Compatibility - Chapter 71

Chapter 71

Given Song Nanyin's temperament, her words were almost excessively cold. Liu Zhaoran understood the reason for her change in attitude and didn't feel especially hurt. In fact, all the way over, she had been prepared to bear the brunt of her "anger."

"I was worried about you. I wanted to come see if you were feeling unwell anywhere." Liu Zhaoran said this while seated in her wheelchair. Because her severe injuries had yet to heal, she had developed a high fever the moment she left the Sleep Pod. Her voice was hoarse now, and her clear, bright tone had somehow gained a fragile quality.

It was like a cup filled with hot water then set in an ice cellar, fine cracks blooming across its surface. Song Nanyin ought to have felt heartache, and she truly couldn't bear to see Liu Zhaoran like this.

But having been deceived so many times, her first reaction upon seeing Liu Zhaoran like this was no longer to tell her to rest, but to wonder whether this was some new trick of Liu Zhaoran's.

Perhaps it was unkind to think that way, but at this moment Song Nanyin unhesitatingly believed herself to be a terrible person, even wanting to heap every bad thought onto Liu Zhaoran.

She really was detestable.

"You're the one who looks unwell. If there's nothing else, go back." Song Nanyin didn't want to say any more to Liu Zhaoran. Her mood was awful now, partly from her panic at this unfamiliar world, and the rest was Liu Zhaoran's doing.

To be deceived and betrayed stirred up extremely negative emotions. And when it involved someone you cared about and loved, the grief was magnified without limit. The more you cared, the more it hurt. Grief stacked upon grief, confirming the depth of what lay in your heart, and so it ached all the more.

It was a contradictory cycle, a vicious circle.

It could hardly be called a closed loop, for no matter how it revolved or rotated, the one it hurt was always oneself.

"My injuries are fine. The medical technology here is very advanced." Liu Zhaoran instinctively concealed the true state of her wounds. Even though she felt so miserable that her whole body ached, she didn't want to use it to gain anything.

Song Nanyin knew this world was highly developed, so she believed Liu Zhaoran's words without suspicion.

"So you know everything." Liu Zhaoran could tell that Song Nanyin was eager to drive her away. Her heart ached a little. This, she supposed, was what it felt like to reap what you had sown.

"Know what? That you've been playing me for a fool all along? Or the things you should have come clean about long ago?"

Song Nanyin turned to look at Liu Zhaoran, but at this moment Liu Zhaoran chose to look away. Meeting someone's gaze often exposed too much, and eye contact itself was an extremely dangerous act. It meant a person could peer into your heart through your eyes, through every movement and expression.

In their relationship, Song Nanyin had always felt she was the passive one, the one who "looked away" first. Now the roles were completely reversed, and Liu Zhaoran's evasion struck her as amusing.

"Nanyin, I..."

"You knew from the very beginning that what was happening to my body wasn't a mutation, but differentiation in your world, didn't you?"

Song Nanyin kept looking at Liu Zhaoran with a vaguely aggressive intensity. Liu Zhaoran raised her eyes to meet hers and pressed her lips together, which Song Nanyin found somewhat amusing. It was one of Liu Zhaoran's little habits. Whenever she was weighing something and preparing to lie, she would always make that small gesture.

"Liu Zhaoran, don't lie to me. Otherwise I can't guarantee how much patience I'll have left for you. I don't want to hear any more of your lies and concealment."

This was the last chance, Song Nanyin thought.

The chance she was giving herself, not Liu Zhaoran.

"From now on, I'll ask all the questions, and you only need to answer yes or no. Liu Zhaoran, I don't want to hear anything else."

Liu Zhaoran lowered her eyes, answering with silence. At this moment, she had no choice.

"Answer the question from before. You knew from the start that I was undergoing differentiation, not a physical mutation."

"Yes."

"You deliberately hid it from me, not just to threaten me, but because you thought it was funny to watch me scared out of my wits. Is that it?"

Song Nanyin's gaze rested on Liu Zhaoran, and she clearly noticed that after these words, Liu Zhaoran was briefly stunned, a hint of hurt flickering through her.

"No."

"If we hadn't come back to this world, you would have chosen to keep hiding it from me forever, wouldn't you?" Song Nanyin asked the question she cared about most, the answer she had been longing to get ever since she woke up.

Liu Zhaoran looked at her and finally understood that the slightest flaw was enough to lay everything she had hidden bare, like a sign in plain view, with no place left for any of her lies to hide.

Confession required courage, and candor was the part of love that was most needed yet hardest to achieve. Liu Zhaoran admitted that back then, she had neither the courage to confess nor the inclination to be candid.

The composure and smoothness she prided herself on were, in truth, nothing but lies, perfectly wrapped in the guise of kindness. All of it had become waste, worth even less than old newspapers thrown on the ground.

She couldn't lie, and she didn't dare speak another lie to deceive Song Nanyin.

"I'm sorry."

Liu Zhaoran didn't follow the rules of the game, giving an answer other than "yes," yet it was also the best answer. Song Nanyin gave a disdainful little laugh. She had never intended to give Liu Zhaoran a chance. Asking was only to make herself give up hope.

In the end, it was still a chance she gave herself.

"Did you do something to bring us to this world?"

