Chapter 26: Reconciliation
"Go away."
Seeing the door remained shut, Xiaoyun knocked on the door again.
"Please, I just want to talk."
After waiting for a bit, Leyan finally opened the door. But she stood right by the doorway, not letting Xiaoyun enter further.
"What do you want from me?" Leyan asked coldly.
"Leyan, I just want to talk——"
"We can talk right here."
Seeing Leyan adamant about her choice, Xiaoyun didn't ask again. Instead, he decided to say what was in his heart the whole time.
"I love you, Leyan... I had loved you ever since the day we met——"
"And? If you love me, are you willing to give up Yuqi?"
"I..."
Seeing Xiaoyun hesitating for a second, Leyan immediately knew what Xiaoyun's answer was.
"I'm just an old hag that no one wants. Just leave me be and go be with Yuqi——"
Just as Leyan began closing the door, Xiaoyun stopped it for a second.
"Babe, I don't care if you are old. I love you because you're Leyan. Please, give me a chance."
"A chance? My body is already in its forties, and you're still as young as when we were married. I don't have a second chance like you. Just go away."
Leyan slammed the door closed right in front of Xiaoyun's face, but Xiaoyun wasn't done as he knew Leyan was listening.
"Leyan, I told you. I don't care if your body is old or young. If you think that just because you are getting old, you are absolutely wrong, thinking that I don't find you attractive!
If you want proof, remember the first night I got here? I was so turned on by your body that I couldn't even stop cumming inside——"
Leyan finally opened the door again, dragged Xiaoyun inside, and slammed the door closed.
"What do you want from me? Why can't you just leave me alone?" Leyna asked angrily as she grabbed Xiaoyun by the collar.
"I want to say I still love you. You're still just as attractive as the day I met you——"
"Songming, you don't understand. It doesn't matter if you don't care that I'm old. I don't get the choice to live with you anymore——"
"Who said that?"
As Xiaoyun interrupted Leyan from finishing, she let go of his collar and sat down on the bed.
"Just because my body is attractive now to you, it still is already in its forties, and you're still always as young as you always are."
"Leyan, our love is beyond just looks. Even if you're full of wrinkles and sagging, I still love you."
After a long silence between the two, Leyan spoke up again.
"You can accept me... But I can't accept myself. Please, just be with Yuqi. I'm past my prime——"
As Leyan returned to arguing about her look compared to Xiaoyun, an idea popped into his head.
Without wasting any time, Xiaoyun suddenly lunges forward and grabs Leyan by the arm.
"What are you——"
Before Leyan could ask why, she could feel her body slowly changing.
The small wrinkles throughout her skin were gone, and her skin became smoother. Even her hair was suddenly being reshaped back to her old style of long hair.
It was almost as if her body was being time-traveled as Leyan could feel her body full of energy. To be exact, it was the same energy level she had when she was young.
"What? How did I change so much?"
Leyan was in absolute shock as the mirror in front of her revealed a strange young woman she had never seen before.
But she quickly realized it wasn't a strange young woman. It was simply her younger self after she had given birth to Nami.
"Songming, you——"
Just as Leyan turns over to check Xiaoyun, he suddenly drops forward onto the floor as he lets go of her hand.
"Honey?"
Leyan moved down to the floor to shake Xiaoyun by the arm, only to get zero response back.
"Honey, this isn't funny. Come on, get up."
Not seeing any response, Leyan immediately became a little worried and moved her hand to Xiaoyun's neck.
There were zero pulses, with zero sign of breathing from Xiaoyun's body.
"Honey, wake up. Please don't scare me like this. I-I won't get mad anymore."
Leyan collapsed onto Xiaoyun's chest as tears began falling from her face.
"Honey, please! Don't leave me again. I love you, honey! Please wake up. I'm begging you. Come back, please!
I don't care if I look young anymore. I-I'm fine with looking old. Please, just come back. I don't want to be alone again."
As Leyan began crying louder and louder, Xiaoyun's suit was now soaking wet from her tears.
"You bastard! Why did you leave me again? What's the point of making me young if you're just going to die like this?
I'd rather stay old forever, please. I don't want to grow old alone. I swear I'll never complain again. Please, just come back to me. I'm begging you——"
Seeing Xiaoyun with no sign of waking up, a surge of guilt started creeping inside her head.
"I killed Songming. I killed Xiaoyun... I killed my husband... I——"
Just as Leyan was contemplating in her head what to do next, the door suddenly opened.
"Babe? Mom, why is Xiaoyun on the floor?"
Yuqi rushed over to Xiaoyun and checked his pulse, only to find it to be gone.
