The sound of water in the bathroom ceased.
A hazy mist of steam, carrying the overly sweet scent of lingering shower gel, subtly escaped from under the door.
Qing Xinxue stood by the door, resembling a delicate porcelain artifact, meticulously cleaned and now anxiously awaiting its owner’s appraisal.
Her newly changed pajamas, slightly too large, made her appear even more slender and fragile.
Water continuously dripped from her damp hair, spreading a small, dark wet stain around her feet. She dared not raise her head, her gaze fixed firmly on the gaps in the floorboards.
Her fingers nervously twisted the hem of her sleepwear, almost tearing it apart.
The living room remained unlit, save for a thin sliver of moonlight piercing through the curtain’s gap.
It barely outlined Lan Yucheng’s form, sunken deep into the sofa. She sat in silent stillness, as if completely absorbed by the deliberately crafted gloom.
From her emanated a chilling sense of oppression, far more unsettling than any mere reprimand.
“Come here.”
Just two words, spoken without a raised tone, yet they felt like barbed silk threads precisely coiling around Qing Xinxue’s ankles, slowly dragging her forward.
She shuffled to the front of the sofa, a child awaiting judgment for a grave mistake. Head bowed, her breathing was barely perceptible, fearing to disturb the dangerous tranquility.
Lan Yucheng finally stirred, patting the empty space beside her. The leather of the sofa emitted a faint rustling sound.
“Sit.”
Qing Xinxue cautiously sat down, her body rigid, daring only to perch on the very edge. She desperately tried to widen the minuscule distance between them.
However, a cool hand unexpectedly covered her own, which was clenched into a fist on her lap. The icy touch made her flinch violently, instinctively wanting to pull away.
Instead, her hand was gripped more firmly, a slight pressure even registering on her knuckles.
“Don’t move.”
The command was brief and brooked no argument. Qing Xinxue instantly abandoned any thought of resistance, allowing her hand to be spread out like a specimen, resting within the other’s cool palm.
Lan Yucheng’s fingers began a slow exploration. They meticulously traced from Qing Xinxue’s slender fingertips, over her palm, which was slightly damp with nervous perspiration, and finally, settled on the faint, yet to Lan Yucheng’s eyes, startlingly clear old mark on her wrist—the lingering trace of a silk scarf’s binding.
Her touch carried a calm scrutiny, an almost cruel playfulness. Each inch her fingertips grazed over Qing Xinxue’s skin ignited an uncontrollable shiver, a potent mix of fear and shame.
“Your hand is so cold…” Lan Yucheng’s voice, low and husky, resonated in the dimness, like a serpent’s tongue flicking against an eardrum. “Didn’t you adjust the bathwater to be warm enough?”
Her fingertips seemed to idly graze the most sensitive flesh of Qing Xinxue’s palm.
Qing Xinxue’s face flushed crimson, her heart pounding like a drum. This intimacy, once so ardently desired, now felt like the most unbearable torture under Lan Yucheng’s icy gaze.
She couldn’t decipher what Senior Yu was planning; this unknown punishment instilled a greater terror than direct violence.
“Warm… it was warm…” Her voice trembled, almost a whimper, her body taut as a drawn bowstring.
“Is that so?” Lan Yucheng chuckled softly, her breath caressing Qing Xinxue’s earlobe. “Yet I feel, deep down, you’re still cold.”
No sooner had the words left her lips than her fingers began to glide, incredibly slowly and steadfastly, up the inside of Qing Xinxue’s arm.
The thin fabric of the pajamas offered no resistance. That cool, distinct touch, like an awakened snake, coiled and ascended her skin, bringing with it a chilling itch and a bone-deep coldness.
Qing Xinxue gasped sharply, her muscles instantly tensing, her breathing completely disordered. She wanted to dodge, to scream, to push away this suffocating ordeal, but her body was pinned in place by immense fear and years of absolute obedience to ‘Senior Yu.’
She could only bite down hard on her lower lip, until the faint taste of iron filled her mouth, enduring this sweet yet terrifying torment.
“Are you afraid?” Lan Yucheng’s breath drew closer, almost touching her earlobe, the warmth and coolness forming an eerie contrast.
