Chapter 61: The Love-Brain¹ Female Lead Awakens 4

Sang Ruo scratched her hair and said dejectedly, “I don’t have many thoughts on it. I just don’t want the bad things from the dream to actually happen.”

Sang Ruo felt fairly satisfied with the meal. Walking out of the congee shop, her whole body felt much lighter. Yi Chen’an personally helped her carry the zongzi² back to the dormitory building before leaving.

When they parted, Yi Chen’an said, “Don’t overthink things, little girl.” There was a trace of imperceptible indulgence in his tone.

Back in the dormitory, a box of sushi sat on the table. Chi Qing had brought it for her. After Sang Ruo indicated she had already eaten, the sushi was quickly divided and eaten by the other two roommates.

Since there were no classes in the afternoon, Sang Ruo climbed into bed to catch up on sleep. However, she noticed that the new pillow she bought yesterday was missing from her bed, so she asked the others.

“Pillow? What pillow?” Yin Xiaoxin, who was in the bed next to Sang Ruo, asked with a mouthful of sushi, her voice muffled.

“The medicinal pillow I bought with you guys yesterday.” She looked at the other three beds; their medicinal pillows were all there.

They had bought these medicinal pillows yesterday afternoon from a street vendor at the school gate. Supposedly, they were filled with herbs that had a calming effect. They weren’t expensive, so everyone had bought one. Sang Ruo had used hers last night and put her old pillow away in the wardrobe.

But when the others heard her words, they exchanged looks. Yin Xiaoxin said with a strange expression, “You must be remembering wrong, Sang Ruo. You didn’t buy a medicinal pillow yesterday!”

“How is that possible? I was using it last night.”

Shang Xiliu, from the opposite bed, walked over a few steps. “Stop joking, Sang Ruo. Didn’t you say you disliked the smell yesterday? So you didn’t buy one with the rest of us.”

Sang Ruo saw that their expressions didn’t look like they were joking; in fact, they looked slightly frightened. Sang Ruo paused for a moment, then suddenly burst out laughing. “Haha, look how scared you are! I’m just teasing you.”

The room was immediately filled with complaints as they all clamored to hit Sang Ruo. After smoothing things over, Sang Ruo waited until they weren’t paying attention to take out the old pillow she had stored in the wardrobe last night. she buried herself in the soft quilt, blocking out the light and noise.

Sang Ruo curled up, shivering under the covers as a chill ran through her body. She clearly remembered the process of buying the medicinal pillow, and she remembered the faint scent of herbs drifting past her nose when she woke up this morning. But why was it that in everyone else’s memory, she hadn’t bought it? And where was that medicinal pillow now?

Was it a hallucination? Or…

Her thoughts were in a turmoil, and she didn’t know when she eventually fell asleep. When she woke up, it was already late afternoon.

This sleep was extremely restless; she had dreamed again.

In the dream, it was the Mid-Autumn Festival. Sang Ruo was heavily pregnant, staying at Zhou Yan’s aunt’s house in town. The aunt lived in a two-story flat-roofed house. She was helping her aunt cook in the kitchen while the aunt nagged her about being too picky with food, saying that even when pregnant, a woman shouldn’t be too delicate, and so on.

She was very impatient, but in the end, she endured it without lashing out. She sliced the eggplant at a steady pace to calm her irritation.

The accident happened at that very moment.

The earth shook violently, making it impossible to stand.

Sang Ruo heard her aunt let out a piercing scream, but she was currently unable to look after herself and couldn’t manage much else. To avoid hurting herself, she threw the kitchen knife far away. Protecting her belly, she ran quickly out of the house. Outside was a large area of flat ground, which was definitely safer than being inside.

At this moment, she was quite grateful that her aunt lived in a flat house rather than an apartment building, which made it easy for her to move to a relatively safe place. Although she made it out, she couldn’t stand steadily and nearly fell several times.

