A White Cloud (GL ABO) - Chapter 64

Why apologize?

Tomb Cheng held the crying woman tenderly, soothing her. “It’s okay,” she said.

Shen Zhiqing was her moon. How could she let it dim because of her?

Those punches on the bag landing on her wouldn’t matter.

Who was she to covet the moon?

“Mu Mu, Mu Mu,” the sobbing woman repeated.

She seemed truly distraught.

Tomb Cheng felt dazed.

Was losing a high-match suppressant worth such grief?

Why push her away then?

Shen Zhiqing’s heart ached. She clung to Tomb Cheng’s shoulder, touched her cheek, feeling her reality, crying uncontrollably.

“Mu Mu, I’m sorry,” she said.

Tomb Cheng wanted to ask why she cried, to say her pheromones weren’t unique, that she could be her suppressant, extracting her pheromones for her.

After all, Shen Zhiqing discovered them, didn’t she?

She lacked Alpha pride.

Raised among Betas, she felt no superiority before Shen Zhiqing forced her differentiation.

Had she known her pheromones matched Shen Zhiqing’s, what would’ve happened?

Would she have loved her purely?

Would she have avoided Alpha arrogance?

She didn’t know but was glad her feelings for Shen Zhiqing bloomed before differentiation, confirming her love’s purity.

Tomb Cheng loved Shen Zhiqing because she was Tomb Cheng, and she was Shen Zhiqing.

Seeing her reddened eyes from tears, Tomb Cheng spared no pity, kissing them away.

“It’s really okay,” she said.

Not loving her wasn’t worth such distress.

Tomb Cheng saw no need for her to grieve.

“You don’t love me, and I don’t blame you,” Tomb Cheng said, holding her on the bed, pouring out her final feelings.

“I never resented or complained about any day in the past.”

“No, no… Mu, Mu Mu,” Shen Zhiqing choked, interrupting her.

Tomb Cheng wiped her tears, smiling faintly, ready for her words.

Shen Zhiqing stopped sobbing, baring her heart before her.

“Mu Mu, no,” she said, calming herself.

“It’s not that I don’t love you.”

She knelt, pulling Tomb Cheng into her arms, pressing her ear to her heart as she often did when clinging to her.

“Mu Mu, I don’t not love you,” she said, each word deliberate and clear, fearing Tomb Cheng wouldn’t hear.

Her chest rose with her breaths. Tomb Cheng heard her heartbeat.

The doctor, now composed, spoke logically, pausing the missed years in this moment.

Shen Zhiqing stroked her hair, saying firmly, “Mu Mu, I’m sorry for ignoring and using you before. I regret not holding your hand to say I was just scared.”

That day was her mother’s memorial.

Shen Zhiqing, grieving and unwell, visited Fang Qing’s grave.

On her way to Tomb Cheng, her mind reeled. Images of Fang Qing’s pain from lacking her partner’s pheromones flooded her.

She barely reached the hotel room.

Tomb Cheng’s untimely confession trapped her in a dilemma.

Unable to face her fears, she pushed back with words.

She spoke those words to curse Tomb Cheng’s assumptions and her own baseness.

When the needle pierced her skin, the slight pain eased her headache.

Cool liquid entered her veins, suppressing her body’s restlessness.

It gave her control over her body, unlike coupling with Tomb Cheng.

“I feared becoming like my mother,” she said.

As a child, she witnessed Fang Qing’s pheromone chaos.

Was being marked by an Alpha so terrifying?

She feared too much—Shen Zhihe’s coldness in her youth, others’ gazes and sinister looks in her teens.

Her sharp, cruel words drove Tomb Cheng away, along with her feared heartbeat.

Hurting Tomb Cheng wounded her too, but admitting her feelings meant following her mother’s path.

She thought returning to life before Tomb Cheng would suffice.

But her body didn’t forget so easily.

In the crisis, it sought Tomb Cheng’s love and protection honestly.

But Tomb Cheng got hurt—because of her.

She rehearsed a million words for seeing Tomb Cheng, but when Xiaomi invited her to the military hospital, she refused.

“I didn’t dare face you,” she said.

Tomb Cheng, hearing her feelings for the first time, blushed against her chest, overwhelmed by the warmth.

Was Shen Zhiqing confessing?

No way!

Shen Zhiqing rested her chin on her hair, sighing softly in their closeness.

“Sorry, Mu Mu, I’m a coward,” she said.

“I don’t not love you.”

“In fact, I love you so much, Mu Mu.”

Tomb Cheng stared, disbelief etched on her face.

She broke free, pointing at Shen Zhiqing, then herself, stammering, “You, you… me?”

Shen Zhiqing’s eyes stayed red from crying, her pale cheeks flushed.

She cupped Tomb Cheng’s face, kneeling beside her, nodding firmly.

“Yes, I like you,” she said.

She kissed her face, continuing, “I love you, Mu Mu.”

“Impossible,” Tomb Cheng denied flatly, without hesitation.

How could Shen Zhiqing like her? How?

“Mu Mu…” Shen Zhiqing tried to speak, but Tomb Cheng cut her off, frowning.

Her narrow eyes behind glasses brimmed with disbelief.

She exhaled, lowering her lashes. “Why say this now?” she asked.

Shen Zhiqing opened her mouth instinctively, but Tomb Cheng spoke faster.

Sorrow clouded Tomb Cheng’s brow.

She sighed sadly, “Is it for my high-match pheromones?”

She once thought her high compatibility would win Shen Zhiqing’s favor, but Shen Zhiqing showed her she was no different from a suppressant.

Was this effort to keep her now just to retain a better-than-suppressant pheromone?