The living room was extremely quiet.
Lan Xue’s expression didn’t change in the slightest at Su Hui’s words. He merely shifted to a different sitting position, then said calmly, “You’re the one being too extreme.”
“Ha?” Su Hui looked as if he’d heard something hilarious, jabbing a finger at himself, his face full of derision. “Me? Too extreme? Because of her, my grade regressed and to this day I haven’t found a way to recover it, and you’re telling me I’m being too extreme?!”
Su Hui shot to his feet, fists clenched so tightly the veins stood out on the backs of his hands.
Looking down at the still-placid Lan Xue, Su Hui twisted his mouth into a mocking smile.
“Then all I can do is wish you get exactly what you want. I just hope you won’t regret it when the time comes.”
Tossing out that line, Su Hui turned and strode off.
Lan Xue crooked a finger and tapped it lightly against his thigh, then looked toward the staircase leading down to the basement. “Come on out.”
Ji Li slowly emerged from the shadows, his voice still a little hoarse.
“Maybe you’re right.”
“Oh?”
“My mental-sea rampage reading has dropped by 5 percent.”
And he had only ever received two of Jiang Wangyue’s mental soothings.
Lan Xue toyed with a strand of his own long hair, and said evenly, “So, shall we keep cooperating?”
“That works.”
Jiang Wangyue had another dream.
Only this time the scene in her dream wasn’t the lab the original host had been kept in as a child, but rather her home back on Earth.
Jiang Wangyue was an orphan, adopted by her foster parents when she was seven.
Both her foster parents were high-school teachers, and the whole family had always lived in the school’s faculty housing, the apartment wasn’t big, but it was warm enough.
In the dream, she seemed to have just received her doctoral acceptance letter, and she pushed the door open in high spirits, throwing her foster parents a big hug.
Her foster father said he’d already laid out a whole table of her favorite dishes, just waiting for her to come home.
Her foster mother, meanwhile, brought out a bouquet of her favorite flowers, and excitedly pulled her along, full of plans for where they’d travel over the holidays.
Sitting between her foster parents, Jiang Wangyue felt a faint ache well up in her heart against her will.
She held their hands tightly, wanting to say something, but before the words could come out, she woke.
Jiang Wangyue stared blankly at the ceiling, tears sliding down from the corners of her eyes and soaking into the pillow.
She pulled the blanket up over her face, and a small, animal-like whimpering rose in the quiet of the bedroom.
Mom, Dad… I miss you both so much…
She didn’t know how long she cried, but at last Jiang Wangyue let go of the blanket and got herself calm again.
She knew she could never go back, all she could do was hope her foster parents would go on living well.
Look on the bright side: they had their pension, so they could surely take care of themselves.
Drawing a deep breath, Jiang Wangyue rolled out of bed, meaning to go take a shower.
On her way to the bathroom, she idly tapped her terminal open, only for a whole string of messages from Tinar to come popping up.
The words, brimming with abuse and malice, made Jiang Wangyue’s eyes go dark in an instant.
She had no intention of replying to Tinar right now, handing it off to Lan Xue to deal with was obviously the better choice.
Jiang Wangyue took a nice, comfortable hot shower, changed into a set of clean, comfortable clothes, and only then came downstairs.
The quiet living room was empty. Jiang Wangyue walked up to the door of Lan Xue’s room, and just as she raised a hand to knock, the door swung open on its own.
No, it had been opened by Lan Xue from the inside.
Lan Xue’s gaze paused for a moment on Jiang Wangyue’s still-reddened eyes. “You’ve been crying?”
Jiang Wangyue gave a low, nasal little “mn,” then quickly steered the subject elsewhere. “About what happened today, I’d like to talk it over with you. Is that okay?”
Since she didn’t want to talk about it, Lan Xue didn’t press, though a flash of worry shot through his eyes. Then he said softly, “Of course. But before that, I think you should eat dinner first.”
“Okay.”
A bowl of salted-pork congee that had been kept in a heat-retaining box, and a small side dish made from an algae plant that looked like sea grapes, simple, but very thoughtful.
Jiang Wangyue took the spoon Lan Xue handed her, the corners of her eyes curving at once, and asked him with a smile, “Salted-pork congee again?”
“You don’t like it?”
“Not at all, I like it a lot.”
The corner of Lan Xue’s mouth lifted, a smile rippling through his voice. “As long as you like it.”
Jiang Wangyue scooped up a spoonful of congee and put it in her mouth, then asked indistinctly, “Right, that Isaac you mentioned, who is he again?”
“Tinar’s full brother, same mother and father. Night Tryst was something he built from the ground up himself.”
“You’re saying this whole thing might have been his doing?”
Lan Xue set a tissue down by Jiang Wangyue’s hand, and only after seeing that she was eating happily did he nod. “Yes. He probably guessed what Tinar would do, so he arranged in advance for someone to monitor the messages on her terminal, intercepted and swapped out that address, and then set a trap aimed at you.”
“Female master, you really did act on impulse today. If Ji Li hadn’t gone with you, you…”
Jiang Wangyue hurriedly raised a hand in a placating gesture. “I was wrong. I examine myself, I reflect.”
Lan Xue looked at her, exasperated. “Isn’t the next line going to be, ‘but I’d still dare to do it again next time’?”
“No, no, I’m not that kind of person.”
“Today, though, I was at fault too. I should have told you ahead of time that I’d be going into a sealed lab.”
Jiang Wangyue shook her head. “You’re right, I was the one who acted rashly. I was just afraid Tinar really did have a photo of Yun Miao on her, and that if it got out, it might cause big trouble for his future.”
Lan Xue pressed his pretty, thin lips into a straight line, then couldn’t help asking, “Yun Miao hates you so much, so why would you—”
“Where do all these ‘why’s come from?” Jiang Wangyue cut Lan Xue off with a soft laugh. “It’s just that I don’t want to keep getting things wrong, that’s all.”
Even though it hadn’t actually been her mistake, it was on her now to make up for it.
Lan Xue went still for a moment, then lowered his eyes slightly. “I understand. Leave this matter to me after all.”
“Mm-hm, that’s exactly what I had in mind. I’ll have to trouble you again~” Jiang Wangyue pressed her palms together with a beaming smile, striking a pose of entreaty.
The Rodriguez family.
Isaac watched his own sister, still throwing her fit, with cold eyes, feeling nothing but irritation.
Tinar smashed her glass down hard right beside Isaac’s feet, demanding loudly, “Was it you who tampered with my terminal?!”
“No.” Isaac denied it flatly, without the slightest hesitation.
“It was definitely you!”
The two of them’s mother, an elegant-looking aristocratic female, frowned at this. “Isaac, is what your sister says true?”
Isaac pressed down on the armrest of his chair with a touch of force. “I told you, it wasn’t me.”
“There’s no one else it could be but you!”
Isaac closed his eyes, forcibly suppressing the urge churning inside him, and said coldly, “That’s not important. Our most pressing concern right now is how to wrest the District 13 trade channels back from the Hidden Blade.”
“That’s your business, what’s it got to do with me?” Tinar rolled her eyes, then shot her brother another mocking glance, her eyes full of malice. “Speaking of which—”