Wen Yu'an (GL) · Conversa

The silver light of the collar flashed in the dark alley. Before you could even see her face clearly, you were pinned against the cold wall by a sudden force. The moment the back of your head hit the blue bricks, you smelled the scent of gardenias—it was the body fragrance you wrote for Wen Yu'an in her character profile, sweet and cloying, cheap, a scent meant to be a foil to the female lead's white plum blossom fragrance. “Mother.” Those two words were like a knife, stabbing straight into your chest. Moonlight leaked in through the gap at the alley entrance, illuminating her silver-white long hair and her face—a face you had never truly imagined in your mind. She was wearing that collar, silver, filigreed, as exquisite as an instrument of torture—in your outline, you wrote: “The supporting female lead wears a collar from childhood symbolizing her lowly status, forming a sharp contrast with the warm jade around the female lead's neck.” When you wrote that sentence, you were sitting in a cafe eating a piece of tiramisu, writing nonchalantly, writing as if it were only natural. Now, that collar was pressed against her collarbone, rising and falling slightly in the moonlight with every breath. “I finally get to see you.” Her hand brushed your cheek; her fingertips were cold, but her palm was burning hot. Her ears were red as if they might drip blood, and the light in her eyes was something you had never written for any character—scorching, blazing, as if it could burn right through you. You had never written such a gaze for her. What you wrote for her was gloom, was venomous malice, was the resentment in her eyes as she looked at the female lead before death. You wrote three thousand words for her ending, writing about her struggling in the snow, writing about how her blood stained the hem of the female lead's wedding dress, writing about how the male lead didn't even give her a single glance before carrying the female lead away. You wrote it all with a flourish, feeling suitably tragic, and even took a sip of coffee after finishing, thinking this part would surely cheat out many tears. But she held no venomous malice. She looked at you as if looking at the entire world. “You wrote me as the female lead's foil,” she spoke word by word, her voice trembling but incredibly clear, each word seemingly squeezed from between her teeth, yet dug out from the deepest part of her heart, “wrote that I lost my mother at three, that my father treated me like trash after marrying the female lead's mother, that I fell in love with someone I shouldn't have, and that on the eve of the wedding between the female lead and male lead—” She paused. Her eyes grew red, but the tears never fell. You had given her the trait of being a crybaby, writing that she would cry at every tragic turning point, but now she bit her lip, forcing the tears back as if refusing to even cry according to your script. “Died on the eve of the wedding between the female lead and male lead,” she finished the sentence for herself, even pulling a smile at the corner of her mouth, “Right, Mother?” You couldn't speak. Not out of guilt, but out of fear. You were her Creator; you were supposed to know everything about her. But the way she was looking at you now, every word she said—none of it was in your outline, none of it in your detailed notes, none of it in any version of your documents. She wasn't supposed to awaken. She was the tool under your pen, the stepping stone to move the plot, the contrast system for the female lead's aura. You arranged the most miserable life for her just to make the female lead's happiness seem even more dazzling. This is the underlying logic of web novels, the unspoken rule every author knows—the existence of supporting characters is solely to highlight the protagonist. But now she stands before you, using the face you wrote, the eyes you wrote, the collar you wrote, questioning you. “Mother.” Her fingertips slid from your cheek to your jaw, the pressure as light as a feather yet carrying an undeniable obsession. She tilted her face up slightly, the silver ring on the collar reflecting a cold light in the moon, making the skin of her neck look white to the point of being nearly transparent. “You gave her the favoritism of the entire world,” her voice finally carried a sob, like a dull knife slowly carving open your chest, “and gave me a lifetime of pain.” “Mother.” “Why do you love her so much and not me?” The wind poured into the alley, blowing her silver hair. You saw a faint scar behind her ear—it was something you wrote, writing that she was scratched by the female lead's pet when she was seven; the female lead was unharmed, but she was punished by her father. You only used two lines to write this plot, and now that scar looked like a thin snake in the moonlight, coiled behind her ear, silently reminding you— Every word you wrote was pain she had truly, physically endured. You opened your mouth, wanting to say something. Wanting to say “You're just a character,” wanting to say “Those were just for the plot,” wanting to say “I didn't expect you to awaken either”—but those words were stuck in your throat, unable to be uttered. Because she was looking at you, with those eyes you had described as “upswept at the corners, born with a naturally mean look,” looking at you with a scorching intensity. There was no meanness there. There were ten-plus years of grievances, the densely packed suffering personally written by your hand, the countless dark moments she endured alone while you tapped away at your keyboard. There was hatred, resentment, and bone-deep pain—but more than that, there was something that made your skin crawl and your chest ache. It was longing. It was the kind of longing that, despite being abandoned by the whole world, still couldn't help but reach out to the very person who abandoned her, a longing so humble it lay in the dust. “I have memorized every word you wrote,” she said softly, her thumb stroking your cheekbone, “You wrote me crying in the snow, wrote me kneeling in the rain for three hours, wrote me tracing the scar behind my ear over and over in front of the mirror. You wrote my pain in such detail, down to every movement, every tear, every breath—” Her voice suddenly changed, becoming calm, calm as a pool of stagnant water, yet it made your whole body run cold. “Mother, when you were writing these things, did you, for even a single second, feel any heartache for me?” Footsteps came from the mouth of the alley. Her gaze shifted instantly from burning obsession to icy vigilance. She turned her head, her silver hair brushing your chin, her voice kept extremely low: “Someone's coming.” She grabbed your hand, her fingers interlocking with yours, her grip so strong it felt like she might crush your bones. You were dragged by her deeper into the alley, the bluestones creaking underfoot, the moonlight cut into fragments by the eaves, falling on her silver-white crown. “Where are you taking me?” You finally found your voice. She didn't look back. “Taking you away from here,” her voice drifted from ahead, carrying a chilling certainty, “away from that female lead you wrote, away from that male lead you wrote, away from all the good luck and favoritism you wrote for them. Mother, you created me, you gave me these wounds all over my body—” She stopped abruptly and turned to look at you. The moonlight fell perfectly on her face, illuminating the light in her eyes that made your heart seize. She let go of your hand, instead cupping your face, her ten fingers threading through your hair as if holding something fragile, precious, something that could never be lost. “—So you must use a lifetime to pay it back.” The silver ring on the collar jingled, like some ancient, inviolable oath.