Pale Requiem: Transformed into a Girl

Chapter 32: Here Again

The instant that viscous liquid, laced with the stench of rust and blood, once again enveloped her body, Bai Lengci jolted violently.

Here again!

That sea of blood!

But this time, that crushing heaviness that had rendered her powerless vanished, and her body felt unusually light.

The instinct to survive overpowered every other thought.

She immediately thrashed her limbs, desperately swimming upward.

“Splash——”

The sensation of breaking through the surface was unusually clear.

She drew in a sharp breath, yet the terrifying flood of blood into her nasal cavity that she had anticipated did not occur.

What filled her lungs was air tinged with a faintly sweet rust-like taste.

The sky was a blend of dark red and white, without clouds, without a sun.

Bai Lengci wiped her face, her fingertips brushing against the viscous liquid.

Yet strangely, it seemed the liquid did not actually soak into or cling to her.

Instead, it slid away like an oily film.

She looked around.

As far as her eyes could reach, there was only the endless sea of blood.

Only directly ahead, an isolated island stood abruptly in the middle of it.

“An island?”

Now Bai Lengci finally understood why in those dumb horror movies, people always went straight toward the obvious danger.

When all around you was some strange red liquid, who knew what would happen if you stayed submerged too long? And then, suddenly, an island appeared before you.

What else could you do?

She hesitated for a moment before swimming toward the island.

The sea of blood resisted more than water, yet her stamina was far beyond usual.

Before long, she reached the shore.

The so-called shore was actually made of dark red sand.

As she stepped onto the island, a faint “rustle” came from beneath her feet.

The island was small, its scenery so simple it was nearly monotonous.

At the center grew an exceptionally tall, pure white tree.

Its trunk, branches, and leaves bore not the slightest trace of another color.

Beneath the heavens, it emitted a faint, sacred glow.

Surrounding the tree bloomed flowers in a dense circle of two colors.

One was a dripping vivid red, the other pure, flawless white.

Red and white intertwined, forming a strange, intense visual impact.

Bai Lengci first scooped a handful of sand, balled it up, and tossed it onto the flowers.

After waiting for a while and seeing no danger, she squatted down to examine them carefully.

The flowers had elegant shapes, their layered petals exuding an indescribable cool fragrance.

Bai Lengci extended a hand, gingerly touching the petal of a white flower.

It felt delicate and icy cold, but no matter how gently she tugged, the petal clung firmly to the calyx, refusing to fall.

She tried the red flower—it was the same.

Driven by curiosity, she pressed more firmly with her fingertips and plucked an intact white flower.

This time, the petals were no longer bound tightly to the calyx.

Bai Lengci pulled one off.

Absentmindedly, she pinched the petal between her fingers.

It crumbled with a soft “crack,” as fragile as the thinnest glass, falling as fine powder between her fingers.

“Brittle?”

She picked a red flower—exactly the same.

Rising to her feet, Bai Lengci warily scanned her surroundings.

Everywhere radiated strangeness.

Was this a dream?

Yet it all felt so real.

She stood still for a long time, feeling the soft ground beneath her, breathing in the rust-scented air.

Aside from the white tree and the eerie flowers, there was no movement, no hint of danger.

At last, she decided to approach the white tree at the island’s center.

The closer she drew, the more she felt its immense size and beauty.

It stood silently, every leaf seeming to glow faintly, pure and untouched by a single speck of dust.

Yet beneath such perfect beauty lurked an indescribable sense of… unease.

It was too perfect, too quiet.

The contrast with its surroundings was so stark it provoked a creeping dread.

For a time, Bai Lengci dared not touch the tree.

She simply circled it once.

On the far side, she found a swing.

A very simple swing.

Two pure white ropes dangled from a sturdy branch, tied to a white wooden plank.

The swing hung motionless, as though it had been there since eternity.

The sense of eeriness grew stronger.

For something so childlike and human to appear on this desolate island—it was entirely out of place.

Her gaze fell upon the swing’s plank.

There, something seemed to be lying on it.

Bai Lengci rolled another ball of sand and tossed it at the swing.

The object fell to the ground as the swing swayed.

