"Ah, Mr. Jiang Cheng, please..."
Subconsciously, Vil-V wanted to shout for Jiang Cheng to respect himself, just like countless times before, the loneliness of being alone in her Room with no one caring—but the moment the words left her mouth, she instinctively covered her lips with her hand.
A stronger fear than before impacted her heart, and a feeling of not wanting to lose something turned her words into a soft, pleading request.
"Don't say anything more… Can you give me some time?"
The young man lowered his head slightly and immediately offered his sincere apologies.
"I apologize, I seem to have been insensitive to your feelings. I will be more mindful in the future. Thank you for your gift. On your next birthday, I will also prepare a suitable gift for you, regardless of whether you consider me a friend."
His emotional intelligence might not be exceptionally high.
But he wasn't completely oblivious either.
Perhaps his way of interacting with Aili Xiya was entirely unsuitable for someone so self-deprecating; too much enthusiasm might instead make the other person feel afraid.
How many years had it been since she last met someone so sincere?
...[The birthday banquet kept you flustered. No matter how adept you were at communicating with others, if the number of people grew infinitely, it would be enough to plunge anyone into a whirlpool in the ocean, making it difficult to escape.]
[This even left you with little time to find Jiang Cheng, only allowing you to somewhat perfunctorily lead everyone in offering blessings, but not to give them individually.]
[There shouldn't be any problem, right?]
[Didn't you already give your blessings yesterday?]
[It shouldn't be a problem for the young man, right?]
[Even though you were itching to push away the people around you to find the young man, you could only continuously deal with those who kept crowding around.]
[The people around you were still noisy, still asking questions.]
[After a short while, you finally found a gap, allowing you to relax slightly from the encirclement of countless people. Just as you were about to search for the young man's figure in the crowd to talk to him.]
[—Jiang Cheng seemed to have already been taken by someone else.]
[The young man was not alone; there was a strange girl whom you barely knew, only having a slightly vague impression of her.]
[Even in the chat group, that girl's messages were almost non-existent.]
[Yet now, that girl who had almost never spoken, or whose messages were merely timers or evasive replies, was chatting very happily with Jiang Cheng.]
[The young man's face even carried a relaxed and joyful smile, a smile you had rarely seen recently.]
[Ah...]
[Why...]
[—There's a strange, inexplicable feeling in your heart?]
[Your heart feels heavy, with a nearly tangible discomfort. Even though you are not far from the young man, it feels as if a world separates you.]
[—It must be an illusion.]
[As the goal of a birthday banquet inclined towards communication, Jiang Cheng finding new friends was a very important, even the most important, part of it, allowing Jiang Cheng not to be confined to a journey of just two people.]
[That's what you thought, exactly...]
[It was clearly to let the young man find friends.]
[You should be happy to see the scene before you.]
[Why does your mood feel a bit heavy?]
[It was a kind of suppression that should not belong to you, to the flawless, flower-like beautiful fairy.]
[Even though you now had to communicate with others to change the world in advance, to change the organization behind the scenes, you had even lost much of the desire to speak.]
...[At nineteen, your journey with Aili Xiya continued, but this time it was no longer just about being engrossed in each other's company as before.]
[After your birthday, you had emerged from your naive period, growing into an adult in the true sense of the word. And although your birthday banquet was not completely perfect, the gains were by no means insignificant.]
[The Exchange meeting prepared by Aili Xiya allowed you to meet a very good friend.]
[—Vil-V.]
[Originally, you simply thought you had met a good person, a chance acquaintance, but you never expected that after just chatting, you would add each other as friends.]
[One day, when you truly couldn't find anything to do and were constantly ignored, the increasingly intense girl now found it difficult to even spare a little time each day. Your sense of presence had basically dropped to zero.]
[For some reason, you opened your phone and sent a few messages to Vil-V, intending to chat and pass the time.]
[Unexpectedly, the girl replied to you immediately and indeed chatted with you until late at night that day, showing no signs of aversion in between.]
[Perhaps it was also related to your continuous compliments.]
[This wasn't about trying to curry favor or deliberately please.]
[You didn't engage in any fawning behavior; it's just that the girl's level was truly very, very high, as if she knew everything, understood everything, and was proficient in everything.]
[The two of you chatted about all sorts of things, from small matters to astronomy, and then from astronomy to various so-called technologies and humanities.]
