The Senior Student (female) Is Not Human - Chapter 2
Chapter 2: Lotus Flower
Ahhh, my Senior Sister Wife is okay, that’s great…
Jiang Xiyao was also thinking about how to find a quiet, secluded place to eat in peace.
She recalled the artificial lake at the foot of the campus hill. There was a corner that even dating couples avoided because it bordered a piece of abandoned, old school buildings.
Many of the school’s ghost stories originated in those derelict dorms.
But that was Jiang Xiyao’s favorite spot.
She could sense the figure who had failed to muster the courage to attack her in front of the muscular professor was now sticking to her like a shadow.
Despite being the one maliciously followed, Jiang Xiyao narrowed her eyes in pleasure and began to hum a tune.
“Jia-Senior Sister Jiang.”
A shy, timid girl suddenly appeared in front of her.
The girl briefly summoned the courage to look at her before lowering her head. With both hands, she offered a pink letter, nearly piously, toward Jiang Xiyao.
The perfume scent on the envelope was similar to the girl’s own, making Jiang Xiyao instinctively frown.
Even without hearing her heart-voice, just seeing the girl’s blushing ears and trembling eyes, she knew her charm was indiscriminately captivating women.
However, she only squinted at the girl’s new dress—an exact replica of her own—and curled her lips:
“Dolly the cloned sheep only lived for six years. How many years do you plan to live?”
As the girl who had confessed first turned pale with fright, Xie Shiwei, who had been secretly following behind a tree, instinctively pulled off a hairpin—it was the same style she had once seen the senior wear.
I’m done for, I’m done for.
The Senior Sister is straight, ahhh—
【I’m knocking my head against the wall for Senior Sister, and Senior Sister calls me a cloned sheep, boohoohoo.】
Hearing this inner monologue, Jiang Xiyao was surprised that this silently weeping girl still had the presence of mind to compose a rhyme.
She really didn’t enjoy hunting women.
Even though her existence naturally amplifies the malice and ill-will in others’ hearts, the women Jiang Xiyao encountered—with the exception of a very few jealous maniacs or those with extremely tragic backgrounds and abnormal thinking—were different.
Most female admirers, even if insulted or humiliated, usually left quietly. They wouldn’t, like men, become enraged and turn to murder because their self-esteem was bruised.
It really had to be men. Simple and delicious.
She walked past the failed confessor without looking, heading toward the lake.
Her slender figure paused beside the nearest lotus flower on the lake’s edge. Her pale green fingertips stretched out, missing the petals for the third time, when a rough hand suddenly snapped the stalk and offered the flower to her.
As the sound of splashing water echoed, Jiang Xiyao saw the boy who had been following her. He had waded into the lake’s mud without taking off his pants, his lower half submerged in the cold water. His gaze toward her was intense.
“Jiang Xiyao,” the boy’s eyes were bloodshot. “You said before that you’d date me.”
He tightly gripped the lotus flower and forcefully thrust it toward Jiang Xiyao.
Seeing the beauty didn’t take it, he brazenly shook the stalk. Pink and white petals fluttered down, nearly hitting her exquisite face: “You like flowers, don’t you? Take it, and date me!”
“Pfft.”
The reply was a light chuckle.
Jiang Xiyao lifted her elegant eyebrow: “No way? The flower was picked from the roadside, there’s no money involved, and the confession is an extortion? Which way do you sleep at night to have a beautiful dream about dating a beauty like me?”
Her dark eyes stared at the increasingly concentrated dark aura around the boy.
As an entity that feeds on human negative emotions, she realized she was only one step away from feeding—
Jiang Xiyao disdainfully glanced at the few sparse lotus petals left on the seedpod in his hand.
Her thin lips parted: “Ugly freak, pick nine lotuses.”
“H-Heh, heh-heh…”
The boy, whose rage was reignited, watched her turn around, then suddenly hurled the mangled flower. He grabbed her long black hair and forced her entire body under the water!
“I gave you a chance! Gold-digger! You still want my money! Die! Die!”
The beautiful face that bobbed up was repeatedly pushed back underwater. Was it the boy’s illusion? He felt that the face, which let out tiny bubbles from its seven orifices, maintained that same mocking smile on its lips, even as it drowned.
“Splash!”
When a loud crash echoed on the lake’s surface, Xie Shiwei was bent over tying her shoelaces.