Quite a few people had gathered in the open space, including her uncle-in-law and her female cousin.

The cousin screamed, “Mom! My mom is still inside!”

But she only screamed. The ground beneath their feet was still shaking, and no one was willing to go back into the dangerous house. This included the uncle-in-law, who hadn’t said a word, and the cousin, who wouldn’t stop screaming.

After a long time, or perhaps not long at all, the earth finally calmed its anger. Once the tremors passed, people wept with joy.

Her aunt’s cursing sounded particularly abrupt amidst the crying.

Sang Ruo caught her breath and called out loudly, “Uncle!”

The man hesitated for a moment but followed Sang Ruo back into the house. Her aunt’s leg was pinned by a fallen heavy wardrobe, and she couldn’t move. The wardrobe was very cumbersome; the uncle couldn’t lift it alone. Sang Ruo gritted her teeth and went to help, knowing she couldn’t rely on the cousin who only knew how to cry and scream.

The two of them used all their strength to lift the wardrobe just a little. Sang Ruo barked at the dazed cousin standing nearby, “Hurry up and pull your mother out!”

“Oh, right.”

The aunt was pulled out. After setting the wardrobe down, Sang Ruo went to support her. She was pushed away roughly as the aunt cursed sarcastically, “You certainly ran fast enough, didn’t you?”

The aunt had a reason to say this, because when the earthquake hit, Sang Ruo was the person closest to the room she was in.

Sang Ruo steadied herself after being pushed so hard, luckily avoiding another fall. She cradled her belly, fuming inside. She swallowed her anger, choosing not to argue with the family of three who had already left her behind to walk outside.

In fact, at this point, she had already begun to notice that something was wrong with her stomach, but she ignored it out of worry for Zhou Yan, who had gone out that morning.

Aftershocks were quite frequent. They watched with their own eyes as distant high-rise buildings collapsed, sending mud and stones flying. After some discussion, everyone decided to move to the town’s middle school playground. There were two soccer fields and several basketball courts there, making it the most open space in town.

Many people had already gathered there, and the doctors from the town hospital were there as well. Her aunt’s leg received preliminary treatment.

The mountains crumbled and the earth split; communications were cut off. For everyone, every day felt like a year.

Sang Ruo felt waves of throbbing pain in her belly. The pain was within a bearable range, but it terrified her. At this moment, she desperately wanted Zhou Yan to be with her, yet she worried about him even more. If he was safe now, she hoped he would just stay where he was and not move.

In this tangled and contradictory state of mind, she didn’t wait for Zhou Yan, but instead saw Yi Chen’an, who should have been thousands of miles away.

The first thing she saw when she woke up was Yi Chen’an. She didn’t even know when she had fallen asleep, nor did she know how Yi Chen’an had gotten there.

There was a throbbing, heavy pain in her lower body. Only then did she realize her legs were covered in blood.

Yi Chen’an had brought a professional gynecologist. She was moved into a tent that had been set up as a temporary delivery room.

In her daze, Sang Ruo heard the doctor’s apologetic voice: “The conditions are too poor, there’s no equipment at all, but at least the mother’s condition has stabilized.”

By the time Zhou Yan arrived, everything had already been settled.

Later, when Sang Ruo and Zhou Yan argued, he even mentioned this incident, saying mockingly, “To this day, I don’t know if that child was mine. If it wasn’t Yi Chen’an’s seed, why would he travel thousands of miles with a gynecologist to such a dangerous place just to find you?”

When Sang Ruo woke up, her face was again covered in tear stains. She clutched her stomach, seemingly still able to feel the sensation of life force slowly draining away from that spot in her dream.

After a while, she got up and washed her face, preparing to put something in her stomach.

Sang Ruo rummaged through the basket she had brought back that morning. There were six zongzi inside, all in her favorite chicken flavor. She took them all to the dormitory supervisor’s office to heat them in the microwave. She gave one to the supervisor, two to her roommates who were heading out, and ate three large zongzi herself in one go. It was as if doing so could fill the sense of loss in her flat abdomen from when she woke up.

