The Senior Student (female) Is Not Human - Chapter 5

Chapter 5: The Silent Play

A noble pillow princess.

Xie Shiwei’s beautiful fantasy of flirting with the goddess was abruptly shaken awake by her friend.

When she groggily opened her eyes, she thought she heard the voice of the female police officer from the station again:

“It’s great to be young, huh? Just crash out anywhere.”

She blinked in confusion. She could only tell that the sky was bright, and a familiar presence nearby gently put her glasses on for her.

The world, and the close friend in front of her, came into clear focus.

“…Chuchu?”

Seeing her friend, Zhong Chuyao, who was supposed to be studying in a neighboring city, Xie Shiwei suddenly realized something and quickly looked around.

Beneath her was an air mattress incongruously spread out among the rubble. She was covered with a thin blanket.

In the background, the dilapidated walls and entrance of the abandoned old school building loomed like a dark, man-eating fissure. In contrast, her sleeping arrangement right in front of it looked casually like a wilderness camping trip.

Her friend, Zhong Chuyao, seeing this familiar scene, knew that Xie Shiwei had been scared into amnesia again.

“Yup,” Zhong Chuyao replied, yawning beside her. “At least this time you remembered to trigger the safety device before you fainted.”

The air mattress beneath the girl was a custom-made device by Zhong Chuyao for Xie Shiwei, who was prone to fainting anywhere.

Normally stored as a backpack, it would automatically inflate and spring open at a critical moment, protecting the unconscious person while simultaneously sending a location ping to Zhong Chuyao. It also had a live camera feed to film the environment around Xie Shiwei after she fainted.

Zhong Chuyao arrived late last night. After quickly reviewing the camera footage and seeing no abnormalities, she simply crashed out and slept beside her.

She knew Xie Shiwei was more timid than the average person—not suicidal—and fainted at the sight of bl00d, needles, or ghosts. But her luck was awful, always getting involved in uncanny situations.

So, she lazily asked, “I thought you were forced into some kind of club field trip, like a haunted house exploration. Why does it look like the others aren’t even from the same department?”

Xie Shiwei blinked.

She answered with perfect honesty: “An employer paid me a large sum to keep them company.”

Zhong Chuyao immediately knocked her on the head:

“Xie Shiwei, do you prioritize money over life, huh? Others can come, but don’t you know how timid you are? You used to faint just seeing a tree shadow when you were a kid—”

“This place is so remote! After you faint, running into a man is more terrifying than running into a ghost, you know that?!”

Xie Shiwei didn’t try to explain how she was fooled by a rich person’s tempting offer. She readily nodded and admitted her mistake:

“I’m sorry, I won’t let money blind me next time. It was my fault for making you rush over in the middle of the night for nothing.”

Of course, Xie Shiwei knew that one percent of the reason she was swayed by the money was her desire to see Jiang Xiyao.

She hadn’t dared tell Chuyao about her secret crush on the goddess, because her friend absolutely loathed anyone whose brain was filled with only romance.

Zhong Chuyao’s anger subsided at Xie Shiwei’s pitiful apology: “Who said it was for nothing? I was already planning to come see you these past two days anyway. It just happened to work out, didn’t it?”

Besides—

She couldn’t completely fault Xie Shiwei for being tempted by money.

For everyone else, college was the start of a happy life, but Xie Shiwei’s most beloved family member had passed away suddenly. Unwilling to give up the home they shared, she not only had to work to save up for tuition but was also burdened with a mortgage much earlier than her peers.

Yet, Xie Shiwei was always optimistic: “Tsk, if I can’t pay the loan one day and jump off the roof, I’ll still have saved everyone a few decades of detours.”

She was like that now, too. Hearing Zhong Chuyao’s suggestion to hang out, Xie Shiwei began rolling up the air mattress while replying:

“Yay! I found a few clean, good-tasting restaurants with nice ingredients while delivering food. Let me check my class schedule first—”

While reaching for her phone, Xie Shiwei curiously looked around and realized the female police officer’s voice she thought she heard wasn’t a delusion.

“Why are the police here, too?”

Zhong Chuyao casually answered: “Someone died.”

At this, she was glad for Xie Shiwei’s cowardice again. It was good she didn’t follow them into the abandoned school building last night. That place was so full of negative energy it was still appearing as dense black mist in her eyes.

Zhong Chuyao actually had a family tradition of metaphysical knowledge, but she never showed it to Xie Shiwei. For her friend, she was a staunch materialist.

There was no helping it. Xie Shiwei was already paranoid enough. If she knew about the existence of other entities in the world, she’d scare herself to death eventually.

“Who?” Xie Shiwei asked quickly, then inwardly cursed her poor memory. Weren’t the police asking about that dead management student yesterday?

Zhong Chuyao’s memory was excellent. She gave the name: “Tang Hui.”

“Clatter!”

Xie Shiwei’s phone dropped to the ground.

She suspected she heard wrong: “Who did you say?”

Zhong Chuyao had already finished giving her statement to the police with the video evidence before Xie Shiwei woke up, clearing her of suspicion.

Seeing her so surprised now: “What is it, you know her?”

Xie Shiwei said “She’s the boss who paid me,” but her body instantly snapped to attention. She scanned the crowd, frantically searching for Jiang Xiyao’s figure.

