Chapter 93 - Ninety-One: The Other Lin Yue and My Very Jealous Husband

Chapter 93: Chapter Ninety-One: The Other Lin Yue and My Very Jealous Husband

"The First World is not abandoned, Lin Yue. It is hiding from you."

For several seconds, nobody spoke.

Then Lumi raised a tiny claw.

"I have a question."

Lin Yue did not take her eyes off the half-open door. "What is it?"

"Does the hiding world have a kitchen?"

Shen Rui closed his eyes briefly.

Lin Yue sighed. "Lumi."

"What? If the world is hiding, perhaps its kitchen is hiding too. Someone has to consider these things."

A quiet laugh came from the other side of the partition.

It was a familiar laugh.

Not because Lin Yue remembered hearing it, but because it sounded like something she might have laughed at herself.

The door opened.

A woman stood in the adjoining room.

She looked almost exactly like Lin Yue.

The same dark eyes. The same stubborn line of her mouth. The same habit of holding her shoulders as if she were preparing to argue with the entire world.

But there were differences.

Her hair was shorter, unevenly cut around her face. A pale scar crossed her left palm. Her clothes were worn, and the boots on her feet were caked with dried soil.

Most striking of all, she looked tired.

Not merely sleepy or exhausted from a long journey.

She looked like someone who had been waiting for a very long time and had nearly stopped believing anyone would come.

Her gaze settled on Lin Yue.

"You’ve changed," she said softly.

Lin Yue stared back.

"So have you."

The woman smiled.

"Fair enough."

They regarded each other in silence.

Then the woman glanced at Shen Rui.

Her eyebrows rose.

"Oh."

Lin Yue immediately became suspicious.

"What does that mean?"

The woman looked at Shen Rui again, then at their joined hands.

"Oh, that explains a great deal."

Shen Rui’s expression remained perfectly calm.

"Would you care to explain what it explains?"

The woman grinned.

"You brought your husband."

"Yes," Lin Yue answered. "He tends to come with me."

"Good."

"Good?"

"Very good, actually."

The woman nodded approvingly at Shen Rui.

"I was worried you’d come alone and try to solve everything yourself. You always did have a terrible habit of believing that carrying the entire world on your shoulders was somehow a sensible plan."

Lin Yue’s eyes narrowed.

"You know me?"

The woman gave her a long look.

"Unfortunately, yes."

"Then you should know I don’t appreciate being insulted by strangers."

"Strangers?" The woman pressed a hand to her chest in mock offense. "I spent years developing that particular talent. You can’t simply steal my insults and call me a stranger."

Lumi slowly lowered its biscuit.

Then it whispered to Shen Rui, "There are two of her."

Shen Rui nodded.

"I noticed."

"Can we keep the nicer one?"

Both women turned toward Lumi.

Lumi immediately hid behind the basket.

"I would like to withdraw my opinion."

For the first time since entering the hidden garden, Lin Yue laughed.

And the woman standing before her laughed too.

For one brief moment, their laughter sounded almost identical.

Then the woman’s smile faded.

"Come inside," she said. "There’s a great deal you need to know."

She paused and glanced at Shen Rui.

"But first, I suppose I should introduce myself."

She extended her scarred hand.

"My name is Lin Yue."

The greenhouse became very quiet.

Lin Yue looked at the offered hand.

"I thought so."

The other woman smiled sadly.

"No. You thought I was a memory."

She withdrew her hand.

"I’m not."

The adjoining room was much smaller than Lin Yue expected.

It contained a narrow bed, a wooden desk, a little stove, and shelves crowded with notebooks. A window overlooked the impossible garden.

Someone had planted vegetables in boxes beneath it.

Tomatoes, spring onions, and a few stubborn chili plants grew in the sunlight.

Lin Yue noticed the chili plants first.

Then the irrigation arrangement.

Then the compost bucket tucked discreetly beneath the window.

She stared at it.

"You’ve been growing food in here?"