Qing Xinxue recoiled like a startled rabbit, tears finally cascading. She frantically shook her head, then nodded wildly, babbling incoherently: “I… I don’t know… Senior Yu… talk… talk about what? What exactly do you want to talk to me about?!”
She finally voiced the question that had hung over her since she was woken, pushing her to the brink of collapse.
Lan Yucheng’s movements ceased abruptly.
The hand that had been roving on her arm withdrew, returning to cover her hand, this time with increased force, conveying an inescapable sense of control.
In the dim light, Lan Yucheng gazed into Qing Xinxue’s tear-streaked eyes, wide with terror. The obsessive madness that had once resided there was utterly shattered, leaving only raw vulnerability and bewilderment, like battered butterfly wings after a storm.
‘Excellent.’
‘This is precisely the effect I desired—to utterly crush her twisted attachment, then reshape it according to my will.’
“Talk about what?” Lan Yucheng echoed, her tone as flat as if discussing the weather, yet it held the calm before a tempest. “Talk about us.”
She paused deliberately, savoring Qing Xinxue’s sudden cessation of breath and widened pupils. Then, word by word, clear and slow, she dropped the bomb:
“Qing Xinxue, I like you.”
Boom—!
The world seemed to explode in Qing Xinxue’s ears. Her pupils constricted violently, her mind a blank, almost suffocating.
Ecstasy, in a destructive surge, swept over her, instantly overwhelming all fear and unease! Senior Yu said… she liked her? In this situation? In this manner?
A colossal wave of happiness left her dizzy, tears gushing forth like a broken dam—this time, hot tears of unbelievable joy.
“Rea… really? Senior Yu? You… you like me?” Her voice trembled uncontrollably as she eagerly lunged forward, grabbing Lan Yucheng’s arm, like a drowning person clutching a piece of driftwood.
“Mm.” Lan Yucheng’s response was soft and affirming. She even raised a hand, gently wiping away Qing Xinxue’s tear stains with her thumb, a gesture imbued with an unprecedented, heartbreaking tenderness.
This drop of gentleness became the final straw. Qing Xinxue completely broke down, burying herself in Lan Yucheng’s embrace, holding her with all her might, sobbing uncontrollably as if to release all the grievances, fears, and surging love of the moment.
“I like you too! Senior Yu! I like you the most! The most in the whole world! I’d die without you! I really, really love you!” She babbled incoherently, crying until she was breathless.
Lan Yucheng allowed her to cling, neither pushing her away nor responding. Her hand rested lightly on Qing Xinxue’s trembling back, patting sporadically, as if to soothe, but more like calmly waiting for the storm to pass.
Only when Qing Xinxue’s wailing subsided into intermittent sobs, her emotions somewhat appeased, yet her arms still wrapped around Lan Yucheng like vines, did Lan Yucheng speak again.
Her voice remained calm, yet it was like a cold surgical blade, precisely cutting into the freshly healing wound.
“But, Xiaoxue,” she said softly, with a hint of perfectly calibrated distress, “your liking for me… it suffocates me.”
Qing Xinxue’s body instantly stiffened.
“You’re too clingy.” Lan Yucheng continued her statement, her tone objectively cruel. “Your world is so small it can only contain me, and that… makes me feel suffocated.”
“I’ll change! Senior Yu, I can change!” Qing Xinxue urgently looked up, her tear-filled eyes pleading. “I won’t cling to you so much! I’ll give you space! I…”
“How will you change?” Lan Yucheng interrupted, her deep gaze locking onto her. “Just like before, I merely exchanged a few words with an insignificant person, and you nearly destroyed everything. If…”
She deliberately drew out her words, each one like a heavy hammer striking Qing Xinxue’s heart. “If I needed more… time and space for myself? Or, if I occasionally wondered… what it might feel like to interact with others?”
Qing Xinxue’s breathing instantly quickened, her arms around Lan Yucheng tightening. The shadow of madness that had just receded from her eyes condensed once more.
“No… impossible… you promised me… you said you liked me… you can’t…”
“I do like you.” Lan Yucheng affirmed, then swiftly changed tack, with a cruel probing. “But liking someone doesn’t mean I’m your private property, forced to live in a cage woven by your possessiveness. Perhaps… I should also have the opportunity… to experience other possibilities? For instance…”
She paused intentionally, relishing Qing Xinxue’s suddenly constricted pupils and ashen face. Then, she dropped the ultimate bomb, capable of shattering everything:
“…trying to date someone else?”
