The Senior Student (female) Is Not Human - Chapter 22
Chapter 22: Comfort
The first one to be entranced was Jiang Xiyao…
“Jiang Xi… Yao?”
Jiang Xiyao, standing outside the restroom, didn’t move for an unknown amount of time. It wasn’t until a tightly closed office iron door next to her opened and a man walked out, calling her name tentatively and with delight.
However, when her black eyes slightly shifted and turned towards him, she saw his expression suddenly change…
“M-monster?!”
Reflected in her still black pupils was his panicked, heavy-breathing, and frantic retreat.
Jiang Xiyao, however, wore her usual faint smile, looking confused: “What are you talking about?”
Is he blind? How dare he use such an ugly word to describe her beautiful face?
Her elegant embroidered shoes moved gently, approaching him slowly.
The man, his legs weak with fear, had collapsed onto the floor. His black leather shoes scraped backward, only managing to push him desperately into a corner with nowhere left to go. He waved his hands frantically in rejection, screaming almost brokenly:
“No! Stay away! Don’t come near me! You monster—!”
Jiang Xiyao sneered as she drew closer: “You ugly thing that couldn’t even die from rat poison, I’m being nice by not calling you a rat spirit. How dare you insult my flawless face…”
Her proud voice abruptly cut off.
Jiang Xiyao, inches from her hideous prey, finally saw her own reflection clearly in his wide, turbid eyes.
Her facial skin was still snow-white and flawless—willow brows, dark eyes, and crimson lips. But at the red mole beneath her lip, it was as if an East African Rift Valley had suddenly appeared on a snowfield.
Ugly cracks spread outward, splitting from her jaw down to her neck, extending beneath her collar.
Beneath the cracks, something flowed, shimmering with a faint golden-red.
It was like magma beneath the earth’s surface.
The heart hidden deep within the magma, beating rapidly for an unknown reason, caused this patch of golden-red, which should have been dormant, to live and breathe, dangerously tearing more fissures into her cheek.
The thin layer of human skin covering her was like wax exposed to high temperatures, about to melt.
Jiang Xiyao realized belatedly:
Turns out, her skin was about to collapse.
“Ah—!!”
When the terrifying shriek sounded, Xie Shiwei, still hiding in the restroom, trembled again.
Even though the black figure that had rushed into the restroom earlier had been lying motionless on the floor for a long time, she was still afraid of encountering more of Jiang Xiyao’s extreme fans.
She had suspected that the person standing outside the door for a long time was an accomplice of this one.
Fortunately, that “accomplice” changed her mind, believed her words, and didn’t regard her as a love rival.
Xie Shiwei became more determined. She would wear the phrase “I don’t love Jiang Xiyao” as a shield on her forehead, yelling it at every suspected fanatic intruder as her immunity pass.
Soon, a new block of color entered her field of vision.
Xie Shiwei took a deep breath, about to speak, when she heard an incomparably worried voice:
“…J-junior? Oh my god, are you alright?! What happened?”
She froze, then let out a huge sigh of relief: “Sister Le!”
Le Qiong’s gentle, comforting voice traveled across the distance: “Are you hurt? Don’t move rashly. I’m calling the police and an ambulance first, don’t be afraid.”
Xie Shiwei’s tightly wound nerves finally relaxed. The composure she had feigned when facing danger just moments ago vanished instantly under this gentle, salvation-like voice.
Her eyes couldn’t help but redden, yet she nodded obediently:
“I’m fine, Sister, I’m not hurt. I just… my glasses seem to be broken.”
“If it’s not too much trouble, could you help me look for where my glasses fell? They… they are very important to me.”
Le Qiong eagerly agreed.
Her mouth spoke warm words of reassurance, telling her not to worry or be afraid, but her expression remained utterly indifferent.
She had absolutely no intention of stepping into the restroom and dirtying her shoes.
She finished her calls outside the door, and before the police and paramedics arrived, she calmly observed the scene inside the restroom.
Ever since Jiang Xiyao came to this school, her unparalleled ‘femme fatale’ quality had led her admirers to use increasingly extreme measures to attract her attention and eliminate rivals.