The other Lin Yue followed her gaze.

"Of course."

"Your soil mixture is too dense."

The woman blinked.

"Excuse me?"

"And your tomato plants need better airflow. That corner is too damp, and your compost is probably attracting insects."

The woman stared at her for three seconds.

Then she burst out laughing.

"Oh, this is wonderful."

Lin Yue frowned.

"What is?"

"After all this time, you’re still you."

She pointed toward a chair.

"Sit down, Farm Inspector. I’ll fix the tomatoes later."

"I wasn’t inspecting—"

"You were absolutely inspecting."

Shen Rui pulled out a chair for his wife.

"Sit down, Farm Inspector."

Lin Yue gave him a betrayed look.

"You’re supposed to be on my side."

"I am. I simply enjoy seeing you meet someone who can defeat you with your own arguments."

The other Lin Yue pointed at him approvingly.

"I like him."

"Please don’t encourage him," Lin Yue muttered.

"Too late," Shen Rui replied.

Lumi climbed onto the table, discovered a small plate of biscuits, and began conducting its own inspection.

"Excellent texture. Good aroma. Slightly insufficient quantity."

The other Lin Yue looked at it.

"Does that creature always eat while other people are discussing important matters?"

"Yes," Lin Yue and Shen Rui answered together.

Lumi beamed.

"Consistency is the foundation of trust."

The woman shook her head, smiling.

Then she placed a notebook on the table.

The cover bore a single word.

CHOICE.

"Let’s begin with the question you really came here to ask," she said. "Who am I, and why have I been waiting for you?"

Lin Yue straightened.

"Yes. Please."

The woman’s expression grew thoughtful.

"I am not the First Observer. I am not the Origin. And I am not a copy created by the Possibility Weaver."

She tapped the notebook.

"I’m the Lin Yue who belonged to a different branch of the story."

Lin Yue’s fingers tightened around the edge of the table.

"A different branch?"

"Imagine two paths beginning at the same point. In one, you make a choice. In the other, you make a different one. Both paths may continue for a while, but they do not necessarily lead to the same world."

She paused.

"I came from the path that you did not live."

Lin Yue remembered the silver fruit, the mysterious woman in the vision, and the words that had haunted her since the camera first awakened.

The life that was never lived.

"You said I didn’t abandon you," Lin Yue murmured. "You left that message in the silver leaf."

The woman’s smile softened.

"Yes."

"Then why did I choose the world that could still be saved?"

"Because someone had to."

The answer was simple.

Too simple for the years of mystery surrounding it.

The other Lin Yue opened the notebook.

On its first page was a drawing of three objects: a golden seed, a broken compass, and a blank book.

Lin Yue recognized them immediately.

"The Golden Space," she whispered.

"The Heartline," the woman continued, pointing to the compass.

"And the archive," Lin Yue finished.

The woman nodded.

"Now we’re getting somewhere."

"The First Observer discovered that the Origin had begun changing its purpose," the other Lin Yue explained. "It was created to preserve the memories of worlds. But eventually, it decided that memories were too fragile, people were too unpredictable, and different choices led to too much suffering."

"So it began controlling everything," Shen Rui said.

"Exactly. It wanted to preserve every world by making them all the same."

Lin Yue leaned forward.

"And the Cartographer?"

"The Cartographer gave the Origin a way to do it. Maps became more than records of places. They became instructions. If the Cartographer could map a world completely, the Origin could rewrite it to fit its preferred design."

Lin Yue thought of the hidden settlement, the disappearing butterfly, the missing sounds, and the frightened people who had survived for centuries by remaining absent from the official map.

"So places that weren’t mapped couldn’t be controlled as easily."

"Correct. That’s why the old settlements hid. They weren’t simply hiding from an enemy army. They were hiding from a system that could decide they had never existed."

Lumi stopped chewing.

For once, even the little creature understood that the answer mattered.

The woman turned to the golden seed drawn on the page.

