Chapter 288: [Unswerving Devotion] Crawling Out of the Mirror
Bai Cha stared at the mirror for a short while, then picked up the earrings and fastened them onto her own ears as well.
This time, it was the person inside the mirror who fixated a glare on her.
Thereafter, she fixated a silent glare on the mirror as well.
The candle flames inside the room flickered subtly. Bai Cha extended her hand, touching the mirror’s surface.
The mirror’s surface felt bone-chillingly cold and hard.
This brought a touch of regret to Bai Cha.
She drew out Zhao Xiaoai.
“Can you crawl into this mirror?”
Li Yun’s face surfaced across the mirror in her hand; Zhao Xiaoai had always presented herself using Li Yun’s appearance from start to finish.
“No,” she said with a cold, distant expression, her gaze directed at Bai Cha brimming with malice and resentment.
“Then can you send me inside the mirror?”
Zhao Xiaoai fixated a bizarre look on her instantly.
“Are you certain?”
If Bai Cha were to ask whether she could drag the person inside the mirror out, she would definitely say no as well.
Because a task like that was thankless, serving merely to drain her power.
Sending Bai Cha inside the mirror, however, was a completely different story.
The power expended was actually identical, yet she could sense a exceedingly formidable power residing on the other side of the mirror.
A formidable entity lurked over there—that was the sole reason she refused to enter the mirror herself.
Yet she held zero reservations about expending a vast amount of power to send Bai Cha to her death.
Even if she failed to die, it mattered little; but if she succeeded, she would feel exceedingly delighted.
How could Bai Cha possibly fail to discern her motives? Yet it mattered little to her.
So long as it proved useful, that was sufficient.
“I am certain.”
The other side of the mirror ought to be where the genuine plotline lay.
Over here, she held a high probability of merely wasting time day by day, sensing a few lingering traces left behind by the plotline on that side.
Yet this intermittent, fragmented sensation brought a profound lack of security.
A eerie smile broke across Zhao Xiaoai’s face.
“Very well. Then I shall aid you. Point me toward that bronze mirror, and place your hand on the mirror’s surface at the same time.”
Bai Cha flipped the mirror in her hand, aiming it squarely at the bronze mirror before her.
The bronze mirror and the mirror Zhao Xiaoai inhabited formed a mutual reflection in an instant.
Extending her hand, Bai Cha placed it onto the mirror’s surface once more.
And in that same instant, Zhao Xiaoai extended her hand as well, grabbing Bai Cha’s hand tightly.
Bai Cha could feel the sensation of being grabbed from within the mirror with absolute clarity; then, she witnessed her own hand pulled into the mirror.
Right on its heels, her entire frame felt as though it passed through a certain barrier—an extraordinarily bizarre sensation she held zero means to describe, much like passing through a layer of water film, experiencing a pressure differential in a single split second.
Over on Xu Taotao’s side.
Upon seeing the woman in the mirror pause for a long while before setting about putting on earrings just like herself, she had fallen into silence.
She had observed with meticulous precision that the other party’s silver ear hooks hadn’t been squeezed out of shape.
Almost as if she existed in a completely different world.
Xu Taotao was pondering: if the person in the mirror was herself as well—a version of herself from another world—then what did her appearance signify?
Was it because she wished to change her current situation, which brought forth another version of herself?
Yet… it still felt bizarre.
Right at this moment, she discovered that the person inside the mirror moved.
That person—identical to herself—extended a hand, touching the mirror’s surface.
And then, Xu Taotao’s pupils contracted violently.
Because she witnessed that hand pass through the mirror.
Standing up abruptly, she recoiled backward, the hem of her skirt knocking the stool over along the way.
Yet she paid zero heed to any of this, staring in utter shock at a woman steadily crawling out from within the mirror.
The bronze mirror was actually far from that large, yet no telling how that person managed to crawl out.
Just like that, she materialized on the table bit by bit, until her final foot emerged, appearing atop the dressing table in a kneeling-seated posture.
Raising her head, Bai Cha smoothed her hair back with a hand, revealing her entire face.
Locking eyes flush with Xu Taotao—who stood roughly six or seven paces away from her—a trace of astonishment surfaced across both their faces.
In Bai Cha’s eyes, the appearance of Xu Taotao before her was identical to her own real-world appearance—Bai Cha’s genuine, actual face.
The same applied to Xu Taotao, though she didn’t recognize Bai Cha.
She felt all the more astonished that the person emerging from the mirror bore an appearance different from her own, yet held subtle similarities—their eyes, at the very least, looked extraordinarily alike.
Rather than a copy of herself inside the mirror, she resembled her sister far more.
Exchanging a glance for a brief moment, Bai Cha acted first.
Tucking her skirt hem carefully, she hopped down from the dressing table, sizing up the room along the way.
This room held no major differences from her own side, save for possessing a few extra furnishings, looking far less bleak and desolate.
Thereafter, she discovered that the System Mall and all related functions were entirely locked and unavailable, as was the System Panel; her Inventory held zero means of opening as well.
However, her personal skills remained usable, though the Dodder Vines inside her frame could no longer be summoned, requiring her to plant seeds anew.
And she still clutched Zhao Xiaoai’s mirror tightly in her hand.
Bai Cha focused her gaze onto Xu Taotao at last.
She couldn’t quite grasp why the person before her bore Bai Cha’s face.
That face appeared to be her own appearance around fifteen or sixteen years old, carrying a touch more youthful innocence.
Could it be that the two of them had swapped bodies?
“Are you Xu Taotao?” Bai Cha spoke up first.
Xu Taotao nodded with vigilance, yet she held zero means to suppress her own curiosity, her eyes gleaming with bright light.
“Are you a ghost?”
Bai Cha: “…”
She scrutinized her thoughtfully.
Viewed this way, at least in Xu Taotao’s current state, she perceived herself as a genuinely existing human being—neither an NPC nor a specter.
Rather, she treated her as a ghost instead.
Oh, then again, that wasn’t set in stone either, was it?
After all, if the other party’s body was her own genuine body, then what did she count as right now?
Perhaps a specter, for all she knew.
Earlier, she had felt that her own expressions on occasion bore an extraordinary resemblance to the City Lord’s wife.
Furthermore, upon waking up, a hollow sensation of having lost something had lingered as well.
Perhaps her body and soul had been separated.
Yet… it felt somewhat strange as well.
“My name is Xu Shengsheng,” Bai Cha spoke up, borrowing her younger cousin’s name.
Refraining from using the exact same name was because given that the other party bore a different face from her own, there was no need to entangle themselves over the matter of identity.
It was far better to adopt a separate identity directly, agreeing on close contact.
Xu Taotao’s eyes widened slightly.
“Your name sounds so similar to mine! Are you a female ghost?” As she spoke, she cast a glance at the floor, then acted as though she had made a discovery, saying, “You have a shadow!”
Bai Cha felt the other party was quite lively, failing to align entirely with the character card.
“Naturally I have a shadow—I am no ghost,” Bai Cha stated.
Xu Taotao blinked.
“But… just now…” She pointed toward the mirror. A living, breathing human had literally crawled out from within a mirror—a scene like that implied she was either a ghost or a monster, didn’t it? “Then are you a monster? A mirror spirit? Why does your name sound so similar to mine then?”
Xu Taotao felt she was acting overly hyperactive as well, yet she held zero means to suppress that joyful, leaping mood.
She simply felt as though she had uncovered a brand-new world.
Unknown, yet overflowing with infinite possibilities.
Starkly different from her stagnant, dead-water life.
