After rebirth, I rejected the rich yandere lady

"I don't want to be just friends with you! You're mine, forever..."

Yao Mingyue's lips curled into a sickly smile.

Xu Musen's mind suddenly replayed a moment from his past life, where he had decided to divorce her and end things completely, and the psychopath had uttered this very same sentence.

Xu Musen looked at her face, so close he could touch it; her faint scent and the warm sensation from her body made him feel somewhat uneasy.

He even suspected that at any moment, the psychopath might just pull out a bottle of some drug and force it down his throat.

"Boom!"

In that moment, another peal of thunder sounded, causing Yao Mingyue's body to tremble. Her whole demeanor deflated as she shivered and hid in his embrace again.

A reaction to psychological trauma.

Xu Musen silently sighed.

"Ring..."

The phone rang.

It was his mom, sounding anxious.

"Son! How's Ming Yue doing?"

"She's fine. Her phone got water damage and had no signal. She's at home now."

"Phew... That's a relief; you scared me. Let me talk to Ming Yue for a moment."

Xu Musen nodded and handed the phone to Yao Mingyue.

"Hello, Auntie... I'm okay, just caught a bit of a cold."

Yao Mingyue sniffled, controlling her breathing as she spoke briefly with Xu's mother.

As soon as the call ended, Liu Rushuang called.

"Xiaosen, is Ming Yue okay?" Liu Rushuang's voice also conveyed urgency.

Clearly, she knew her daughter was terribly afraid of thunderstorms.

"She's fine, Auntie. I'm with her right now," Xu Musen said.

On the other end of the call, Liu Rushuang sighed with a tinge of regret: "Since that day, Ming Yue has been scared of thunder. I'm on a business trip and can't make it back. Xiaosen, could I ask you to take care of Ming Yue for me?"

Xu Musen understood what kind of "care" she was talking about—most likely, it meant staying over to keep an eye on Yao Mingyue while she slept.

But, sharing a bed with a psychopath, he was truly afraid he might wake up the next morning tied up and locked in a basement.

"Xiaosen, I know Ming Yue can be quite wilful, but she'll feel a bit more secure with you by her side. Just this one night, I trust you," Liu Rushuang continued.

But I don't trust your daughter...

Boom!

Another thunderclap, and Yao Mingyue, terrified, curled up tightly in his embrace.

Xu Musen felt as if he were seeing the young girl from many years before, who, like a lost soul, would seek refuge in his arms.

As if he were her last bastion of safety.

Xu Musen was silent for two seconds, then finally nodded his head.

"Alright, I understand, Auntie."

After hanging up, Xu Musen gently patted her back and prepared to stand.

"Where are you going? You just promised you wouldn't leave."

Yao Mingyue clutched anxiously at his sleeve.

"I'm not going anywhere. I'll go downstairs and make some ginger tea. We're both drenched, and if we don't drink something we'll catch a cold."

Xu Musen stood up and left the room.

As he brewed the tea, Xu Musen shook his head, thinking of it as the last time he'd take care of her. After they got to university, they likely wouldn't meet again.

He carried the tea back to the room.

Yao Mingyue was sitting quietly on the bed, wrapped in a blanket. In that moment, she looked almost pitiable.

"Have some," Xu Musen offered her a cup.

Yao Mingyue reached out to take it, the warmth of the cup calming her agitated mood considerably.

"Yao Mingyue, I want to make this clear one more time. I don't want to enter into a boyfriend-girlfriend or romantic relationship with you. Being ordinary friends is fine, but let's forget about dating."

Xu Musen also took a sip of the ginger tea, feeling its spicy bite.

"Friends... So, is that why you're not going to Tsinghua or Peking and instead chose Hu Hai, for that 'friend' of yours?"

Yao Mingyue let out a cold, mocking laugh, her gaze burning as she looked at him.

Xu Musen furrowed his brows and locked eyes with Yao Mingyue for a long while.

In the end, he took a deep breath and decided not to continue the charade, "I admit, I never intended to apply to Tsinghua or Peking University from the start, but this has nothing to do with her."

