Trapped in the Same Day for a Thousand Years: Hidden Attribute

Welcome to Trapped in the Same Day for a Thousand Years, exclusively produced by Feilu Novel Network, written by Sang Ze and narrated by Wang Xiaomo and Lao He. Su Qingying was acting a little crazy. He wouldn't have answered her, but she was acting crazy all the same.

It was the sort of thing that could completely destroy the image she had maintained for years, along with everything people admired about her.

The closer someone was to perfection, the less room there was for flaws. One flaw could bring everything crashing down and reduce them to an ordinary person. Someone with serious problems to begin with wouldn't face that kind of fall.

It was like a bad person who had done plenty of terrible things suddenly doing something good. People would say he had turned over a new leaf. For a bad person, becoming a Buddha was easy: put down the butcher's knife, and enlightenment was yours.

But when a good person—someone who had done countless good deeds—suddenly did something bad, something the people around them couldn't accept, they fell from heaven to hell. People would call them a fraud. They would say, "So that's what they were really like," and insist all their earlier goodness had been an act.

Su Qingying had always carried the pressure of being that good person. The burden on her shoulders was too heavy, so heavy she could barely breathe. She had had enough long ago.

Wu Chen suddenly sucked in a sharp breath and shoved Su Qingying away. He touched the corner of his mouth, then looked at the blood on his fingertip.

"Kissing is one thing, but why did you bite me?"

Wu Chen pressed the corner of his mouth again as he spoke.

It wasn't serious, but it had drawn blood.

Su Qingying, pushed back into her seat, stared straight at Wu Chen, breathing hard.

Then she lunged forward and wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him again.

"Wait!"

"No, no, stop. Hold on."

Wu Chen pushed Su Qingying away twice more. Each time, she came straight back and wrapped her arms around him.

"Can you calm down?"

Smack!

A crisp slap rang out.

Wu Chen hadn't hit her very hard. Su Qingying still had to face people, and he couldn't leave a mark. But inside the enclosed car, the slap sounded loud.

Su Qingying's left cheek reddened. She covered it and finally settled down.

He had slapped her left cheek, but her whole face had gone red—deep red. She was breathing quickly as she turned to look at Wu Chen. There was something strange in her eyes: no resentment, no anger, no disbelief. If anything, there was a hint of anticipation.

"Are you sick?"

Wu Chen scolded her, then reached over and pinched her arm.

Su Qingying recoiled from the pain and covered her arm.

The spot he had pinched really hurt, but Su Qingying kept staring at him. Her face grew even redder, and that strange look remained in her eyes.

Wu Chen had slapped her on purpose. He wasn't truly angry; he had been playing a part.

Wu Chen despised men who hit women whenever they got angry. What kind of man did that?

But if a woman wanted to be hit, that was another matter.

That was Su Qingying's unspeakable secret: she was an M.

Wu Chen knew Su Qingying had discovered this side of herself by chance three years earlier.

After a busy stretch of work, she had gone to the family gym to hit a punching bag and relieve the pressure of family, social obligations, and work.

A female bodyguard accompanying her had casually offered a few pointers on how beginners should throw a punch. Su Qingying became interested and asked to spar with her in the ring.

They really did spar. The bodyguard went easy on her and was careful, but she still struck Su Qingying by accident.

It was the first time Su Qingying had ever been hit in her life. To her surprise, she found a certain pleasure in it.

"It felt good." Those were her own words.

Wu Chen knew exactly how she had discovered it, down to the details, because Su Qingying had told him herself.

During one of the loops, after Wu Chen had won her over, she had told him how she discovered her hidden attribute.

After that incident, though, she never sparred with anyone again. She didn't even hit the punching bag.

Her mother had found out that the bodyguard had accidentally struck her and had forbidden her from sparring or hitting the bag. Over time, it would give her arms visible muscle definition and spoil her perfection.

Afterward, Su Qingying tested her hidden attribute in other ways, many times.

She pinched herself, pricked her finger with a needle, and even secretly bought candles so she could drip hot wax onto her arm.

