37: Chapter 37 Two Kinds of Cages

The iron door leading to the rooftop was much heavier than imagined.

Leng Qingxuan pressed both hands against the door panel and leaned forward, using almost all her strength to push the rusted hinges until they turned.

With a teeth-grinding creak, a gust of wind instantly poured into the stairwell, forcing her to squint her eyes.

"Couldn't they have added some windproofing to the rooftop door..."

Leng Qingxuan muttered to herself, while taking a moment to assess her current stamina levels.

It seemed that her recent obsession with gaming had indeed led to a decline in physical fitness; she was struggling even with pushing a door. She would have to get Huang Mao to make some high-protein snacks to help her recover.

As for exercise? Exercise was impossible; it would never be possible in this lifetime.

The rooftop was vast, its concrete floor baked white by the midday sun.

Su Muxue was standing in the corner, her back to the entrance, making her quite conspicuous.

The wind blew her expensive haute couture dress, pressing it tight against her body and outlining the exaggerated curves that even made Leng Qingxuan feel envious.

Her long hair flew wantonly in the wind like a black flag.

Hearing the door open, Su Muxue turned around slowly.

She raised her hand, elegantly tucking a few strands of hair that were stuck to her cheek behind her ear, then clasped her hands in front of her and bowed slightly.

"Classmate Leng, thank you for being willing to come."

Standard, perfect, impossible to find any fault.

It was just like an NPC interaction in a game, every frame precisely calibrated.

Leng Qingxuan walked over and stopped three steps away from her.

This distance was neither too distant nor too close, ensuring that if the other party suddenly attacked, she would have enough reaction time—or rather, time to run away.

Although there shouldn't be any possibility of such a thing.

"It's nothing, just a few steps anyway."

Leng Qingxuan crossed her arms, trying to use this defensive posture to ward off the wind on the rooftop, as well as the uncomfortable "sense of perfection" radiating from the woman opposite her.

"So? You specifically called me up here, surely not just to invite me to blow in the wind, right?"

Su Muxue smiled slightly, not feeling offended by Leng Qingxuan's slightly stiff tone.

"When we were in the stairwell just now, I actually didn't tell the whole truth."

Su Muxue's voice was very soft; if one didn't listen carefully, it would easily be drowned out by the wind.

"I said 'long time no see,' but that wasn't actually accurate. Because in my memory, although we have met a few times at banquets, I have never truly 'seen' you."

Riddler?

Leng Qingxuan frowned slightly: "I don't like guessing riddles. Say what you have to say."

"The you from before was the same as me." Su Muxue looked up, her eyes, usually shrouded in mist, were exceptionally clear now, staring straight at Leng Qingxuan.

"The eyes were dead. Although you were smiling, although you were speaking, although your manners were impeccable, that shell was empty inside."

"Just like... a non-sale item displayed in a shop window."

Leng Qingxuan's heart skipped a beat.

This feeling of having her cards seen through at a single glance was terrible, just like being predicted by the enemy jungler in a ranked match and then getting camped in the bush.

"But just now, when I met you in the stairwell..." Su Muxue took a small step forward, seemingly wanting to see more clearly, "You changed."

"Although you seem to be trying hard to maintain that cold expression, the aura on you... how should I put it, has a 'scent of a living person'."

"You get angry, you get impatient, you speed up your pace because you want to go somewhere, and even... there is light in your eyes."

Su Muxue tilted her head, her tone carrying a trace of pure curiosity and confusion.

"Sorry, saying this might make you feel offended. But I really want to know, why?"

Leng Qingxuan fell silent.

She instinctively wanted to retort, wanted to use that practiced "Eldest Miss of the Leng Family" rhetoric to shut the other party down.

For example, nonsense like "Are you seeing things?" or "I've always been like this."

But the words reached her lips, and she swallowed them back.

On a rooftop with only two people, facing someone with a similar background, someone who had even once shared the same trait of being a "living dead," lying seemed meaningless.

"I don't know what you're talking about." Leng Qingxuan turned her head, her gaze falling on the plastic track of the distant sports field, "I'm just in a good mood. I solved a problem, shouldn't I be happy?"

This was her final defense.

She didn't want to share Huang Mao, didn't want to share that shelter that belonged to her with anyone.

That was her exclusive dungeon, her hidden Easter egg.

An Ran was a special case and could be an exception, but it should end there.

Su Muxue watched her quietly, not exposing this obvious evasion.

"I understand."

She turned around, leaned back onto the railing, and looked at the city skyline in the distance.

"It's like someone locked in a pitch-black room suddenly finding a crack in the wall. Although the crack is small, light is indeed shining through."

"That feeling of wanting to rush over to breathe fresh air regardless of everything... is impossible to hide."

A crack, light.

This metaphor was like a precise sniper bullet, shattering Leng Qingxuan's psychological defenses.

She thought of Huang Mao.

She thought of his back as he busied himself in the kitchen, the gentleness of his touch when he helped her scrub her back, and his decisive voice as he commanded in Classroom 502 just now.

