It was already late autumn, and only a few lonely leaves hung on the treetops, looking rather cold and desolate.
Perhaps because the heating in the room wasn’t turned up high enough, in Bai Zhi’s silence, Qi Qi felt a chill coming from nowhere that made her shrink back.
Why would Bai Zhi suddenly ask about Shen Lu?
Thinking back to the conversation she had just had with Shen Lu in the corridor, Qi Qi suddenly felt guilt for some reason.
But she and Shen Lu weren’t in that kind of relationship, she just liked to pick on her… Saying it like that, probably no one would believe it. However, although it sounded a little strange, she really wasn’t a bad woman stepping on two boats!
Seeing that the atmosphere was a bit off, Qi Qi simply took the initiative and put on a dissatisfied stance. “We just know each other. What do you mean by asking your girlfriend about other people?”
“Zhi Zhi,” Qi Qi softly called out the nickname of Bai Zhi she had just learned yesterday, slowly caressing her hanging, cool black hair, “You didn’t fall for someone else, did you?”
Bai Zhi still didn’t speak, but stared at her for a full minute.
Qi Qi tried her best to put on a cool, in control face.
Just when she felt like she couldn’t hold out any longer, Bai Zhi suddenly laughed as if nothing had happened.
“Just joking. Of course I know Student Shen Lu is the special status student you saved before. I just happened to see her on the way here and asked casually.”
Qi Qi frowned and refuted. “I didn’t save her, I was just picking on her.”
“Just picking on her… I see.” The young girl’s thoughtful expression vanished in a flash, and then she chuckled lightly against her ear.
Qi Qi wouldn’t lie to her.
But no matter what, her level of attention toward Shen Lu, which far exceeded her attention toward others, was an objective fact.
However, since she only liked to pick on her, then letting someone else do it should be about the same, right?
Qi Qi was her girlfriend, she could only look at her.
If those pretty eyes held anyone else, it always made one feel very displeased.
“I like Qi Qi the most. How could I fall for someone else? The same goes for Qi Qi, right?”
Her girlfriend’s spoiled act was always so sweet, perfectly fitting Qi Qi’s taste.
She dazedly hummed an “Mm,” and then released that soft strand of hair she had been pinching for half a day, which had absorbed her body temperature. Yet as it fell, it was caught by Bai Zhi, pressed between her lips, and gently kissed over.
“Don’t make such boring jokes next time.” Qi Qi paused for a moment, then adjusted her posture to make this sudden kiss more comfortable.
To be honest, she still couldn’t figure out what Bai Zhi was thinking.
Bai Zhi lay in her arms with her long black hair scattered, making her innocent smile seem as if it held a bit more deep meaning.
“I know~”
She already had a plan in her heart.
One week.
It had been a full seven days since she last saw Qi Qi.
Shen Lu looked down at a math problem on the test paper that she usually could solve in half a minute, looking as if she were stumped by it and lost in thought, the pen in her hand hesitating to move.
Why did it turn into like this?
Qi Qi said she was very busy recently, but how long would it take before it was over? If it weren’t for the fact that three meals would regularly appear at her dormitory door, she would even think that Qi Qi had grown tired of her.
She no longer knew how many times she had written in her diary asking Qi Qi to fall in love with her, but still nothing happened.
Those who had died in the past had returned to school recently one after another, as if nothing had ever happened, making her unable to help but suspect if there was something wrong with her own brain, causing her to imagine that she possessed special powers.
Moreover, ever since a while ago, no one in the school had gone missing anymore.
So painful.
The pen in her hand unconsciously wrote down Qi Qi’s name on the scratch paper.
So painful, so painful, so painful…
Want to see her.
Several covert glances drifted over from around her, but when Shen Lu looked up again, they vanished without a trace. The people around were all doing their own things, or gathered in groups of two or three chatting cheerfully about something.
Those bullying acts from before, which were so excessive that they would quickly lead to fatalities if left unchecked, had instantly disappeared after Qi Qi appeared by her side. Even though those people hated her to death and their eyes were full of malice when looking at her, they still had to maintain a surface of calm.
Because of Qi Qi, she could also live normally like an ordinary person.
Even the nightmares she used to have frequently had disappeared.
