Pretending To Be Affectionate [Transmigration] - Chapter 33

The light outside was still dim, with only a sliver of pale dawn appearing along the horizon.

Gu Qing stood before the floor-to-ceiling windows with an unlit ladies’ cigarette between her lips.

Six hours had already passed since the absurd sex she and Ling Yu had shared the night before.

Gu Qing had been standing there ever since she woke, though she no longer knew for how long.

Her usually clear and rational mind was in disarray. She could not describe what she was feeling.

There was only one undeniable fact.

She had slept with Ling Yu.

Considering the state she had been in last night, Gu Qing had assumed the encounter could never have ended so peacefully. She should have crushed Ling Yu the way she destroyed the mice in her laboratory.

Yet what happened had been unexpectedly calm.

She had taken Ling Yu, and then Ling Yu had turned around and taken her.

Although the intensity had made even the tip of her heart tremble, Gu Qing had never harmed her.

Last night was also the first time Gu Qing discovered another side of Ling Yu.

The woman sleeping on the bed was far less harmless than she appeared.

Beyond the foolish affection she constantly showered upon Gu Qing, Ling Yu’s eyes had always contained a brazen arrogance and… reckless audacity.

Her beautiful, white-peony face was extraordinarily deceptive.

So deceptive that when their bodies had come together last night, Gu Qing had been unable to resist her.

Those eyes were too beautiful for anyone to refuse.

They resembled those of a seductive spirit, yet also a pure, limpid lake.

Gu Qing’s unfocused gaze rested beyond the window. For no apparent reason, her lips curved into an indescribable smile.

She had never expected to lose control of her emotions last night.

Throughout the entirety of her life, the probability of such a thing happening had been virtually zero.

Ever since her earliest memories, Gu Qing had been a child with very few emotions.

She had never fit in with the children around her.

They had all been imprisoned in a Bangkok drug den. Every day, the terrified cries of other children echoed around them.

Gu Qing would sit alone in a corner, watching them cry without expression.

She did not understand why they cried.

Later, someone told her it was because they were afraid.

Gu Qing was only eight when she met Gu Hongwei.

The middle-aged police officer secretly protected her, allowing her to survive the first life-or-death trial imposed upon the children.

That night, Gu Hongwei asked her, “Would you like to come home with Uncle?”

Gu Qing could not understand the useless pity and affection filling the man’s eyes.

So she told him, “If you want to go home, I can help you.”

Gu Hongwei laughed and scolded her, saying she was nothing like a child. She resembled a highly intelligent terrorist who might stray down the wrong path at any moment.

She had been only eight years old.

The children inside the organization studied every day. They knew far more than other children their age.

If they failed the organization’s internal assessments, the only outcome awaiting them was death.

Gu Qing learned everything faster than the other children, so survival seemed considerably easier for her.

During her free time, she could only watch with perfect clarity as the children around her were repeatedly brainwashed and gradually pushed toward brutal slaughter among themselves.

It was like watching a group of laboratory mice trapped inside the same cage.

The person controlling them would remove one element from their living environment and restrict the amount of bread available.

The mice desperately wanted to survive, so they eventually raised their spears against their own companions.

Gu Qing had tried to persuade them to stop.

It had been useless.

Later, while watching them kill one another, she sat in a tree and told Gu Hongwei, “This is involution.”

Gu Hongwei looked at her as though she were a monster.

“Qingqing, Uncle is worried. What if you become like them someday?”

Gu Qing had merely shrugged, unmoved.

It was as though she had been born without one part of the seven emotions and six desires. She could not establish empathy.

But that did not prevent her from hating being brainwashed.

She was an independent person.

Gu Hongwei accompanied Gu Qing throughout her childhood. He gave her the affectionate nickname “Qingqing,” replacing the cold designation “Number Seven.”

Inside that drug den, the two of them worked together to survive countless deadly crises. They searched for weaknesses in the trafficking organization and fought desperately to live like normal people.

Gu Hongwei often asked her, “Do you feel a sense of accomplishment working undercover with Uncle to fight drug trafficking?”

Gu Qing could not understand the pride in the middle-aged man’s eyes. She would turn around and leave without giving him any acknowledgment.

When she was ten, the organization’s stronghold was destroyed.

Gu Hongwei took her away from the orphanage.

He told her, “Qingqing, from now on, you have to call me Dad.”

Gu Qing could not understand the paternal affection in his eyes.

She casually replied, “I’ll keep calling you Uncle. I’m not used to changing it.”

That remained true until much later.

Gu Qing watched the man’s body become riddled with bullets as he hunched over and shielded her within his broad chest.

When she raised her head without expression, almost nothing remained of the middle-aged man but bloodied skin.

At that moment, she finally cried out, “Dad.”

From then on, she never had a father again.

On the day Gu Hongwei died, his body had been covered with dense, needle-like bullet wounds.

