Chapter 17: Lanhua – Part One
Tonight is Christmas Eve. I canceled all my plans and insisted on going home.
No matter what, I had to see my aunt today, and it was for this reason that I rushed back in time.
As the car drove past the newsstand, I said to my agent.
“Stop the car. This is fine.
The agent pulled over to the side of the road. I looked around the car window, not eager to open the door and get out, but continued to sit in my seat.
My agent wasn’t the stiff and unfeeling idiot he used to be. After a year by my side, he had learned how to read people and knew why I was still in the car.
So, he pretended nothing was wrong and asked me.
“Is it okay? Will you be recognized… I really should have called two bodyguards to protect you.”
“That would be even more conspicuous. And it’s not that exaggerated. I’ve only been debuting for a year at most, and people don’t recognize me everywhere I go.”
“A young female singer who has achieved so much in just one year, I’ve never seen one like it. Now all that’s left is a super large-scale concert to introduce you to a national audience, followed by a world tour. The whole world will remember you.”
“And then I’ll lose my freedom.”
Hearing my dismissive tone, the agent sighed and said with regret in his voice.
“How many people want to be like you, countless people can’t achieve it in their lifetime… But you don’t seem to care about it at all.”
“I thought you would just say it was luck.”
“If I said that, you would definitely say that luck is also a part of strength, wouldn’t you?”
“It’s been so long and you still haven’t gotten used to it… Well, almost ready. I’m getting off now.”
“Are you sure it’s okay? I heard that someone has already found out the location of your hometown.”
“Heh, their paparazzi tracking skills aren’t as good as mine. That’s it. After I get out, don’t drive away yet. Wait an hour and then drive off. That way, anyone following us will think you’re here to pick me up from somewhere else.”
“Okay. Please be careful…”
“Ugh, I know. Stop nagging already.”
I threw my hand impatiently, opened the car door, and got out.
Walking forward into the small… Two people followed me. How troublesome. Are they paparazzi, or stalkers?
Whatever, it doesn’t matter. I’ll shake them off.
I casually took a detour nearby, using the shadows of the buildings to easily lose the followers. Those fools must still think this is where I live… In reality, my home is in the neighborhood next door, after cutting through the fence. I opened the door to unit three of building two. The electronic lock on this old eight-story building had broken long ago and was just a decoration.
It seems like it’s been a while since I last came back. I haven’t gone home since returning. How is that person now?
Walking to the top floor, I took out my key and opened the door. The lights were off inside. After taking off my shoes, I turned on the lights and said.
“Aunt? Are you there? I’m back.”
“Lanhua, you’re back… Ugh, I was waiting for you.”
“Huh? Aunt, you knew I was coming back?”
I don’t remember notifying her…
“Heh, I guessed. I just had a feeling you might come back today.”
If she’s here, why isn’t she turning on the lights?
There was a strange atmosphere around my aunt. Her expression was calm, and her tone and demeanor were no different from before, but I felt something was slightly off.
Something… is not right…
She was waiting for me?
Specifically waiting for me to come back?
Is there something she wants to tell me?
“It must be tough working outside? I watched you on TV. Lanhua, you’ve really become a big shot now.”
“This is nothing. By the way, didn’t I send you money? Why didn’t you buy a better house?”
“Old people just like to hold onto their old ways… I can’t bear to leave this place.”
“…After all, this is my old home.”
My aunt and father lived here when they were students. Later, my father got married and moved out, but my aunt didn’t leave and continued to live here.
Then, after the earthquake, my parents died protecting me, and I was adopted by my aunt…
However, I hate this person.
I hate her very much.
Because she is a terrible, terrible woman.
She can’t distinguish between philanthropy and promiscuity. I don’t know how many men she’s been with.
…No, actually, none of that matters. If my aunt were truly a promiscuous woman who changed men like clothes, then so be it.
But she wasn’t genuinely enjoying it, just numbing herself.
That’s right—what I hate the most… is her self-destructive attitude.
Looking at her nostalgic eyes, I bit my lower lip and couldn’t help but say.
“Aunt… have you still not forgotten Father?”
“…When did you know?”
She wasn’t as surprised as I expected. Her tone was still calm, as if she knew I already knew about it.
“A diary. Just once. On the anniversary of our parents’ death that year, you got drunk and revealed where the diary was hidden.”
“Yes, it was that time, after all. I wondered why there were signs of it being rummaged through, and the position it was placed in was different. Although I tried my best to restore it, it was still different from its original position.”