"Xu Musen, are you trying to avoid me that desperately? It was you who said you would always be there for me!" Yao Mingyue clenched her fists tightly, her nails almost digging into her flesh.

Xu Musen shook his head; some things could only be known to him.

He slowly began, "But do you think, with the state we're in now, if we go to university together, will we really be in the mindset to study or do anything else?"

Some matters were only known to Xu Musen himself.

In their past life, within the university, Yao Mingyue was utterly fixated on how to fully control him.

Xu Musen, too, was blindly indulgent, drowning in it, which resulted in him having no other option but to live off her generosity in the end.

Xu Musen looked at her, speaking evenly, "We both have our own things to do. You can have better development going to Tsinghua, and I can be free to do my own things.

After we separate, we might actually live better lives, let's not torture each other anymore."

Xu Musen's words were sincere, but they only made Yao Mingyue more agitated.

"But I don't want any development, I just want you!"

Yao Mingyue gritted her teeth, staring intently at Xu Musen, "Xu Musen, dare you say you don't like me? All those times you confessed to me, were they all fake?"

Xu Musen shook his head, "Yes, I confessed to you many times, and you never accepted. Why should I agree just because you ask? Is that fair to me?"

Yao Mingyue's hands trembled.

Xu Musen continued, "The truth is, you haven't really thought it through; you're just afraid of losing me.

Yao Mingyue, I'm not a puppet, not a toy, I am a living person."

Yao Mingyue's eyes reddened, "It was you who said you would always be there for me."

"I did say I would be with you, but that doesn't mean I have to give up everything for you. I don't owe you anything."

Xu Musen looked at her, "Moreover, you don't even understand what it feels like to really like someone because you've never actually put in the effort to truly love someone. So even if you ended up with me, you wouldn't be happy.

We've both grown up; we each have our own paths to follow. Before you want to attain something, I suggest you first ask yourself whether you have truly made the effort to pursue it?"

Xu Musen's words were not reprimanding nor intentionally distancing, but lies can't deceive, and truth cuts like a swift blade.

Yao Mingyue's eyes seemed to lose their luster as she gazed at Xu Musen, then at the ginger tea in her hands.

The spicy taste circulated through her body.

Outside, the thunder rumbled, breaking her train of thought.

"Let's go to sleep first. I'll stay here and watch over you tonight. I'll leave once the thunder stops."

As Xu Musen spoke, he settled onto the couch in her room and leaned back.

Yao Mingyue looked at him, her mind in turmoil. After a while, the thunder outside quieted a bit.

The two didn't say another word, and the room fell into utter silence.

Xu Musen occasionally looked back to see Yao Mingyue had already curled up under the covers.

He looked up at her room, where the walls were adorned with many photos, many of which were group pictures of their two families together.

Looking at their photos from childhood to adulthood, they truly seemed well-matched.

It was a pity, then, that given Yao Mingyue's current morbid psychology, being together would only lead to pain.

It was a matter of fate without destiny.

He stood up, looking at Yao Mingyue who seemed to have already fallen asleep, curled in the blankets.

Her beautiful eyebrows were still slightly furrowed, as he observed her exquisite face.

Xu Musen bent down, adjusting the blankets to cover her exposed shoulders.

He returned to the couch and leaned back. After running about all day, getting soaked in the rain, and all this back-and-forth, exhaustion overwhelmed him, and he gradually dozed off.

By midnight, only the sound of the wind could be heard outside.

Yet Yao Mingyue suddenly opened her eyes. She saw the blanket properly covering her and sat up.

Xu Musen, now asleep on the couch, was unaware.

Her fair feet pressed lightly on the soft carpet as she silently approached Xu Musen.

Bending down, her lovely phoenix eyes, as dark as the night, drew closer to Xu Musen's cheek, their lips almost touching.

The scene resembled a gorgeous female ghost about to drain someone's life force in the middle of the night.

She turned her head, looking at the bedside.

The piece of rope used to tie the curtains during the day seemed quite sturdy~