People are in Mygo, and I can write their personalities.

"No...it's impossible...Xiao Xiang isn't like that..."

"What about all those things from the past? Do you really think the real Xiangzi would apologize without Nanami Natsuki's interference? She couldn't trust us back then, and now that Nanami Natsuki has played her like this, do you still think she'll trust anyone else?"

"No, Xiao Xiang, tell me yourself... are you Xiao Xiang?"

Nagasaki Motoyo took two steps back, then turned around to look at Nanami Natsuki, who looked surprised, and hugged her shoulders, asking hysterically.

"Of course I am Xiangzi, Su Shi."

“See, Lixi.” Nagasaki Suze turned around with a forced smile, but her eyes were filled with tears. “She is Xiaoxiang, Xiaoxiang is just like this... She has always been like this, always has been like this... Don’t say any more, I won’t believe you.”

"You've all gone mad...you're all insane..."

Chapter 74 Girls Who Willingly Indulge in Lies (4800 words remaining)

"Nanami Natsuki!!! Stop acting, is this funny?! Tell me you are Nanami Natsuki! Say it!!!"

“I…I am Nanami Natsuki.”

"Su Shi, look! She's already admitted it!"

Nagasaki Motoyo wiped away her tears and looked at Riki with some disappointment. "Riki... calm down. What's the point of forcing Sho to lie and agree with you like this?"

"No, Su Shi... what's wrong with you? Wake up... she's not the Toyokawa Shoko you think she is! Are you going to keep pretending to be stupid?!"

Shiina Riki thought she had been acting abnormally lately, but she didn't expect that the most abnormal person was not her or Nanami Natsuki, but Nagasaki Motoyo, who seemed to be possessed.

She must have known... After all, many things are too far-fetched, and Xiao Mu, as the person who knows Xiangzi best, probably saw through the clues when she told Su Shi yesterday why she didn't believe those words.

Add to that the absurd reason of his social media account being hacked, and the huge changes in the "Xiangzi" of the past and the "Xiangzi" of today, and it's impossible that Su Shi hadn't had any doubts at all.

Why is that...?

Was Su Shi trying to deceive herself? She was unwilling to leave this "realistic" dream. She had obtained what she had always wanted, so she preferred to continue deceiving herself rather than wake up from this dream.

"Lixi, please stop doing this... I can pretend that what happened today never happened. I know you've been working really hard lately to take on Xiaoxiang's responsibilities in Crychic, so you've been staying up late every night to study and create, and haven't had much sleep."

"But you look terrible right now. You really need to rest, and you should think about this carefully... Hey? Lixi, where are you going?!"

Seeing that Lixi put down the frying pan and ran out without changing her shoes, wearing only Nanami Natsuki's slippers, Nagasaki Motoyo immediately chased after her. However, before leaving, she specifically reminded Nanami Natsuki not to worry and to stay and wait for them to come back.

After doing all that, Su Shi happened to see Shiina Riki hiding under a big tree in the distance, looking completely helpless.

“Su Shi, I didn’t lie to you… You should wake up, she’s not the person you think she is…”

Why are you still talking about this?

"...Haha, yes...that's not important anymore...maybe I'm not even qualified to say anything to you, after all, you're not the only one who doesn't want to wake up."

"What are you talking about, Lixi? Are you too tired?"

"It's nothing... um, I'm just really tired..."

After saying this, Li hope stopped talking, and Su Shi didn't seem to have any intention of leaving. She just sat down next to her and silently looked in the direction of Nanami Natsuki's house in the distance.

Lixi remained silent and compromised because she now realized that she did not have the right to criticize Su Shi.

She was also immersed in the beautiful dream that Nanami Natsuki had woven for her. Wasn't she here today to let Nanami Natsuki drag her back into that dream?

How wonderful... As long as she doesn't think about the reality behind the dream, she can live in the dream forever without any cost.

How many people have the courage to voluntarily wake up from this dream? Su Shi couldn't... she herself couldn't do it either.

Li hope doesn't actually fully understand what Nagasaki Su Shi is thinking right now. Perhaps Su Shi really doesn't believe what she's saying, or perhaps she does believe it but is unwilling to admit it and wants to keep deceiving herself like this.