The air instantly froze!
All color drained from Qing Xinxue’s face, her lips turning ashen. She looked as if her soul had been instantly drained, stiffening in place.
Only her eyes, with astonishing speed, were swallowed by the densest, darkest madness.
“Im… pos… sible…” she rasped, her voice seemingly from the abyss.
The next second—
“Ah—!!!!”
A shrill, inhuman scream tore through the night’s tranquility! Qing Xinxue, like a bomb utterly detonated, sprang from Lan Yucheng’s embrace.
Her eyes bloodshot, her face contorted like a malevolent spirit, she lunged at Lan Yucheng with destructive madness, her hands clamping like iron pincers around her neck!
“You’re mine! You can only be mine! I’ll kill anyone who dares touch you! Don’t even think about it! Don’t even think about it!!!” she shrieked hysterically, her strength terrifying, instantly pinning Lan Yucheng deeply into the sofa. Her nails seemed poised to dig into flesh!
Suffocation surged, and her vision began to blur.
However, Lan Yucheng, despite being at an absolute disadvantage, showed no hint of panic. She didn’t even struggle, merely gazing calmly at the distorted face above her, twisted by extreme madness.
Deep within her eyes, a glimmer of icy composure, of a plan’s success, flickered.
This complete eruption was precisely what she had been waiting for.
On the verge of consciousness being swallowed by darkness, she used her last vestiges of strength to squeeze out broken words from her constricted throat, clear as falling icicles:
“If… you… dare… to… do this… again…”
“…I… will… disappear… forever.”
“Forever.”
“…”
The word “forever,” like an ultimate spell, instantly froze all of Qing Xinxue’s movements and madness.
‘Disappear… forever?’
A judgment more terrifying than death itself!
She looked into Lan Yucheng’s eyes beneath her—eyes so calm they were almost ethereal, even holding a faint, mocking glint. That gaze seemed to say: ‘See, you can never control your own desires.’
A massive, overwhelming fear instantly drowned out the furious rage. She released her grip as if burned by a hot iron, stumbling backward from Lan Yucheng and collapsing heavily onto the cold carpet.
“No… don’t… Senior Yu… don’t disappear… I was wrong… I was truly wrong…” She cried brokenly, clutching her head with both hands, her body curled into a small, violently trembling ball. “I won’t touch you… I won’t dare again… please don’t disappear… I can’t live without you… I can’t…”
The dark desire to eternally imprison her, to possess everything, was utterly shattered and annihilated before the ultimate threat of “disappearing forever.”
Lan Yucheng slowly sat up, rubbing the distinct finger marks on her neck. She coldly observed Qing Xinxue, who was utterly broken on the floor.
She knew the decisive moment had arrived.
She stood up and walked to the huddled Qing Xinxue, her shadow completely enveloping her.
The crying softened, leaving only desperate whimpers. Qing Xinxue looked up, her tear-filled eyes gazing at Lan Yucheng, who stood backlit, as if looking up at a deity who held her life and death in their hands.
Lan Yucheng slowly knelt, meeting her gaze.
No comfort, no touch.
She simply extended a single finger, using its tip to gently lift Qing Xinxue’s tear-stained chin, forcing her to look directly into her own unfathomably deep eyes.
“Do you know you were wrong?” Her voice was chillingly clear, without a ripple of emotion.
Qing Xinxue nodded frantically, tears gushing even more fiercely.
“Can you change?”
“Yes! I can! I will definitely change!” Qing Xinxue grabbed Lan Yucheng’s pant leg, like a drowning person clutching a lifeline, urgently pledging.
“How will you change?” Lan Yucheng pressed relentlessly, her gaze like a torch. “Next time you see me interacting with others, next time you feel uneasy, what will you do? Pounce on me and try to kill me like today? Or secretly plan something more cruel? Or… simply lock me away?”
Each question was like a whip lashing Qing Xinxue’s heart. Her face was ashen, and she shook her head wildly. “No! None of that! I… I’ll hold back… I’ll be good… I won’t hurt you, I won’t hurt anyone… I swear!”
