Yao Qing
As these words were spoken, the entire 【Su Estate】 fell silent.
Chen Ling looked expressionlessly at 【Su Zhiwei】: "You know him?"
"En. Our two families were old friends in the past. You could say I watched him grow up." 【Su Zhiwei】's expression was somewhat subtle. "Although their family moved away later on, we still kept in touch. He heard I was back home for a vacation and said he wanted to come see me... I didn't expect it would coincide with today."
【Yao Qing】's gaze carefully sized up Chen Ling. His eyes darted back and forth between those icy pupils and the 【Bone-Stripping Knife】 in Chen Ling's grasp, his expression a mix of shock and uncertainty.
【Su Zhiwei】 was just about to step forward and help 【Yao Qing】 up when she was stopped by Chen Ling.
"Just to be safe, I'm going to double-check."
A familiar face didn't prove anything. The "master of disguise" Chen Ling knew this best; he didn't even know how many enemies had died by his hands precisely because of this point. Although he felt it should be extremely difficult for the 【Path of the Actor】 to appear in this era, it never hurt to be cautious when this guy showed up at such a crucial juncture.
Gripping the 【Bone-Stripping Knife】, Chen Ling walked straight towards 【Yao Qing】, who was sprawled on the ground. As he approached, vigilance and terror instantly surfaced in the young man's eyes, and he frantically kicked his legs to scramble backward.
Before 【Yao Qing】 could finish speaking, Chen Ling grabbed him by the collar. Apricot-red traces slowly surfaced at the corners of Chen Ling's eyes...
【Vermilion Countenance】!
A mysterious hint of red flashed through Chen Ling's pupils. The brand-new pupil art he had acquired after 【Chen Yan】 painted his eye corners for him was activated at this moment!
【Yao Qing】 only felt a sharp pain in his mind, and a brief trance appeared in his eyes!
A fragmented "theater piece" surfaced before Chen Ling's eyes.
...
"Sissy!"
"【Sissy Yao】!"
"Hahahaha, look at him! He even has a little bird embroidered on his school uniform~ Only girls wear clothes like that, right?"
"I even saw him secretly embroidering flowers at school last time!"
"Didn't you guys know? 【Yao Qing】's whole family does embroidery! Look at his hands, they're covered in calluses from holding needles and thread all day."
"Even girls nowadays don't know how to embroider, right? 【Yao Qing】 is such a sissy! 【Sissy Yao】! Hahahaha..."
"..."
Bursts of youthful laughter and mockery entered Chen Ling's ears. His eyelashes trembled slightly, and he slowly opened his eyes.
What entered his vision was a dirty, messy street corner. Several male students wearing school uniforms, looking like junior high schoolers, were gathered together, laughing uproariously... In the center of their group, a boy with a small braid was sprawled on the ground, his entire body covered in dirt and footprints.
"So this is the power of these eyes..." Chen Ling rubbed the apricot red at the corner of his eye, muttering to himself.
After activating 【Vermilion Countenance】, Chen Ling could use his pupil art to peer into the most deeply impressed segments of the other party's life experiences, using their eyes as a medium.
If everyone's life was a play starring themselves, then Chen Ling's eyes possessed the authority to flip through and read their "life's theater piece."
It was exactly like the eyes of "【The Audience】".
Chen Ling looked around. Only this street corner nearby was clear; everywhere else was hazy, like mist...
"Because it's in his memory, it only renders the places that left the deepest impression?"
Chen Ling tried to reach out and touch one of the youths, but his fingertips passed right through as if touching nothing. No one noticed him either; he was exactly like an ethereal ghost.
As expected. No matter what happened here, he could only act as a member of "【The Audience】".
Chen Ling stopped exploring his surroundings and instead rested his gaze on the wretched youth beaten to the ground. Judging from his appearance, it was unmistakably the 【Yao Qing】 who had just been at the entrance of the 【Su Estate】.
"I'm not a sissy!!" 【Yao Qing】 angrily tried to climb up from the ground, but was forcefully stomped back down by the several people surrounding him.
"An embroiderer still says he's not a sissy?"
"What's wrong with embroidery?! That's a craft passed down from my ancestors! I'm not a sissy!"
"Embroidery is embroidery, it's something only little girls play with. Yet you can't put it down, hahahaha..."
Amidst uproarious laughter, the youth struggled and still wanted to climb up, but he was stepped on again and again. His face and body were covered in mud, cutting a wretched figure.
Right at this moment, a clear, cold voice rang out from nearby:
"What are you all doing?"
The youths and Chen Ling all turned their heads at the same time. At the end of the 【Alleyway】, which had originally been incredibly blurry, the scenery suddenly tumbled and became clear. A young woman wearing a beige hoodie and a messenger bag stood there, frowning at the scene.
【Su Zhiwei】?
Chen Ling's eyebrows arched slightly when he saw that face. The 【Su Zhiwei】 of this time looked to be around twenty years old, like a college student who had just returned home for the holidays. Although her face still held a hint of immaturity, she already possessed that unique aura of 【Rationality】.
Sprawled on the dirt-covered ground, 【Yao Qing】 froze slightly upon hearing the voice. As he lifted his head to look at 【Su Zhiwei】, a faint, aggrieved mist rose in his eyes...
"Who is she?"
"I've seen her at my older brother's school, she seems to be some rich family's young miss..."
"She's a college student, right?"
"College student?"
"..."
Seeing 【Su Zhiwei】 walking towards them with a cold expression, the junior high schoolers suddenly felt a bit intimidated. And when 【Su Zhiwei】 casually picked up a brick from the ground, her eyes narrowing sharply, they simply exchanged glances and hurriedly turned to run away.
【Su Zhiwei】 walked over to 【Yao Qing】's side. Seeing that the boys had run far away, only then did she toss the brick into a corner. Reaching out, she pulled the filthy 【Yao Qing】 up.
"Sister Zhiwei..."
The junior high school boy hadn't gone through puberty yet, and there was quite a height difference between him and 【Su Zhiwei】. Standing up, he only reached her chest. Coupled with the fact that 【Yao Qing】 was still hanging his head, fundamentally not daring to look at her, it seemed as if he had shrunk into the ground.
"I haven't been back for a year, and you've grown taller again." 【Su Zhiwei】's voice softened.
"...How am I tall? When we line up at school, I'm always only the third one."
"You'll still grow."
【Su Zhiwei】 raised her hand to measure against the top of his head, then lifted it to a position higher than herself. "You'll grow taller than me, and become an indomitable man."
"...But they all call me a sissy." 【Yao Qing】 bit his lip, gathering the courage to look straight into 【Su Zhiwei】's eyes.
"Sister Zhiwei... is the stuff I embroider really that sissy?"
The youth's eyes were full of confusion and struggle. He stood in the center of the dense fog, while behind him were countless phantom figures pointing and laughing at him, like a lost soul in agony.
【Su Zhiwei】 looked at him, a touch of tenderness welling up in her eyes. She grasped the youth's hand and lifted it. His slender fingertips were already covered in puncture wounds and thick calluses. It didn't look like the hand of a twelve or thirteen-year-old boy, but rather as rough as the palm of a middle-aged farmer who had worked the fields for years.
"Whether you're a sissy or not isn't determined by what you do, but by whether you show will and courage when you do it."
Looking at those scarred hands, a faint smile surfaced on 【Su Zhiwei】's face.
"Don't care about what others think. They won't understand the effort you put in behind the scenes... They also won't understand that someone who possesses a pair of hands like this could never be a sissy."