Feeling stuffed to the point of discomfort, she decided to go for a walk. Passing by the administration building, Sang Ruo walked inside as if possessed. She lingered for a while in front of the psychological counseling room on the first floor, but in the end, she didn’t go in.

Turning away, she went to the library across from the administration building.

Sang Ruo had once skimmed through “Legends of the Tang Dynasty” without much thought, treating it merely as an extracurricular reading assignment.

Now that she had carefully reread “The World Inside a Pillow³,” a story that bore a striking resemblance to her own situation, she felt as though she had gained some insight.

Regardless of whether those events were a dream or had actually happened, at least she was fine now, her parents were fine… and Yi Chen’an was fine. That was enough, wasn’t it?

She stayed in the library until closing time before heading out, receiving a call from Zhou Yan on her way back to the dormitory.

“Honey, let’s go out tomorrow since it’s Saturday,” Zhou Yan said. “One of my buddies is having a birthday party. Everyone from our dorm is going, and they’re all bringing their girlfriends. Remember to dress up and look pretty.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Sang Ruo agreed. She needed to see Zhou Yan one more time to find a reason to bring up the breakup.

The city was too congested on weekends, and since the meeting place wasn’t far, she and Zhou Yan decided to take the subway after meeting up.

Because they were in a rush, Zhou Yan walked very quickly ahead of her once they reached their stop. Many people were getting off at this station, and Sang Ruo, lost in thought, didn’t watch her step. She was accidentally jostled and fell to the ground.

It was a hard fall, and it took Sang Ruo a good while to recover enough strength to crawl back up. The people around her were walking hurriedly; to avoid being stepped on, she gritted her teeth and pulled herself to her feet.

Zhou Yan doubled back from ahead. Seeing his girlfriend’s disheveled state, he scolded, “How could you be so careless? Your stockings are ruined.”

More than just the stockings were ruined. There was a large hole in the left knee of her stockings, revealing a bloody, mangled knee. The right side hadn’t torn, but the flesh was bruised purple. Both her elbows were also scraped, exposing raw, red flesh.

Actually, she wouldn’t have fallen so badly, but in the split second she went down, she had instinctively protected her stomach. Without her hands to cushion the impact, both her knees had slammed directly onto the ground.

Zhou Yan supported Sang Ruo as she limped out of the subway station, constantly checking his watch. “We’re almost late. Tell you what, I’ll go buy you some Band-Aids. You go see if there’s anywhere nearby selling stockings. It won’t take much time to clean yourself up.”

Sang Ruo didn’t say a word, just stared at Zhou Yan. Zhou Yan felt uncomfortable under her gaze and changed his tune. “Forget it, you shouldn’t go. I’ll hail a cab and send you back.”

Sang Ruo realized that she no longer felt even a shred of affection for Zhou Yan. Now, whenever she looked at him, she couldn’t help but project the Zhou Yan from her dream onto him. Looking at the young man as he stood with his back to her hailing a taxi, she said, “Zhou Yan, let’s break up.”

Zhou Yan clearly hadn’t expected her to say those words. His brow furrowed for a moment before he ran over to coax her. “Are you angry? I’m sorry, honey. It’s not that I don’t care about you, I was just in a hurry. I was wrong. I won’t go to the party; I’ll go back with you.”

Sang Ruo looked back at him. She found that she could be perfectly calm when facing Zhou Yan now. “I’m not throwing a tantrum. I’m serious. I want to break up with you.”

“You… stop messing around…” The person being dumped finally sensed that something was different. “I’ll send you back to rest first. We’ll talk again when you’re feeling better.”

Wrenching her arm out of Zhou Yan’s grip, Sang Ruo said with a self-deprecating smile, “I suppose it was only after actually being with you that I realized we aren’t right for each other.”

Translator’s Notes