She confirmed that she had those inclinations. Perhaps it was because she had been controlled too tightly, or because she had suppressed herself for too long. Whatever the reason, she found a sense of belonging in that little bit of pain. It eased her stress, let out her emotions, and allowed her to relax—even enjoy herself.

Once she was sure, fear set in. She was terrified and thought she was a pervert.

She searched online and read everything she could find on the subject, even watching related films. Gradually, her fear faded.

While researching, she stumbled across a forum that served as a gathering place. Many of its users were like her, and its posts all revolved around the subject. Some people sought partners; others wrote about their confusion or asked for reassurance that there wasn't something wrong with them. There were also videos and written accounts of things people had done.

Su Qingying secretly browsed it for a long time. Mostly, she only read. On the rare occasions she replied, it was to encourage people who shared her fear and confusion.

That continued for a full year.

Then, two years ago, Su Qingying finally wrote her first post. It was also her only one, and it ran to three thousand words.

In it, she described her confusion and talked about her family. She didn't reveal their background, only how they treated her. She complained freely about them and the other people around her, even expressing despair about her life.

She called herself a carefully dressed puppet.

Most of her complaints were about her mother: traditional, stubborn, domineering, and intensely controlling.

Of course, she also mentioned her hidden attribute. The whole point of the post was to vent, so she said things she normally never would have said.

Online, she was speaking to strangers rather than face-to-face. None of them knew her, and none could know who she was. That gave her the courage to speak.

She wrote that she wanted to fall in love. She wanted someone to hit her.

She wished the people around her would stop treating her so carefully and putting her on such a high pedestal.

She also wrote that she wanted to defy her mother and do everything her mother forbade her to do. The more outrageous, the better.

At heart, it was just a post to vent. Su Qingying said all sorts of things, but she never asked to find a partner. She only wanted to let it out.

Yet on that forum, nobody cared why she had become an M.

The response frightened her. Her post became one of the forum's most popular, drawing over a thousand replies. Overnight, she received hundreds of private messages, nearly all from people who wanted to meet her.

She was terrified, and she regretted posting it.

She felt she had nothing in common with the people on the forum. They were a bunch of lunatics. She wanted to delete the post, but she couldn't.

She contacted the forum moderators, but they refused to remove it.

The forum's servers were overseas, so even using her connections to shut it down would have been difficult.

More importantly, she didn't dare use those connections. She couldn't let anyone learn she had anything to do with the forum.

For a long time afterward, she checked the forum frequently, watching to see when interest in her post would die down.

Once it did, she visited less and less, until she stopped checking altogether.

She decided to forget it all and keep her unusual inclinations a secret forever.

Two years passed, and she no longer thought about it unless something reminded her. Then she met Wu Chen.

When Wu Chen sent her that text message, Su Qingying panicked.

Her secret was that she was an M. But being an M wasn't the problem. Su Qingying had never done anything outrageous. She had held herself back because she didn't dare risk her reputation.

The problem wasn't what kind of person she was. It was that Wu Chen could prove it.

The post Su Qingying had made two years earlier could ruin her.

Without that post—one she couldn't delete—she would have had little to fear. An accusation without proof was just slander.

Su Qingying's reputation was so good that slander alone would hardly touch her. No one would believe it.

But if someone produced proof, they would.

As it happened, Wu Chen had discovered Su Qingying's hidden attribute by chance.

During the thousand-year cycle, he had investigated the Su Family in detail, focusing especially on Su Qingying. What he found was that she seemed almost perfect, inside and out—so perfect she barely seemed human. He could find no opening. He had almost believed in that perfection himself.

Then, on one July 7, while investigating Su Qingying again, Wu Chen secretly got hold of her personal computer.

He found a mysterious folder buried deep in its files.

The folder was locked and required a password.

Wu Chen didn't have the password, so he used his hacking skills to force it open. Inside were some adult films.

