The Senior Student (female) Is Not Human - Chapter 10

Chapter 10: The Photo – “Jiang Xiyao is a monster.”

For forty minutes of intense vibration, Jiang Xiyao questioned her sanity.

That night, she was in the same area of the city, saturated with the dirty desires of men and women, yet her mind was utterly blank; she couldn’t hear a single internal voice.

This blankness lasted a full eight hours.

The reason she remembered it so clearly was that after eight hours of serenity, she heard a gasp.

[Oops.]

A sleepy, nasal internal voice mumbled:

[It’s here after all.]

Before Jiang Xiyao could figure out what “it” was, a strange, intense cramping began in her lower abdomen and quickly escalated.

She: ???

Jiang Xiyao looked down at her abdomen in disbelief, wondering if she had unconsciously swallowed a demolition crew last night, and they were now drilling and hammering her lower belly.

How else could she explain this terrifying pain?

“Xiyao.”

The scout, who had tried to take pictures of the beautiful scene while she was distracted, put his camera down after realizing the attempt had failed as expected, and flashed an ingratiating smile.

The man’s eyes were bloodshot from a sleepless night, yet he showed no fatigue, only an unusual excitement, and his tone was overly intimate:

“We artists need inspiration. There’s a good movie coming out. Want to go see it together?”

Jiang Xiyao was distracted by the inexplicable pain.

She had no interest in being polite to him anymore.

“A movie? Aren’t I already watching one?”

Her gaze swept lightly over him, moving quickly as if afraid of suffering more terrible visual pollution if she lingered. Her tone, however, was unusually patient:

“I’m currently watching the second part of The Good Stuff, you ugly thing.”

With that, she turned to leave without hesitation.

Jiang Xiyao couldn’t wait another second; she needed to know what Xie Shiwei was doing right now!

However, the moment she turned, the man raised a golf club behind her, and the long shadow fell towards her like a gust of wind—

“THUD!”

…

Ginger Milk Tea

At the milk tea shop.

Xie Shiwei, seeing the order machine spit out yet another slip, a custom order longer than her own life, relentlessly smashed the thirtieth orange, wishing she could crush the pain in her abdomen along with it.

She glanced at the clock on the wall, frantically reassuring herself: Almost, almost there, it’s almost time for the midday shift change.

Soon, she’d have a moment to drink some hot water and take a painkiller.

A nearby company, perhaps trying to offer some comfort to its overworked employees during a weekend shift, had placed an order for hundreds of drinks at once. Combined with the usual holiday orders, she literally had no time to catch her breath.

As she spun like a top, the door chimes “ding-donged,” announcing another customer, adding insult to injury.

Xie Shiwei keenly noticed that the colleague who was spinning with her was suddenly frozen in time the moment he looked up to take the order.

Then, the other two workers at the counter also froze, their eyes wide with adoration.

Xie Shiwei cursed internally, They’re slacking off!

She quickly looked up, and as the world suddenly brightened with that familiar, high-definition clarity, she realized, Oh, Jiang Xiyao is here.

Huh? Wait.

[Doesn’t Senior Jiang usually drink five-figure limited-edition mineral water, the kind with custom bottles and embedded diamonds? Why is she suddenly stepping into a cheap milk tea shop?]

[Could this be the legendary law that says wealthy young ladies always fall in love with street vendors?]

Jiang Xiyao stood with her arms crossed in the ordering area, listening to the rich chattering in her mind, and gazed deeply at her.

Her eyes fixed on the utterly unremarkable light-colored hair clip on Xie Shiwei’s head, and all her confusion was instantly resolved.

She recognized at once that the light layer of mimetic color covering the hair clip was the piece of skin she had discarded at the Tang house.

So that was it—

Even prey that luckily escaped would, after consistent, day-after-day contact with her fragments, eventually become crazy with obsession.

Even if their rambling thoughts reached her, they were indistinguishable from those around her.

Jiang Xiyao never bothered to differentiate the distance of these internal voices.

Only when Xie Shiwei’s unique, distinct internal voice appeared did Jiang Xiyao realize that those scattered fragments still followed their instincts.

Searching, identifying prey, and feeding.

Only, this piece, perhaps damaged from eating the wrong thing, had broken somehow, as it had chosen to consume “grief” yesterday?

[She’s looking over here again? I’m going to start getting narcissistic. Three thousand beauties in the harem~ But my wife only wants to favor me~ I try to tell her to share the love, but she just favors me, favors me~ Last night, I was summoned by the Senior~]

The familiar giggling rhythm brought Jiang Xiyao back to reality instantly.

This time, however, the little custard bun didn’t “squish out its filling”:

[Ah, no. Period cramps again. I feel like an eunuch in a brothel right now, willing but unable.]

Jiang Xiyao: “…” Then why are you still acting lewd?

When the ordering clerk softly asked her “What would you like to drink?” for the third time, she followed the fragmented internal voice she’d heard earlier and pointed to one of the options: “Brown Sugar Ginger Pearl Milk Tea.”

She paused, then ordered: “No tea base, make it hot.”

[Huh, huh, huh?! Could the Senior be on her period too? No wonder she looked beautiful and moving when she came in, but her expression was all grumpy. I thought someone had annoyed her again.]

[Oh my god, my period is being so thoughtful! It’s making me the happiest little girl in the world today~ It’s so lucky to have my period on the same day as my wife!]

This kind of luck is completely unnecessary.