Le Qiong looked at the frightening amount of bl00d on the floor and couldn’t help but feel a chill of fear, thanking her stars that she had always been cautious around Jiang Xiyao. Otherwise, the person who ran into this today would probably be her.
But.
Xie Shiwei didn’t look like she had any athletic skills. How did she avoid being injured when facing such a muscular assailant with a weapon?
Le Qiong rubbed her chin, her gaze scanning Xie Shiwei’s body repeatedly, unable to find any clues. She decided to pump her for information later, but her focus suddenly settled on the vulnerable expression on Xie Shiwei’s face.
…Why hadn’t she noticed before that this junior was actually the pure and innocent type?
After taking off those overly large glasses, even with her thick, bowl-cut bangs, the exposed eyes, nose, and lips were surprisingly attractive.
Le Qiong instantly felt a sense of crisis.
If Xie Shiwei went to a salon for a more normal haircut and changed out of her faded, ill-fitting, and deformed clothes…
She suddenly remembered.
Stage performances require costumes. If Xie Shiwei, with this appearance, wore makeup and a dress, standing right next to her—
No.
She absolutely could not allow Xie Shiwei to go on stage.
Although Le Qiong was very confident in her own looks and demeanor, she did not want the slightest mishap in her final stunning stage appearance at the school.
While she was lost in thought, the noisy police sirens and ambulance horns drew closer.
This finally alerted the teachers who had been brazenly hiding behind soundproof doors in this activity building, enjoying the air conditioning.
Le Qiong seized the opportunity. She only walked over and collected the black glasses for Xie Shiwei when a female officer was inspecting the scene and asking about them.
She listened nearby as the timid girl awkwardly explained, “I don’t know what happened,” “I was washing my face when he rushed in,” and “He screamed and scared me,” and so on.
Le Qiong carelessly swung the glasses between her fingers.
She was surprised to learn that Xie Shiwei had somehow, by extreme good fortune, dodged the attack thanks to the assailant suddenly going crazy and self-destructing, and then unluckily being hit by a suddenly falling, old light fixture.
Le Qiong was so astonished by this detail that she accidentally flicked the glasses away.
“Clink!”
Extremely sensitive to the sound of her glasses dropping, Xie Shiwei looked over with her bright, clear eyes.
Le Qiong’s heart skipped a beat.
Despite knowing from the police report that Xie Shiwei had a very high degree of myopia and probably couldn’t see her actions clearly, she still felt a little guilty and walked over to pick up the glasses.
The lenses already had spiderweb-like cracks.
The temple arm also seemed slightly bent.
But Le Qiong pretended not to notice. When Xie Shiwei finished her statement and looked around helplessly, calling out softly, “Sister Le,” she walked over and thrust the glasses into her hand:
“I checked for you, they were already broken in the restroom.”
Le Qiong lied without batting an eye: “I was looking up where you could get them fixed nearby.”
But Xie Shiwei wasn’t fooled.
Her fingers traced the frame carefully. Having long known every detail of these glasses by heart, she quickly felt a dent from the fall.
And, the no-longer-smooth lenses.
She took a deep breath, trying hard to muster a not-so-forced smile. As she took out her glasses cloth to wipe them, she didn’t forget to comfort Le Qiong:
“It’s okay, thank you for finding them for me, Sister. You’ve worked hard.”
Le Qiong looked at her smile, which was on the verge of tears.
She just found it annoying.
—What’s with the pretense of pity? Is she trying to make others think I’m bullying her with that expression?
Le Qiong, an expert in using this trick, realized for the first time that an overly pitiful act could be quite irritating.
She turned her face away, answering casually: “It’s nothing.”
After a pause, she didn’t forget to add: “There’s such a huge commotion, and Jiang Xiyao still hasn’t come out to check. If it weren’t for her, you wouldn’t have run into this, and your glasses wouldn’t have been smashed.”
Xie Shiwei paused her wiping motion.
Thinking of that bright, mesmerizing yet delicate flower, a smile involuntarily curved her lips.
She replied softly: “Sister Jiang must be scared too, right?”
After all, it wasn’t Jiang Xiyao who made these people so terrifying.
Moreover, recalling the horrific scene in the restroom just now, Xie Shiwei inexplicably felt a surge of relief that Sister Jiang hadn’t encountered this.