"I-I don't know... He was holding my hand, and I suddenly got younger. And then he just collapsed, and his pulse... is gone."
Leyan looked more and more depressed as her hands began shaking, disgusted by what her complaint had caused.
Meanwhile, Yuqi doesn't seem to be stressed at all as she lifts Xiaoyun to the bed.
"Mom, Xiaoyun isn't dead... When he was bitten, he lost his pulse as well."
Hearing Yuqi's response, the sobbing stopped as Leyan immediately turned her head towards Yuqi.
"Wait, really? You aren't lying to me?"
"Why would I lie about that? I think he is just exhausted from... Making you look so young?" Yuqi suggested an uncertainty in her voice.
"But don't worry. He'll probably be back up around a day later... Mom, you look so beautiful."
"Thanks..." Yanyan murmured as she worryingly looked toward Xiaoyun, albeit with a glimmer of hope.
---
After sitting inside the room for a bit, the two headed back out to the hallway.
"Mom... I want to talk to you about something."
"What is it, Qiqi?"
"Do you want to... share Xiaoyun?"
Leyan's face blushed a little as Yuqi looked up to avoid looking at Leyan directly.
"What? No. I'm your mom, Yuqi. I can't share the same husband as you. That is such a ridiculous idea. And he's your dad."
Leyan instantly rejected the offer as her mind still couldn't get over the fact that her daughter had fallen in love with her husband.
"So? Xiaoyun is your son, and I don't see you keeping your distance away from him——"
"It's a different situation. Yuqi, you are too young to understand——"
"How is it different? All I see is we both love him, and he loves both of us... He's clearly in pain because he cannot pick one of us."
Yuqi paused for a second, then continued.
"He might just leave us again."
"What do you mean again? What leaving?" Leyan curiously asked.
"Nami told me how Xiaoyun tried to leave because he felt too guilty after lying to us... I'm afraid he might do the same thing and try leaving again if he feels one of us will be hurt if he chooses."
Hearing Nami's name gave Leyan a little bit of trust in Yuqi's words, but she was still a little hesitant.
"How does she know that?"
"She got a bunch of goodbye letters that he wrote that night. If you don't trust me, you can ask Mimi later."
"I trust you... But can you give me a second to think?"
As the two stood still in silence, Yuqi waited patiently for Leyan's answer.
"I... Fine. I guess we share him, then... This is so stupid," Leyan murmured, her face blushing red from embarrassment.
"Then we're sisters now. Anyway, Mom, you are so young and beautiful now! I bet if we both stand in the street, people will think you are my older sister."
Yuqi excitedly held Leyan by the hand as if she had moved past all the grudges between them.
"Really? Do I really look that young?" Leyan asked curiously, letting Yuqi get close as she wanted to move past the grudges as well.
The two walked into the restroom to look in the mirror, which showed two young women who had very similar faces.
"Wow, I really do look so much younger..."
Leyan moved closer to carefully examine her face, which was silk smooth as she gently rubbed her hand over it.
"Hey, Mom, you said you had sex with... both Dad and Xiaoyun, right?" Yuqi suddenly asked.
"Um, I guess, yes?"
Leyan replied as her face blushed a little from thinking about the two different styles of sex she had experienced two despite being the same person.
"Was Dad better in bed or Xiaoyun?" Yuqi curiously asked.
"W-Why are you asking that?"
Leyan looked to the side, blushing again as she felt a little embarrassed to talk about this kind of stuff.
"I'm just curious... So who's better?" Yuqi asked again.
"Songming is better... But I only did it once with Xiaoyun, and it was his first time. He still has a lot of room to grow."
Leyan added the last part at the last second as she didn't want to insult Xiaoyun, but she quickly realized she had revealed a little too much.
"What! I thought I was Xiaoyun's first time... That's so unfair! You got both of his first time."
"I never intended to do that. I was——"
"Wait, Mom, when did you do it with Xiaoyun? Hasn't he only been here for less than a week?" Yuqi asked curiously, her head unable to wrap around the question.
"Ahem, I was drunk and accidentally went inside his room... Then I mistaken him as your dad and..."
Leyan didn't continue any further, but it was enough for Yuqi to connect all the pieces in her head.
"Damn. Mom, I thought I was crazy enough to have sex with someone who saved me... But it seems like yours is even crazy."
"Shut up."
Leyan quickly covered her face in embarrassment as the two walked out of the bathroom and back into the hallway.
"Hey, Mom... if Xiaoyun is Songming, that means he gets all the experience and knows what to do, right?"
Leyan nodded her head a little, her hand still on her face as she was still too embarrassed.
"That means he's even better than before... Thank god I shared it with you, Mom."
