My Ex-Girlfriend Said She Was A Fairy - Chapter 5

“Looks like we’re neighbors again.”

Stepping out of the elevator, Wen Yuchuan walked to the door of her rented apartment and said this upon seeing Ji Qingyi heading toward the next unit.

“…”

Ji Qingyi was momentarily speechless.

This was hardly good news for her, yet Wen Yuchuan seemed utterly unfazed. Ji Qingyi even suspected the other woman was enjoying it, as she heard another soft chuckle.

But then again, this person was always laughing all day long… Ji Qingyi stopped herself from overanalyzing.

Whatever. It had nothing to do with her.

“The balconies here seem to be connected too, just with a slightly wider gap in between…”

Wen Yuchuan rambled on while fumbling with her keys to unlock the door. Meanwhile, Ji Qingyi’s hands trembled slightly, delaying her from inserting her own key into the lock. Unable to quickly escape inside, she was forced to listen to Wen Yuchuan’s incessant chatter.

This time, Ji Qingyi felt there was little room for misinterpretation—Wen Yuchuan really did seem to be deliberately bringing up the past. The word “too” could only refer to either the apartment Wen Yuchuan had lived in over the past year or, more likely, the one they had shared while dating.

Ji Qingyi finally managed to insert her key but didn’t turn it immediately. She turned to look at the tenant next door—her ex-girlfriend, whose mere presence had already unsettled her, stirring an unusual mix of irritation and restlessness.

“Thankfully, they’re farther apart.”

Ji Qingyi deliberately emphasized her words, cutting off whatever Wen Yuchuan was about to say next.

The wider gap meant people on the balconies wouldn’t be able to easily converse across it, avoiding a repeat of the scenes from their past. Though, truth be told, Ji Qingyi had stopped spending much time on the balcony after their breakup anyway, making such encounters unlikely.

She had simply snapped—a small retaliation against the string of coincidental misfortunes today.

“…Is that so?”

Wen Yuchuan murmured with a faint smile, leaning against the doorframe as she watched Ji Qingyi turn the key without another word. Only when Ji Qingyi stepped inside did she softly add one last line.

“Sleep early. Goodnight.”

Who needs your goodnight?

Ji Qingyi slammed the door shut behind her with a loud bang.

In the end, she hadn’t been able to hold back her frustration. She sighed in annoyance—today had been nothing but one slip-up after another since the afternoon.

In her imagination, reuniting with Wen Yuchuan should have been a moment of poised maturity, a breezy indifference. Instead, it had been a complete disaster. For Wen Yuchuan, it was probably just another comedy to enjoy. The thought made Ji Qingyi’s irritation flare up again. Now that she didn’t have to feign indifference in front of Wen Yuchuan, she angrily hurled her bag onto the table—only to flinch at the noise it made.

After the outburst, all that remained was exhaustion. She still needed this bag tomorrow, so she begrudgingly straightened it out again.

She was so tired. Maybe all of this was just a hallucination from exhaustion. Maybe tomorrow, the new neighbor next door would vanish—just as abruptly as she had disappeared from their relationship a year ago.

Ji Qingyi prayed, though she knew it was futile.

Sigh. She exhaled again, sat for a moment, then gathered her clothes and headed to the shower.

“I really should go to bed earlier,” she thought.

__

When Ji Qingyi woke up, her head was dizzy and her throat hurt. She didn’t pay it much mind, attributing it to lack of sleep and the iced lemon tea she couldn’t resist drinking before bed last night.

While washing up, Ji Qingyi looked at her dark under-eye circles and pale face in the mirror, resigned to the fact that as long as she kept working, her complexion would probably never look good.

A glass of warmed milk and a piece of bread—that was the entirety of her breakfast.

Ji Qingyi was actually hungry, but for some reason, she also felt a bit nauseous. Though she had long grown tired of eating the same thing, it wasn’t to the point where the sight of it would make her sick. Yet, she had absolutely no appetite.

She forced herself to eat the bread. It was too dry, hard to swallow, clogging her throat. Only with the help of milk could she manage to get it down.

