cards, please hand them to the adults so they can help you understand the task.”

Xia Yaozhou arrived late. By the time it was her turn, only one card remained. She grabbed it without looking and ran back, stuffing it into Qin Zhijin’s hand before returning to her struggle with the black pepper pasta.

Legal Guardian Xia Shibai: “…”

Oh, so I’m just not your guardian anymore, is that it?

Seeing this, Qin Zhijin offered the card to her. “Do you want to explain it?”

“No need, what’s the difference between us?” Xia Shibai felt a slight pang of jealousy but waved it off, stuffing a piece of sweet and sour pork into her mouth. She was an expert at self-consolation; after all, the time she had spent with Xia Yaozhou was about the same as Qin Zhijin’s. Aside from a faint biological link, there wasn’t much difference.

Qin Zhijin watched Xia Shibai waving her hand while looking utterly dejected and couldn’t help but find it funny.

Clearly reluctant, yet insisting on acting generous. Aside from that stubborn mouth, it seems no part of her is honest.

Gu Mingyi’s vocabulary was larger than Xia Yaozhou’s; she managed to read her card with only a few stumbles. Her task was to study the movement of a sundial and answer questions. It was simple for her; she already knew how to read one.

Xia Yaozhou’s card was to create an artificial rainbow.

When Qin Zhijin read the prompt, Xia Yaozhou was still focused on her food, only half-listening. When asked what her task was tomorrow, she replied, “To go see a rainbow!” and nodded confidently.

Xia Shibai: “…”

It doesn’t look like we’re winning this game.

Xia Shibai decisively moved her stool toward the other camp, hoping to scout their situation. Once there, she realized she had overthought it. After all, the cognitive level of a normal three-year-old was exactly like Xia Yaozhou’s.

Jin Minna had the same prompt as Xia Yaozhou. She knew the words individually, but together, they meant nothing. She looked at Jin Minxi with total confusion.

Jin Minxi, holding the card: “…”

Luckily, I never had high expectations for my dummy sister. Better to rely on myself; at least I’ll have a corner in the nursing home later.

“Forget it, let’s just eat. Eat well, don’t cause trouble tonight, and get some sleep.” Jin Minxi sighed. Softening Jin Minna’s personality through this show was already a feat; learning anything was just a bonus.

Although Sheng Huaixing received early education at home, her environment wasn’t as free as Gu Mingyi’s. She knew a bit of everything but mastered nothing, and she was completely baffled by traditional culture. Even after Sheng Liu explained the sundial in the simplest terms, the child described it as “a big iron pancake with a needle.”

After eavesdropping, Xia Shibai moved back to Qin Zhijin, feeling relieved. “We’re set. The two next door are in even worse shape than us.”

“Even if Zhouzhou doesn’t get points, Mingyi definitely will. We don’t even need to compete; they might as well just declare us winners.”

Xia Shibai’s competitive streak was showing; she swayed slightly as she spoke, a total departure from her usual steady demeanor. It made Qin Zhijin’s heart itch with the desire to reach out and mess with that fluffy hair—hair she had helped dry, after all. What’s wrong with petting a proud, show-off puppy?

Qin Zhijin thought it, and then she did it.

Only when her hand landed on Xia Shibai’s head did she feel something was off—a bit strange. It wasn’t easy to pull back now, so under Xia Shibai’s stunned gaze, she smoothed the hair behind Xia’s ear.

Qin Zhijin said with forced calm: “There was a mosquito on your hair. Just helping you swat it.”

Is it a crime for a puppy to attract bugs?

“Oh. Did you catch it?”

“No.” Qin Zhijin held her palm open in front of Xia Shibai.

As time passed, the sky grew dark. The only lighting at the site came from lightbulbs on extension cords, and the effect was poor. Qin Zhijin’s hand was a blur in the dim light.

Just as she was about to retract it, Xia Shibai grabbed her wrist. Soft fingertips searched her palm, seemingly taking the “mosquito” excuse seriously. She searched for a non-existent carcass in Qin Zhijin’s hand.

