Transmigrating Into a Book, the Villain Becomes the White Moonlight!

154: Chapter 154 The Little Girl Under the Sycamore TreeBut now?

The knives had been exposed.

Two of them, falling brightly at his feet like a pair of poorly hidden fangs.

Her excuse about carrying knives for self-defense from abroad was so clumsy that she felt it was absurd even as she repeated it for the second time.

Two knives. One could be called an accident, but two appearing at the same time, both sliding from the same sleeve—even a fool would realize something was wrong.

And Su Bai was no fool.

She should have realized that from the very beginning.

Run?

The moment the thought surfaced, she snuffed it out.

Su Bai had come alone today, without Uncle Fu or any attendants.

He had let down all his guard and walked into the venue openly, wearing a pair of cotton slippers and carrying a bag of hot buns.

But because of this, Ran Shu was even more afraid to move.

Since he dared to come alone, he naturally had the confidence to do so.

Just like yesterday, when he drank that cup of poison and then looked up nonchalantly to ask her, ”Shall we continue?”

She had no idea how many unturned cards he still held in his hand.

If she ran now, she might make it out of the venue and the neighborhood, but could she escape A City? Could she escape the gaze of the Su Family’s Young Master?

She couldn’t escape.

From the moment she accepted this mission, or perhaps even earlier—from the day she boarded her flight back home—she was already unable to escape.

Ran Shu leaned against the cold bathroom door and slowly crouched down.

She instinctively raised her wrist, her fingertips fumbling with the delicate bracelet.

The thin silver chain shimmered with a soft luster under the lights.

It was empty.

Yesterday, that pill of Dust Return had gone down Su Bai’s throat along with the cup of plain water.

And now, Su Bai was still waiting for her on the other side of the venue.

She placed the two small knives side by side on her thighs, staring down at the cold light reflecting off the blades.

The blades were thin and expertly crafted, the model she was accustomed to using—sharp enough to cut a hair and silent when entering flesh.

Should she use the knives?

She slowly raised her right hand and gripped one of them.

The anti-slip texture of the hilt pressed into her palm, a cold sensation spreading up her finger bones.

She flipped the blade and aimed it at her own chest.

Her hand was shaking.

Ran Shu looked down at her hand holding the knife.

It was the steadiest hand in the Dragon King Hall.

It had never shaken before.

Never.

But now, it trembled like a withered leaf in the wind.

She closed her eyes.

What flooded her mind wasn’t the admonitions of the Dragon King Hall, the failure of the mission, or the impending accountability or death. It was a single image—

Su Bai sitting across from her, pushing a kraft paper bag toward her, the opening gaping to reveal three plump white buns squeezed together.

He said, ”Try them, they taste pretty good.”

Ran Shu’s eyelashes fluttered violently.

She thought of that hand suspended in mid-air, waiting for her to take it.

In the center of the training ground, after she had been thrown down, Su Bai had looked down at her. There was no triumph in his eyes, nor any condescending scrutiny—only a touch of faint embarrassment and apology.

He reached out his hand.

Palm facing up.

She hadn’t taken it.

At that time, she told herself she didn’t need it.

She was Dragon Two; she didn’t need anyone’s help to stand.

But now, holding the knife to her own heart, she suddenly desperately wanted to go back to that moment and take that hand.

If she had taken it, would everything have been different?

But she didn’t know the answer.

She would never know.

Ran Shu took a deep breath, the blade pressing against the fabric. The cold sensation pierced through the thin training uniform and touched her skin.

She only needed to push forward one more inch—not even an inch, just a simple exertion of force she had practiced countless times—and it would all be over.

No more missions, no more struggling, and no more of that extravagant hope that had plagued her all night: ”Does he actually still remember?”

No more Su Bai.

There was no more poison.

She still had her knives.

She could use the knives to complete the mission. When Su Bai couldn’t wait any longer and came over, the moment he pushed open this door, she could—

Ran Shu’s fingers tightened abruptly around the hilt.

Then, she heard footsteps outside the door.

”...Ran Shu?”

Su Bai’s voice came through the door: ”Are you okay?”

Ran Shu snapped her eyes open.

She looked down and saw the blade pressed against her chest, the front of her clothes already showing a faint crease.

There was no urging from outside the door.

Su Bai only asked once and then waited quietly.

Like many years ago, when that boy stuffed a bun into her hand and she kept her head down, too afraid to speak, he just stood by her side, not leaving, just waiting like that.