Ji Qingyi hated the taste of milk and bread mixed together. Separately, they were tolerable, but once combined in her mouth, all she could sense was a strange, nauseating, sticky assault on her senses. As she ate, she couldn’t help but gag, but she still struggled to swallow. She couldn’t skip eating—otherwise, if she passed out on the street, it would be far too embarrassing.

Even breakfast was this painful. Such was the pitiful life of a working woman, Ji Qingyi thought with a pained expression.

After finishing, she quickly left the house, just in time to catch the bus, arriving at the company soon after to begin another day of drudgery.

By the time she sat down at her desk, Ji Qingyi felt even dizzier than she had at home, her head heavy as if weighed down by a boulder.

As if that weren’t enough, sitting in front of the computer every day had already taken a toll on her neck. Now, with her head too heavy to lift, the pain in the back of her neck flared up before long.

Ji Qingyi was starting to wonder if she was cursed—how could she be this unlucky?

The only silver lining was that she hadn’t been assigned any new tasks yet, so she could slack off a little for now. Still, she had to remain seated, which meant maintaining this awful posture and worsening the pain.

Facing the computer screen, Ji Qingyi dealt with some trivial work matters. Her head remained foggy, so she consoled herself with the thought that tomorrow was her day off—she just had to endure today.

She bore the physical discomfort until noon.

“Qingyi.”

Ji Qingyi, slumped drowsily over her desk, suddenly heard someone call her name and jolted awake.

Turning her head toward the voice, she saw Shen Xizhao, the new hire who had joined just last week.

His medium-length hair curled slightly at the ends where it brushed his shoulders, and the sunlight streaming through the window cast a golden glow over the strands.

The sun’s out… So bright. Ji Qingyi’s eyelids fluttered before she squeezed them shut again. When she opened them, Shen Xizhao’s face was much closer—he had bent down to peer at her.

“Qingyi, let’s have lunch togeth—are you feeling unwell?”

Shen Xizhao abruptly changed the subject upon seeing Ji Qingyi’s complexion, his expression concerned.

Ji Qingyi didn’t like it when people addressed her too familiarly, but she hadn’t asked him to change it. After all, strangers pretending to be close were always like this—she just had to adapt.

Still… something about Shen Xizhao felt different from others. Though his approach was ordinary, she couldn’t shake a vague sense of unease.

“…No, I’m just a bit tired.”

Ji Qingyi forced a slight smile, indicating she was fine.

She didn’t pay much attention to things outside her work, and even during the other person’s internship, she had hardly interacted with them. She considered herself completely unfamiliar with Shen Xizhao, who seemed like an unexpected intruder, making his intentions utterly unclear to her. This was probably one of the reasons she found the situation so strange.

This was already the second time this week he had invited her to lunch.

Having a lunch companion wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but Ji Qingyi was used to being alone and disliked socializing. Interactions that required two people held little appeal for her—she still found solitary actions far more comfortable.

Ji Qingyi intended to decline. How should she put it? Last time, she had used the excuse of ordering takeout, but today she hadn’t…

She couldn’t be too blunt. Ji Qingyi looked at Shen Xizhao’s cheerful smile as he invited her and pondered.

“Mm… you go ahead. I’ll wait a bit… I’m not hungry yet.”

She smiled politely at the person in front of her, hoping he would give up on tagging along.

The air fell silent for two seconds.

Ji Qingyi wondered if her refusal had upset him, but Shen Xizhao’s smile remained unchanged, the corners of his lips still curved perfectly.

“No problem, I’m not very hungry either. I’ll wait for you.”

Shen Xizhao opened his mouth and, completely oblivious to the atmosphere, let the words spill out.

This guy really doesn’t take a hint. What’s been going on lately?

Ji Qingyi’s smile faded. Her face was pale, making her look weak and drained, and now she seemed even more helpless, like a speechless corpse.

As she studied Shen Xizhao’s flawless smile, she found it even stranger. Someone who seemed so socially adept should have no trouble getting along with others—so why was he so insistent on talking to her? Every time she accidentally met his gaze, she felt a subtle, indescribable unease, as if he had set his sights on her.

Fine, no point overthinking it. It was probably just her own discomfort from being out of touch with socializing for so long. No need to sour relations with a newcomer—having a meal together wasn’t a big deal. Maybe they could even order a combo meal or something, get a discount…

Thinking this way, Ji Qingyi sat for a while longer before calling Shen Xizhao to head downstairs together. Truthfully, she had been hungry for a while now. Though she still had little appetite, she really did need to eat something.

