Chapter 20: The Intersection of Parallel Lines
Ever since she could remember, Xiao Luohan had only heard similar words from her elder sister.
She took after her mother, instinctively hiding her vulnerable side when facing difficulties. But she wasn’t as skilled at concealing her emotions as her mother. Nine out of ten times her elder sister visited, she could see through Xiao Luohan’s worries.
“You have to tell me! I won’t tell anyone, even if your mother asks, no matter how much she tries to persuade or threaten me, I won’t say a word!”
“Come on, pinky swear! Even if Xiao Luo gets married in the future, you can still come to Elder Sister if you have any grievances! Elder Sister will find a solution for you!”
“I will always be by your side. I’ll listen to whatever you say! I’ll never laugh at you!”
Her elder sister was like a cunning red fox, wagging her bushy tail as she circled around her, using “sweet words” to coax her out of the shadows and into the sunlight.
Precisely because she still remembered those words she had heard since childhood, when she saw Jiang Xue’s promise, Xiao Luohan wrote the character “Okay,” and it took her a long time to come back to her senses.
But she knew very clearly that Jiang Xue was Jiang Xue, and her elder sister was her elder sister. It would be disrespectful to both Jiang Xue and her elder sister if she transferred her feelings just because she saw her elder sister’s shadow in Jiang Xue.
“You were like this for a while too.”
Jiang Mei suddenly spoke. “When you were transitioning to middle school, you started keeping secrets when you had something on your mind.”
Children in adolescence often had “secrets.”
Some didn’t talk about them to fit in, while others, due to their developing but not yet mature mindset, viewed their formerly open selves as shameful.
A small number of others chose to erect thorns to protect themselves, closing themselves off after experiencing something unpleasant.
Jiang Xue had forgotten which category she had fallen into back then. Her older sister’s words made her face flush, but she quickly admitted frankly, “That’s true, but I still confided in A-Xi. I just didn’t want you and Mom and Mom to know.”
She hugged the large white cat in her lap and deliberately tilted her chin towards Xie Xitong. “But that bad guy told on me!”
“I just felt that it was useless for only me to know, and it didn’t solve the problem.” Xie Xitong shrugged. “After all, I’m not your family, so I can’t make many decisions.”
She snatched the white cat from Jiang Xue’s arms, tapped her fingers on the table, and said half-jokingly, half-seriously, “Anyway, it’s good that the Third Princess took your advice and is willing to communicate. She’s like you in that aspect.”
Jiang Mei, who hadn’t yet been told about the speculation, nodded. Seeing that there was nothing she could help with here, she went back upstairs to continue working.
“…Am I back in that phase again?” Jiang Xue couldn’t help but whisper to her friend after hearing the door close.
The conjecture that “Xiao Luohan might be another me in a parallel world” was still a secret between her and Xie Xitong.
“I don’t think so this time,” Xie Xitong whispered back. “It’s just an exploratory phase, without any substantial conclusions, so you don’t want to bother Mei-jiejie with it.”
The white cat seemed to agree, letting out a timely “Meow.”
Jiang Xue nodded in agreement.
When she first discovered that her diary could transcend time and space, she hadn’t immediately told her older sister either. She had waited until she had confirmed the situation and her older sister was free before explaining everything.
The two reached a consensus and continued studying while waiting for the Third Princess’s new drawing.
Jiang Xue carefully and solemnly placed the drawing of the fallen female general in a plastic document sleeve and stored it in her portfolio.
But she waited until nightfall, until Xie Xitong took the cat and went home, and still didn’t receive a second drawing.
Jiang Xue wasn’t worried. The death of a loved one was a great trauma, and the Third Princess, willing to open her wounds and show her the raw flesh and decay, was already brave enough.
Thinking this, she wrote these very words to the Third Princess.
The Third Princess still didn’t reply.
“A-Xue.”
Jiang Mei’s voice suddenly came from the stairs, startling Jiang Xue. “Come here.”
Her voice wasn’t cold, even gentler than usual, but Jiang Xue shivered, feeling inexplicably guilty.
Whether to bolster her courage or just in case, as she replied “Coming!” she instinctively tucked the diary into her arms.
“I’m not working right now.”
As soon as Jiang Xue sat down on the edge of her older sister’s bed, Jiang Mei slammed her laptop shut.
“Phone, airplane mode.”
The wallpaper of the two sisters in ancient costumes appeared on Jiang Xue’s phone screen. A calloused finger swiped down from the top, activating airplane mode as she watched.
“Alright, you can talk now.” Jiang Mei casually tossed the phone onto the pillow, crossed her arms, and sat down next to her sister.
“Talk… talk about what?” Jiang Xue clutched the diary tightly, subconsciously shrinking her neck, feigning ignorance.
“The secret you only told A-Xi, the one you kept from me.”
Jiang Xue: …
Her mind rebooted, and she quickly realized: There was no need for A-Xi to tell on her. Her older sister, several years wiser than before, could see through her with just a little attention.
Facing her older sister’s calm and scrutinizing gaze, Jiang Xue quickly confessed: “I didn’t mean to hide it this time! It’s just that we both thought the speculation was too outrageous, and there wasn’t enough evidence to support it, so we decided to observe for a while!”
“It’s okay, no matter how outrageous what you say is, I’ll listen carefully.” Jiang Mei said calmly.
Jiang Xue took a deep breath, handed her phone to her older sister, and waited for her to finish reading the two hypotheses she had recorded before mentioning the “secret.”
“I suspect that the Third Princess is another me in a parallel world,” she said. “Although our appearances and personalities are different, even vastly different, our age, preferences, tastes, and small habits are the same, and we both have a close older sister… uh, to be more specific, our illnesses are also quite similar?”
Jiang Mei waited for a few seconds. “That’s it?”
“That’s it!” Jiang Xue nodded vigorously. “That’s why I didn’t tell you. There’s really no need…”
“I’ve seen the parallel world setting in many works,” Jiang Mei said. “In some parallel worlds, the same things happen, with the same course of events, only branching off in details.”
“In other parallel worlds, the same person has completely different experiences—because the overall environment of the two worlds is different, like ancient times and modern times, or modern times and the future.”
She paused. “If it’s the latter, assuming your guess is correct, then what caused the intersection of the two parallel worlds, allowing the same person from two worlds to connect?”
Jiang Xue hadn’t thought about this at all and was stunned.
“If you can’t find the connection, or the pattern, then no one can predict when your intersection will end.”
Jiang Mei’s voice lowered, her expression becoming serious. “Glimpsing the warmth of another world, but forever unable to reach that light, only to be trapped in a cage forever… for the Third Princess, this might not be a gift, but the cruelest punishment!”
—”It would be great if your diary could bring her here too.”
For no reason, Jiang Xue suddenly recalled what her older sister had said when she first learned about the transtemporal diary.
Had her older sister already thought of this back then?
“Then… how should we bring the Third Princess here?” she couldn’t help but ask, following this train of thought. “I’d be very happy to live with her! Even if the Third Princess can’t get an ID card, I’ll take care of her when I have a job!”
This was a transtemporal bond, and the other person might even be another version of herself!
Young people with pure hearts always had innocent and romantic ideas, full of hope for a fairytale-like future.
Jiang Mei didn’t intend to dampen her sister’s enthusiasm. She simply followed her train of thought. “Then you need to find the ‘connection.’ But I suggest you don’t rush it. Let things take their natural course.”
“…Why?”
“If the key to the connection is on the Third Princess’s side, such as the factor that influences the opening of the spacetime channel being the Third Princess’s willingness to leave her homeland and go to a new world, then you being impatient is useless.”
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