The grip on the wrist slowly loosened. Without the restraint of that force, Qin Zhijin’s hand remained steady in front of Xia Shibai.

What started as two fingers became four, then the tips of five, and finally the whole palm.

All resting on Qin Zhijin’s hand.

The touch, warmer than her own palm, made Qin Zhijin sit up straight. Every nerve from her brain to her feet tensed up. Her breathing hitched as the warmth of the palm covered more and more ground.

It wasn’t until their palms were completely overlapped that she heard Xia Shibai say: “I always thought a doctor’s hand bones would be larger than mine. Is your hand actually smaller than mine?”

Qin Zhijin’s cheeks flushed. she wanted to say something but couldn’t open her mouth. She was reluctant to pull her hand away, so she pressed it down, hiding their joined hands beneath the table.

She pretended to eat with her left hand, pushing a piece of dried bamboo shoot to the edge of the bowl with her fork. On the surface, it looked like picky eating; in reality, her heart was in such a mess she didn’t know what to do. She could only perform mundane tasks to cover up her racing heart and her right hand, which was being held and kneaded.

Consequently, when the director called her name several times to draw a task card, she stood up in such a panic that she sent Xia Shibai, who was still holding her hand, stumbling. Xia nearly fell off her stool.

Even though Qin Zhijin thought she had hidden it well, showing no “clues” on the way back to the house, the keen lens captured the subtleties.

“Why did Dr. Qin suddenly stop talking? Sobbing… my wife is still beautiful as a mute.”

“She seems to be dazed…”

“The question is: in such a small place, what is there to be dazed about? Hehehe.”

“Then you have to ask what Dr. Qin’s disappearing right hand was doing under the table during dinner! I really want to know what it was doing to make her almost trip them both when she stood up!”

“Waaaah, why wasn’t there a camera angle for that? Why only the head-petting? Where’s the rest? Spat it out!”

“Head-petting? Dr. Qin said she was swatting a mosquito.”

“Mhm, sure. A mosquito only they had. Was it a Schrödinger-brand homing mosquito released into the wild?”

Qin Zhijin remained unusually silent until bedtime. Her first words only came because Xia Yaozhou insisted on sleeping with Gu Mingyi, leaving the two adults standing aside.

Qin Zhijin tried to reason with them: “If you two sleep together, who will fan you? We have no fan or AC. If it’s hot all night, you’ll get heat rash—it’s painful and itchy.”

“You’ll cry then.”

Xia Yaozhou ran across the two merged small beds, gesturing to their size. “But sleeping with you adults is also hot! This bed is so big; if we two sleep here, there’s lots of room. We won’t get heat rash!”

“And if it is hot, we’d be hot even if we slept in the middle. We wouldn’t even be able to kick off the blankets because you adults would be pinning them down! We’d suffocate by midnight!” Xia Yaozhou decisively lay down, pulling a small corner of the quilt over her belly. “See? This is enough for me. No, don’t cover my whole body!”

Xia Shibai didn’t mind. As long as the kids didn’t sleep outside, it was fine. She said to let them sleep; if they were uncomfortable, they’d crawl back to the middle during the night, or ask to switch back tomorrow.

Qin Zhijin glanced at her, opened her mouth, but didn’t press further. Her fingertips dug into the flesh of her palm.

Just then, a crew member knocked and entered with a catalog.

“What is it?” Xia Shibai asked, blocking the door.

“The questions you did at the airport—your chemistry score was 80. You can now redeem points for items in our catalog. See if you need anything.”

“Is there a fan and mosquito coils?” Xia Shibai thought of these first. A fan was a must, or they’d look like they were pulled out of a well by morning. As for the coils, it was because Qin Zhijin mentioned a mosquito earlier. Even if there were no mosquitoes, it would keep other bugs away.

“We have both. Exactly 80 points. Are you sure?”

Xia Shibai didn’t dare decide on her own; she instinctively turned to Qin Zhijin for an answer. Qin Zhijin nodded.

Once they had the items and the staff left, a trace of coolness entered the room. With the palm-leaf fan as well, it actually felt a bit chilly.