Otherwise, Sister Jiang would definitely be terrified, wouldn’t she?
Le Qiong choked on her absurd answer.
Scared? Does Jiang Xiyao even have that emotion?
Le Qiong finally understood how incredibly blind Xie Shiwei was.
After a moment of silence, she looked back at the activity building. It was still daylight, but Le Qiong felt that the building was full of treacherous danger. Having taken the day off from rehearsal, she wasn’t keen on going back.
So, she extended her hand to Xie Shiwei: “In your current state, doing anything must be inconvenient. Give me the glasses. Wait for me here, I’ll go get them fixed for you.”
Xie Shiwei, overwhelmed, waved her hands repeatedly: “N-no, it’s fine. I can wear them like this. I have a shop I know. I can go myself. Sister, you’ve already helped me so much.”
Le Qiong didn’t give her a chance to refuse.
She took the freshly wiped glasses from Xie Shiwei’s palm and left, not forgetting to instruct:
“Wait for me here, don’t wander off.”
Xie Shiwei watched the block of color representing Le Qiong run out of her range of recognition.
The world once again became a multitude of hazy, blurred colors. She sat on the flower bed outside the activity building, but couldn’t move, like a lone soul forgotten by time.
Xie Shiwei heard countless people passing by, and the ringing of bicycle bells, but still, not a single person noticed her or approached her.
Until dusk fell, and even the light in the world gradually dimmed.
The degree of her myopia, which made her almost sightless, made Xie Shiwei feel momentarily as if she had also been hacked off at the hands and legs. She had only lost her glasses, yet she couldn’t go anywhere.
And her phone, which she clutched like a lifeline, hadn’t received even a single spam call during these few hours.
Unable to ask anyone for help, she gradually sank into despair in the darkness, feeling as though she had been condemned to an endless prison sentence.
The activity building was in a secluded corner of the school. There used to be graduate student dorms nearby, but after a better building was constructed, the graduate students all moved, leaving this area only for the recreational use of school staff.
But the staff dorms weren’t nearby, and those who liked exercise preferred the track and the newly built gym.
This increasingly desolate area, much like the corner of the artificial lake, had fewer and fewer lights turned on each year.
As the world completely plunged into silence and darkness—
A bright red appeared silently before her eyes.
Survival instinct overcame everything else. The girl was startled at first, then tentatively reached out her hand.
When the cold silk fabric was clutched in her hand, tears suddenly started falling, pitter-patter.
“Is, is that Sister Jiang?”
In such a silent place, the appearance of such an eerie red should have made Xie Shiwei faint from the terrifying stories her mind concocted.
But when she touched the expensive cloth, her agitated heart suddenly calmed down. Only Jiang Xiyao would wear such costly, fine material.
Xie Shiwei had originally decided to stay away from Jiang Xiyao to avoid further misfortune, and to try to break her addiction to her, but now all those thoughts were thrown to the wind.
She clutched the fabric tightly, sobbing and pouring out her story:
“M-my glasses are broken, Sister Le said she’d take them to be fixed, but she hasn’t come back…”
“I can’t see, I don’t dare to wander around, woo woo woo, thank goodness you didn’t leave, Sister Jiang… I’m so scared, woo woo, it’s so dark here… I don’t know how to get back to my department or my dorm…”
As if disgusted by her noisy, illogical crying, or perhaps her presumptuous actions.
The fabric in her palm ruthlessly prepared to pull away.
Xie Shiwei panicked instantly, grabbing tighter with both hands: “Don’t leave me, please—”
“Sister Jiang, please, don’t go, don’t leave me alone…”
The pitch-black night couldn’t obstruct Jiang Xiyao’s vision.
She watched the tear-streaked face indifferently, listening as that mouth spoke yet another sweet, dependent word of endearment for her.
Lying again.
Jiang Xiyao thought of the crisis in the afternoon when she nearly exposed herself and showed her true form. She glared at this prey, who was supposed to be slowly corrupted to provide her with exquisitely delicious emotions, but who had, today, caused her to lose control of her own emotions.
This is wrong.
She thought she should still kill Xie Shiwei.
Not only did she fail to become delicious and appealing, but she also—whether intentionally or not—repeatedly deceived and played with her, using her ability to hear the prey’s inner voice, which kept her attention confused.