However, Li Xi understands that Su Shi is indeed a two-faced person who is very good at acting. This was true during Crychic, and it is still true now.

People always say they want to change, and they even believe they will change, but in reality, every time they encounter a real choice, they can't help but act with their past ways of thinking.

At least that's how Lixi is now.

She was able to reveal the secret between herself and Nanami Natsuki in a fit of anger because she knew that Suze might refute her, and the person involved in this secret was someone like Nanami Natsuki, whom she wanted to beat up. So she was able to blurt out those facts in a fit of emotion.

But what about talent?

She dared not say it... Even after being so provoked by Nanami Natsuki, she dared not face such a despicable version of herself.

Revealing her involvement as an accomplice could be seen as a sign of her sudden awakening and doing something good, but revealing that she gave up trying to embrace Xiao Xiang's talent... is tantamount to showing others her ugliest side.

One Nanami Natsuki is enough; there's no need for a second person who can see right into her heart.

"Lixi, have you calmed down?"

"Um……"

"About Xiao Xiang..."

"Actually, you misunderstood. I didn't... want to kiss her. It was just a misunderstanding. I accidentally bumped into her and our lips touched. Don't misunderstand... I didn't have that thought. I'm straight."

"Hmm... I believe you. After all, everyone in Crychic should trust each other."

"Also, just pretend you didn't hear those things about Xiangzi being Nanami. I only said it because I was angry after you slandered me like that, so I deliberately said it to make you angry too."

"..."

After an eerie pause, Nagasaki Motoyo laughed, "Of course I know you're lying to me, but it's a bit of a shame... Xiaoxiang must have been terrified by us today. She's already gone through so much, and then there was that misunderstanding. It seems the reorganization of Crychic will have to wait a few more days."

"Reorganizing Crychic...?"

"Of course, now that everyone is back together, we're bound to reorganize, right?"

Nagasaki Motoyo's tone was very firm, but if you listened carefully, you could still feel that she was trembling a little. "I've thought it through. Once Xiaoxiang calms down, I'll contact Xiaodeng, and then I'll try my best to get Xiaomu to accept the facts... After that, we can all work hard together in a band again."

"You know, Lixi, when I first met you, I was actually a little worried that you would become the troublemaker in the band."

"Yeah……"

"Because you always had a cold face back then, and you always liked to interrupt us when we talked, I even thought... it would be better if Crychic didn't have you, but thankfully... you stayed in the end."

"As expected... Crychic can't function without anyone. When I saw how hard you worked for your first performance, I knew... Shiina Tatsuki is serious."

Nagasaki Motoyo leaned against a tree trunk, hugging her knees and gazing up at the sun at a 45-degree angle.

The two sat there for several hours, going from being silent and lost in their own thoughts at the beginning to talking about the past. This feeling made Su Shi very satisfied, as if the previous silence and awkwardness had never existed.

“Actually, I’ve always felt that you weren’t serious enough,” Li hope said. “Although you did a great job in the performance, I felt back then… there was still a big difference between us.”

"..."

"But I'm still most grateful to you. Without your persistence, perhaps Crychic would really have had no future. The way you were so emotional about the band's survival that night showed me another side of you. It was also the first time I realized that Motoyo Nagasaki also has a real side."

"Huh? Is that so..."

“Actually, I shouldn’t have said that about you before, or rather… I shouldn’t have excluded you from my statement that ‘everyone in the band has a different purpose’. Su Shi, your purpose in staying in the band should not have been ignored by me.”

"It's okay, I know Lixi, you're doing this for our own good."

"I... I still think that the way we got along at the beginning was actually the most suitable for Crychic. Everyone did have different ideas, but everyone's arguments and opinions would disappear when the music started. I think that's the meaning of forming a band, right?"

"Yeah, that's why I can't accept the band ending like this. It's not like we've never had disagreements before. It's like we can all come together again as long as the music starts... But... but there wasn't such an opportunity to make up back then."

"Su Shi... have you ever thought about this?" Li hope didn't express her true opinion on the matter of reforming the band, but instead asked another question, "What if... Xiangzi and Qi Hai never get switched back?"

