Chapter 42 I Wanted That to Be a Dream Even More Than You Did

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Qiu Yiyao felt as though someone were leading her through a long corridor lined with all kinds of flowers.

The person ahead had neatly cropped hair and wore a flowing black robe, always keeping two or three meters between them.

She tried to catch up, but no matter how hard she chased after him, she could never touch him.

The scene was not unfamiliar. She had seen it in a dream several years ago; she had simply never expected to return here a second time.

“What is this place?” Qiu Yiyao asked cautiously.

The person ahead did not look back, much less answer.

After walking for who knew how long, he finally stopped.

“Go back.”

His voice was clear and unfamiliar.

“Go back where?”

The man in black still did not answer. In the blink of an eye, he vanished.

Qiu Yiyao panicked. A stone wall blocked the way ahead, and her guide had disappeared. Where was she supposed to go?

“Where are you? Come back!”

She shouted. The flowers overhead swayed in the breeze, bright and beautiful in every color.

Just then, the stone wall before her began to tremble. Slowly, it split apart to either side.

A dark passage appeared.

This had not been part of her earlier dream.

Perhaps the man in black had meant that she should leave through the passage.

But it was pitch-black inside, and Qiu Yiyao felt deeply uncertain.

“Go back.”

The man’s voice drifted over on the breeze.

“All right. I’ll take the chance.”

Gritting her teeth, Qiu Yiyao stepped into the passage.

But just as both her legs had crossed the threshold, the ground beneath her feet suddenly gave way.

“Ah!”

Qiu Yiyao screamed, flailing her hands in the void.

Everything within sight was black.

Suddenly, a warm, broad hand seized hers and pulled hard.

Qiu Yiyao sat bolt upright in bed.

She opened her eyes to a familiar expanse of pure white.

She was in a hospital.

“Back with us?”

Bai Peiyu sat beside the bed, still wearing that insufferably cocky expression.

“Why am I here?”

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“You were sick. Where else would you go?”

The moment she heard the word “sick,” Qiu Yiyao rolled her eyes and reached for the covers.

Only then did she realize that her hand was clasped tightly around Bai Peiyu’s.

She flung it away in disgust. “You just said I was sick, and now you’re trying to take advantage of me while I’m asleep? Picking on a patient, are you?”

Bai Peiyu gave her a mocking look. “You were the one who suddenly started screaming and flailing around. If I hadn’t grabbed your hand in time, you would probably have beaten yourself black and blue.”

Qiu Yiyao froze. In the darkness of her dream, she had panicked and waved both hands frantically. Apparently, she had carried the dream into reality.

“Then I suppose I should thank you properly for stopping me from turning myself into a pig’s head.”

Qiu Yiyao rose irritably. Just then, a child ran past the ward door.

She stood rooted to the spot, staring blankly toward the entrance as though someone had sealed her pressure points.

Scene after scene from Old Yu’s house flashed before her eyes.

The little girl on the bed, her face slashed and disfigured.

The boy beneath the bed, his eyes wide with terror.

Her heart clenched.

There was no doubt about it. Those things had really happened.

She turned to look at Bai Peiyu. He was sitting in a chair, looking perfectly relaxed.

Had her show of weakness worked, prompting him to bring her straight from the police station to the hospital?

Perhaps he was already figuring out how to find an excuse to deny what she had seen at Old Yu’s house.

Qiu Yiyao revealed nothing of what she was thinking. Pretending to be unconcerned, she said, “I want to go home. Go take care of the discharge paperwork.”

Bai Peiyu stood, picked up her backpack from the table against the wall, and tossed it to her before heading for the door.

At the doorway, he stopped. “We’re going to a funeral later.”

Qiu Yiyao stared at him.

A funeral? Whose?

Li Zhen’s? Surely not.

Could it be… Old Yu’s two children?

Qiu Yiyao could hardly believe it. By all convention, that should have been an illusion, a dream. How could they possibly let her get close to the truth?

…

“Well, Miss Qiu, what seems to be troubling you today?”

Qiu Yiyao had barely stepped out of the ward with her backpack when a familiar, greasy voice sounded behind her.

She frowned. What rotten luck—running into him here.

Xiao Yi hurried after her. He was dressed in a white coat and wore black-rimmed glasses, looking every inch the respectable doctor, at least on the surface.

“I don’t think that’s any of your business. Who are you, anyway?”

Qiu Yiyao had never shown courtesy to people she disliked.

Xiao Yi had thick skin. It was not as though he had never heard such words before. He lifted a hand to push his glasses up. “We’re friends, more or less. Is it really so wrong for me to show a little concern?”

“Hah! Friends? Sorry, but I don’t have any friends in this town.”

Qiu Yiyao tightened her grip on her backpack and tried to walk around him, but Xiao Yi clung to her like a smear of dog plaster, following wherever she went.

By the time they reached the lobby on the first floor, Qiu Yiyao was furious. She could take it no longer. Turning around, she glared viciously at him.

“Can you just get lost?”

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“No,” Xiao Yi replied with a lecherous grin. “It’s not every day Miss Qiu comes to the hospital. How could I possibly—”

Before he could finish, his expression suddenly changed.

“Ow, ow, that hurts!”

Bai Peiyu had seized his arm from behind and twisted it sharply backward while he was off guard.

Xiao Yi turned and saw Bai Peiyu, his eyes flashing with menace.

“You—Bai! You dare lay a hand on me here?”

“Why don’t you find out?”

Bai Peiyu’s voice was deliberately provocative.

He shoved Xiao Yi hard in the back. With a resounding thump, Xiao Yi dropped to his knees before Qiu Yiyao.

Qiu Yiyao had certainly not expected such a grand “gift.” Covering her mouth, she burst out laughing at Xiao Yi’s humiliating predicament.

The onlookers erupted in gleeful laughter as well.

“You… just wait!”

Under the gaze of everyone in the lobby, Xiao Yi scrambled away on hands and knees.

“Thanks,” Qiu Yiyao said with a sigh of relief.

Bai Peiyu did not even glance at her. He simply continued toward the hospital entrance.

“No need. Let’s go.”

…

At the foot of the mountain behind Old Yu’s house stood two new graves, each marked by a stone stele engraved with a name.

Old Yu’s wife was dressed entirely in white. She wore no delicate makeup or manicured nails, and there were even strands of gray in her hair.

She looked nothing like the woman Qiu Yiyao had seen before.

Sitting cross-legged before the graves, she murmured something over and over.

Nearby, a neighbor quietly wiped away tears, while someone else bent down to try to persuade her.

“This… isn’t really a dream, is it?” Qiu Yiyao asked, putting on a look of astonishment as she glanced at Bai Peiyu.

He answered in a low voice, “I wish more than you did that it were.”

His voice was barely audible, yet Qiu Yiyao heard him clearly.

It was the first time she had ever heard such a distinctly human note in Bai Peiyu’s voice.

She stood stunned as the scene in the hospital came back to her.

So she had guessed correctly? The people in this town really were fighting among themselves?

Xiao Yi represented the mayor. He bullied women and men alike and committed every kind of wrongdoing.

Bai Peiyu and Qiu Shengming, on the other hand, still possessed a shred of conscience.

If that was the case, then perhaps Li Zhen’s injuries had also been inflicted by Xiao Yi.

Yet for all their internal struggles, this group of people always maintained a certain tacit understanding in front of Qiu Yiyao. They acted like decent human beings and toyed with her until she was completely bewildered.

That was what Qiu Yiyao could never understand. She was merely an ordinary university student. What was it about her that made the people of this town go to such lengths, mobilizing so many people to put on an elaborate performance and deceive her?