Chapter 290: [Unswerving Devotion] How to Merge
“They press me as well, but because every single person possesses power, I hold the opportunity to pursue what I wish to do as well.”
Bai Cha refrained from spinning the tale into something overly absurd—such as claiming her place of origin was utopian and blissful.
Instead, she grounded it in circumstances nearly identical to Xu Taotao’s, yet possessing a starkly different life.
Xu Taotao harbored quite a few questions, posing them one after another.
Bai Cha answered every question with immense patience.
The more Xu Taotao listened, the more envious she grew.
“If only I could possess the power to choose my own life as well.”
She felt a touch despondent, particularly upon recalling Lady Li’s words—every syllable piercing her heart, causing her untold agony.
“Yet do you not possess it now?” Bai Cha said, her own brows knitting subtly as she spoke.
The moment she uttered that sentence, a thought seemed to flash through her mind at lightning speed, yet it moved far too fast for her to catch hold of it in time.
Xu Taotao paused briefly, then said, “True! Now that I possess this power, can I choose the life I want as well?”
Delighted, she spoke with a joyful, leaping tone: “Then I want…”
She trailed off, a look of blank confusion surfacing across her face.
What did she want?
She indeed thoroughly detested a life seen straight to its end at a single glance, craving change and longing for new choices.
Yet for the most part, she merely wished to escape her present situation, holding zero idea of what she truly wanted.
“So long as I am not forced to marry and bear children, that is fine—I simply do not wish to live a life like that,” Xu Taotao said.
“Then what kind of life do you want? Merely avoiding marriage and childbearing—what comes after that?”
Xu Taotao shook her head.
“I do not know, nor have I ever thought about it. A person like me seems to possess zero pursuits to begin with—I neither harbor rebellious ambitions like certain women who wish to sit for imperial exams like men, nor do I enjoy staying home to serve a husband and raise children like most women. I seem to hold nothing I truly desire.”
As Xu Taotao spoke, she sat at the edge of the bed, her face doused in dejection.
Just as Bai Cha opened her mouth to speak further, a knock sounded on the door out of nowhere.
“Miss, who are you talking to?” It was the maid’s voice.
Bai Cha cast a thoughtful glance toward the doorway.
The maids belonging to the two of them were identical, or rather, the NPCs in other locations ought to be identical as well.
No, in truth, throughout her time in this massive courtyard, she had never encountered any NPC other than that single maid.
“Is talking to myself forbidden as well?” Bai Cha spoke up directly, her voice laced with cold distance.
Xu Taotao swallowed back the excuse she had been about to conjure.
Outside, Biyun hastened to apologize, whereupon silence fell.
Xu Taotao blinked, whispering in a low voice, “Why were you so harsh with her?”
Not that she was standing up for Biyun, but she simply felt a touch of intimidation toward the demeanor Bai Cha had just displayed.
The version of herself from another world differed not only in appearance and life path, but even her personality seemed completely distinct.
Hearing her words, Bai Cha knitted her brows instinctively.
In truth, she had felt it as well—starkly different from when she had outright abandoned her character persona at the very start, ever since waking up, she seemed to have grown far more direct in certain aspects.
Casting another glance at Xu Taotao, she suddenly recalled the thought that had flashed past moments ago.
What if Xu Taotao had been herself from start to finish—what if no “genuine” Xu Taotao existed at all?
Precisely because she was herself, the moment the Dodder Vine seed entered her body, she could perceive it instantly.
Yet how could a single person be split into two halves?
She had initially assumed the other party’s body might be her own precisely because she indeed believed a person could be split into two parts; yet that ought to entail a separation of body and soul, or simply a single soul split into two halves.
A physical body couldn’t possibly be split into two halves, could it?
However, another possibility existed as well: the two of them differed in age.
In that case, perhaps a scenario where the same person at different ages appeared within the same spatiotemporal plane might arise.
“Apologies, I didn’t mean to criticize you.” Seeing Bai Cha knitted her brows in deep thought, Xu Taotao assumed she had misspoken moments ago. “I simply… simply felt that when you were talking to me just now, you were actually quite gentle…”
The more Xu Taotao explained, the more she felt her explanation turned muddled and unclear, leaving her somewhat tongue-tied instantly.
Fixating her gaze on her, Bai Cha let out a sigh.
“I am not upset over your words just now; I am merely contemplating a matter. What is your maid named?”
“Biyun.”
Lowering her eyes, Bai Cha sat beside her as well.
“My maid is named Biyun as well. I believe that apart from our names and appearances differing slightly, perhaps everything else is identical. Are your parents doing well right now?”
Bai Cha required more information to determine what exact situation applied to the Xu Taotao before her.
If the other party and herself were indeed the exact same person, then she would have to devise a way to merge them together.
Otherwise, clearing the instance would likely prove impossible.
And all of this might very well be a tactic deployed by the City Lord’s wife.
“My father was enraged by me today and suffered a stroke—he seems to be paralyzed in bed now…”
Speaking of this, Xu Taotao’s face filled with aggrieved hurt, tears falling down uncontrollably.
She recounted the events of today in a low voice.
“What does this have to do with me? I did nothing at all.”
Bai Cha finally understood the origins of the series of supernatural occurrences she had witnessed on her end.
Just to be safe, she posed a few extra questions.
Yet viewed this way, when first arriving at the instance, anomalies had already surfaced in the mirror… No, if two anomalies were originally aligned yet conflicted in time, it proved the spatiotemporal issue all the more.
The boss of this instance ought to wield immense manipulative control over this instance.
Or perhaps this place was much like the world constructed by Mother Han—constructed entirely by the instance boss herself—allowing her to arbitrarily manipulate the time and space of this entire world.
“Alright, I roughly understand now.”
Bai Cha reached out her arms to pull her into a soft embrace, a fleeting wave of weirdness rising in her heart for a split second.
If the person before her was herself, then she was currently embracing herself.
“This is not your fault, nor does it have anything to do with you. Even without you, your father might still have suffered a stroke due to other reasons. On my end, my father passed away from illness, and my mother committed suicide afterward, leaving only me behind.”
Xu Taotao paused, raising her head to look at her.
“So my parents will die?”
Although she thoroughly detested being ordered about by her parents, when it came to the prospect of her parents dying, she remained incapable of accepting it.
“I do not know, for we are not completely identical.”
Xu Taotao nodded, appearing somewhat comforted.
This slightly self-deceiving posture caused a flicker of confusion to pass through Bai Cha’s eyes as well.
Is this truly myself?
She thought back carefully: she had matured early, proved far more sensible than her peers, and held full clarity on what she ought to do—appearing completely different from Xu Taotao.
Was it because “she” currently embodied Xu Taotao within the character persona, which accounted for this state?
Then how was a merger supposed to be achieved?
Bai Cha indeed felt the matter turned thorny.
Perhaps she ought to step outside this courtyard to inspect the exterior.
However, a separate issue presented itself at present.
The two of them coexisted simultaneously, both seeing Xu Taotao’s face when looking in the mirror; there was a high probability that in the eyes of others, the two of them looked identical as well.
In that case, they definitely couldn’t appear at the same time; otherwise… the consequences would likely prove far from minor.