Yuqi suddenly patted Leyan on the shoulder as they walked down the stairs to the living room.
"Wait, what? What are you talking about?" Leyan looked confused.
"Well, I can't handle Xiaoyun in bed when I did it once with him. I definitely can't handle him if he got so much more experience.
But now I got you to handle him with me. It's going to be so much easier now." Yuqi smirked as they sat down on the sofa.
"What? No. We aren't doing that together."
Leyan instantly rejected Yuqi's idea as she understood what Yuqi was trying to suggest.
"Come on, mom. Don't be shy. We both already did it with him. It's not like we haven't seen each other's body before."
Despite Yuqi saying it calmly, her face was blushing a little.
"But we are mother and daughter——"
"You already said that. Come on, mom. We both love him so much. I bet you can't handle him in bed either."
Leyan nodded in agreement after thinking back to the amount of time she had to ask Xiaoyun to stop.
"So let's make him surrender to us. Don't you want to see him beat at his own game?"
Leyan nodded in agreement again as the two both suddenly found a common goal to unite against.
---
The next day...
When Leyan and Yuqi finally woke up in the middle of the day, both of them went to check on Xiaoyun.
Xiaoyun's pulse and breathing were back to normal, albeit his face looked a little pale.
The two walked out of the room and toward the kitchen like best friends, which confused and shocked Yueyue and Nami, as the two were at each other's throats the previous night.
As Leyan started to prepare lunch, Yuqi stood behind her to learn how to cook, which shocked the two even more, as Yuqi had never cooked before.
An hour later...
When Xiaoyun finally woke up, his head was still a little dizzy as he tried to think of what happened to him.
"Why am I sleeping in Leyan's room?"
After lying on the bed for a bit, Xiaoyun realized what had happened to him.
"I really did turn her younger... Leyan is just like when she was still in my memory." Xiaoyun murmured as he slowly got up from the bed and walked to the bathroom.
After stepping inside the bathroom, Xiaoyun started examining his look in the mirror.
"I'm Xiaoyun... Or am I Songming?" Xiaoyun murmured as his body reflected Songming, yet most of his memory was Xiaoyun.
As Xiaoyun stood still in front of the mirror for almost a minute, thinking who was in control, he finally figured out which one he was.
"Songming is Xiaoyun... I'm Xiaoyun. The alternate timeline himself addresses himself as Xiaoyun... He never called himself Songming either."
Without wasting any time, Xiaoyun immediately started reverting his looks to his original Xiaoyun look.
However, he left the small stubble beard as it felt a little weird having an empty one.
---
"Good morning... I mean afternoon."
Xiaoyun quickly changed his answer after realizing it was already one o'clock as he stepped inside the kitchen.
"Hey honey/babe, you awake!" The two responded to Xiaoyun.
"When did you two get so close?" Xiaoyun curiously asked as the two were neck to neck, with Leyan behind Yuqi holding her hand.
The two stopped the fire and turned over to Xiaoyun, then said something that caught him completely off guard.
"Well, we decided to talk it through between us... and we are sharing you! You don't have a choice, okay? You will have to treat us equally!"
Yuqi responded in excitement as Leyan nodded in silence. But both of their faces blushed a little as if they were still embarrassed.
"Thank you... I love you all!"
Xiaoyun excitedly hugged the two at the same time, and the smile on his face made it all worth it for the two being hugged.
"Okay, okay. Honey, I'm still cooking. Yuqi, you too. We need to get back to cooking before the cold ruins the food."
Leyan immediately turned her attention to the food as soon as Xiaoyun let the two go.
"Anyway, babe, do you feel any different?" Yuqi curiously asked as she turned the stove back on.
"Me? I feel completely fine. I'm starving, though."
Xiaoyun rubbed his empty stomach as he sat down in his seat.
"Yeah, yeah, here's lunch that you have been waiting for. Yuqi spent a lot of time cooking this with me."
Leyan carried the pan to the kitchen table while Yuqi put down the empty bowl at each of the empty seats.
"Really? Then I really need to try it now."
Xiaoyun excitedly picked up his chopstick as Leyan poured the fried rice into each of the bowls.
"Yuqi, go call Yueyue and Nami, okay?"
"Okay!"
As Yuqi walked away from the kitchen, Leyan put the pan back on the stovetop.
"Um... Xiaoyun, I just wanted to thank you for making me feel younger again."
"No problem, babe. I love you."
As Xiaoyun finished speaking, he gobbled the fried rice instantly.
"Is there a second?"
Xiaoyun awkwardly scratched his head as he just noticed he had eaten an entire bowl in under a minute.
