Chapter Nineteen: Existing Within the Comic Book

Ye Xingchen had been gone for five days. No matter how hard she searched, she could not find him; there was not even a trace left of his existence. Every day, she awoke in a different place, living a life entirely dictated by something beyond her control. Her sense of self was fading, her moments of clarity growing fewer and farther between—sometimes, she felt as though she might soon vanish altogether.

Yet she was the real one. Why should she be the one to live a life under someone else’s control? Why her?

Ye Mengxia sat in a daze inside the gymnasium, sometimes weeping softly, at other times choking with sobs she could not restrain. Ye Xingchen was gone. He was gone.

She was truly alone now.

Xi Yue, who had come in from outside, stood silently beside her for a long while, her brows furrowed with inner conflict. At last, she sat down beside Ye Mengxia, placing a book in her hands. “Have a look...”

The book she pressed into Ye Mengxia’s hands was a comic: "Falling for the Paranoid Him."

Xi Yue nodded to her. Ye Mengxia, seeing the look in her eyes, hastily flipped open the comic with frantic hands. She had long suspected that something was wrong with this world—so many things beyond her control, too many coincidences, too many accidents.

It wasn’t until after the car accident that she realized she might be living inside a book.

Maybe she was just a supporting character in a story. But as she opened to the first page—the character introduction—she saw, beside the sketched portraits: Female Lead: Ye Mengxia. Male Lead: Su Yichen.

She was the protagonist.

But why her?

She flipped through the pages anxiously. Even all the important classmates from her class had their names listed—but there was no Ye Xingchen.

She looked up in despair. “We really are living inside a comic book.”

“Yes. Every character’s personality in the comic is fixed. The moment you try to change it, disaster follows. The people around you will be affected by your strange actions. If you’re lucky, they’ll be drawn into the plot; if not, they’ll disappear from your life,” Xi Yue said, her expression calm. “I suppose I’m one of the lucky ones. I found the comic by chance, stuck in a crack in the bookshelf as I was buying comics for my little brother. The names were so familiar—after the initial shock, I wanted to leave, but my brother was about to undergo surgery with a very low chance of success.”

“So you found me. You wanted to use me to keep your brother alive,” Ye Mengxia murmured.

A steely resolve flickered across Xi Yue’s face. “Yes. My brother is all I have in this world. I have to save him. I thought if you played your part and I was drawn into the comic, even if I could never escape, at least he would survive.”

“And it worked. I made the right choice.” Xi Yue flipped to a page and pointed to the list of supporting characters. “See? My name’s there: Xi Yue, quirky and clever, Lin Mengxia’s good friend.”

Xi Yue gently took her hand. “Mengxia, stop trying to change things. You’ve already deviated from the original plot.”

“In chapter thirty-five, you were supposed to be with Su Yichen. Because you hesitated, time skipped forward a whole year. If you keep going like this, none of us know what will happen.”

Ye Mengxia watched Xi Yue’s anxious expression, feeling utterly exhausted. If Ye Xingchen were here, he would surely tease her: What’s wrong, you little ingrate? I’ll go make you something to eat. Even though he didn’t know how to cook, he would always be looking up recipes on his phone, brimming with confidence, promising that this time he’d get it right.

She buried her face in her knees, clutching the book, overwhelmed by sobs.

Xi Yue watched her break down, torn with her own pain and struggle—but she had no choice. She could still live as a normal person, but Ye Mengxia could not. She had to live as the book dictated.

Back home, Ye Mengxia leaned against her bed, reading every word and line in the comic, a bitter smile playing on her lips. So it was all arranged. All of it was fake.

...

When Ye Mengxia woke again, she found herself in a restaurant. A strawberry cake sat on the table, and Su Yichen was seated across from her, his face full of anticipation.

This must be the chapter where they get together. Feigning ignorance under his expectant gaze, she took a bite of the cake—and soon her teeth hit a ring. She remembered the comic’s description: Su Yichen had worked part-time for months, scraping together enough to buy a simple silver ring. It was all he had, and he wanted to give everything to Ye Mengxia. He wanted to hide her away, to be with her forever.

That was when his first terrifying thoughts emerged.

Ye Mengxia smiled and recited the comic’s dialogue: “Ah Chen, what’s this?”

Su Yichen took her hand. “Mengxia, I want to be with you. Will you?”

Could she say no? If she weren’t this strange protagonist, she wouldn’t be here at all, wouldn’t have to consider anyone, wouldn’t have to bear the loss of the person she cared about most.

“Yes,” she replied.

“Really? When we get into college, let’s get married. Together, for the rest of our lives.”

“All right.”

She didn’t want any of it. Since the moment she’d fully awakened, the feelings the story forced into her mind no longer had any hold on her; she felt nothing for Su Yichen beyond being classmates.

After returning home, she flung her bag aside and collapsed onto the sofa.

She opened a video on her phone—a clip she’d taken the last time Ye Xingchen had baked her a cake. Every birthday, he had always been there with her. But this time, there was nothing. Only the echo of an empty room.

“Hello?” she answered her mother’s call, listening to her gentle birthday wishes and concern. But she could not bring herself to smile, not even to speak warmly.

She was the one who had been abandoned, the one nobody wanted—so why did she have to endure all this pain?

Even the only person by her side, Ye Xingchen, was gone.

Ye Mengxia was in agony—utterly, unspeakably so.

Her life became a monotony—each day as dull as the last, repeating lines from a script, acting alongside everyone around her. She was on the verge of collapse, teetering at the edge of madness.

When the midterm exams ended, she remained among the top students, but every time she looked at the rankings, she found herself scanning for a name that would never appear.

Perhaps, one day, he would come back.

And so she played her role, day after day.

Just as Xi Yue had said—at least, for now, she would not disappear. Maybe, just maybe, one day she’d see him again.

Su Yichen’s grades improved rapidly under her tutoring. She didn’t know if it was the plot or her efforts that caused it. It scarcely mattered anymore—she could no longer distinguish reality from the story.

She grew colder, her heart numbed.

As she always did, she visited the place where Ye Xingchen had lived. She had bought the place, returning every few days—only then did she feel perhaps she was truly real.

“Woof woof woof...”

“Lucky, do you miss him too?”

“No one remembers him anymore. But I don’t want to forget. If even I forget, then he really will have never existed.”