In past nightmares, there was always someone who looked exactly like her who wanted to replace her, continuously using words to incite and provoke her to commit suicide. Thanks to this dream, no matter how much she detested this world, she had never thought of committing suicide, it would only satisfy the wishes of those who hated her and wanted her dead.
Recently, she was still dreaming, but they were no longer those repeating nightmares. Although she didn’t remember the specific content of the dreams, when she woke up, she would always unconsciously smile, feeling a kind of unfulfilled lingering emptiness. Surely it must be a very beautiful dream.
“Look at her smug attitude,” a girl covertly glanced at the young girl who was staring blankly with a faint smile on the corners of her lips, not knowing what she was thinking, “She actually dares to smile. If it weren’t for Qi Qi, hmph.”
In their eyes, a person like Shen Lu only deserved to struggle and cry out in a smelly ditch. Exposing her ugly state to entertain the public was the greatest contribution she could make to this world.
“However, it seems like I haven’t seen Qi Qi together with her recently. Do you think Qi Qi has already gotten tired of playing with her?”
The friend next to her leaned close to her ear and whispered softly.
“Everyone has been spreading rumors recently that she has fallen out of favor.”
“I think so too. Qi Qi probably just thought that something this ugly was really rare and did it on an impulse. How could someone like Qi Qi look down on her…”
The two looked at each other and smiled, seemingly reaching an agreement in silence.
“We’ll know if we try it.”
The next class was P.E., which happened to be a good opportunity for a test.
Unlike the blatant bullying of the past, they didn’t dare to do it out in the open now, but they still wanted to make her feel painful through isolation, and then pretended to whisper with their companions in a volume she could vaguely hear, glancing at her every now and then and turning back to chuckle secretly, seemingly wanting to make her feel uneasy and ashamed in this manner.
Boring little tricks, to her, were merely harmless.
She no longer cared about anyone other than Qi Qi now. Being ignored actually made her feel more at ease.
After P.E. class ended, Shen Lu ignored the “kind” advice of those special status students and returned to the classroom alone.
The classroom, which used to be noisy after P.E. class, was now extraordinarily quiet, as if everyone was watching her every move.
Shen Lu was still wondering what these people had done again. As she approached her desk and chair, she found profanities, curse words, and ugly graffiti scratches that she hadn’t seen for a while appearing on them.
That mocking sound that seemed to linger around her forever sounded in the classroom again, and the disgusting feeling of countless little bugs crawling on her body gradually spread.
Shen Lu lowered her eyelids and merely looked for a few seconds without saying anything. She turned around, skillfully took a rag, wiped the marks on the desk with force, and then sat back down as if nothing had happened, flipping open her book to start doing problems.
Her unshakeably natural posture was quite intimidating.
For a time, those peeking glances withdrew one after another, as if intimidated by her unhurried manner.
However, on the second day, the handwriting and graffiti on the desk appeared again.
Shen Lu pursed her lips and wiped away those eyesore marks even harder, as if doing so could sever them once more.
This was nothing; she was already used to it.
Qi Qi was very busy recently. She couldn’t disturb her over such boring little matters, she would be disliked.
Besides, Qi Qi had already helped her a lot.
It was just the lowest level of small tricks, she could solve it by herself. Before she met Qi Qi, she had also gritted her teeth and gotten through it like this by herself.
Shen Lu washed the rag under cold water for a long time, the aura on her body becoming increasingly gloomy and numb.
On the third day, the insulting words and graffiti on the desk increased, and a dead rat was stuffed into her pencil case, emitting a foul odor.
On the fourth day…
It was as if they were testing her bottom line bit by bit, probing whether her final trump card was still there.
Upon realizing that there was no one behind her, those long-watching, gruesome fangs unleashed their malice upon her once again to their heart’s content.
It’s fine, she was already used to it.
Shen Lu mechanically wiped the desk again and again.
She couldn’t go disturb Qi Qi, they had agreed on it.
When Qi Qi was done being busy, she would come to find her.
Finding her backpack that was thrown into the trash can once again, it was already late at night when she returned to the dormitory. The dormitory manager looked coldly at her coming back past the door closing time and scolded her impatiently.
She stood at the door listening to those scoldings and speculative accusations, saying nothing.
Because explaining was useless anyway.
Shen Lu felt somewhat fortunate that the dormitory assigned to her by the school was only occupied by herself, at least during the nighttime, she could relax a bit.
