“This cat remembers hearing you mention it last night. You’re planning to take her—”
She pointed her sharp chin toward Bai Wanxue.
“—to the company to finish the rest of the onboarding paperwork today. Is that right?”
Su Yuqing quickly swallowed the toast in her mouth and nodded.
“Yes, just the final few steps of the process: entering her identity information, confirming the contract details, and arranging a physical exam. It should be finished quickly.”
She chose her words carefully.
“At the earliest, if everything goes well, she should be able to start the basic training process for a newcomer trainee by tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow… starting training already, huh?”
Zhi Ai repeated the words, her fingertips rhythmically tapping against the polished tabletop, making a light thump, thump sound.
She suddenly looked up to meet Su Yuqing’s gaze, her liuli-colored eyes appearing bottomless.
“So, do you still remember… the things I told you that night?”
Su Yuqing’s heart skipped a beat.
That night… after Zhi Ai had injured her ankle and returned home for a break, she had spoken words filled with paranoia and warnings.
Those remarks about ‘partners’, about ‘standards’, and about ‘devaluing’.
“Um…”
She lowered her eyelashes to avoid Zhi Ai’s oppressive gaze, and her voice grew soft.
“I… remember most of it.”
‘How could I forget? Every word was like an icicle stabbing into my heart.’
“It’s good that you remember. It’s good that you remember.”
Zhi Ai smiled faintly, though there was no warmth in it.
She leaned forward slightly, resting her elbows on the table and folding her hands under her chin.
In a casual tone, as if discussing the weather, she uttered the cruelest words.
“Anyway, I’ll put it simply today. I will absolutely not… just because she used to be a cat you raised, and because of that ridiculous guilt and sentimentality in your heart, do you a favor by going easy during the professional assessment. I won’t lower the most basic, and yet highest, standards for anyone who will stand on the stage with me in the future.”
She paused, her liuli-colored eyes as sharp as blades, cutting across Su Yuqing’s instantly pale face.
“The stage is sacred, and there is a high threshold for an idol. Trash doesn’t deserve to stand by my side. Even if she’s an ‘old acquaintance’, it won’t work. Do you understand?”
“No…! Zhi Ai!”
Su Yuqing snapped her head up, her chest heaving with emotion.
She finally couldn’t hold it back anymore.
“How—how can you say that! Even if… even if we don’t mention anything else, don’t forget that you still owe her one life!!”
She pointed at Bai Wanxue, who was eating quietly as if none of this concerned her.
Su Yuqing’s voice trembled with anger.
“You were the one who—to her that night! Where else in this world is there someone like you… someone who does things so heartlessly and leaves no room for mercy?! How can you still… use those standards to judge her?! Even using a word like ‘trash’?!”
This was the first time since their reunion that Su Yuqing had directly and fiercely brought up that old incident to accuse Zhi Ai.
After all, she had always thought this cat would feel at least a glimmer of hesitation, a shred of guilt.
However, she was wrong.
The smile on Zhi Ai’s face vanished instantly.
She slowly stood up, looking down at Su Yuqing.
Those liuli-colored eyes, usually filled with arrogance or playfulness, were now bottomless, swirling with dark emotions Su Yuqing had never seen before.
The light from the dining room’s ceiling lamp shattered in her eyes, reflecting not even a hint of warmth.
“Then what about… me?”
Zhi Ai spoke, her voice very soft, yet it felt like a venomous snake sliding across the floor, carrying a hair-raising calm.
“Uh…!?”
Su Yuqing was cowed by the sudden question and that terrifying gaze, unable to react for a moment.
“W-What about you?”
Zhi Ai didn’t answer.
She simply began to walk.
Step by step, she rounded the dining table until she stood before Su Yuqing.
The sound of her high heels clicking against the floor echoed in the sudden, deathly silence like a funeral bell.
Then, under Su Yuqing’s terrified gaze, Zhi Ai leaned down.
She braced her hands on the armrests of Su Yuqing’s chair, trapping her between herself and the seat.
The distance between them was so small they could feel each other’s breath.
