After Bringing Joy to the Short-Lived Mad Young Lady - Chapter 21

“You’re truly special. I’m curious—why is someone from a small village so vigilant?”

Mizudou swayed gracefully forward, her red lips curling into a careless smile. She lifted the white jade pipe, tilting Fang Yi’s chin slightly upward.

Every address Fang Yi had provided outside was fake, and even her name was often an alias. The Lin family had been tracking them from the moment they left the estate, yet Fang Yi had shaken them off effortlessly.

A full day and night—that was the limit of Lin Lan’s patience.

The pipes gurgled endlessly, shedding tears of the downpour, and water had already begun seeping onto the first-floor steps.

Fang Yi flicked the pipe away with the tip of her umbrella, studying Mizudou for a moment before speaking coolly:

“Put out the smoke.”

“Hmm?” The unexpected demand made Mizudou tilt her head, her eyes glinting with deeper amusement. “And if I don’t?”

“You’re here to take Lin Shuxing away, aren’t you? Don’t make her breathe your secondhand smoke.”

Fang Yi paused, drawing a line on the steps with the tip of her umbrella. “Otherwise, don’t bother going up. Let Lin Lan come herself.”

“And why do you think you can stop me?”

The woman laughed as if she’d heard a joke. “Even your witch grandmother would bow to me. What are you going to use to block me—this shabby umbrella?”

“If by ‘witch grandmother’ you mean Yu Jiufeng, then you’ve misunderstood one thing.”

“With her temperament, she wouldn’t show respect to anyone.”

Fang Yi took a step back, positioning herself in a more open space, her feet slightly apart. Raising the umbrella’s tip, her aura sharpened abruptly.

With a light downward flick of the dark long umbrella in her hand—whoosh—

Every drop of water was flung to the ground, leaving a sharp, clean line.

“Wow,” Mizudou’s smile grew even more enigmatic. “I like you more and more.”

Fang Yi repeated, “Put out the smoke.”

“Are you really going to fight me just because I won’t put it out? That’s a bit childish, don’t you think?” Mizudou teased.

“Not entirely. I’ve disliked you people for a while now.”

“‘You people’?” Mizudou savored the phrase, her smile turning playful. “Including Lin Lan? Are you standing up for Lin Shuxing?”

Ignoring the threat of the umbrella, she stepped closer. “You haven’t actually fallen for Lin Shuxing, have you?”

Fang Yi remained silent, her impassive eyes reflecting Mizudou’s image without a ripple.

The next second, a gust of wind surged—the umbrella’s tip carved a mark on the ground before sweeping upward toward Mizudou’s wrist.

Dark green vertical pupils blinked, her body twisting like liquid silk, narrowly evading the strike with a breeze-like grace.

Fang Yi advanced; Mizudou retreated. Fang Yi pulled back; Mizudou pressed in, wearing down her opponent’s aggression bit by bit—all while deliberately taunting her, taking a deep drag before exhaling a cloud of smoke directly into Fang Yi’s face.

Whatever was mixed into the tobacco burned sharply, stinging her eyes and drawing involuntary tears.

“Again!”

Fang Yi tightened her grip on the umbrella, her slightly reddened eyes adding a touch of adorable indignation to her stern expression. Her attacks grew increasingly erratic.

Youth—so reckless, so self-assured.

Mizudou chuckled, shaking her head as she continued to toy with her unhurriedly. But then, mid-swing, Fang Yi’s umbrella abruptly changed trajectory, thrusting toward a vital point on Mizudou’s body.

Mizuki’s expression darkened slightly as she abandoned all restraint. Like a specter, she twisted Fang Yi’s umbrella-wielding arm and viciously wrenched it downward.

Now—!

Fang Yi made no attempt to defend herself. The moment pain shot through her, she twisted her body aside and flicked her wrist with lightning speed.

Mizuki only felt a sudden numbness in the hand holding her white jade pipe before the precious object spun through the air in a graceful arc, landing heavily in a puddle.

The woman stood frozen in the rain, her emerald eyes glowing eerily in the darkness as her cold bl00d gradually boiled with fury.

The smile vanished from Mizuki’s face. She reached out and effortlessly seized Fang Yi by the throat, the sheer force of her grip rendering the girl powerless.

Pressing Fang Yi into the rain-slicked concrete, Mizuki dragged a sharp nail lightly across her cheek, drawing a thin line of bl00d.

“You wicked child… there are limits to mischief,” Mizuki murmured, her voice laced with disdain and authority. “This is a sacred artifact. If even a single scratch mars it, your life wouldn’t be enough to repay the damage.”