[This kind of life continued for several days. After leaving your childhood, you felt for the first time that a day could be so fulfilling, not just wasting time watching others communicate meaninglessly every day.]
[When you were still preparing to send a goodnight message on the fifth day, intending to continue chatting tomorrow, the girl gave a different answer.]
Can it really be stuffed in?.jpg
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15. Vil-V: Jiang Cheng... needs me?
Looking at the goodnight message sent by the young man on the white-lit screen, and the cute and warm emoji next to it, the girl's slender fingers stiffened in the air. Just moving them a fraction of an inch felt like it would take all her strength.
She really didn't want... didn't want to separate like this.
It was the first time in her life she had met a companion she could communicate with.
It was the first time in her life she had experienced someone who could praise and comfort her like this.
Why must she actively push him away?
Why was she like a clumsy hedgehog, curling up and hurting others with her spines even when faced with warmth and kindness?
The girl couldn't understand, couldn't accept it, but in the end, she slowly and heavily typed out the letters, forming a message of rejection.
Vil-V: Jiang Cheng... can you stop looking for me to chat...—This was using coldness to hurt others' kindness and feelings.
How foolish. If seen from a God's perspective, everyone would probably curse the girl's foolishness, calling her a heartless, bloodless, tearless villain, someone who even refused help from others and didn't deserve friends.
Ah... ah... ah... Jiang Cheng would surely be unable to understand.
He would surely be dumbfounded.
He would... he would surely be very sad.
Yet he actively helped and comforted others, only to be rejected and hurt by them, the person he considered a friend actually didn't see him as a friend at all.
Just thinking about the expression the young man might have made the girl's heart feel like it was closing up, a tangible, almost suffocating discomfort washing over her.
The feeling of actively pushing away kindness brought with it a sense of self-reproach, as if she were a beast or garbage, her young, tender heart aching as if bleeding.
It had to be this way.
It could only be this way.
Vil-V was not unable to feel the young man's kindness; she was not a heartless, bloodless, tearless person, perhaps a viper who prided herself on not needing emotions.
It's just that now, this was the only way, the best choice, the only choice.
—Because the young man's help was too beautiful.
The girl was someone completely trapped in self-consumption. Even with top-tier intelligence, she could only endlessly self-harm, self-loathing to the point that if not for her talent, she would probably jump off a building like countless depression sufferers. Even so, she denied herself to the extent of creating another self.
Such beauty, such comfort, such praise, such gentleness... the girl had never felt or experienced in her entire life.
It was like being in a turbulent, endless ocean, where the girl, who could originally only struggle with all her might, suddenly boarded a warm and comfortable large ship.
Perhaps for others, a large ship was nothing; they might have already been standing on a land built of emotions.
Perhaps they would see this large ship as a key to the land.
But Vil-V, let alone land, let alone a small boat, didn't even have a wooden plank.
She didn't even have subjective kinetic energy.
She wouldn't even swim.
She had originally only survived by instinctive buoyancy in the turbulent waves, fortunately spitting out water caught in her lungs after countless suffocations.
If such a waste were to board the ship?
If such a waste were to be sheltered?
If such a waste were to experience warmth?!
She would absolutely, forever be unable to leave. If the large ship disappeared, if it left, the girl would definitely drown completely in the ocean.
She could have accepted the darkness, could have continued to sink until she fell, if the girl had never seen the light, if she had never felt warmth.
—If this continues, if one day, Jiang Cheng's gentleness disappears without a trace, as written in novels... I will die...—Unless there is something that can prove that no matter how happy I am, how much love I receive... this happiness and love will not disappear like shampoo foam.
How could that be?
The young man clearly had such a perfect girl accompanying him, and she wasn't even worthy of standing in front of that girl.
True perfection and flawlessness.
No matter who it was, no matter how many people, no matter what their personality was like, she could easily make friends and become close confidantes with whom she could chat.
How could someone who was trapped in self-consumption, who didn't even dare to accept help and kindness from others, compare?
Let it be evasion.
Let it be cowardice.
Let it be timidity.
Hadn't she always lived like this before?
It was merely continuing her past life, continuing a hopeless life of rising and falling in the waves, battered by storms.
—I'm already used to this life.
Aren't I?
The bubbles in the sun, though dazzling and beautiful, if one truly indulged in them, when they burst, the heart would also shatter with them.
The only one she was sorry for was... Jiang Cheng.
Ah... I'm sorry.