The girl who had just been rejected by Senior Sister Jiang was crying so pitifully that Xie Shiwei couldn’t help but hand her a packet of tissues. She had just learned the girl was Tang Hui, a sophomore in the Media Department, who knew Jiang Xiyao through student union work.
“Senior Sister Tang, did you hear a… noise?”
The girl stood in front of her, blocking her view of the artificial lake, so Xie Shiwei could only look up and ask.
From Tang Hui’s angle, she could see the boy who had followed Jiang Xiyao with stubborn eyes. Hearing the question, he turned, looked down at the artificial lake from their elevated position.
The boy was bent over in the scorching sun, his back to them, seemingly fishing for something in the lake.
White lotus petals churned on the murky surface. For a split second, Tang Hui thought she saw ink-wash patterns on the edge of the floating petals, just like those on her own white skirt.
The graceful figure that should have been standing by the lake was nowhere to be seen.
A thought subconsciously surfaced in Tang Hui’s mind:
…Could Jiang Xiyao be in the water?
“Senior Sister Tang, what are you looking at?”
Xie Shiwei, having tied her shoelaces, moved to stand beside her, but Tang Hui suddenly turned and pushed her away: “Nothing!”
Tang Hui’s remaining rationality told her she should call for help and check the lake, but the memory of Jiang Xiyao’s mocking gaze brought an inexplicable feeling of satisfaction.
It serves her right for being blind and only liking men! Now she’s getting what she deserves!
Tang Hui looked intently at Xie Shiwei: “You saw it yourself. Jiang Xiyao isn’t interested in women. If you don’t want to be rejected like me, you should give up now.”
Xie Shiwei opened her mouth.
She knew, of course, that she would never have a chance.
She wasn’t bold enough to write a love letter like You Jiayi, nor confident enough to appear before the senior like Tang Hui. She didn’t even dare to show a hint of admiration for Jiang Xiyao on campus.
Because she feared her unsolicited affection would be a bother and an offense to Jiang Xiyao.
Xie Shiwei quietly explained: “Actually, I wanted to help my roommate deliver something to Senior Sister Jiang.”
What a poor lie.
Tang Hui, however, couldn’t be bothered to expose it: “Waiting here is useless. Jiang Xiyao probably took another route.”
Xie Shiwei: “Ah? There’s another route?”
“Yes. You’re new. You don’t know that old abandoned dorm area used to house Art students, right? Jiang Xiyao was assigned there when she enrolled. She’s familiar with that area, so it’s normal for her to know shortcuts.”
Tang Hui now hoped Jiang Xiyao would remain submerged in the water, undisturbed, for as long as possible. To prevent this simpleton from alerting the murderer, she took the initiative to lead her away:
“By the way, have you heard the legends about that abandoned school building? Come on, I’ll tell you about it as we walk?”
As Xie Shiwei unconsciously followed her, she only managed to cover her ears and close her eyes:
“No, Senior Sister, I’m terrified of horror stories!”
…
However, Xie Shiwei avoided Tang Hui’s campus urban legends but couldn’t escape the gossip that forced its way into her ears after class, work, and returning to the dorm:
“Did you hear?”
“Some guy in the Business department was found dead in bed by his roommate. He was completely pale, just like one of those plaster statues. His body was stiff when they called the police.”
“My God, is the story about the art department’s plaster statues wandering the school, looking for replacements, actually true?”
Xie Shiwei: “!”
She immediately covered her ears and loudly recited core societal values in her mind, trying to block out the conversation.
Until a hand suddenly reached out beside her, grabbed her collar, and pulled her toward the bottom bunk by her bed, forcefully tugging down one of her hands: “Hey.”
Xie Shiwei jumped in fright, her glasses hitting the bed frame and digging into the sides of her nose, instantly bringing tears to her eyes.
You Jiayi’s initially impatient expression softened somewhat as she saw Xie Shiwei’s slightly crooked glasses and her large, watery eyes: “My thing, did you deliver it?”
Xie Shiwei, rubbing the bridge of her nose, paused: “Ah…”
Seeing her reaction, You Jiayi knew her love letter had failed again: “What ‘ah’? Don’t tell me you had so many chances during class today and you still didn’t hand it over?”
Xie Shiwei managed to open her eyes and explain: “She arrived late before class, the teacher doesn’t take breaks, and I originally planned to follow her after class—”
But Senior Sister Tang’s confession interrupted me.
“Excuses.”
You Jiayi sat with her arms crossed inside her bed curtain, eyeing her: “You don’t want to help me at all, do you?”
Hmph.