A nearby light flickered on, finally allowing Mizuki to clearly see the expression of the mortal beneath her—Fang Yi was smiling, a careless, almost indifferent grin.

With deliberate insolence, Fang Yi raised an eyebrow and repeated, “Put out the smoke.”

Mizuki took a deep breath, belatedly realizing that Fang Yi had never intended to fight her. From the very beginning, her target had been the white jade pipe.

A sense of absurdity welled up inside Mizuki.

“What do you possibly gain from this?” she demanded. “A little smoke changes nothing. Your stubbornness is meaningless.”

Fang Yi tilted her head back, her face alight with the reckless defiance of youth. “Who says things have to be meaningful? I told you—I don’t like you people. So I’ll make sure you don’t like me either.”

“…” Mizuki’s fingers tightened. For a moment, she genuinely considered strangling her.

Then, the rain above them abruptly ceased.

“Let go.” A woman’s icy voice cut through the night. “Must you make such a disgraceful scene?”

Fang Yi glanced upward and caught sight of Lin Lan’s frost-laden expression.

A black-clad attendant held an umbrella over her. Though the umbrella was small, the torrential rain seemed to deliberately avoid them, as if even the heavens deferred to her authority. Not a single drop dared to mar the polished leather of her shoes.

“Fang Yi,” Lin Lan called coldly.

Fang Yi remained sprawled in the filthy water, gazing up at the untouchable woman above her. After a long pause, she grinned, flashing a radiant smile.

“What are you laughing at?”

Fang Yi said, “I just realized—Lin Shuxing really doesn’t resemble you at all.”

Indeed, they looked nothing alike. Both Lin Lan and Lin Qingwan had single eyelids, while Lin Shuxing had double lids, her eyes rounder and softer…

Lin Shuxing had idolized Lin Lan since childhood, even secretly practicing that faint, mocking smile of hers in front of a mirror. Over time, she had managed to capture a fraction of Lin Lan’s aura.

But Lin Lan wielded power effortlessly, while Lin Shuxing’s sneers lacked the weight of time—most of the time, they just came off as arrogant.

“Get up,” Lin Lan commanded. “I don’t understand what you’re so angry about.”

“Li Sinian spoke out of turn, that’s all. If I say Lin Shuxing is my daughter, then she is. No one has the right to question it.”

“After tonight, no one will dare bring up this absurd matter again.”

“You’re an adult; you should think before you act. Rashly taking Lin Shuxing out of the Lin family’s territory—did you ever consider what would happen if something went wrong?”

“Now, tell me, what exactly are you angry about?”

Lin Lan’s questioning was too nonchalant, condensing all the turbulent emotions into a single, flippant word—anger—making it seem as though they were the ones being unreasonable.

Fang Yi retorted, “I’m not angry. What do I have to be angry about? You should ask your precious daughter if she’s angry.”

“Oh, wait, I forgot—your precious daughter is someone else.”

“…” Lin Lan remained silent.

The stalemate left Fang Yi feeling drained. She pushed herself up, wiping the rain from her face. “Lin Lan, I want to know—do you love Lin Shuxing?”

“…”

“You can keep silent, but I have to remind you—Lin Shuxing loves you, even if you seem to treat her like nothing more than a pet.”

Words were the gentlest form of confrontation.

“If you truly see her as your daughter—”

Fang Yi watched as Lin Lan’s lips twitched slightly before she finally relented, lowering her tone with reluctant resignation. “Can you be kinder to her?”

Though the day had passed uneventfully, the traces of sorrow had already faded from Lin Shuxing’s face.

Yet, when she saw a mother holding her daughter’s hand in the supermarket, she couldn’t help but freeze for a moment before tightening her grip on Fang Yi.

“…”

As if an eternity had passed, Lin Lan finally spoke. “Understood.”

Fang Yi exhaled in relief. “Then I’ll go call her down.”

She shrugged, wincing as a sharp pain shot through her dislocated arm—courtesy of Shui Wuding’s earlier restraint. Slowly turning to Shui Wuding, she extended a hand. “Give me yours.”

“What for?” Shui Wuding, curious, complied.

Without hesitation, Fang Yi bit down hard while her other hand snapped the dislocated joint back into place.

The intense pain of the bone setting was channeled through her teeth, sinking deep into Shui Wuding’s cold skin, which trembled under Fang Yi’s ragged exhale.

Watching as Shui Wuding’s elegant smile twisted into a grimace of pain, Fang Yi smirked, her bloodless lips curling.

“We’re even.”

Even? Even for what?!

Shui Wuding was livid, her flawless composure shattered. She had never suffered such humiliation. A crimson hiss escaped her lips, but Lin Lan pressed a hand to her wrist, shaking her head subtly.