Gu Mingyi hadn’t insisted on sleeping with Xia Yaozhou to whisper secrets; she was seriously giving her a lesson, analyzing how rainbows form and telling her how to handle the task. Xia Yaozhou nodded along, listening more seriously than she ever did to Xia Shibai’s “ABCD” tutoring.

Since there were fixed cameras in the room, the staff retreated once they prepared for bed.

Qin Zhijin lay beside Xia Yaozhou, on her side, trying to leave as much space as possible for Xia Shibai. She fanned the kids and herself occasionally. She was closest to the children but didn’t hear a word they said; their “child-talk” felt like it was from another world.

Only one person in the room remained in motion: filling a water cup with bottled water, checking if the door was locked… Xia Shibai was busy, but she wouldn’t lie down.

She didn’t know what she was busy with; she just knew that once she stopped, she would instinctively look at the reclining Qin Zhijin. She licked her lips. She didn’t need to measure to know the bed was small—lying down meant shoulders touching backs.

Qin Zhijin couldn’t stay on her side all night. Eventually, they would touch. The bed is too small. We need a bigger one next time.

Xia Shibai thought there should be at least a finger’s width between two adults, rather than their clothes rubbing together at the slightest movement. It was… unsettling.

She couldn’t say why. In the orphanage, conditions were harsh, and sharing a bed with several people was common. Later in college, she had shared beds during activities. But never once had it been more agonizing than now.

The two children soon fell into a deep sleep, too tired to even bother the adults. Qin Zhijin felt like she was being executed by time. Several times she bit her lip, wanting to turn and ask if Xia was ever going to sleep, but she held it in.

Finally, the sound of fabric rustling filled the air. Xia Shibai said, “I’m turning off the light?”

“Okay,” Qin Zhijin rasped.

Darkness fell. Once her eyes adjusted, Xia Shibai felt her way to the bed. As she sat down, she caught a faint scent, and heard the rustle of the quilt. It seemed Qin Zhijin had sat up.

Then, Xia Shibai felt the tingle of hair brushing against her arm. Warm breath came from her side. The person next to her grabbed her shirt and gave it a gentle tug.

“How much longer are you going to dawdle? Are you sleeping or not?”

From the east of the room to the west, from inside to outside… one would think the house was 800 square meters and fetching water took twenty minutes. In reality, it was two steps from the door to the bed.

“Sleeping…”

Xia Shibai’s brain stalled. She wanted to find an excuse, but upon reflection, she was startled: What am I doing? She could have rested long ago. Was today not tiring enough?

She didn’t dare think deeper. She followed Qin Zhijin’s pull and lay down, her eyes wide open, afraid to close them. The person beside her moved gently, making very little noise, yet to Xia Shibai, it sounded like a roar. The sound of clothes rubbing against the mat was amplified a thousand times.

Sleep was nowhere to be found. Just as she feared she’d stay awake until dawn, Qin Zhijin’s face appeared before her. They were so close she could feel her breath. Xia Shibai didn’t move; had it been anyone else, she might have thrown a punch.

“You’re lying on my nightgown. Can’t you feel it? I’ve pulled it several times and can’t get it out.” Qin Zhijin whispered a reminder for her to move.

“Ah! Oh, sorry, my bad. I was dazing… I didn’t feel anything under me. Truly sorry.” Xia Shibai scrambled up, nearly bumping into Qin, then turned toward the outer edge of the bed, bracing herself with an elbow to keep from falling off.

“It’s… it’s fine…”

Qin Zhijin pulled her nightgown back and lay down in that tiny space. A moment of distraction, and she was brought back by the pressure of a shoulder.

In the second half of the night, they finally drifted off.

Because she was a light sleeper, Xia Shibai dreamed of the novel she had read before transmigrating. Every word was clear. The difference was, this book felt like an outline—long, but devoid of dialogue or emotion. Just dry narration.

Xia Shibai irritably skipped the info about the two female leads and searched for news about Xia Yaozhou and the others. Then, in a sort of “character bio” section, she saw her and Qin Zhijin’s names.

