The heavy rain was pouring down outside the window, and occasionally one or two bolts of lightning streaked across the night sky, which was thrilling and terrifying.
I was sitting alone on the bed in my room and opened the materials that I had asked someone to find for me. They were about Han Meilin.
Han Meilin came to the United States with her parents when she was eight years old. When she was ten, her parents got divorced and she lived with her mother. At sixteen, she and her mother came to live in this small town...
Seeing this, I was suddenly taken aback. Why was her experience so similar to mine? Except for the difference in age, almost everything else was exactly the same. Her parents got divorced, and then she came to a certain small town and lived with her mother...
I was lost in thought for a while and then continued reading.
Han Meilin had an ordinary appearance, but she liked dressing up and had a great many relationship experiences.
At the age of twelve, she started her first relationship with a neighbor who was a college student ten years older than her. At fourteen, she fell deeply in love with her uncle and later tried to force him to get divorced. However, she failed and had to break up. After that incident, her mother brought her to this small town to avoid the limelight.
After a year of calm, at seventeen, she fell in love with a history teacher who had been married for many years. At eighteen, she broke up with him. At nineteen, she fell in love with her best friend's boyfriend, stole him away and fell out with her friend. At twenty, she fell in love again and took away a young female teacher's fiancé, and the female teacher almost broke down. Since then, Han Meilin's reputation as a "mistress" had spread far and wide.
There were no female friends left around her. Such a "mistress" really made people keep their distance from her.
Few people could bear the pain of emotions and the sorrow of betrayal.
After closing the file bag, I leaned against the head of the bed, listening to the thunderstorm outside the window and watching the bolts of lightning streak across the night sky like silver dragons once again.
At this moment, the cell phone rang. I picked it up casually without looking at the caller ID and said, "Hello!"
"Li Yuexi, it's me."
"Han Meilin?" My voice trembled slightly.
"Are you feeling better now?" She asked.
I didn't answer her and hung up the phone with a bang.
Early the next morning, I was holding my books and opened the front door to go to school when I found a shiny red sports car parked in front of my house.
Han Meilin was sitting in the car, combing her hair in front of a small mirror. She saw me from the mirror and gave me a charming smile.
When I walked up to her car, she said softly, "Get in."
I hesitated for a moment and finally got into her car.
My mother was busy in the kitchen. If I had an argument with Han Meilin, she could definitely see it from the window. I didn't want to cause any trouble.
I usually spent Sundays at my mother's house and went directly to school from there on Mondays. I really didn't know how Han Meilin knew about this.
The sports car was speeding on the narrow and long coastal road, but I found that this was not the way to school.
"Where are you taking me?" I cried out in fear.
"Don't be afraid," her charming eyes with golden eyeshadow blinked a few times and there was a smile in her voice, "I won't do anything to you."
"You almost got me killed last time..." I was angry, but she was still smiling.
"Yes, I did almost get you killed last time, but didn't you come back unharmed?" She was driving, and her long silver false eyelashes fluttered slightly. "You are in two different worlds. When you return to this world, the marks left on you by that world will naturally disappear."
That night, after I was exposed, I returned to that room in an instant. Han Meilin clapped her hands at that time and said with a smile, "Congratulations, you came back safely."
I was sitting on the ground, looking at her in horror and quickly touching my whole body. To my surprise, I found that I was completely unharmed.
This experience was just like something that happened in a dream, a strange and yet real strange dream.
After that, before I could even blame Han Meilin, I got up from the ground in a mess, stumbled to the open door, rushed downstairs and then took a ride with Li Aide and went home.
Li Aide later told me that he was startled when he saw me. He thought I was a refugee who had just escaped from somewhere. My hair was messy, my face was pale and I was scared out of my wits. He quickly took me home.
I rested at home for three days before I slowly recovered.
"Where on earth are you taking me?" Sitting in the car, I suddenly remembered what had happened that night and asked Han Meilin, panting.
"You'll understand when we get there." She replied unhurriedly while driving.
The car drove for about ten minutes and stopped in front of a small white house.