Waiting for her to take the bun.

Waiting for her to muster the courage to whisper a ”thank you” as quiet as a mosquito’s hum.

Ran Shu stared at the door.

Her breathing was very slow and light, as if she were afraid of disturbing something.

Then, she slowly lowered the knife from her chest and rested it back on her knees.

The two knives lay side by side, their tips pointing in the same direction—toward the door.

She didn’t put them away.

Nor did she aim them at herself again.

The moment those two knives hit the ground earlier, Su Bai had seen clearly—they had fallen from the same spot.

This meant she had at least two knives hidden on her, possibly even more.

Would someone who ”got used to self-defense after staying abroad for a long time” carry more than two knives?

A woman, very beautiful, suddenly back from abroad, and somehow connected to him.

Su Bai thought he probably guessed who this was.

This was the advantage of being a transmigrator.

He had seen too many similar plot frameworks—under this setting, Ran Shu’s identity was almost an open book.

She should be one of the female protagonists in this world, but he hadn’t been sure of her relationship with Brother Bufan before.

If they were just ordinary acquaintances, it would be the drama of Brother Bufan pursuing her later; if they were childhood friends...

But logically, Mu Xue should occupy the position of the childhood friend in the novel’s world, so that option could basically be ruled out.

So the remaining possibility was simpler and more direct—she was one of Brother Bufan’s people.

Just as he was thinking, his phone vibrated.

Su Bai opened it; it was a message from Uncle Fu.

First, a photo.

It was quite old, with low resolution and slightly yellowed edges.

In the photo was a chubby little girl with two pigtails, wearing a floral dress, standing under a sycamore tree, facing the camera with a somewhat stiff expression, though her mouth was trying hard to form a smile.

Su Bai stared at the photo for a few seconds.

He recognized this face.

It wasn’t the current Ran Shu, but from many, many years ago, during kindergarten. The little girl who sat with him every day back then looked just like this.

Chubby, not fond of talking, always with her head down, yet she would quietly stuff her candy into his schoolbag during breaks.

He remembered her name.

It was Little Fullness.

Little Fullness. Ran Shu.

She had changed her name.

Su Bai scrolled down the screen; it was the resume data sent by Uncle Fu.

It was clean, excessively clean.

It only recorded up to her tenth year—her family suffered a misfortune, and she was sent abroad afterward.

Her next appearance was as an employee at a certain bank in A City, having worked there for three years with a clean record and no negative history.

It was too clean.

Clean in exactly the same way as Brother Bufan’s resume.

Su Bai’s finger stopped on the last line of the screen.

”Suspected member of the Dragon King Hall. According to investigation, core members of this organization mostly use aliases, and their background information is meticulously forged, making it almost impossible to link to their surface identities. This person’s true identity and connection to the Dragon King Hall are pending further verification.”

Suspected member of the Dragon King Hall.

Su Bai put down his phone and looked up, his gaze sweeping across the empty space of the venue and landing on the closed bathroom door at the end of the hallway.

A bank employee carrying at least two concealed weapons and possessing professional fighting skills—could that really be a bank employee?

He was almost certain now.

Ran Shu, or rather Little Fullness, was one of Brother Bufan’s people.

A member of the Dragon King Hall, likely of no low rank.

Her approaching him was not a coincidence from the very start.

Little Fullness.

After all these years, you’re still alive.

Su Bai thought of that taciturn little girl from kindergarten.

Sitting next to him every day, rarely speaking.

He didn’t understand back then, treating it as just sharing between children.

Later she suddenly disappeared. The teacher said something had happened at her home and she transferred schools. Su Bai had even asked Uncle Fu about the reason, thinking of having Uncle Fu help her.

Later, Uncle Fu said the matter had been handled, but the little girl had been taken abroad, so he didn’t press further.

He hadn’t expected her to reappear before him in this way.

As an assassin of the Dragon King Hall.

Coming to kill him.

Su Bai exhaled softly, unable to describe the emotion contained in that breath.

So she wasn’t the Protagonist’s childhood friend, but his own.

”...Ran Shu?”

He spoke, his voice kept very low, as if testing the waters, or perhaps giving the person inside a way out.

”Are you okay?”

He didn’t ask about the two knives.

Nor did he expose her identity.