“Qingyi, what do you feel like eating?”

Shen Xizhao asked in the elevator.

“…I want congee.”

Ji Qingyi had been zoning out. Only when she heard his question did her brain sluggishly kick into gear, and after a pause, she responded belatedly.

“Hmm… there’s a place nearby that serves pretty good congee. It’s around the corner up ahead, called…”

Shen Xizhao was trying to recall the name of the restaurant. Ji Qingyi listened to his explanation, idly wondering when a place with decent congee had opened nearby—she had never heard of it before. The ones she’d tried in the past were always watery and bland.

This train of thought came to an abrupt halt the moment the elevator doors opened, because Ji Qingyi caught sight of a familiar figure standing across the street.

Wen Yuchuan?

Her mind was thrown into chaos, filled only with confusion over why this person was here.

As she stepped out of the elevator, she suddenly felt a wave of dizziness. This was definitely not some physiological reaction to running into an ex—the psychological shadow cast by Wen Yuchuan wasn’t severe enough to trigger such a terrible physical response.

Was she running a fever?

Ji Qingyi instantly thought of this possibility. The last time she had a fever, the dizziness had tormented her to the point of agony. She was all too familiar with that sensation, so even though it had only flashed briefly just now, she couldn’t help but suspect it.

She had initially attributed her headache to lack of sleep. When the heaviness in her head grew increasingly worse, she still only thought she had caught a bad cold, figuring that some cold medicine after getting home would be enough.

Surely it couldn’t be a fever…

Ji Qingyi pretended to smooth her hair and touched her forehead, but she couldn’t feel anything unusual. It wasn’t until her hand brushed against other skin that she realized the reason she couldn’t tell was that her palm was just as hot.

…

Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy. Wen Yuchuan hadn’t been concerned about her yesterday—she’d been cursing her.

And now that detestable person was right ahead, just a street crossing away.

“Qingyi, Qingyi?”

Shen Xizhao called out twice to Ji Qingyi, who had frozen in place.

“Ah, yeah, let’s go.”

Ji Qingyi snapped out of it, mumbling a vague response before walking forward.

They exited the office building. Ji Qingyi tried her best not to look across the street, but even from her peripheral vision, she could see the figure on the other side heading their way.

“It’s just around the corner.”

As soon as Shen Xizhao said this, Ji Qingyi quickened her pace. Shen Xizhao didn’t understand why but followed suit.

“I’m a little hungry.”

Only after swiftly entering the restaurant did Ji Qingyi realize how odd her behavior must have seemed, so she hastily explained.

“Then let’s order quickly.”

Shen Xizhao smiled.

Ji Qingyi murmured an agreement. It wasn’t until she sat down after ordering that she finally calmed down. Suddenly, she felt there was no need to avoid the other person at all—she had practically fled in a panic. She really didn’t know what she was doing.

Ji Qingyi sighed.

“Your face is a little red.”

Shen Xizhao propped her chin on her hand, tilting her head as she looked at Ji Qingyi, the corners of her lips curling.

Ji Qingyi lifted her head at the comment and met the other’s gaze. Shen Xizhao was smiling, but Ji Qingyi couldn’t shake the strange feeling it gave her, so she averted her eyes.

“…Is it? Maybe from rushing just now…”

Ji Qingyi felt her face grow even hotter. Had it gotten worse? Please no—she hoped it was just her imagination. Ji Qingyi prayed silently. She didn’t want to relive the agony of being alone at home, dizzy and nauseous, starving but unable to eat anything, her stomach empty until all she could vomit was stomach acid.

“Why were you in such a hurry? Did you see someone?”

Shen Xizhao’s smile didn’t waver, her expression still pleasant, but her words didn’t match the sweetness of her face.

“I just suddenly got hungry…”

Ji Qingyi didn’t pay much attention to Shen Xizhao’s odd tone, sticking to her earlier excuse. But as soon as she finished, Shen Xizhao immediately pointed behind her, signaling that something—or someone—was there.

Ji Qingyi swallowed hard and turned to look.

Outside the glass window, Wen Yuchuan stood there, watching them.