After waiting a moment, she stepped closer and saw it clearly.

It was a carved wooden pendant, broken cleanly into two halves.

Bai Lengci wasn’t sure whether it had broken just now when it fell.

Hesitating briefly, she reached out and gently picked up the two pieces.

From the texture and grain, it seemed to be of the same origin as the white tree.

She joined the halves together.

The complete pendant bore no ornate patterns.

Only two distinct characters in an unknown script.

Though Bai Lengci did not recognize them, she was certain they were not from any known Earth language.

She wanted to circle the white giant tree again.

Just as her fingertips nearly brushed its smooth trunk, her vision abruptly blurred and twisted.

The sea of blood, the white tree, the red flowers, the white flowers… all of it faded and dissolved.

Bai Lengci snapped her eyes open.

Daylight already streamed brightly from the window.

She was lying properly in her bed, wrapped in a soft quilt.

Rubbing her faintly aching temples, she tried to ease the dizzy feeling of being torn from the depths of a dream.

She reached for her phone on the nightstand—it was already 8 a.m.

This dream… had been far too vivid.

Every detail was imprinted in her mind, especially those two characters…

She immediately threw off her quilt, got out of bed, and opened her laptop.

Her fingers flew across the keyboard, typing out every keyword she could think of.

“Unknown script,” “mysterious symbols,” “non-Earth civilization,” “ancient runes,” “dream symbols analysis,” “sea of blood,” “white tree,” “dual-colored flowers”…

She even tried inputting descriptive shapes of the two characters to search.

But the search engine only returned vague posts on esoteric forums, excerpts from web novels, or completely irrelevant archaeological finds.

Not a single result matched the structure or essence of those characters.

They seemed utterly alien, outside the scope of human understanding.

It was clear—conventional internet searches would yield no answers.

She washed up, changed into light sportswear, and decided to clear her chaotic thoughts with a morning jog.

The early morning air carried a chill that invigorated her lungs.

Bai Lengci jogged along her usual route.

Her outstanding beauty drew sidelong glances from passing pedestrians, but she paid no attention.

Her mind was preoccupied, trying to recall any similar symbols.

Oracle bone script, cuneiform, Mayan glyphs—even invented alphabets from fantasy works… nothing.

No clue at all.

That script possessed its own system, carrying an aura both sacred and cold, mysterious and unsettling.

Distracted, Bai Lengci ran without focus.

At one corner, a figure suddenly swerved in on a shared e-bike!

“Ah!”

The rider, apparently distracted as well, nearly crashed into her.

Fortunately, Bai Lengci’s reflexes now far surpassed ordinary humans.

In the fraction of a second before impact, her slender waist twisted instinctively, and with a step that seemed almost like a dancer’s, she slid half a step aside, narrowly avoiding the collision.

The rider was a boy who looked like a college student.

Shocked, he braked hard, then turned apologetically toward her.

“S-sorry!”

But when he saw whom he had almost hit, his panic and guilt froze instantly.

Replaced by a look of stunned admiration, his ears reddened rapidly.

The morning light traced the perfect lines of Bai Lengci’s profile.

Strands of damp hair clung to her temples from her run.

Her clear, faintly aloof eyes glimmered like obsidian cooled in icy water beneath the crisp winter air.

“It’s fine, I wasn’t watching the road while running.”

Her voice carried a breathless edge from exercise.

“N-no! It was my fault! I was going too fast and didn’t look to the side!”

The boy waved frantically, face flushing deeper, hardly daring to let his eyes rest on her.

Stammering, he added, “A-are you okay? I’m really sorry!”

Bai Lengci: “……” She distinctly remembered it was her fault for being distracted.

Yet seeing him fluster so badly, almost bowing in apology, she could only nod again, murmur a “sorry,” and continue jogging past him.

Even after she had run some distance, faintly, she could hear the boy’s excited, hushed phone call.

“Hello! Listen, I just bumped into a fairy! Really! She was insanely beautiful! And she even apologized to me! Ahhh!”

Bai Lengci’s lips twitched almost imperceptibly.

This damn world that judged everything by looks.