All About So-and-so

Almost as if her hands and feet were moving in stiff unison, she marched toward the commercial street. Passing through the bustling crowd, what first caught her eye was, unsurprisingly, the eternal favorite of women—clothes.

Lance sensed something was slightly off with her but couldn’t quite pinpoint the reason. After pondering for a while, he decided to attribute her unease to the tension of being followed. So he said, “Just look around as you like. Someone else will pay, so buy anything you fancy!”

It was meant to be a bold and reassuring statement, but her ears filtered out only two key words: fancy, buy.

This... this... this—her back was drenched in cold sweat. Her mind was crammed full with all kinds of clothes, crowding out any normal thought. Every garment before her seemed to come alive, lunging toward her, each one incessantly advertising itself: “Pick me... buy me... I’m the one that suits you best...”

Oh dear, facing such a formidable enemy, her knees nearly buckled and she instantly lost all will to fight.

Lance watched her curiously for a long while. Ever since he’d encountered this companion, he’d seen a vast array of expressions on her face—joy, sorrow, slyness, feigned ignorance, fear—but never had he witnessed such a look, as though she’d seen the end of the world.

If a beast emperor stood before her now, it would make sense. But she was merely confronted by clothes and crowds.

If circumstances allowed, Lance wouldn’t mind letting her daze a little longer here or even be frightened more thoroughly (...), but they were on someone else’s turf, and the guards trailing them were already peering curiously. Helpless, Lance assumed the role of her temporary psychologist.

“There are quite a lot of people here,” Lance offered, pointing out the first possible source of fear. She remained blank, unresponsive.

“There are plenty of folks following behind us too,” he tried again. She continued staring ahead, motionless.

“The variety of clothes is impressive. Want to pick something out?” He voiced the final suspicious source of terror. Lance’s eyebrow almost imperceptibly arched, and the corner of his mouth curled upward; he never imagined that this seemingly thick-skinned, indomitable spirit would actually fear buying clothes.

Her reaction confirmed the truth. At the mention of “pick something,” she suddenly started, instinctively hugged Lance’s arm, and shrank behind him, as if playing a lover’s game from afar (though the descriptor felt oddly misplaced).

The guards exchanged knowing smiles; apparently, their guests weren’t avoiding shopping but were busy flaunting their affection.

With a rare moment of conscience, Lance didn’t continue his mischievous tour of the clothing shops. He pivoted and led her into a small restaurant.

After gulping down three large cups of tea, she finally managed to recover. Lance patted her back gently, concerned she might choke. She had no mind to care whether his gesture was ambiguous or not; she could only gasp for breath.

The guards who’d paid for their meal sat at a distant table sipping tea, outwardly relaxed but in reality watching Lance and his companion closely.

Handing her a napkin, Lance asked casually, “Did something happen just now?”

She wanted to brush him off with a casual excuse—perhaps “Aliens abducted my consciousness for a moment and just returned it”—but seeing the warning in Lance’s gaze, she swallowed all those implausible answers.

“Well, actually, I’ve got this strange illness. Whenever I try to pick clothes for myself, I temporarily lose my sanity.” Completely unaware that this explanation sounded just as far-fetched as her imagined excuses, she spoke earnestly, confessing the odd affliction that had troubled her for years.

After all, in this world, no one had bothered to study psychology, so she could only describe her symptoms in the most down-to-earth way possible.

Such an absurd reason naturally failed to convince Lance; the suspicion in his eyes did not abate.

Desperate, she scratched her head, swearing and promising all she could, but nothing worked. Stammering, she began to recall and analyze her illness for Lance: “Here’s what happened...”

She’d grown up in a fairly comfortable family in her original world, enjoying a carefree life thanks to their relative affluence until she was fifteen. But the week before her sixteenth birthday, her mother suddenly fell ill, and the hefty medical bills hit the family hard, though their savings kept them afloat. Not long after, her father was framed in a business scam and lost his job after several lawsuits, plunging the family into hardship.

With a gravely ill mother and a young sister to care for, she was forced to become a pillar of the household, taking over the finances from her mother. To spare her mother and sister from psychological stress, she and her father reduced their own needs to the bare minimum, saving whatever they could for her mother and little sister.

Thankfully, her sister was sensible, her mother’s health slowly improved, and her father’s second job began to stabilize. Yet the habit of minimizing her own needs, especially when it came to buying clothes—something she’d never cared much about—became ingrained. Distrusting her own sense of fashion, she rarely bought clothes, and after years of reducing her own demands, she inexplicably developed a strong sense of guilt whenever she tried to buy anything for herself.

This condition worsened over time, evolving into a persistent ailment: whenever she saw heaps of clothes for sale, her mind would blank, her limbs would weaken, and cold sweat would pour.

Most names and places from her original world didn’t match those of this one, so she could only share the essentials, piecing her story together for Lance. At the end, fearing that Lance might spread her story—which could be problematic if anyone investigated—she pleaded tearfully for him to keep it secret.

As the saying goes, the speaker is unwitting, the listener attentive. At this moment, she had no idea that her story and earnest request had successfully transformed her image in Lance’s mind—from sly and thick-skinned to something far more endearing. It was the beginning of a much better story for both of them.