That was a warmth she had never felt in the cold "Leng Family Mansion."

Leng Qingxuan sighed, her shoulders slumping. She walked over to Su Muxue's side and, mimicking her initial posture, also rested her arms on the railing.

"I suppose so." Leng Qingxuan stopped putting on airs, her voice revealing a self-abandoning honesty.

"I ran away from home because I found someone."

"Where that person is, there is no 'Eldest Miss of the Leng Family,' no image that must be maintained, no hypocritical social interactions that make one sick."

"I can take off my high heels, I can sit cross-legged on the sofa, I can disregard my etiquette, I can shout, I can... be myself."

Speaking of this, she turned her head and glanced at Su Muxue, a self-deprecating arc curling at the corner of her mouth.

"You probably don't know what my family is like. From birth, my life seemed to have been written in a little notebook."

"What time to get up, what time to sleep, how many calories to eat, what kind of people to meet, what kind of words to say... everything, absolutely everything, is for the maximization of 'family interests'."

"I am not a person; I am a 'product' pushed out by the Leng Family."

"So I hate all of this. I want to escape, even if it's just for a moment."

Leng Qingxuan finished in one breath, feeling the pent-up frustration in her chest dissipate quite a bit.

Su Muxue listened quietly, and not until Leng Qingxuan finished did she nod slightly.

"That's so good."

There was no jealousy in her tone, only a subtle... envy?

"Being required, being forced, being entrusted with responsibilities... that sounds really nice."

"Huh?" Leng Qingxuan widened her eyes, looking at Su Muxue as if looking at an alien, "Are you sane? What's nice about those days? I dream of running away!"

"No, it's not the same."

Su Muxue shook her head, turned around, leaned against the railing, and looked at the rooftop's concrete floor with hollow eyes.

"Classmate Leng, your cage is made of iron; you can see the bars, you can feel the pain, so you will resist, you will want to escape."

"This desire to 'want to escape' is itself a form of vitality."

She raised her hand, looking at her own fair, soft palms without any calluses.

"But my situation is exactly the opposite."

"In the Su Family, no one has ever forced me to do anything."

"I want to learn the piano, the family hires the best teacher; I don't want to learn anymore, the teacher disappears the next day, and my parents even comfort me not to be too tired."

"Whatever I want, before I even open my mouth, it's already placed in front of me."

"Whatever I don't want, I don't even need to refuse; as long as I frown, that thing will never appear before my eyes again."

Su Muxue's voice grew softer and softer, as if telling a horror story.

"They are too good to me. So good that... it makes me feel like a porcelain doll carefully enshrined in a shrine."

"I don't need to think, I don't need to work hard, I don't even need to have 'wishes'. Because all wishes are instantly satisfied, and that 'satisfaction' loses its pleasure."

"I am like a bird; there is no cage locking me in, but I still can't go anywhere."

"Because I don't know how to fly at all."

"I sometimes even hope... someone could scold me fiercely, or force me to do something I don't want to do at all."

"At least that way, it would make me feel that I truly exist, rather than being a phantom that only knows how to smile."

Leng Qingxuan listened, dumbfounded.

As a veteran internet-addicted girl, she considered herself knowledgeable, but Su Muxue's kind of "Versailles literature" still exceeded her scope of understanding.

"You this..." Leng Qingxuan opened her mouth, finally squeezing out, "You are just full and have nothing to do."

"Do you know how many people dream of having your life? Getting everything without working hard, this is simply a 'cool novel' life!"

"Cool novel?" Su Muxue chewed on this term, smiling bitterly, "Perhaps..."

"I don't know much about things like games and novels."

"But if you play a game, you start at the max level, monsters die as soon as they see you, there is no challenge, no plot,"

"You can only wander aimlessly in this invincible world... would you feel it's 'cool'?"

Leng Qingxuan was stunned.

As a veteran gamer, she instantly empathized with that scenario.

What kind of new-age hell was that? An alternative Soulslike game?

"Fine, I retract my previous statement." Leng Qingxuan pursed her lips, "It seems we are both six of one and half a dozen of the other."

Although she spoke harshly, the hostility in Leng Qingxuan's eyes as she looked at Su Muxue had faded significantly, replaced by a subtle sympathy.

This was what they called "everyone has their own troubles," wasn't it?

The wind on the rooftop seemed to have quieted down a bit.

Two girls, both from wealthy families, both possessing peerless beauty, yet both feeling spiritually suffocated, reached a strange consensus in this corner.

The silence lasted for a long time.

Su Muxue took a deep breath, as if she had made a major decision.

She turned around, and in those eyes that were originally like stagnant water, a ripple arose.

She looked at Leng Qingxuan, her hands subconsciously gripping the railing behind her, her knuckles turning slightly white from the force.

"That place..."

Su Muxue's voice trembled slightly, carrying a touch of unprecedented urgency and pleading.

"That place where you can 'be yourself'... and that person..."

She took a step forward, shortening the distance between the two, an urgency that made Leng Qingxuan instinctively want to step back.

"I... can I also..."