Bride Swap Backfire: My Cousin's Rebirth Made Us a Power Couple-Chapter 39 - 36: Evil Spirit
Outside the wooden door, heavy rain lashed down, and the sky was blanketed in dense black clouds. Suddenly, thunder rumbled through the storm clouds, unleashing an earth-shattering CRACK, as if it meant to purge the world of every evil spirit wreaking havoc on earth.
Caught completely off guard, Chen Wanyue was startled by a sudden clap of thunder directly overhead.
Her legs went weak. With a scream, she collapsed right in the kitchen doorway.
The torrential downpour pelted her, and in an instant, Chen Wanyue was soaked to the bone, like a drowned rat.
It felt like a show of force from the heavens. Terrified, Chen Wanyue suddenly covered her face and began to wail.
"I didn’t mean it! I’ll never say it again..."
She scrambled wretchedly back into the kitchen, but after only a single step, she bumped into something.
Scared out of her wits, she turned to look, only to see Zhao Jing taking a step back, his face a mask of disgust as if he’d just touched something filthy.
His features were sharp and clean, his gaze clear. He was the very picture of a noble gentleman, as flawless as jade and as luminous as the moon. But to her, at that moment, he looked no better than the demonic Oxhead and Horseface from the underworld.
For a brief moment, the sky lit up as a bolt of lightning tore through the thick, dark clouds.
Then came another deafening BOOM, and the world seemed to lose all color, everything fading into darkness.
In the flickering light of the storm, Zhao Jing’s expression shifted erratically—now bright, now dark; now joyful, now sorrowful; one moment cold and indifferent, the next twisting into what looked like a bizarre smile.
Chen Wanyue was truly terrified.
In that instant, she felt as if he had been possessed by the Zhao Jing of ten years in the future.
That was how he had looked at her back then, when he learned that she had taken up with a peddler and even pledged her life to the man.
It wasn’t disgust, and there was certainly no regret. He was simply indifferent, as if she weren’t his wife at all, but some stray cat or dog, free to do as she pleased.
She had hated that version of Zhao Jing, so while he was studying for his exams, she had cleaned out their home of all its valuables and run away.
Chen Wanyue couldn’t tell what year it was, nor could she distinguish between reality and a dream.
All she knew was that she couldn’t bear to live that life again, and she certainly didn’t want to die a pointless death a second time.
She shrieked hysterically, "You drove me to this! If you had shown me even a little kindness, we never would have reached that point! Yes, I ran away with another man, but didn’t you force me to? You wouldn’t share a bed with me, you blamed me for your mother’s death, and you and your sister ganged up on me! If I didn’t leave, I would have died! You were trying to kill me!!"
"It’s a good thing I left! If I hadn’t, I never would have realized what a devoted lover you are. You refused to consummate our marriage because you were pining for my cousin all along. The moment she was divorced, you were overjoyed and went to propose to her yourself! Zhao Jing, oh, Zhao Jing! I owed you nothing in our last life! In fact, it was you—you and my cousin—who wronged me!!!"
"Why is my life so miserable? All I ever wanted was to live a comfortable life like the wealthy. Why is that so hard...?"
It was as if Chen Wanyue were trapped in a dream.
The surreal, harmless feeling of the dreamscape allowed all her pent-up resentment to pour out.
She laughed and cried, screamed and shouted. Were it not for the constant rumbles of thunder, the flashes of lightning, and the pouring rain that masked the noise, her words would have undoubtedly caused a massive uproar had anyone overheard them.
But Zhao Jing wasn’t shocked. He simply seemed lost in thought.
’So that’s how it was.’
’So that was the reason.’
’So that was why...’
He lowered his gaze to Chen Wanyue, who sat dejectedly on the floor.
His eyes darkened, and his clenched jaw slowly relaxed.
His eyes held a dawning realization, and even more, a sense of relief. The tension in his body slowly drained away.
At some point, the rain outside had lightened, and the thunder and lightning gradually faded into the distance.
After muttering to herself for a long while, Chen Wanyue finally snapped back to reality.
The cold was what jolted her awake. It was like an invisible snake, slithering through her clothes and seeping deep into her bones.
In that moment, her mind was incredibly clear.
When she remembered her hysterical fit—how she had blurted out everything, things that should and should not have been said—her face turned ashen. Like someone who had suffered a terrible shock, she began to tremble uncontrollably.
Her lips twitched as she stammered, "Zhao... Zhao Jing, was I just possessed by a ghost? I must have been! Why else would I have been spouting such nonsense? Why else would the thunder keep trying to strike me?"
"Zhao Jing, what did I say just now? Ah, my head hurts so much! It feels like something is trying to crawl out of my body. Is it an evil spirit? Zhao Jing, quick, splash some chicken blood on me..."
Chen Wanyue began to leap about the kitchen like a madwoman.
To prove that she hadn’t been the one speaking, that she had been under the control of something else—that an evil spirit was to blame for everything—she steeled herself and slammed her body into a kitchen cabinet.
The cabinet rattled violently from the impact. CLATTER! The bowls and chopsticks inside tumbled out and smashed onto the floor.
CRASH! CLANG! SMASH! The cacophony of breaking dishes made Xu Su Ying, who had just returned from outside, cry out in alarm.
"De’an! Qing’er! Don’t you two have the sense to close the kitchen door? There’s a rat in here! It’s about to topple our cabinet!"
When she reached the doorway and saw not a rat, but a dazed and stumbling Chen Wanyue, Xu Su Ying’s brows shot up. Planting her hands on her hips, she looked as if she might faint from sheer anger.
"Wanyue, what do you think you’re doing? Who in this family has upset you now? You wretched girl, look at this mess! Are you smashing our bowls on purpose? Go and get your parents! This isn’t over until you apologize and pay for this."
"A-Aunt, it wasn’t me! I didn’t do it! It... it was Zhao Jing..."
"What Zhao Jing? Don’t you stand there and tell me bald-faced lies! You’re the only one in this kitchen. Do you really think I’ll believe you if you try to pin this on him? That poor boy must have had eight lifetimes of terrible luck to end up with a fiancée like you!"
Chen Wanyue looked behind her, then to her left and right. Her eyes scanned up and down, sweeping across the entire kitchen in an instant.
But just as her aunt had said, where was Zhao Jing? Besides herself, there wasn’t another soul in the kitchen.
’What in the world is happening?’
’Could it be that everything I just experienced... was all just a dream?’
Chen Wanyue’s gaze drifted, and for a moment, she truly couldn’t tell the difference between reality and illusion.
Just then, Chen Wanqing and Chen De’an hurried out from their room.
The siblings had clearly been scolded by their mother, and their faces were still burning with embarrassment.
Chen De’an rubbed his head and said sheepishly, "I ran up the mountain and back twice. I think my illness might be acting up again. I wasn’t feeling well, so I lay down and must have fallen asleep."
Chen Wanqing also looked guilty. "Mother, I was reading. There was a fragrance recipe in my book that I found fascinating, so I was trying it out."
Whenever she came across a fragrance recipe, she would become completely absorbed. Once she started making incense, she was deaf to the world.
So, she couldn’t say for sure what exactly was going on now.
Chen Wanyue searched all over, but still couldn’t find Zhao Jing.
She shot out of the kitchen and grabbed the front of Chen Wanqing’s robes.
"Sister, did Zhao Jing go home, or is he hiding? Sister, did you light some kind of dizzying incense in the kitchen? Why else would my head be spinning like this?"
