Chapter 149: Is She... Really from This World?
Chapter 149: Chapter 149: Is She... Really from This World?
Xie Jinbai raised his hand and wiped his face, his crimson eyes fixed on the strangely dressed girl before him. "Can you really be resurrected?"
His gaze was piercing and overwhelmingly intense.
Under such a gaze, any hint of guilt on her face would have been impossible to hide.
Yet, Cui Lingyao wasn’t lying to him.
She nodded without the slightest hesitation. "I can."
’The system is awake now. It would never just stand by and watch me die.’
This was the source of her confidence.
Xie Jinbai narrowed his eyes, as if trying to discern the truth in her words, completely ignoring the wound that was still bleeding on his chest.
But Cui Lingyao couldn’t wait. She stomped her foot in frustration. "I’m begging you, can you please call someone to bandage your wound?"
’What a stubborn girl. In all their years together, he had always been the one to yield first.’
This was the very first time Xie Jinbai had ever seen her back down.
And it was for his sake.
A sliver of warmth seeped into his heart, which had been ravaged by a hurricane of despair and anguish.
This long-absent warmth nearly brought Xie Jinbai to tears, yet he couldn’t bear to look away, afraid that if he closed his eyes, he would never see the girl before him again.
He pursed his pale lips and asked in a small voice, "You’re this worried about me?"
"Yes! I’m worried about you, very worried,"
His wound was still bleeding. The startling crimson made Cui Lingyao forget everything else, and she blurted out, "No matter how tough you are, you’re still flesh and blood! Can you please stop playing games with your own life? Hurry and have someone come in to bandage it!"
’He was already severely injured before, and his wounds had only just healed. Now he’s gone and stabbed another hole in himself.’
’How could anyone be so foolish?’
The anxiety on her face was palpable, not faked in the slightest.
Xie Jinbai greedily savored her concern. Just as Cui Lingyao looked about to curse him in her frustration, he raised a hand and pressed a point on his chest, staunching the flow of blood. "The bandaging can wait," he said. "I want to take a good look at you."
’His healing abilities were astonishing. What if he couldn’t see her anymore once the wound was treated? What would he do then?’
Cui Lingyao was completely helpless. In her current state as a soul, she had no way of calling for help on his behalf.
She leaned in, lowering her head to look at the wound on his chest, checking to see if the bleeding had really stopped completely.
Xie Jinbai stood perfectly still, his gaze lowered, watching the head of hair so close to his chest.
Her hair wasn’t tied up.
A cascade of jet-black hair fell naturally to her lower back. The clothes she wore were, indeed, just as Shen Tingyu had described... highly improper.
’She’s practically wrapped in a scrap of fabric!’
Her shoulders and neck were slender and delicate, with two thin straps looped over them. The skirt was very short and loose, and her two pale, smooth calves dangled underneath...
Barefoot.
The elegant arches of her feet were slightly raised, her toes gently curled, looking impossibly delicate...
Like a single, flawless piece of warm mutton-fat jade.
’She’s so unguarded around me. She has no idea that when she buries her head toward my chest dressed like this, just how wide her collar gapes open...’
From his angle, he could see everything underneath.
’Did she appear before Shen Tingyu like this, too?’
The urge to kill welled up in Xie Jinbai again.
He suppressed the surge of agitation and wrapped his arms around the girl in a phantom embrace, pretending he could actually hold her.
After Cui Lingyao finished her careful inspection and confirmed that the bleeding had truly stopped, she finally breathed a sigh of relief. Then she heard the man before her ask, "Is this... your original appearance?"
She looked up. "...What?"
Xie Jinbai lowered his gaze to meet hers. As if afraid of frightening her, he carefully chose his words before speaking gently, "The face you have in your soul form... it’s a little different from when you were alive."
This "in life" didn’t refer to the body of Pei Shuyao, which she had only used briefly.
It referred to his lawfully wedded wife.
Upon hearing this, Cui Lingyao froze for a moment, her pupils slowly widening.
She was utterly stunned.
She finally realized—the clothes she was wearing were from the modern era. That meant her face had to be her own, too.
She never belonged to this world in the first place.
She had only been able to walk this world by borrowing a physical form, thanks to the system’s power.
Now that she was dead, her soul had separated from that physical form, and she had naturally reverted to her original appearance.
She’d never expected, however, that someone would witness her in her soul form after this death.
And two incredibly shrewd people, at that.
Shen Tingyu must have seen it too, but he hadn’t even pointed it out!
He had clearly seen her as Princess Consort Yu, yet last night he showed no curiosity, never asking why her appearance had changed after death.
’He’s truly... unflappable.’
Cui Lingyao was caught completely off guard, but she still took a moment to grumble internally about that gentle, refined man.
She stammered for a long while, unable to come up with a concrete reason.
Xie Jinbai’s gaze drifted down to the red mole on her ankle, and he actually smiled. "Your body didn’t have this red mole, either."
They were husband and wife.
They had shared three years of loving intimacy.
He had loved her so dearly, holding her in his arms night after night, exploring her body over and over, more times than he could count.
He probably knew her body better than she herself did.
He was absolutely certain that her current soul form was her true appearance.
Before becoming his wife, this girl had another identity.
Just like with Pei Shuyao’s body, she had most likely taken over the body of the Changping Marquis Mansion’s eldest daughter midway through her life as well.
This had to be the truth.
As a member of the Royal Family, Xie Jinbai had practically devoured the entire Book Collection Pavilion in his youth. He had read everything, from the forbidden texts of past dynasties to their rarest surviving manuscripts.
Later, he waged campaigns in all directions and dealt with countless foreign peoples.
He prided himself on his worldliness and breadth of knowledge; few in the entire Great Yue could surpass him.
But he had never seen any people who dressed in such a manner.
Her origins were too mysterious.
To have one chance at resurrection in another’s body was one thing.
But to die a second time and then confidently guarantee she could come back to life yet again...
The circumstances surrounding it all were simply inconceivable.
An absurd thought surfaced, impossible to suppress.
’Is she... truly from this world?’
’But if she isn’t... what is her purpose?’
Xie Jinbai was no fool.
In the past, his vision had been clouded. Although he had sensed something was off about her, he had never dared to entertain such an outlandish possibility.
But now, the instant he reached this conclusion, he couldn’t help but review the countless tiny details of their years together.
Their first meeting had been at Cui Mingrui’s coming-of-age ceremony. A young girl, just over ten years old, had seen him for the first time, and her beautiful almond eyes had lit up.
As if she were gazing upon her long-awaited man of destiny.
At the time, he had assumed the girl had fallen for him at first sight.
He had even been secretly pleased, thinking to himself that she had excellent taste.
Later, when he discovered that her feelings weren’t as genuine as he’d believed, that she was, in fact, stingy with her affection, he had been baffled.
’If she didn’t like me, why was her gaze so bright at our first meeting?’
’If she didn’t like me, then why did she chase after me time and time again?’
She had initiated everything at the beginning of their relationship.
A girl raised in the inner quarters, who ought to have been reserved and proper, was bold and passionate in front of him, like a bright little sun.
She was the one who had actively burrowed into his arms.
She was the one who had initiated their kisses.
Other than being genuinely, desperately in love with him, Xie Jinbai could find no other reason for her to act that way.