Fang Yi headed upstairs, pausing outside the door for a long moment before knocking three times.

Downstairs.

A black-clad attendant picked up the white jade pipe, carefully polishing it with a velvet cloth before presenting it reverently to Shui Wuding.

Shui Wuding clicked her tongue in irritation, spinning it between her fingers. Lin Lan shot her a glance. “Put it out.”

The woman’s emerald-green slit pupils narrowed into thin lines. With a resigned flick of her wrist, she tossed it back to the flustered attendant, lazily ordering, “Put it away.”

It was a relentless downpour, the shallow puddles lapping at their heels. Lin Lan checked her watch—thirty-seven minutes had passed since Fang Yi went upstairs.

The car’s headlights flickered on, illuminating Lin Lan’s solitary figure in the rain, the light tracing the silent contours of her silhouette.

Time seemed to stand still until the hem of her coat grew heavy with rainwater. Only then did footsteps echo from the narrow stairwell.

The coaxed-down girl raised a hand to shield her eyes slightly from the light. The smile on her face froze the moment she spotted the woman standing before the car.

Fang Yi didn’t tell her that the person downstairs was Lin Lan, only saying she had a “surprise” for her.

Lin Shuxing stared blankly at the tall, proud figure standing in the beam of light, then turned to glance at Fang Yi.

A fine drizzle drifted in, the damp, icy clothes still clinging uncomfortably to her skin.

Fang Yi took a restrained step back, her expression unreadable.

That beam of light was like a spotlight on a mime’s stage, harshly cleaving the world in two, blurring everything until only their silhouettes remained.

Lin Lan said nothing, silently tilting her umbrella toward Lin Shuxing.

The downpour seemed to freeze in that moment, the world turning upside down with her gesture.

Behind the clouds, there must have been a crescent moon sharp as a blade—just one glance would have sliced open the turbulent emotions surging in her chest.

The girl’s tightly pressed lips trembled slightly, the psychological defenses she had built overnight crumbling with absurd ease.

Under Lin Lan’s gaze, she instinctively ran toward her, just as she had countless times in childhood.

Fang Yi had never experienced such tightly entwined emotions, so of course she couldn’t understand what the ache in her chest meant.

But she could read the brightness in Lin Shuxing’s eyes.

“…”

The meal wasn’t even finished yet.

Fang Yi slipped a hand into her pocket and turned to leave.

Her slender figure gradually blurred into the darkness, but the girl suddenly looked back, her clear gaze piercing through the rain to illuminate Fang Yi’s lonely retreating form.

“Fang Yi—!”

Lin Shuxing splashed through puddles as she ran back, completely indifferent to the torrential rain.

Lightly rising onto her toes, she pressed her damp palm against Fang Yi’s cheek.

The rain was too heavy, her voice fragmented, indistinct.

Fang Yi bent down, trying to bring her closer.

But the girl’s lips moved without speaking.

Breathing out hot gasps under the cold rain, without hesitation or warning, she suddenly pressed her lips against Fang Yi’s.

The kiss was chaotic, devoid of technique. She wrapped her arms around Fang Yi’s neck, fingers digging deep into her hair, pulling her down, lower, lower still—as if wanting them both to drown in this endless night.

Fang Yi’s constricted pupils reflected the girl’s restless longing as she clumsily, desperately breached every defense, letting the taste of bl00d and faint pain spread across their tongues.

Fang Yi’s throat quivered rapidly, reason screaming at her to push her away, yet her fingers instinctively steadied the girl’s weakening waist.

The car’s headlights had long since died, the night swallowing all light as darkness surged around them like a tide. They had no time to wonder what expression Lin Lan might be wearing now.

Rain, body heat, and fragrance intertwined, their breaths tangling tighter.

In the faint dizziness of oxygen deprivation, the girl finally let go.

Stubbornly, she lifted her gaze to Fang Yi’s slightly dazed expression, her bloodstained lips curling into an unhappy pout. “You didn’t like it?”

Fang Yi was silent for a long moment before forcing out a single word: “…No.”

Was she refuting the statement—or rejecting the kiss?

The girl’s eyes dimmed, long lashes veiling the lingering flush as she gritted her teeth, resentment and unspeakable emotions churning inside her. But in the next second, her hand was taken.

The usually composed woman before her lowered her head, rain soaking the black hair that fell over her face. For a moment, they simply stared at each other through the mist.

Finally, she placed a feather-light kiss on the back of the girl’s pale hand, so gentle it barely carried any weight at all.

The heavy rain continued to pour, drenching them completely.

Their clothes, their souls, and this silent, endless night.