"As long as Xiao Xiang is still Xiao Xiang, I won't care about these things."

"Even if this matter itself..."

“Lixi! I hope you won’t say those things again. I don’t want the distrust within Crychic to happen again. A voice inside me tells me this is the last chance. If we fail this time, there will be no more chances. Do you understand? I don’t want to go back to the way things were before, I don’t want to…”

"……All right."

Shiina Tatsuki has really given up this time, or rather... it's no use not giving up now.

She even suspected that even if Nanami Natsuki revealed her true colors in front of her, Su Shi would turn a blind eye. After all, having been exposed to too many shocking facts one after another, Su Shi was unwilling to believe anything that would break her defenses.

Even if we knew all this and accepted it, what good would it do?

Having thwarted Nanami Natsuki's plan this time, wouldn't she come up with a new evil scheme? Isn't it good enough that she's numbing herself like this, letting that girl act like a perfect companion most of the time?

Without these fake performances, would Su Shi have been able to find the real Xiangzi and bring her back to form a band with everyone...?

In fact, both of them knew that this lie would eventually come to an end, and when Nanami Natsuki got tired of it... the truth would no longer be able to be covered up.

Li hope felt the same way. She knew that Nanami Natsuki would definitely not give her musical talent permanently, and the very act of taking away Xiangzi's talent forever would make her feel a hundred times more guilty than she did now.

Nanami understands everything. She's not deliberately torturing herself by keeping herself in suspense; she's afraid that the current delicate balance of the lie will be broken.

As it turned out, neither they nor Su Shi wanted to disrupt this balance.

Nanami Natsuki seems to have messed up in this matter, after all, she did reveal a fact that could disrupt the balance. But in reality, after this incident, Riki became more certain of his own thoughts and saw through Nanami's repulsive yet frightening confidence in this matter.

Accomplices... were never just myself and Nanami; they should also include Nagasaki Motoyo.

They were all pathetic people who were manipulated by Nanami Natsuki and did not want to resist. Thinking of this, Riki felt even more pathetic.

www.sHub23.com

“I told Xiaoxiang that I won’t go back to see her today. She needs to calm down by herself right now, and my going there might just increase her anxiety.”

"Oh."

"Ah...it's getting dark, Lixi, I have to go home, you..."

"You can go back now. I'm fine now. I've calmed down a lot after talking to you. But I want to sit alone for a while longer. Don't worry about me."

“Alright then…” Nagasaki Motoyo glanced meaningfully at Riki, who was looking down and hugging her knees. “I’m leaving. Send me a message when you get home tonight.”

"Ah."

Shiina Riki didn't look up. She knew that Nagasaki Motoyo had already gone far away. After all, it seemed that there was no one else in this abandoned little park except for herself.

She buried her head between her thighs, unwilling to listen to the sounds around her; she only wanted to think about the things that were worth looking forward to.

For example, what should she name her new song? How should she discuss music with Hailing at school tomorrow? And... should she save up some money to buy an electronic keyboard? Or, should she hide her identity and find some people that Su Shi and the others don't know to form a masked band and completely unleash her growing creative desires?

But the more she thought about these things, the more she couldn't help but shed tears.

Lixi felt that these things were truly wonderful to her, but wonderful things often come with an unpleasant price. Could she really continue like this? What if others knew what kind of person she was? What if Akari knew all this...? And what if Nanami Natsuki lost interest in her and planned to end the deal?

She didn't know who to talk to about these things. She had a pretty good understanding of Su Shi's thoughts, but who could understand her thoughts?

Everyone in Crychic is definitely keeping this a secret from them, but what about Hailing? No... They've only just become friends with common interests, and she doesn't quite trust her yet. She can't be sure how Hailing will react if she finds out.

What about her family? That's even worse... Her family always believed that she had never given up trying, and the love and care they gave her felt like a huge pressure to her. If her family found out that she was avoiding this pressure, her parents and sister... would they be disappointed in her?

She didn't want anyone to disappoint her, and the only person who could disappoint her was herself.

"Lixi, come home with me."