"The First Observer divided the archive into three parts. Knowledge, power, and connection. The memories of Earth became the knowledge. The Golden Space preserved the ability to grow and sustain life. The Heartline connected people and settlements without forcing them to become one."

"And I carried the choice," Lin Yue said quietly.

"Yes."

The woman studied her face.

"You were the one who could enter the surviving world without the Origin immediately recognizing what you carried. Your memories were suppressed to protect the archive. You lived another life, learned new things, and eventually built a home that was yours—not one designed by the Origin."

Lin Yue thought of the farm.

The vegetable fields.

The irrigation channels.

The workers who had trusted her.

The little orchard where Shen Rui sometimes sat beside her in the evening.

The home that had grown from a patch of neglected ground.

It had never been perfect.

There had been failed crops, broken tools, stubborn arguments, and more than one occasion when Lumi had eaten something it had absolutely been told not to eat.

But it had been real.

She had built it with her own hands.

And the people in it had chosen to stay.

"Then the Weaver..." Lin Yue began.

The other woman’s expression changed.

"The Possibility Weaver is the part of this story that even I don’t completely understand."

That admission surprised Lin Yue.

"You don’t know?"

"I know what it does. I don’t know everything it wants."

The woman closed the notebook.

"It creates alternatives. It can show people worlds where their mistakes never happened, where their loved ones never died, and where everything they lost has been restored."

Shen Rui’s hand settled over Lin Yue’s.

"But those worlds are not necessarily the lives those people actually lived," he said.

"Exactly. The Weaver thinks a perfect alternative should be better than an imperfect reality."

Lin Yue remembered the beautiful illusion the Weaver had offered her.

A life without loss.

A world where nothing hurt.

A Golden Space untouched by failure.

It had seemed almost irresistible.

Until she noticed that the people in it were not quite themselves.

"The Weaver doesn’t understand why people would choose their real lives when it can offer them something better," Lin Yue said.

The other woman nodded.

"And that’s why it is searching for me."

"Because you understand the choice?"

"Because I made it."

She looked directly at Lin Yue.

"And because I chose something the Weaver cannot reproduce."

Lin Yue waited.

The woman smiled faintly.

"An imperfect world that people were still free to love."

For a moment, no one spoke.

Then Lumi slowly raised a biscuit.

"I also choose an imperfect world."

Lin Yue looked at it.

"Why?"

"Because in a perfect world, someone might decide I eat too many biscuits."

Shen Rui nodded thoughtfully.

"A devastating possibility."

Lumi hugged the plate.

"Exactly."

The other Lin Yue laughed, and the tension in the room loosened.

But Lin Yue had one more question.

"If you made the choice, why am I carrying it?"

The woman’s smile disappeared.

"Because I couldn’t carry it any farther."

She turned toward the window.

"And because I thought you deserved the chance to live."

The garden outside seemed quieter now.

The other Lin Yue poured tea into three cups, then placed a tiny bowl of water in front of Lumi.

Lumi inspected it.

"Is this tea?"

"No."

"Fruit juice?"

"No."

"Soup?"

The woman stared at it.

"It’s water."

Lumi sighed with theatrical disappointment.

"Your hospitality needs work."

"Your manners need work."

"Perhaps we can help each other."

"Perhaps you can drink the water."

Lumi did so, muttering about the decline of hospitality across the worlds.

Lin Yue wrapped both hands around her cup.

"You said you chose the world that could still be saved. What happened to yours?"

The other Lin Yue sat opposite her.

"My world was already being rewritten. The Cartographer had mapped most of it. The Origin was preparing to replace what remained with a version where no one could make a choice that threatened its design."

She glanced at the garden.

"I found this place before the rewriting reached it. The First World had been hidden, not destroyed. I used the remaining archive to seal the entrance."

"Then you came here?"

"I stayed here."

"For how long?"

The woman looked toward the window again.

"Long enough to grow tomatoes."