“Hold back?” Lan Yucheng slightly raised an eyebrow, injecting a dangerous hint of誘導 into her tone. “Hold back until you suffer internal injuries, then explode again?”
Qing Xinxue looked lost and helpless, her eyes vacant.
Lan Yucheng leaned closer, their noses almost touching, breaths mingling, her voice dropping to a devilish whisper:
“How about… a different path?”
Qing Xinxue held her breath.
“All those unspeakable thoughts in your heart—the dirty desires to cage me, to destroy others, to possess everything exclusively…” Lan Yucheng’s fingertip gently touched Qing Xinxue’s trembling lips. “…tell them all to me.”
“Only tell them to me alone.”
“I will decide what is permissible and what is not.”
“I will tell you the standard of right and wrong.”
“And you…”
Her voice carried absolute authority and a chillingly intimate control:
“…only need to ‘absolutely obey.’”
Absolute obedience.
These four words, like a new set of shackles, yet also like a special pardon, were deeply branded into Qing Xinxue’s chaotic consciousness. It transformed ‘suppression’ into ‘submission,’ surrendering the right to dispose of ‘madness,’ and pointed a seemingly permissible, ‘managed’ way out for her misplaced possessiveness and destructive urges—confess to Senior Yu, and let Senior Yu judge.
Was this not a more sophisticated, more thorough form of enslavement? But at this moment, Qing Xinxue, whose spiritual world had utterly collapsed and who only craved a guiding command, was too powerless to discern, or perhaps, she willingly offered herself, falling into this meticulously woven net.
“I’ll be obedient… Senior Yu, I’ll listen to everything you say from now on… absolute obedience…” she murmured, a faint light rekindling in her scattered gaze—a dependence on instruction, a humble yearning to be controlled. She tightly gripped Lan Yucheng’s hand, pressing her burning cheek against its cold back.
Seeing the light rekindle in Qing Xinxue’s eyes, a mixture of fear, dependence, and a humble hope after being tamed, Lan Yucheng knew that the initial ‘domestication’ was complete.
She slowly withdrew her hand and stood up.
“Remember your promise.” Her tone was indifferent, devoid of emotion. “Go wash your face.”
Qing Xinxue obediently scrambled up, wiping her disheveled face with her sleeve.
When she looked at Lan Yucheng again, her eyes held only cautiousness and an almost devout obedience.
Lan Yucheng walked to the door, her hand on the doorknob, but she didn’t leave immediately. Her back to Qing Xinxue, she spoke as if an afterthought, yet her tone carried an undeniable finality:
“Tomorrow.”
“If you can remain this ‘good.’”
“I will give you… a ‘reward.’”
With that, she pulled open the door, her figure merging into the darkness outside, without a trace of lingering attachment.
The door gently closed.
Inside the room, only Qing Xinxue remained standing alone.
‘Reward’…
This word, like a stone dropped into a deep pool, rippled through her dead heart, stirring waves of extreme desire, profound fear, and humble expectation.
She didn’t know what tomorrow’s ‘reward’ would be, but she clearly understood the price she would have to pay to receive it—absolute ‘goodness’ and ‘absolute obedience.’
She slowly walked to the bed and sat down, curling up and burying her face deep between her knees.
Her body still trembled from the emotional rollercoaster she had just endured, but a strange, twisted sense of calm was slowly burgeoning from deep within her.
She had been appeased.
And simultaneously, she had been fitted with a more exquisite, more secure, invisible yet utterly inescapable set of shackles.
Outside the door, Lan Yucheng leaned against the cold wall, slowly exhaling a long breath.
A faint stinging sensation emanated from her neck, a reminder of the brush with death just moments ago.
But a faint, icy curve quietly formed at the corner of her lips.
The negotiation had concluded.
The scales of victory had irrevocably tipped.
Fear was the most effective rein.
Hope (reward) was the sweetest poison.
Now, the reins were in her hand, the poison in her grasp.
This monster, driven mad in the name of ‘love,’ had finally been temporarily caged by her within the prison of ‘rules’ and ‘obedience.’
As for tomorrow…
And the hazy, unpredictable future…
Lan Yucheng looked up, gazing at the dense, impenetrable night outside the window, her eyes as deep as an ancient well.