He just stood there, separated by that thin door, just like many, many years ago, standing under that sycamore tree, waiting for a little girl who kept her head down and was too afraid to speak.

”Creak—”

The bathroom door was pulled open from the inside with a slight sound.

Ran Shu stood at the doorway.

On the sink not far behind her, a row of knives was neatly arranged.

That purple strap lay beside the knives, drooping limply on the white tiles like a discarded shackle.

She had completely removed that layer of disguise.

There was no expression on Ran Shu’s face. No fear, no anger, and none of that near-collapsing fragility from before.

She just stood calmly before Su Bai, her back straight, her chin slightly raised, looking directly into his eyes.

It was the posture of an assassin.

It was also the posture of someone going to their death.

”Since things have come to this,” her voice echoed slightly, ”do with me as you please.”

The cards were on the table.

She was no longer hiding, no longer making excuses, no longer trying to continue this riddled play with those clumsy lies.

The knives were exposed, her identity was exposed, and the mission had completely failed.

The only thing she could do was stand tall and wait for the outcome.

Su Bai stood where he was, shifted his gaze from her face, and glanced at the row of knives on the sink.

He had only seen two earlier; it turned out she had so many more hidden on her.

He looked back at Ran Shu, with no killing intent or anger in his eyes.

”Did Brother Bufan send you?”

Ran Shu didn’t answer.

Silence itself was the best admission.

Su Bai nodded, as if he had long expected this answer.

He changed the question: ”Where is Brother Bufan now?”

Ran Shu remained silent. Her lips were pressed into a line, but her eyes didn’t dodge at all, meeting his gaze head-on.

I can’t tell you.

Her expression and posture both conveyed this message.

No matter what awaited her, betraying the Dragon King Hall’s location—especially betraying the Dragon King himself—was not an option for her.

Looking at her ”ready to die” appearance, Su Bai suddenly found it a bit amusing.

He didn’t press that question further but instead took a different angle.

”I’m actually quite curious,” his tone even carried a bit of casual small talk, ”There isn’t exactly any deep-seated hatred between Brother Bufan and me, is there? How could he bear to send someone like you to directly assassinate me?”

”Not deep-seated hatred?”

Ran Shu’s brow furrowed slightly, as if she had heard something preposterous.

She stared at Su Bai and said word for word, ”You sent people to kidnap him and even gave him a shot—the kind of anesthetic used for cattle and sheep. You call that not deep-seated hatred?”

Su Bai was stunned for a moment.

”When did I...”

Halfway through his sentence, he suddenly paused.

He remembered.

Chu Ci. Club. That mission.

He had indeed instructed Chu Ci to ”teach Brother Bufan a lesson.”

At that time, he just wanted to give this original Protagonist, who had inexplicably targeted him, a lesson to let him know not to provoke him.

As for the price—it seemed he spent over ten million?

He couldn’t remember the exact figure; it was all pocket change, so he just let Chu Ci handle it.

But that was also because Brother Bufan had first sent people to look for trouble with him.

Su Bai pinched the bridge of his nose. Was the corrective force of this novel world really this strong?

Even if there wasn’t any deep-seated hatred between him and Brother Bufan originally, the plot could forcibly push him to the opposite side of the Protagonist, making Brother Bufan hold a grudge against him?

”Wait a moment.”

Su Bai didn’t continue explaining.

He pulled his phone directly from his pocket, swiped his finger across the screen a few times to find a number, and dialed it.

The moment the call connected, he held the phone to his ear, his gaze falling back on Ran Shu.

Ran Shu stood where she was, watching his actions, a trace of confusion finally surfacing in her eyes.

”Chu Ci,”

The other end was silent for a second, followed by Chu Ci’s slightly surprised voice: ”Young Master Su? You’re asking about this... Yes, of course someone took it.”

Her speech was a bit fast, as if she were flipping through something. ”The people below certainly took your instructions to heart. However...”

She paused, her tone carrying a bit more apology: ”Mainly, that Brother Bufan is too good at hiding. For several days after the mission was posted, no one could find him. Later... let me think, right, just a few days ago, two guys took the bounty and actually pulled it off. I’ve seen the photos they sent back; it was indeed him, tied up securely, and in such a pathetic state... tsk.” She couldn’t help but click her tongue, then realized something and quickly added: ”Young Master Su, I’m truly sorry. There have been so many things at the Club these past few days that I’ve been swamped and forgot to report this to you. Look at my memory...”