What did she mean by those words?
Does she not know what she’s done?
Is she suffering from multiple personalities? Or is it schizophrenia?
Or is she just being stubborn?
Pei Xingyan’s mind was full of questions, his thoughts clouded and confused.
“Do you want me to help you remember?” he tilted his head and said, “That day, you ran out of the classroom, fell down twice pretty hard, and after you got back, you kept sending those messages on your phone, cursing for an entire day and night. And during that time, you didn’t send me any other messages at all… Don’t tell me I just ran into some kind of bug in the app?”
Su Shanshan’s lips trembled, those small and adorable lips of hers couldn’t stop shaking.
She just kept shaking her head in denial, “It wasn’t, it wasn’t me… I really didn’t… I wouldn’t do something like that…”
“Then who did?” Pei Xingyan asked, “What were you doing yesterday?”
“I, I… I didn’t… Please don’t ask, okay? This kind of thing won’t happen again.” She didn’t answer directly, just kept shaking her head.
Tears welled up at the corners of her eyes, as if she was truly aggrieved.
But she couldn’t say what she’d done yesterday, not even able to make up a lie.
Pei Xingyan softened his voice a bit. He shifted closer to her, pressing on gently, “I told you I’m not blaming you, I’m just curious why you acted that way. Can you tell me?”
But Su Shanshan just kept shaking her head, wiping her tears away with her delicate little hand.
Whether she was stubbornly refusing to admit it, trying to muddle through, or had really forgotten, one thing was certain: the sadness on her face now was definitely not an act.
She was truly afraid he’d leave her because of this.
Pei Xingyan took her hand. Her body trembled, and she looked at him timidly, head lowered. There was a hint of delight in her eyes; though her tears hadn’t dried, her hand began to rub his back in return.
“Can you tell me? I won’t blame you…” Pei Xingyan leaned in closer, his voice deliberately gentle. “Honestly, I’m a little worried about you. You didn’t seem well at all back then. I’m just really worried about you…”
But this obvious act was exactly what Su Shanshan wanted. She gradually stopped crying, quietly shifting her hand for a more comfortable position as she lay in Pei Xingyan’s hand, then began to mumble, “I really don’t know who did what… Can you stop asking? I promise it won’t happen again. Please, believe me, okay?”
A long silence followed, with neither of them speaking.
Pei Xingyan decided to reason from her words: someone had done so many things without knowing it at all…
A possibility formed in his mind—absurd and unbelievable, but somehow not impossible.
He broke the silence first. “You really have no memory at all…”
Su Shanshan shook her head firmly. “That’s right, I don’t know anything.”
She was as resolute as a martyr.
Pei Xingyan continued, “Then, in that case… isn’t it like having split personalities?”
“Split personalities?” Su Shanshan paused, her body visibly trembling.
She instinctively wanted to shake her head, but was stopped by Pei Xingyan’s next words.
“Well, I don’t really know much about that condition, but I’ve heard those patients are pretty pitiful,” Pei Xingyan said. “If someone really had that, I’d honestly feel really bad for them.”
Su Shanshan stiffly stopped herself from shaking her head. She blinked, testing the waters as she said, “Maybe… maybe it’s like that… Maybe there’s some bad person who did something bad to you, and it has nothing to do with me…”
She snuck a glance at Pei Xingyan from the corner of her eye, carefully watching his reaction.
Pei Xingyan didn’t show any expression, but he noticed this small detail.
He nodded, shrugged, and said, “That’s possible. But if that’s really the case, then it’s not really your fault. After all, people can’t be responsible for things outside themselves.”
Su Shanshan’s ears twitched, her eyes brightened a little. Her throat moved as if she wanted to say something, but in the end, she didn’t.
She sat on pins and needles, squirming restlessly—only people in the midst of an internal struggle would be so agitated.
After a long while, she finally seemed to make up her mind, edging closer to Pei Xingyan and grabbing his hand with her other free hand.
She was anxious and uneasy, her dark eyes shimmering with tears. “Baby, if I really have that kind of illness, would you not like me anymore? If that’s true, can you not blame me… and please don’t leave me…”
Pei Xingyan forced a smile and comforted her, “How could I? If you’re sick, then you’re also a victim. How could I hold it against you?”
“Mm, mm, you’re right.” She nodded vigorously, burying her head in his arms and murmuring like in a dream, “Baby, you’re so good, you’re really good to me… I don’t want you to hate me, please don’t hate me… I’ll always be good to you…”
Pei Xingyan went along with the mood, gently smoothing her hair. Where she couldn’t see, his eyes grew increasingly complicated.
Su Shanshan’s behavior had almost completely given herself away.
He lowered his eyes and gently guided her, asking softly, “So, do you think you’re that kind of patient? Don’t overthink it, just tell me.”
Her body was pressed tightly against his, so he could sense every detail—Su Shanshan’s heart was in turmoil, she was struggling.
And the struggle was all about whether or not to admit it.
At last, she stopped trembling, as if she’d made a decision.
Su Shanshan looked up, forcing a smile.
But unexpectedly, her voice was icy cold, and her smiling face was stiff and unnatural.
Suddenly, she apologized:
“I’m really sorry. I did all those things…”
She admitted it was her.
Pei Xingyan stared in disbelief.
“Actually, it was because at that time… at that time you were talking to another girl… right? You two were pretty close, and I got jealous, so I lost control.” She stiffened her neck, trying to keep herself from shaking. She said, “Seeing you getting close to another woman made me feel awful, so I did those things… I’m sorry.”
Her words sounded like they were coming from someone else, stiff and unfamiliar.
Su Shanshan looked devastated, and after her last word, her whole body seemed to go limp.
But she still forced herself to keep going, gripping Pei Xingyan’s shoulder so tightly it felt almost unfamiliar to him.
She pleaded, “Can you forgive me this once? I promise it won’t happen again.”
Pei Xingyan was silent.
She hung her head, silent for a long time, then suddenly lashed out, slapping herself hard across the face.
This wasn’t something that gentle girl would do.
Pei Xingyan hurried to stop her.
But Su Shanshan wouldn’t let herself off, punishing herself with several more hard slaps. “If I ever do this again, you can punish me like this. Just don’t ignore me—hit me, yell at me, whatever you want, just don’t leave.”
While she was talking, Pei Xingyan finally managed to grab her hand, pulling her into his arms and stopping her self-destructive actions for now.
Su Shanshan trembled slightly, then snuggled into his embrace. Her voice softened back to its previous gentleness, mumbling her promise again as she wrapped her arms around Pei Xingyan’s waist.
She didn’t care what Pei Xingyan’s answer was, just kept calling out “baby, baby” over and over.
Pei Xingyan didn’t say a word. He sat there quietly, even forgetting to avoid such close contact with the girl in his arms.
He only felt a cold sweat break out down his back.
The girl who just apologized, the girl who just punished herself—even though she wore Su Shanshan’s face, that was definitely not Su Shanshan.
He couldn’t be mistaken—the way she spoke, her expression, every little thing about her proved that this wasn’t the same girl who was now lying on his chest, calling him “baby” so sweetly.
He was right. There was definitely something wrong with her.