"Don't worry, there's more."
Leyan grabbed the pan and filled up Xiaoyun's bowl again.
"Thanks, babe."
Xiaoyun ate it much slower this time as Leyan watched with love in her eyes.
---
As Yuqi and Yueyue came back from the gym, Yuqi went upstairs to Nami's room.
"Hey, Nami and Lily, lunch is ready," Yuqi yelled as she knocked on the door.
"Yes, I'm coming."
As the two walks of the room, Yuqi noticed Lily was wearing Nami's clothes, with her face blushing red.
"Lily, you look very nice." Yuqi complimented.
"T-Thank you." Lily quietly replied.
"Okay, let's go to lunch."
Nami grabbed Lily's hand and walked downstairs together to the kitchen.
"What are they doing the whole day in this room?" Yuqi wondered as she stayed behind upstairs.
Her curiosity got the best of her, and she decided to walk inside the room and take a small peek.
"Hm, everything looked normal," Yuqi murmured as she examined the room, but she saw nothing out of the ordinary.
Yuqi noticed Nami's computer wasn't closed, so she walked closer to see what it was.
"I probably shouldn't do this... but mom would never check what she is doing online. As her sister, I should be responsible for safeguarding her online use. Yeah."
Yuqi convinced herself as she moved her hand to the mouse and then clicked several times in a row.
"Classes, gaming forums, some anime sites... Okay, they seem pretty normal."
Yuqi moved on to the history tabs, which were all cleared except for a few normal website histories that dated no more than a week.
"Hmm, all cleared... how suspicious."
Yuqi minimized the browser and began checking the files one by one. After a while, she noticed a folder that was much bigger than usual.
"What a rookie... doesn't even bother hiding it."
Yuqi opened the folder, only to have her face blush as she couldn't believe what was on the computer.
"What to eat to grow taller.mp4... How to make your breast bigger101.pdf... What_exercise_to_do_to_make_your_chest_bigger.img..."
The list goes on and on, and despite the weird name, most of it was general advice that was not dangerous.
"Hm, Nami is really embarrassed about her size, huh? I guess she is getting older now."
Yuqi looked down at her chest for a second, then laughed as she remembered Nami's size.
"She is not even half Mom's size... How did she not even inherit a single thing from her?" Yuqi murmured as she scrolled down the folder.
After scrolling for a bit, Yuqi noticed a folder called 'important' at the end. So she immediately opened it.
Not surprisingly, they were adult games. However, Yuqi was still caught off guard as she noticed the genre of the games.
"Why the hell are all these H-games? Why are the majority of them yuri? I need to correct her thinking. She can't do this."
Yuqi closes the folders and puts the browser back on the front page, leaving zero traces of her walking inside the room.
As Yuqi walked downstairs, her mind was running with ideas.
"Should I go tell mom? No, that will ruin their relationship. Maybe I should just tell her to stop? But then that would expose me to having checked her computer without permission.
Would she even listen to me? But I can't let her go down the wrong path like this. I need to think of something. Maybe she will listen to Xiaoyun, or maybe I can ask Xiaoyun to correct her.
I mean, Nami is already old enough, but she's so tiny... No, no, what am I thinking? She is not even fully an adult yet. She is just going through puberty and fantasizing about that kind of stuff, right? There were still some normal H-games in there anyway."
Yuqi finally returned to the kitchen and sat down, her mind still preoccupied. She ignored Xiaoyun and Leyan, who waved at her.
"Perhaps I am just too backward and traditional? Maybe I should move with the time and accept it... But I need to separate Lily and Nami. Lily is way too young. She doesn't know any better."
Yuqi suddenly realized the reason Lily's face was so red earlier, and her brain started going off track, thinking of what had happened.
---
"Qiqi, what took you so long?" Leyan curiously asked.
"Oh, I was just in the restroom," Yuqi replied as she started eating the fried rice.
After everyone finished eating, Yueyue suddenly suggested a proposal as everyone relaxed on the sofa.
"Do you guys want to continue to explore the other mansions? I think we continue it."
"Sure, I don't mind it," Xiaoyun replied.
"I'm not going. I want to stay home with Lily." Nami instantly replied.
"I'm not going either. I'm a little tired," Yuqi replied, looking suspicious of Nami's intention.
"Same. I need to take care of the garden. I haven't checked it for the entire day now." Leyan replied.
"Well, then, it's just me and Xiaoyun," Yueyue murmured, looking toward Xiaoyun to see his reaction.
But she didn't get a reaction, as Xiaoyun was fully expecting their answer to be No.
"Sure, let's go in thirty minutes. I'll get packing right now."