After finishing her homework, she opened her diary.
Her diary seemed to have lost its effect.
Under the desk lamp, Shen Lu stared blankly at Qi Qi’s name, which had unknowingly filled another page, completely unaware that the birthmark on her face was quietly undergoing a change under the dim light.
That patch of skin gradually became rough, bulging out piece by piece, as if hard scales were gradually growing out.
Her routine habits had always been kept well, at ten o’clock, she closed her books, washed up, and lay on the bed.
However, she unexpectedly suffered from insomnia today. After an unknown amount of time, she heard the school clock tower chime twelve o’clock. Because the clock tower was built near the mountain at the edge of the school, far from the residential area, only a vague sound could be heard, which would not disturb the students’ rest.
The chime disappeared after ringing three times, and the outside restored the silence unique to winter.
However, Shen Lu, who was just about to close her eyes, suddenly felt a itch on her face and couldn’t help reaching out to touch it.
An unusually rough, sharp angled texture.
If she went to look in the mirror now, she would be able to see that her face was no longer human skin, but cyan scales.
However, she couldn’t care about anything else right now, because her brain had been completely occupied by a certain desire.
“Qi Qi…”
She sniffed carefully, as if searching for the sole fragrance among all the complex smells.
The cyan green vertical pupils glowed brightly in the dark, the gaze clear and straightforward, leaving only the animality of following instinct.
“Student Qi, what you want is this one, right?”
Here it comes again.
This weird feeling wasn’t the first time she had felt it recently.
Clearly a stranger, yet there was a strange sense of familiarity, as if they had met many times before.
Qi Qi withdrew her hand that was originally reaching toward the shelf full of chocolates, took the new chocolate handed over from beside her, looked up at the unfamiliar girl, and said thanks.
“How did you know I wanted this?”
She ultimately couldn’t hold it in and asked before the girl left.
The girl merely smiled at her. “Because I know Student Qi very well.”
No matter where she walked…
“Student Qi, let me help you.”
“Student Qi, you like this, right?”
“Student Qi…”
Faces of strangers, yet with strikingly similar, creepily identical smiles.
Qi Qi almost ran away all the way.
It was with great difficulty that she reached a place where no one was around, thinking she could breathe a sigh of relief. Qi Qi held a bag of snacks and sat in the garden pavilion, slowly opening a box of chocolates.
Recently, Bai Zhi didn’t know what she was doing and wasn’t very clingy anymore, while the little monster’s side was brushed off by her with the excuse of “being busy.” She was currently in an idle mode of having nothing to worry about.
The only problem was the monster that intruded into her home every night.
Thinking of this, Qi Qi had a bit of a headache and subconsciously touched the place on her neck that had been licked and bitten into clear red marks, which faintly throbbed with sharp pain and subtle itchiness.
Hiss, must be careful not to let Bai Zhi notice.
She had tried moving, reinforced security, and even spent a large amount of money in the grey zone for this purpose to hire famous mercenaries who were executing dangerous missions a while ago.
However, after changing several properties, the monster would still climb in through the window on time every night, and then leave punctually before the sun rose.
The next day, whether checking surveillance or asking security personnel, there was no trace of any monster’s arrival. She was even tactfully advised whether her study pressure had been too great recently, and if she should see a psychiatrist to relieve stress.
As time went on, Qi Qi simply canceled the extra security forces, moved back to the most comfortable apartment, and completely gave up.
Anyway, no matter what, the monster could break in. Doing anything was useless, so she might as well save some energy to buy herself more stress relieving, mood soothing sweet chocolates.
The only thing to be thankful for was that at least the monster wouldn’t hurt her?
Qi Qi sighed, her usually indifferent expression gaining a few bits of faint melancholy.
As the weather turned cold, white mist could now be exhaled outside.
That monster came too frequently and possessed ridiculously strong force. Although it would obediently listen at first, it was also stubbornly persistent, and recently it showed more and more signs of losing control.
Regarding this, her bottom line had already been lowered to as long as no marks were left on her body.
However, the monster lost control slightly last night.
Probably because when she wanted to reach for the mint candies on the nightstand, she accidentally touched a scale below the monster’s abdomen that looked plain and even slightly smaller than other scales.
She checked later and found out that it was the genital area of female snakes, touching it itself represented an invitation signal.