Lin Yue waited.

The woman smiled.

"And long enough to learn that talking to plants is not a substitute for having friends."

A small, unexpected ache settled in Lin Yue’s chest.

She understood loneliness.

Not the dramatic kind that came with thunder and tragic music.

The ordinary kind.

The kind that appeared when something funny happened, and there was no one nearby to tell. The kind that made a meal taste dull because there was no one across the table to complain about the vegetables.

The kind that made even a beautiful garden feel too quiet.

"You’ve been alone all this time," Lin Yue said.

"Not entirely. The garden kept me busy."

"That isn’t the same."

"No." The woman smiled. "It isn’t."

Lin Yue reached across the table and took her hand.

The other woman looked down at their joined hands.

For a moment, she seemed younger.

Less tired.

"I don’t know what to call you," Lin Yue admitted. "You’re not a stranger, but you’re not exactly me, either."

"You don’t have to decide today."

"Would you mind if I called you Lin?"

The woman considered it.

"Lin?"

"Unless you’d prefer something else."

A small smile appeared.

"No. I like it."

Then she looked at Shen Rui.

"And what should I call your husband?"

Lin Yue opened her mouth.

Shen Rui answered first.

"Shen Rui is fine."

Lin gave him a mischievous look.

"Just Shen Rui? Not ’the man who looks at his wife as though she’s the only person in the world’?"

Lin Yue nearly choked on her tea.

Shen Rui’s ears turned slightly red.

"Who told you that?"

"No one. I have eyes."

"Then perhaps you should use them to examine your tomatoes."

Lin burst out laughing.

Lin leaned back in her chair, looking delighted.

"Oh, I definitely like him."

Lin Yue pointed at her.

"You are not allowed to recruit my husband into your teasing alliance."

"Why not?"

"Because I already have enough trouble with one of you."

Shen Rui smiled innocently.

"I have done nothing."

"That’s precisely the problem."

For the first time in what felt like an age, the room filled with easy laughter.

And somewhere beyond the greenhouse, a tiny silver bird landed on the windowsill.

It listened for a moment.

Then it flew away.

When the tea had been finished, and Lumi had negotiated a second biscuit, Lin opened a drawer beneath the desk.

She removed a small brass key.

"This belongs to the First World," she explained. "It opens the old archive room beneath the central garden."

Lin Yue looked at the key.

"Why didn’t you use it?"

"Because the archive room has been locked since the seal was created. It requires three things to open."

"The golden seed," Lin Yue guessed.

Lin nodded.

"The Observer."

Lin Yue swallowed.

"And?"

"The person who made the choice."

Silence settled over the table.

Then Lin Yue looked at the scar across Lin’s palm.

"You."

"Yes."

"And you waited for me because the key needed all three?"

"Partly."

"What is the other part?"

Lin’s expression softened.

"I wanted to know whether you would still make the same choice after building a life of your own."

Lin Yue looked down at her hands.

For years, she had believed that her past was something to uncover, a puzzle to solve, a collection of missing pieces that would eventually make her whole.

But perhaps the answer was not hidden in the past alone.

Perhaps it was also in the life she had built since.

She thought of the farm workers waiting for her return.

The seedlings that needed tending.

The irrigation channels Shen Rui had helped her repair.

The quiet evenings when they sat together after a long day, sharing a meal and talking about things that had nothing to do with ancient archives or mysterious worlds.

She thought of the man beside her.

Then she looked up.

"I don’t know whether I’d make the same choice."

Lin nodded.

"Good."

Lin Yue blinked.

"Good?"

"If you answered immediately, I’d worry that you hadn’t thought about it."

The other woman placed the brass key on the table.

"The choice was never supposed to become a rule. That’s what the Origin failed to understand. A decision that saved one world does not mean every world must be saved in the same way."

Shen Rui considered this.

"So the First World isn’t a test with a correct answer."

"No."

Lin smiled.

"It’s a place where we find out what the answer costs."