I got out of the car with her and she said, "This is my home. I live alone."
She took out the key, opened the door and said, "Please come in."
Since I was already here, I might as well go in. I gritted my teeth and walked in. She followed me and closed the door.
The living room was pitch black. The curtains were drawn tightly and it was so dark that you couldn't see your hand in front of your face.
I didn't dare to move any more. A sense of fear rose from the bottom of my feet and spread all over my body.
At this time, there was a "pop" sound and a floor lamp was turned on. The living room was immediately covered by a dim yellow light.
Seeing everything in the room, I was too scared to move.
There were masks hanging all around. The masks had strange and grotesque faces, very similar to those of the fairies at the fairy wedding banquet.
"Are you a human or a ghost?" My teeth were chattering and I forced out this sentence through my teeth. I wanted to run away, but my feet seemed to be rooted to the ground and I couldn't move a step.
"Didn't I already tell you?" She threw the key casually on the coffee table and sat down on the sofa, "A ghost."
Before I could scream, she immediately stopped me, "Don't scream yet. I can only explain it to you like this. Otherwise, you won't understand."
"What do you mean?" My voice was shaking even more.
"Well, let me put it this way," she said, "I don't belong to people in your world, nor do I belong to the group of elves you saw that night. I belong to another race, an unknown creature that you will never understand."
I only felt gusts of cold wind and all the hairs on my body stood up. Looking at her on the sofa, I felt dizzy.
"You don't have to be afraid. I won't hurt you," she smiled, "I'm asking you for a favor."
I staggered back a few steps and stammered, "I, I'm stupid. I'm afraid I can't help you..."
"Of course you can," she smiled charmingly again, "I've chosen for a long time and finally chose you."
"Why?" With a bang, I leaned against the door.
She stood up and walked slowly towards me, saying, "If you are willing to do this favor and help me collect information about this elf race, I will reward you generously. For example, I can make Ian come back to you, let you marry your dream lover and then live happily together, forever."
I was panting, holding the doorknob and looking at her in disbelief.
"Think about it. This is a very tempting condition. The divorce rate is so high nowadays, but I can promise that you will be together forever, as long as you want and as long as you want to be together forever."
I leaned weakly against the door and asked, "Can you tell me who you really are?"
She walked up to me and frowned slightly, "I can only tell you that our race has an ability to subtly control the minds of people like Ian and make their emotions develop in the direction we want."
"Since you have this ability, why do you need my help?"
"That race is very special. We can't control them," she sighed, "We have sent several people to collect information, but all of them failed."
I couldn't help asking, "What kind of information do you need exactly?"
"Our race is very interested in emotions and has made it a special research topic. I'm one of the researchers," she said, "We have been to many races and studied their emotions in different categories and have rich experience. However, after encountering this race, we failed. The researchers we sent all came back disappointed. They disguised themselves as them, learned their language and followed their living habits, but still couldn't hand in satisfactory results. They all said that these elves were very difficult to approach and it was extremely difficult to get into their emotions and there was no way to collect information at all. So, I thought of a way. I would choose an emotionally rich person from your race to help us collect information."
She looked at me with a smile in her eyes, "So, I chose you, Li Yuexi. You are so infatuated with a man like Ian who is fickle and has extremely unstable emotions. It shows that you are a person of sentiment."
"There are many people of sentiment," I said with difficulty, "You could have chosen someone else."
"Unfortunately," she shrugged, "Since I came here, I've met very few people and basically lived in this circle all the time. Among the people I know, only you are the most persistent in your emotions and are a true person of sentiment."
At night, I tossed and turned in bed, unable to fall asleep.
At three o'clock in the morning, I heard Li Aide open the door when he came back and then close the door again. I clenched my fists to control my impulse to tell him everything.
I sat up halfway and leaned against the head of the bed. Sitting in the dark room, I remembered what Han Meilin had said when she saw me off at last: "Think about it carefully. My offer is very attractive."
I was thinking, was Ian really that important to me? He was already married. Even if Han Meilin helped me in the future, would I be considered a third party? Was it worth it for me to do this?