In the countless years that followed, Gu Qing developed an even more serious psychological condition.

Gu Ting called her a monster.

Gu Qing admitted that she had been a monster from birth.

She possessed no empathy, and the image of Gu Hongwei’s corpse became a malignant tumor within her heart—one she could never resolve.

One day every month, she had to reproduce those bloodied, needle-like wounds from Gu Hongwei’s body on dead laboratory mice.

Only then could she suppress the violent impulses that could never be erased from her heart.

Why did she not reproduce them on a human being or a living animal?

It was not because she was kind.

It was because she had promised Gu Hongwei that she would spend her life trying not to become a prisoner who had lost all morality.

Gu Hongwei had given her this life.

That middle-aged police officer had lived with integrity and unwavering righteousness. He was the same kind of person as Ling Yu—someone who distinguished black from white with perfect clarity.

His final instruction to Gu Qing before his death had been:

“Promise Uncle that you’ll restrain your desires.”

From that point onward, the night at the beginning of every month became a disaster and a struggle for Gu Qing.

She climbed a sheer cliff with her bare hands, covering them in blood as she dragged herself up from the abyss.

Then, at the beginning of the following month, she would enter free fall once more.

The cycle repeated endlessly.

After all these years, only last night had been peaceful and serene.

Two hours ago, fine snow had begun falling outside like scattered fragments.

Ice crystals had frozen along the eaves. Gu Qing stared at the ground beneath its thin layer of snow.

A ridiculous sense of lethargy suddenly rose within her.

She wanted to remain inside this warm bedroom, disregard everything else, and hold the woman in bed as they slept together.

Gu Qing removed the cigarette from her lips, turned it around, and placed the tobacco end inside her mouth.

She bit off a section of tobacco leaf and chewed it.

She tried to use the taste of nicotine to force herself back to clarity.

But clarity returned far more slowly than she had expected.

A superficial layer of agitation passed through Gu Qing’s eyes. From the corner of her vision, she looked toward the woman sleeping on the simple bed behind her.

Ling Yu’s milk-white skin was nestled against the memory-foam pillow.

Her eyelashes were black as raven feathers, and her lips were the pink of cherry blossoms. Her limbs were slender and beautifully proportioned.

Curled into herself like a flower bud, she breathed slowly and peacefully.

Gu Qing’s gaze settled on Ling Yu’s fresh, white-peony face. Her fingers moved unconsciously.

In the end, reason defeated the absurd desire to approach her.

She and Ling Yu could have no further contact.

Gu Qing’s world was a darkness as dense as undiluted ink.

She could not allow a second Gu Hongwei to appear—someone who would sacrifice their own life to drag her back and leave her struggling at the edge of the cliff.

Ling Yu should never have left any trace in Gu Qing’s life.

Gu Qing had warned her long ago to stay away.

But no matter how many times she drove her off, Ling Yu always returned and stuck to her like melted candy.

While Gu Qing was still unguarded, Ling Yu drew her into that illogical world of relentless harassment.

She gradually led Gu Qing by the nose, quietly guiding her into the trap she had prepared.

What happened last night had sounded the alarm for this mistaken loss of control.

Gu Qing faced the danger of that loss with a clear mind.

Therefore, now that she was awake, there was only one thing she needed to do.

Drive Ling Yu away.

As for what had happened last night, Gu Qing decided that she probably did not owe Ling Yu anything.

Otherwise, after taking Ling Yu, Gu Qing’s usual habits would never have permitted Ling Yu to reverse their positions, climb on top of her, and retaliate despite her soft, weakened state.

Gu Qing gave herself this final explanation for her impulsiveness last night, despite the secret obstruction weighing upon her heart.

She forcibly suppressed those useless and dangerous thoughts.

Narrowing her eyes irritably, Gu Qing bit off another section of the cigarette and crushed the tobacco savagely between her teeth.

Naturally, eating raw tobacco did not provide the same sensation as smoking it.

Gu Qing frowned.

Even after chewing the entire cigarette, she could not suppress the inexplicable agitation in her heart.

She decided to end matters quickly.

Forcibly concealing the emotions in her eyes, she calmly approached Ling Yu’s clothes scattered across the floor.

She bent down.

When her fingers touched Ling Yu’s bra, they curled briefly.

Then, without hesitation, she removed the recording button fastened inside it and placed the device in her pocket.

Without looking back, Gu Qing left.

But the moment her long leg crossed the threshold, she stopped.

Turning around, she carefully looked at Ling Yu.

That gaze lasted for an exceptionally long time, as though she intended to carve every inch of Ling Yu’s features into her memory.

Then the phone in her pocket vibrated.

Gu Qing abruptly returned to her senses.

She pressed her lips together and offered a final farewell to the woman sleeping in complete ignorance.

Silently, she said:

“Goodbye.”