Lin Yue studied the key.

"And the message said to leave the Weaver behind."

"Because the Weaver cannot be allowed to choose for you."

Lin’s gaze sharpened.

"If it follows you into the archive, it may try to replace what it finds with a version it believes is better."

"Can it get through the gate?"

"Not easily. The gate was built to recognize honest answers, not perfect ones. The Weaver has difficulty with that distinction."

Lumi raised a claw.

"I have several honest answers."

"No," Lin Yue said immediately.

"You haven’t even heard them!"

"I have heard enough."

Lin laughed.

Then she stood and walked toward the greenhouse door.

"Come on. There’s something I want to show you before we visit the archive."

The garden’s oldest tree stood behind the greenhouse.

Its trunk was broad and twisted, its roots spread across the ground like the fingers of a sleeping giant. The leaves were dark green, but the branches bore a scattering of tiny silver buds.

Lin Yue recognized the crescent symbol carved into the trunk.

Beneath it were three small marks.

A seed.

A compass.

An open book.

She reached toward them.

The cracked crystal seed warmed in her palm.

A golden line travelled along the tree’s roots.

One branch stirred.

A single leaf drifted down and landed in Lin Yue’s hand.

It was ordinary green on one side.

Silver on the other.

Lin watched her carefully.

"This tree remembers both paths."

"Both?"

"The world I came from, and the world you lived in. It grew from the place where our choices separated."

Lin Yue turned the leaf over.

"What happens if it dies?"

Lin’s face grew serious.

"If it dies, the path between our worlds will close."

"And the archive?"

"May become unreachable."

Lumi stared up at the tree.

Then it looked at Lin Yue.

Then at the basket of snacks.

"Does this mean we must protect the tree?"

"Yes," Lin said.

Lumi nodded solemnly.

"I accept."

Lin Yue smiled.

"That was surprisingly mature."

"I shall guard it with my life."

"How noble."

"However, I will require a larger food allowance."

"There it is."

Shen Rui laughed and put an arm around Lin Yue’s shoulders.

She leaned into him, still studying the silver side of the leaf.

The pieces were beginning to fit together.

Not perfectly.

Not all at once.

But enough to understand why the hidden settlements had survived, why the Golden Space mattered, why the Heartline had to remain a network of willing connections rather than a single system of control.

The Origin wanted a world where no one could make a mistake.

The Weaver wanted a world where no one needed to live with an unwanted outcome.

But both were trying to take something away from people.

The freedom to choose.

Lin Yue closed her fingers around the leaf.

She had no intention of allowing either one to decide what her life should become.

And she certainly had no intention of letting them decide what happened to her farm.

They returned to the greenhouse just as Aster’s projection flickered into view.

Its blue light wavered.

"Warning. An unfamiliar signal has entered the outer boundary."

Lin looked toward the gate.

"How long?"

"Thirty-seven seconds until contact."

Shen Rui moved closer to Lin Yue.

"Is it the Weaver?"

"I cannot confirm the identity."

Lin Yue sighed.

"Of course you can’t."

Aster continued.

"The signal is attempting to create an alternate route into the garden. Its structure resembles the Possibility Weaver’s previous interference."

Lin’s face paled.

"It found us."

"Can it enter?" Lin Yue asked.

"Unknown."

"Can we stop it?"

"Possibly."

Lin Yue stared at the projection.

"You have a remarkable talent for making me feel better."

"I am glad to be of assistance."

"ASTER!"

The greenhouse windows shimmered.

For a brief moment, Lin Yue saw another garden reflected in the glass.

A perfect garden.

The plants stood in neat rows. Every leaf was flawless. Every fruit was ripe. The path was clean, the pond clear, and the old tree stood straight and unscarred.

It was beautiful.

And completely still.

Then the reflection changed.

A figure appeared beneath the perfect tree.

A white-haired child with eyes that held the moving shapes of distant worlds.

The Possibility Weaver.