She suspected Xie Shiwei was deliberately trying to sabotage her. As long as she didn’t deliver the love letter to Jiang Xiyao, she would remain single, and Xie Shiwei would always have a chance with her.
Tears still lingered in Xie Shiwei’s eyes, and even with her glasses on, her expression was unclear. She could only promise: “The next time I see her, I’ll definitely try harder.”
You Jiayi sneered: “You better.”
She leaned closer and whispered: “I’m telling you, my entire heart is set on Jiang Xiyao right now. I absolutely won’t consider anyone else.”
Xie Shiwei, however, nodded sagely. She understood, she completely empathized.
One shouldn’t meet someone too stunning in their youth. Having seen the peerless beauty of Senior Sister Jiang, how could one’s heart possibly accommodate anyone else?
…
Yet, Xie Shiwei didn’t expect the next chance to deliver You Jiayi’s love letter to come so quickly.
The next morning, someone suddenly knocked on the dorm door. The dorm supervisor and a female police officer stood outside.
“Is Classmate Xie Shiwei here?”
“Someone said you were the last person to see the deceased yesterday? Would you mind coming to the station with us to give a statement?”
Xie Shiwei looked bewildered.
The deceased? The closest she had ever come to that word was listening to a crime audiobook with her best friend.
It wasn’t until she was in the police car that she realized the pale, statue-like boy the dorm was talking about last night was the one who had been sitting next to Jiang Xiyao in the elective class.
She nervously clutched the boy’s small photo. After recounting her impression of him, she inquired with the female officer: “Senior Sister Jiang, is she… is she okay?”
Someone she saw in class yesterday died tonight. Would the senior be psychologically affected? They even had a small conflict before class. Would the senior be suspected by others because of this?
Worried and anxious, Xie Shiwei got out of the police car.
But the moment she stepped into the police station, her eyes suddenly lit up.
A figure was sitting by the window, draped in a thin blanket. The sunlight made her skin porcelain white and translucent. Even the cheap metal chairs visible everywhere seemed to be gilded with a shimmering gold edge just by being near her.
She held a hot drink in both hands. The slowly rising steam settled on her raven-like eyelashes.
People hurried to and fro in the police station, but she was removed from the busy chaos, possessing an air of ethereal detachment, as if she didn’t belong to this world.
In fact, Jiang Xiyao was recalling the process of giving her statement.
The officers asked her why she was always linked to victims who died in such bizarre ways.
She didn’t want this either—
Who told these useless people, in their mediocre shells, to only have that one delicious, vile emotion left?
After taking it all, these guys just ungracefully dropped dead.
She hadn’t even blamed the pig-demon for daring to put his filthy hands on her neck, forcing her to wash herself repeatedly afterward.
【The police station’s anti-vice operations must be routine, right? That one sitting in the corner… I wonder how much she…】
【So beautiful. I’ll secretly… later…】
Obscene heart-voices intermittently drifted into her mind.
Jiang Xiyao didn’t need to look up to feel those lecherous gazes. The police station’s righteous aura naturally suppressed the negative energy field, making it difficult for her to clearly hear the nasty words.
Yet, she was skilled at filling in the blanks for these perverts.
‘That one sitting in the corner has some looks. I wonder how much she charges per night?’
‘I’ll secretly corner her on a secluded path later.’
However, Jiang Xiyao had just finished eating and felt lazy and wanted to doze off right there.
She slowly closed her eyes.
【BANG—】
A loud noise, like a Windows 2000 startup sound, exploded in her mind.
A brown mouse emoji, wearing a diamond wedding tiara and a white wedding dress, was suddenly pasted right in front of her face in her mind.
Jiang Xiyao’s eyelids, which were about to close, sharply twitched. A slow “???” materialized for the Jerry emoji.
Then, the amplified, enormous heart-voice—broadcasted through the police station’s positive energy—exploded like a loudspeaker:
“AHHHH, MY SENIOR SISTER WIFE IS OKAY, THAT’S GREAT!”
“I don’t know why, but I automatically put on a wedding dress as soon as I walked into the police station door, hee hee.”
“For this occasion, I should request a song: ‘Good Day’ (Hǎo Rì Zǐ)”
As the festive, jubilant song with its crashing gongs and deafening cheers celebrated in her mind like a microphone feedback loop, Jiang Xiyao’s face darkened. She slowly lifted her head, determined to kill this shameless person who dared to create such terrifying noise, force her to listen to this corny song, and audaciously call her his wife!