For someone in her twenties, that was nothing unusual. Wu Chen saw no reason to hide them so carefully. But all the films Su Qingying had saved belonged to one specific category. That was different.

Once Wu Chen suspected something, he checked the browsing history on her computer and found several saved usernames and passwords.

That was how he learned Su Qingying used the name "When Will the Bright Moon Appear?" and found the post she had written on the forum. He learned everything.

On the last July 7 of Wu Chen's thousand-year cycle—four nights ago—he had talked to Mu Qianqian at a bar about Su Qingying, the Jinfu Jewelry robbery, and whether Mu Qianqian believed his stories about the loop and the women he had slept with.

Mu Qianqian showed Wu Chen a news report and asked whether he had slept with Su Qingying. He said he had. She didn't believe him. Wu Chen said Su Qingying had a fatal weakness that would let him win her over easily. Mu Qingqing still didn't believe him and pressed him to name it, but he refused. He only asked Mu Qianqian to guess whether Su Qingying was an M.

That forum post was Su Qingying's fatal weakness.

It gave Wu Chen a way to approach her privately. Given her circumstances, winning her over wasn't especially difficult. As long as he understood her well enough, he wouldn't even need an elaborate plan. He could do it in a single day.

"Are you sick?"

"Look where we are! We're on a public road. There may not be many cars around, but what if someone drives past and sees you with me in here? Have you no shame?"

"Can you use your head for once?"

Wu Chen scolded Su Qingying, who sat in the passenger seat holding her arm.

Su Qingying said nothing. She looked a little aggrieved, but her eyes told a different story. There was a touch of vulnerability in them, yet far more of that strange look.

"I'm talking to you. Did you leave your brain at home?"

Wu Chen scolded her again and raised a hand as if to slap her.

Su Qingying flinched as though frightened. With a soft, plaintive note in her voice, she whispered, "Was I wrong?"

She had always hidden and controlled this part of herself. As long as she didn't dare defy her mother, she would never dare cross that line.

But today, Wu Chen had brought her hidden attribute into the open. He had given her courage and led her this far. To him, that wasn't a bad thing.

Su Qingying's problems had built up over time. Without a healthy way to release what she had bottled up, she would inevitably become depressed. She might even take her own life.

"Move over. Sit up straight."

Su Qingying shifted at once, then looked at Wu Chen with eager eyes.

"Seat belt," Wu Chen snapped. Su Qingying fastened it.

Su Qingying wanted him to order her around like that—provided his orders felt good to her.

Being an M didn't mean she could accept everything. Her mother's restrictions and arrangements, for instance, made her deeply miserable.

"We're going somewhere else."

Wu Chen started the Lamborghini and pulled back onto the road.

"Where are we going?"

Su Qingying glanced at him and asked softly. She was fully caught up in the moment now.

"Where do you want to go?" Wu Chen asked.

"Wherever you say." Su Qingying's voice was quiet, and her sidelong glance held a different kind of feeling.

"Then we'll go to my place," Wu Chen said.

"Okay." Su Qingying nodded.

Wu Chen pressed down on the accelerator, and the car surged forward.

Once they got home, they could take care of some things.

On the forum, Su Qingying's username was "When Will the Bright Moon Appear?"

She hadn't chosen it at random. Through that name, she had hinted at her feelings in a very subtle way.

"When Will the Bright Moon Appear?" was the opening line of Su Shi's poem Prelude to Water Melody.

And her name was Su Qingying.

The same poem contained the line, "I dance and play with my clear shadow; how could this be the mortal world?"

It had to be said: even when choosing a username, an educated person could make it meaningful.

Wu Chen had no intention of waiting. He was taking Su Qingying home. Half an hour later, the Lamborghini was back in the main part of the city. They should have arrived by then, but they hadn't.

Wu Chen wasn't going to East Sea Splendor in the northern district. That apartment had been transferred into his name. The Su Family would investigate him, and a property registered to him wasn't safe; someone might show up unexpectedly. Instead, he was heading to his family's old home, which was registered in his parents' names. That way, no one would likely disturb them all day.

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