The familiar, cloyingly sweet scent on Zhi Ai now carried a suffocating sense of pressure.
She watched Su Yuqing’s pupils contract, seeing her own cold and twisted face reflected within them.
Then, syllable by syllable, in a tone so clear it was cruel, she slowly spat out the name Su Yuqing feared most in this life—and the first time since their reunion that Zhi Ai had addressed her so formally and coldly:
“Su. Yu. Qing.”
Three words, like three icicles, nailed into Su Yuqing’s eardrums and into her heart.
Zhi Ai gazed at the face that had instantly lost all color.
She tilted her head slightly, leaning close to Su Yuqing’s ear.
In a whisper intended only for the two of them, she slowly tore open an old debt that was older, heavier, and far bloodier:
“You must never forget…”
Her red lips nearly brushed against Su Yuqing’s cold earlobe, but the words she breathed out were more frigid than an Arctic wind.
“…that you also still owe me… one life.”
Boom—!!!
Su Yuqing’s mind felt as if a bomb had been detonated, turning everything blank in an instant.
Her blood surged in reverse, her limbs grew cold and stiff, and even her breath was cut off.
The memory fragments she had intentionally buried deep—the ones she had barely suppressed through countless days and nights of guilt and nightmares—broke through the dam at those light words!
Cold seawater, the salty smell of rust, endless darkness, and the small, soft… golden body in her arms that was gradually losing its warmth…
“I…!”
She opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
Only broken gasps escaped her throat.
Immense terror and overwhelming guilt felt like two giant hands choking her throat and squeezing her heart.
She looked into Zhi Ai’s cold, all-seeing eyes inches away.
Her entire body began to tremble uncontrollably, and she nearly slid off the chair.
Just then—
“Master, Master!”
A cheerful, crisp voice broke through the suffocating, dark atmosphere like a ray of sunlight.
Without anyone noticing, Bai Wanxue had finished her breakfast.
She was standing at the entryway, holding Su Yuqing’s coat and bag, waving her arm.
Her face was filled with pure, natural anticipation for their departure, as if she couldn’t feel the lethal low pressure that had practically solidified in the dining room.
“The taxi is already downstairs! The driver called to hurry us up! Wanxue is ready and can head out with Master now!”
Su Yuqing snapped back to reality.
Like a drowning person grabbing onto a piece of driftwood, she practically bolted from the chair.
She stumbled back two steps, escaping from Zhi Ai’s shadow.
Her face was as pale as paper, and fine beads of cold sweat broke out on her forehead.
She didn’t dare look at Zhi Ai again.
Turning toward the entryway, she put all her strength into making her voice sound somewhat normal.
“I-I know! You… you go wait in the car first! I’ll… change into my boots and follow you r-right away!”
“Okay, Master! Wanxue will wait for you in the car! Meow!”
Bai Wanxue responded obediently, then turned and pushed the door open to leave.
As the front door closed with a click, only Su Yuqing and Zhi Ai, who was still leaning over the chair, remained in the living room.
There was a deathly silence.
Su Yuqing kept her head down, her fingers trembling as she hurriedly kicked off her slippers to find her boots in the shoe cabinet.
She could feel Zhi Ai’s gaze, like physical shards of ice, pinned to her back.
It carried mockery, pleasure, and something deeper that she didn’t dare to interpret.
A few seconds later, Zhi Ai finally straightened up.
She didn’t say another word.
She simply turned around, walked with her arrogant stride toward the sofa, and curled back into the territory she had claimed.
She picked up her tablet computer and began scrolling as if no one else were there.
It was as if the lethal confrontation that had almost drowned someone was merely an insignificant morning drama.
Su Yuqing clumsily pulled on her boots, the zipper getting stuck several times before she managed to close it.
She grabbed her coat from the back of the chair and her phone from the table.
Without even daring to say “I’m leaving,” she rushed out the door as if fleeing for her life.
The door slammed shut behind her, cutting off the cold, viscous air of the apartment.
It also cut off the sight of Zhi Ai raising her head as Su Yuqing fled, a complex and indistinguishable light flashing within her liuli-colored eyes…