Its expression was not angry.

It looked almost curious.

Then it spoke.

"Lin Yue, I have found the missing branch."

The reflection rippled.

Behind the Weaver stood another figure.

A woman with Lin Yue’s face.

But this woman wore clean clothes, had no scar on her palm, and smiled with the serene confidence of someone who had never lost anything.

Lin Yue’s stomach tightened.

The Weaver tilted its head.

"You brought the person who made the choice. How helpful."

Lin stepped in front of the window.

"Stay away from this world."

The Weaver’s smile faded.

"But I only want to understand."

"You can ask questions without taking things away."

"I have tried."

"No," Lin Yue said. "You’ve tried to replace the answers you didn’t like."

For the first time, the Weaver looked genuinely uncertain.

Then its gaze shifted to Lin Yue.

"I can show you what happened after your choice. I can show you the world you left behind."

Lin Yue felt Shen Rui’s hand close around hers.

The Weaver continued softly.

"I can show you the people you couldn’t save."

The perfect garden began to dissolve.

For one terrible instant, Lin Yue saw a ruined settlement beneath a black sky. She heard distant cries. She saw a broken compass in the mud and a golden seed lying beside a woman’s outstretched hand.

Then the image vanished.

The Weaver’s face filled the glass.

"Wouldn’t you like to know whether you made the right choice?"

Lin Yue’s heart hammered.

Of course she wanted to know.

Of course she wanted to understand what had happened, whom she had lost, and whether another decision might have saved more lives.

But wanting an answer did not mean she would surrender her freedom to someone who believed it had the right to provide one.

She lifted the silver leaf.

"I want to know the truth," she said. "But I will not accept a world you have designed to persuade me."

The Weaver stared at her.

Then, slowly, it smiled again.

"Very well."

The reflection disappeared.

Aster’s projection steadied.

"External signal withdrawn."

Lin exhaled shakily.

"That was too close."

Shen Rui turned to Lin Yue.

"Are you all right?"

She nodded, though her fingers were still cold.

He drew her into a quiet embrace.

"You don’t have to face every answer today," he murmured.

She rested her forehead against his chest.

"I know."

"And you don’t have to face them alone."

A small smile touched her lips.

"I know that too."

He kissed her forehead.

From somewhere near their feet came a tiny sniff.

Lumi was standing beside them with a biscuit in each claw.

"I am very moved by this touching moment."

Lin Yue looked down.

"Are you crying?"

"No."

"Your eyes are watering."

"Emotional biscuit crumbs."

Shen Rui laughed.

Lin Yue hugged her husband a little tighter.

For all the mysteries waiting beneath the First World, for all the memories she had yet to recover, this was the truth she knew without needing a magical archive to confirm it.

She had a home.

She had people she loved.

And she would decide what happened next.

That evening, Lin placed the brass key beside the blank book.

The garden had settled into quiet again, but the silver buds on the ancient tree glowed faintly beneath the moonlight.

Tomorrow, they would open the archive room.

Tomorrow, Lin Yue might finally learn what the First Observer had hidden—and why the woman who had made the choice believed that the truth was worth waiting for.

But as Lin Yue prepared to leave the greenhouse, she noticed a new line on the blank book.

The handwriting was not Lin’s.

It was not hers, either.

The words appeared one letter at a time.

THE ARCHIVE IS READY.

A second line followed.

THE FIRST MEMORY IS NOT YOURS.

Then a third.

IT BELONGS TO THE MAN WHO FOLLOWED YOU INTO THE WORLD.

Lin Yue stopped breathing.

Slowly, she turned toward Shen Rui.

He stood beside the door, holding the lantern.

For the first time since she had known him, he looked as though he had seen a ghost.

The lantern trembled in his hand.

And from somewhere deep beneath the garden, a bell rang once.

Shen Rui stared at the blank book.

Then he whispered a name Lin Yue had never heard him speak before.

"...Rui’an?"

To be continued...