Without her, Jiang Xiyao wouldn’t have to experience this feeling at all.

However, even after the Brown Sugar Ginger Tea was made as quickly as possible, Jiang Xiyao had no intention of retrieving her residual “fragment.”

She suddenly became curious.

If this custard bun continued to unconsciously contact her day and night, would those desires eventually be assimilated into the familiar malice she craved over time?

But the immediate priority was—

“You, come here.”

She motioned to Xie Shiwei with a slight nod of her chin.

Everyone else had rushed to be attentive, and Xie Shiwei was the only one hiding in the corner. This time, she couldn’t pretend to be clueless and had to bite the bullet and walk over.

But before she could speak, she heard Jiang Xiyao say lackadaisically:

“Suddenly I don’t want this cheap stuff. Throw it away.”

Glancing at the surveillance camera pointed at the counter, she stared into Xie Shiwei’s eyes:

“Throw it outside. If you leave it here, who knows if you’ll get lazy and give it to the next person?”

Xie Shiwei was completely bewildered by the look, but her feet were honest, and she took the ginger tea and left.

She only registered what happened once she was outside.

How could the Senior be so naive? She’s only worried about other customers inheriting the finished product, but didn’t consider the staff secretly rewarding themselves?

I can’t stand wasting food!

Xie Shiwei always had painkillers ready in her pocket. Taking advantage of this break and the chance to momentarily escape the shop’s camera, she swallowed the pills with the perfectly warm ginger tea.

After quickly drinking most of the ginger tea, her whole body warmed up again.

Returning to the shop, Xie Shiwei was surprised to find that Jiang Xiyao hadn’t left yet, still staring at the order page.

The customers behind her were completely engrossed in watching her, unwilling to rush, and the staff were equally mesmerized by her beauty, unusually tolerating her meticulous “concubine selection” level of scrutiny.

However, the final result was just a single sentence: “Forget it. Such a cheap price is unworthy of me.”

Jiang Xiyao turned and left with a look of disdain.

But she paused when she passed Xie Shiwei.

Her deep eyes, with thick lashes that looked like built-in eyeliner, fixed on her:

“Your dark circles look heavy. Can’t you sleep at night?”

Under the scrutiny of the crowd, Xie Shiwei, who had suddenly heard this concern, was horrified to sense the jealous, envious, and teeth-grinding glares directed at her.

She even heard her colleague’s orange-smashing actions suddenly intensify.

Xie Shiwei nervously tried to remember that she had slept quite well last night, while frantically wondering what Jiang Xiyao was planning. Has the Senior been possessed today? Why is she suddenly showing concern?

The next second—

Jiang Xiyao smiled warmly, her voice so sweet it sounded like dripping water:

“If you can’t sleep, take more sleeping pills. Understand?”

Stop messing around with that broken long-lasting electric toy every night!

Her little mouth is laced with poison. It was the familiar taste.

Seeing the eyes of the people around her turn smug and highly mocking, Xie Shiwei let out a huge sigh of relief.

Watching Jiang Xiyao leave, and recalling her deliberate actions of bothering and mocking an innocent bystander like herself after entering, Xie Shiwei rubbed her nose and thought:

So, Senior Jiang must be in a bad mood because of her period, right?

I should try to stay far away from her for the next few days.

Just then, it was time for the shift change. Xie Shiwei took off her uniform, picked up her phone, and started scrolling through messages, preparing to grab a quick meal nearby.

After a few steps, she saw over 9999+ messages in the freshman group chat.

Usually, only students applying to the school before the semester starts use the freshman group to ask seniors about school life and gossip. Once classes and departments start, no one uses the group.

Xie Shiwei had thought the group was already disbanded.

She clicked on the message that had tagged her.

The source was a web link shared by a group member.

“HOLY CRAP! MAJOR SCANDAL! This is wild! Do you guys know Jiang Xiyao? @AllMembers”

Xie Shiwei saw the familiar name and clicked on the webpage.

Inside was a folder of photos uploaded to a cloud drive by an unknown person.

There were pictures of the girl from various angles—far away, close up, and even some secretly taken from private angles—but in every photo, her face was blurred.

Yet, the flawless white skin and impeccable outfit coordination made it clear to anyone who recognized her that this was Jiang Xiyao.

The uploader’s last image was a screenshot of a text:

“Jiang Xiyao, the special enrolment student for the 2023 batch of the X University Fine Arts Department, is actually a monster who cannot be captured by the camera. You’ll think what I’m saying is unbelievable, so go ahead and try it—”

“I failed, but let’s see which of you can take a complete picture of her.”

The group chat was completely focused on this topic:

“The more I think about it, the scarier it gets. I’m a new student in the Art Department, and I just checked all the photos. Even though Jiang Xiyao is so beautiful, there isn’t a single group photo of her. Holy crap, holy crap, holy crap!”

“I knew it. How can someone be that beautiful and still have the energy to seduce men every day? She must be a demon feeding on yang energy.”

“I have a plan. Let’s get someone to invite her out. Everyone brings a camera. We’ll take a picture of her simultaneously when she’s not looking. One person’s equipment might fail, but if hundreds or thousands of people’s equipment all fail… hehe.”

“Jiang Xiyao, monster, monster, monster!”

Countless messages flooded her view.

Even standing in the sunlight, Xie Shiwei felt a chill run from her feet to the top of her head.

She inexplicably shuddered. As her teeth clenched, an incomparable fury surged within her.