— Xia Shibai: Xia Yaozhou’s mother in name; her real identity is her aunt. Cold and indifferent. At age 42 or 43, she is in a multi-car pileup and falls into a coma from which she never wakes.

— Qin Zhijin: Becomes a lifelong friend of the female lead (the shou), providing endless connections and resources. Because she never marries or has children, she treats the lead as her own daughter. In her youth, she was accused of medical malpractice and forced to leave the hospital for pharmaceutical research. At 37, while checking medicinal fields in the countryside with a team, she is caught in a mudslide and nearly dies, saved by the female lead. This serves as a stepping stone for the lead’s resource growth. At 44 or 45, a major turning point occurs; she is forced to leave her hometown and cut ties with everyone. She transfers all her remaining domestic resources to the female lead.

Xia Shibai understood every word, but in the dream, her brain couldn’t process it. She could only repeat the words over and over.

Then, a set of numbers woke her up: 14-year-old Xia Yaozhou, 35-year-old Xia Shibai, 37-year-old Qin Zhijin.

The timing of the mudslide coincided with the timeline of the “Older Yaozhou.” The car accident coincided with when Yaozhou took control of Lansui. Every event was a calculated exchange of interests. Their successive departures were designed to strip resources from their hands and funnel them—directly or indirectly—to the two female leads.

Xia Yaozhou was the transit station.

The realization jolted Xia Shibai awake. She was drenched in sweat. The room was bright; the fan had run all night and was creaking. It took a while for her to catch her breath.

She looked at Qin Zhijin, who was still fast asleep beside her. Her heart settled. The madness of repeating text in her dream left her with lingering fear. It was as if everything was pre-ordained; different worlds might vary, but they all followed the script.

Some succeeded, some failed.

Xia Shibai knew: her arrival had broken the world’s operation. The plot could no longer be easily filled. This might be why they could bypass physical cognition to reach the world of the Older Yaozhou and help them change their fate.

The 14-year-old Yaozhou hadn’t died under Aunt Lin’s grandson’s knife; she was already an escaped link in the chain reaction. Thus, what was supposed to happen to Qin Zhijin must be next.

What Xia Shibai had to do now—regardless of whether the “plot” was true or false—was go to that world and have Yaozhou save Qin Zhijin. At the very least, she couldn’t let her die in a mudslide, nor let her be a stepping stone for others.

Having reached a conclusion, Xia Shibai slowly lay back down. The person beside her had shifted from lying flat to lying on her side, facing her. Her hair was a mess from sleep, making her look a bit more “dazed” than when awake.

Xia Shibai carefully reached out to brush a stray hair away from Qin Zhijin’s face. Something that could have been done in one go, she insisted on doing strand by strand.

She was certain—the person beside her was the 27-year-old Qin Zhijin. She wouldn’t mistake her. She didn’t confuse the Qin Zhijin of the other timeline with this one.

Saving the other Qin Zhijin… was more like Xia Shibai wanting to see if she could completely change the “destined” plotlines she had already mangled beyond recognition. To become the butterfly that breaks free from the silk threads and lands back in the life where she belongs.

Tinkering with the hair became addictive. She wound strands around her fingers and lightly kneaded a rounded earlobe.

In the middle of her concentration, her peripheral vision caught a pair of bright eyes. She looked over, and her hand went numb with shock.

Xia Yaozhou had sat up at some point, eyes wide, staring at Xia Shibai.

Xia Shibai awkwardly retracted her hand. “You’re awake?” she whispered.

“Mhm. Bathroom.” Xia Yaozhou reached out her arms, signaling for her mother to pick her up. Once in that familiar embrace, she closed her eyes again and rubbed against Xia Shibai’s shoulder.

The mother and daughter quietly left the room.

Inside, the “sweetly sleeping” Qin Zhijin’s eyelashes fluttered. Her hands, crossed on the pillow, opened slightly, clutching a corner of the pillowcase.

She buried her face in the pillow so no one could see it—it was nearly steaming with heat.