Her thoughts were in a mess.

How could such a good person like Tang Hui die? What exactly happened last night? Did some boy, jealous of a love rival, hurt her? What about Senior Sister Jiang? Is she okay?

In the distance, Jiang Xiyao, surrounded by police, couldn’t help but roll her eyes when she heard that distinctly chirpy heart-voice.

She would never forget the shameful sight of the little pervert letting out an “Ah!” and fainting the moment Tang Hui finally turned on the flashlight and the beam hit the old school building—

But Jiang Xiyao had already lost interest in shaking or scaring her awake.

Because she never wanted to hear those disgusting inner monologues again, the ones that made her want to open her skull and pour a bottle of dish soap inside to cleanse her brain.

【It’s great! It’s great that Senior Sister Jiang is okay! Woohoo, I knew it! For my wife to have such a poisonous mouth and still survive until today, she must be tough as nails!】

Jiang Xiyao, who actually died again last night: “…”

【It’s just that my wife seems to be as unlucky as me, encountering deaths one after another recently. Sigh, I wonder if she’ll be psychologically traumatized.】

Xie Shiwei’s self-pitying concern was suddenly interrupted by Zhong Chuyao: “Weiwei, who are you looking for?”

She instinctively adjusted her glasses, using the reflected light from the lenses to hide the bright shine in her eyes.

Her voice, when answering her friend, was nonchalant:

“There was another senior sister who was with us yesterday. We were three girls. I have you with me, but Senior Sister Tang died. I’m worried she might be in danger too.”

Zhong Chuyao naturally remembered that person.

Not only because of the swarm of admirers around her, but because she couldn’t clearly see the person’s appearance herself. She only saw an incredibly dense mass of qi (energy), thick like black ink, yet also radiating strands of golden light.

Black was karma, gold was merit. Zhong Chuyao recognized them individually, but such terrifying karma wrapped around such dazzling merit…

To be honest, it baffled her.

Zhong Chuyao still didn’t want to look at that bizarre entity again, nor did she want her unlucky and timid friend to get close to such a thing.

“She doesn’t need your worry,” she answered vaguely after a long pause.

Xie Shiwei glanced at the suitors currently fawning over Jiang Xiyao: “You’re right.”

So many people like Senior Sister Jiang, who am I to matter?

Zhong Chuyao emphasized her next words, looking at her friend in warning:

“Weiwei, you know I’m a good judge of character. You need to stay far away from her.”

Xie Shiwei was quiet for two seconds, then nodded and said okay.

【How could I ever be worthy of getting close to Senior Sister Jiang? The people pursuing her are handsome guys and beautiful girls, driving luxury cars to take her out, ordering food from five-star restaurants. I’m poor and ugly, what right do I have to approach her?】

【But it’s okay! No one knows I have a crush on Senior Sister. I’m the kind of person who doesn’t even keep a crush diary or talk in my sleep. I guarantee I’ll keep this beautiful secret crush hidden in my grave a hundred years from now!】

【It’s a good thing I chose this university to stay close to home! Even though Senior Sister is a junior and I’m a freshman, just being able to see her on campus for these two years makes me the happiest little girl!】

【Let this secret crush be my own silent play!】

Jiang Xiyao, who was surrounded by her admirers, was listening to their familiar, hot gazes filled with ugly desires.

But her mind was being deafeningly drowned out by a certain person’s silent play.

She suddenly remembered Tang Hui from last night.

Her eyes were filled with madness and possessiveness, as she relentlessly closed in and questioned:

“When I turned on the light, why were you standing in front of that junior sister? Jiang Xiyao, you’re not interested in ugly people, are you? I know! You wanted to deliberately make me jealous, right?”

“Even though it’s a despicable tactic, I’m willing to fall for it for you. But besides her, why did you choose another boy in front of me when we re-grouped for the exploration?”

“Why are you always so greedy? Isn’t just me enough for you? Am I not good enough for you? What does it take to make you belong only to me?”

Pushed onto the rubble, feeling the sharp stones dig into the back of her head, Jiang Xiyao looked at Tang Hui’s face. Where was the shy, blushing look she had when handing over the love letter?

“You’re not allowed to refuse me! Don’t you dare speak! No, no, no! You can only be mine, mine, mine—”

Humans are all the same.

No matter how beautiful their initial affection, it ultimately couldn’t withstand the ugly desires that surfaced around her.

Jiang Xiyao apathetically lowered her eyes, thinking: Xie Shiwei’s initial state is just lasting a little longer than Tang Hui’s.

She can’t possibly be the exception that defies human nature.

At the same time.

Xie Shiwei and her friend happened to walk past the crowd and saw Jiang Xiyao dumping a box of melted salmon on a suitor.

The beauty was commanding him to take the un-fresh garbage to feed the dogs, while fastidiously wiping her jade-like, long fingers with a handkerchief.

【Sigh, my beautiful wife’s temper is still so explosive. I can tell she’ll be a noble pillow princess later on.】

【It’s a shame, she has such long, straight hands, but they won’t be put to use, oh well.】

Jiang Xiyao’s movement of wiping her fingers paused.

The first part, she could still sense the sarcasm in the word “princess.”

But what did she mean by saying her hands wouldn’t be put to use?