So she had already noticed…
“Don’t think you’re the only one with that kind of observation skill, Lanhua.”
She even knew that…
About my “talent.”
I don’t know when it started, but I realized I could notice small details.
I wasn’t deliberately observing anyone, but I could perceive things that ordinary people couldn’t, like expressions, movements, glances, speech rate, volume, pitch, and so on. But for me, this was superfluous information. My focus was limited each day, and these useless details put a lot of burden on me.
So my attention was always scattered. It wasn’t that I wasn’t listening in class, but there were always other things that caught my attention.
For example, a faint hickey on a male teacher’s neck, the smell of nicotine on a classmate’s body, a female teacher’s slightly off-balance gait…
When people see these things, wouldn’t they naturally wonder what happened?
This is an uncontrollable “curiosity,” the most primitive human desire for “knowledge.”
So it was only natural that my grades were poor… Well, and I had no motivation to continue studying. There was no need for me to go to school in the first place; my aunt just wanted me to continue my education.
Later, in my second year of high school, I happened to meet Ms. He, a psychiatrist. From her, I learned some psychological knowledge.
I thought it was completely useless, but the information that took up my focus became useful through the knowledge of psychology.
I began to be able to read people’s minds.
Whether they were telling the truth or lying, whether they had ulterior motives, what emotions they held—I could judge all of it from the details.
Combined with the conversation, I could even discern their thoughts.
This was somewhat useful. Later, I met another person who influenced my life: that eccentric woman who came to my door to invite me to be a singer.
The scene of her trying to persuade me is still vivid in my memory.
“Your talent is outstanding! Come and be a singer! You can move… No, shake the hearts of people all over the world!”
Then I said mockingly, “Although I do know some psychology, I don’t think I can become a singer just by relying on that.”
To put it bluntly, I’m the one singing. Even if I can read people’s minds, I can’t control them. One-way output won’t make everyone like me, and I can’t observe hundreds or thousands of people at once. That’s too much information. “No! You can! Your voice has that kind of power! Because you also have a naturally good singing voice… Your songs can create an atmosphere, influence the mood, make people laugh… You, a singer who can control people’s hearts, everyone will go crazy for you!”
I couldn’t refuse her, and with the intention of just going along with it, I followed her. I never expected it to turn out this way.
And now my aunt is telling me that she also has a similar talent?
I trembled uncontrollably.
Recalling the forbidden content I read in the diary, my body slowly grew cold.
Aunt… she fell in love with Father.
In other words, she fell in love with her own brother.
After Grandpa and Grandma died, the brother and sister depended on each other. It was only natural that things would turn out that way.
The initial mistake was Father’s. He was scum, but later… what my aunt did was…
That’s why Father escaped from ‘here,’ from this ‘home’ to leave…
Thinking of the diary page filled with the words “It’s mine,” I suddenly felt a great fear.
“…Actually, you’re a lot like me, in many ways… You’ve ‘inherited’ this talent as well. Seeing it this way, maybe I could have been a singer too?”
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SF Light Novel
The atmosphere became thick and suffocating. My chest felt heavy, and I felt nauseous. “Ugh.”
“Heh… do you know, Lanhua? When your father saw that you looked so much like me, his despairing expression… Ugh… Brother noticed it from the beginning, you know.”
“Shut up!”
I covered my ears, but her voice vẫn penetrated, shaking my spirit.
Those were words that controlled hearts…
“After your brother got married, I stopped bothering him. He thought I had given up then, but in reality, it was just ‘coincidental’ that I was pregnant too.”
“No! Stop talking!”
Her voice coiled around my ears, and no matter how I covered them, I could still hear it.
“It’s ‘us mother and daughter’ who survived.”
My vision swam. She… how could this be?
How could she be like this…?
“In the end, that person didn’t know until the day he died that Brother was already mine, and even his beloved daughter wasn’t his own. Heh… Stealing Brother from me, this is your punishment.”
I collapsed onto the floor. She stood up, came in front of me, and caressed my cheek.
Ah, so this was why I felt something was strange from the beginning.
She had ‘broken’ long ago…
“Lanhua, you’ll become like me too.”
“No need to rush to deny it.
It’s just that you haven’t met your true love yet.”
“Ugh… it’s wonderful, you know? Make the person you love most your own. Only have him in your heart, only for him, only love him, only belong to him.”
“That’s enough!”
I pushed her away and ran out the door without looking back.
But those words still echoed in my mind… unable to dissipate…
I would never become like that.
Absolutely not!