A being that made her so angry should, indeed, be killed by her own hands.
Now was the perfect time.
The stupid Buddha beads she self-righteously wore just happened to block the prey’s noisy inner voice, which always blurred her focus.
Jiang Xiyao extended her hand. Her cold palm cupped the delicate, slender neck. Feeling the futile beating of the human pulse in her palm, she smiled pleasurably.
She should have done this a long time ago.
That night at the Tang family funeral, when they hid together in the closet, she should have killed Xie Shiwei, this unexpected anomaly.
Fortunately, it wasn’t too late now.
Jiang Xiyao’s gaze dropped from the tear-stained face to the collar of the girl’s shirt. She thought casually, after she strangled her, she should slice open her chest, remove her heart and liver, and stuff them into her own skin—
Perhaps that way, she might inherit Xie Shiwei’s excellent talent for lying?
After all.
The “love” spoken from this mouth had almost even deceived her.
She was supposed to be the one who was best at enchanting people with words.
Her fingernails elongated dangerously with her murderous intent. The force gripping the girl’s neck slowly tightened.
At the same time.
The Buddha beads on Xie Shiwei’s wrist glowed golden in a reactive response. The gold light shone warningly bright.
Jiang Xiyao provocatively curved her lips at the Buddha beads. She wanted to see if her killing speed was faster, or if this useless thing could successfully exorcise her faster?
Just as her palm mercilessly contracted.
“Drip, drop, drip, drop…”
Hot tears flowed down the sharp chin, onto her hand, her wrist, and then fell to the ground, blooming into small flowers in the dirt.
Another portion gathered in the hollow of the girl’s collarbone, like a pool of clear spring water.
Though Xie Shiwei didn’t know why Jiang Xiyao was angry, she knew that she was the only lifeline she could cling to right now.
Afraid of the dark, and afraid of being abandoned here, the girl was utterly pathetic. She cupped Jiang Xiyao’s wrist with her hands, her cheeks and nose red from crying, desperately using her one-and-only praised advantage to hold onto her:
“S-Sister, do I look pretty when I cry?”
“I-I’ll try hard to cry, I’ll be good, don’t abandon me, take me with you, okay, is that okay?”
Though she didn’t know why Sister Jiang’s movement to push her away had landed on her neck.
But the moment she sensed the force slacken, Xie Shiwei hurriedly presented her face into that palm.
Think, you blockhead, think! That pose from TV shows, looking up from below, with bright, soulful eyes, quickly strike the pose! You must use your perfect crying face to keep Sister Jiang here!
Jiang Xiyao lowered her eyes, looking at her clumsy, awkward movements, and the blank, staring gaze that came from being unable to see anything.
Stupid.
She had absolutely no idea how to seduce someone.
Having always been the one to confuse her prey with looks, Jiang Xiyao, who was now being confused by her prey for the first time, could expressionlessly raise one “zero points” sign after another for Xie Shiwei in her mind.
Wrong angle, wrong gaze, stiff movements, wooden expression.
She was full of flaws.
Yet, just by looking at the clear tears streaming down this face, Jiang Xiyao was reminded of a crabapple tree after the rain, and red plums after the snow.
The dangerous palm that should have closed tightly simply caught the crying face, like catching a fledgling bird in her hand. Even a single sharp fingernail instinctively retracted outward when Xie Shiwei clumsily pressed against her.
Jiang Xiyao found that in this moment, she had lost the strength to kill her.
In fact.
She had always believed that the eventual relationship between them would be Xie Shiwei finally unable to resist her enchantment, gradually falling and sinking, offering all her extreme evil emotions for her to consume.
But Jiang Xiyao had never anticipated—
The one who would be enchanted first, would be herself.
She, who had previously used wicked threats to force Xie Shiwei to cry, now found herself automatically shedding those terrible emotions simply by seeing Xie Shiwei’s tears.
As if she was being comforted by this human’s tears.
Even though Xie Shiwei repeatedly bothered her with her inner voice, sweetly whispering “I love her” in her heart, only to turn around and tell others she didn’t, and now even escalating to openly deceiving her with words.
But.
Just by crying a little, Jiang Xiyao couldn’t bear to kill her anymore.