Song Nanyin was somewhat impressed by her own rationality. At a time like this, she still had the presence of mind to probe into science and the crossing. At the question, Liu Zhaoran shook her head. If she had known how to return, she wouldn't have stayed in that world for so long.

"It was the Light-Brain on you that was activated. It carried Xingqiu's coordinates, and it used up all its energy before the explosion to achieve the spatial crossing."

"You mean the Light-Brain on me? How could I have something like that?" Song Nanyin thought blankly, then realized what Liu Zhaoran meant by Light-Brain. It was that unidentified device she had taken for a useless computer?

But she had gotten it from her great-grandfather's old residence. Why would her great-grandfather have had such a thing? The matter was getting suspicious. And since the Light-Brain had been taken away for repairs and couldn't be turned on for now, there was no way to get more information.

"The Federal Investigation Bureau is currently repairing that Light-Brain. It has very high clearance, so it will take some time." Liu Zhaoran evidently didn't know the details either. She lowered her head and gave two light coughs, covering her mouth with her hand so she wouldn't cough too hard.

"So you're an Omega? Were you from this world all along?" Song Nanyin still had many questions for Liu Zhaoran. Of course, she had even more doubts about this world.

"That's right, I'm an Omega. When I was ten, I went to another world for no reason at all. All these years, I've been trying to find a way back. I never expected that this time, by some twist of fate, I'd return here."

Liu Zhaoran spoke of her own affairs with great composure. Hearing this, Song Nanyin grew quiet. She understood that Liu Zhaoran's unease came from her fear of a strange world. Ten years old. That really was very young.

What had she been doing at ten? Dreaming that her mother would come back for her? Or buying snacks from the little store with the pocket money her grandmother gave her every day?

"I have nothing more to ask." Lying on the bed, Song Nanyin issued her dismissal in a relatively tactful way. Liu Zhaoran still wanted to say something, but Song Nanyin lay with her back to her, and the rejection in that posture was unmistakable.

Liu Zhaoran pressed a hand over her stomach, which had been aching for a long while, held down the itch rising in her throat, and cleared her throat.

"Then I'll go back first. Nanyin, this is my home. You don't need to be afraid at all. Rest easy here, and if anything comes up, you can always find me."

When Liu Zhaoran finished speaking, Song Nanyin gave no response, so she tactfully said no more.

"All done talking?" Liu Yumo, who had been waiting by the door the whole time, raised an eyebrow as Liu Zhaoran came out. She hadn't intended to eavesdrop. She had merely happened to glance in and had caught Song Nanyin's cold expression and bearing.

Even after so many years apart, Liu Yumo knew her daughter's character very well. If Liu Zhaoran didn't care about someone, she wouldn't have rushed over to see them the moment she woke up, let alone stayed so gentle and patient in the face of Song Nanyin's coldness.

Thinking about Song Nanyin's behavior just now, Liu Yumo felt a little displeased. If Chen Xin hadn't been holding her back, she would have gone in and wheeled Liu Zhaoran out herself.

"Mm, sorry to make you wait. Mother, I'm a little tired. Can you take me back?" Liu Zhaoran rubbed her aching head and kept coughing for a long while without being able to stop. The coughing pulled at the wound beneath her ribs, and the pain turned her face deathly pale.

Seeing her like this, Liu Yumo couldn't bring herself to say any of the reproachful words in her heart. She could only take her back to the Sleep Pod along with Chen Xin.

"Ranran, where does it hurt? Tell Mama." Seeing Liu Zhaoran lie back in the Sleep Pod with her brow still furrowed, Chen Xin felt miserable too. Regaining her daughter was a blessing, yet her daughter's severe injuries had become a trial within that blessing.

"Mother, I'm fine. I just... have a slight headache." Liu Zhaoran stared dazedly at Chen Xin's face as it gradually blurred, a violent ringing echoing in her ears. Her consciousness sank from clarity into chaos and then into darkness in just a few seconds. Seeing her fall unconscious, Liu Yumo gave a cold snort.

"I told her to rest properly, but she insisted on going to see that Alpha, and in the end she didn't even appreciate it." Her words were sharp as knives, but the heartache in her eyes was so full it was about to spill over.

That was just how a doting mother was.

"Enough. When Ranran is hurting, you're the one who aches the most. She's far too weak now. No matter what, we can't let her be willful again."

"But even the Federal Investigation Bureau can't find any information on that Alpha. I have no idea who she really is. She couldn't have slipped over from the border zone, could she? But then why would she be in possession of a Military Light-Brain with such high clearance when her own grade is only Class C?"

Liu Yumo's brow furrowed deeply as she thought about Song Nanyin's identity. Her intuition told her that Song Nanyin probably knew where Liu Zhaoran had been for these eighteen years. But even if she asked, Song Nanyin likely wouldn't tell the truth.

"Enough, stop frowning all the time. It makes you look old." Chen Xin glanced at Liu Yumo and teased her with a smile, then a long arm reached out and pulled her into an embrace.

"Well, well. Now that our daughter is back, you're saying I'm old."

"Stop it."

"Fine, but you started it. Xiao Xin, that Light-Brain's clearance might require a higher rank to unlock. If necessary, we may need to approach the Gu family."

"You mean..."

"Mm, the former Imperial general, Gu Sijiu."

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