“Huh?”
Huang Xiaoyi never expected to get this answer. Her willow-like eyebrows twitched, and in the next second, the tentacles she controlled crawled up Shiye’s neck.
Feeling the faint chill and pressure on her neck, the little Cherry Dragon couldn’t help but curl her lip.
‘Should I say they’re truly sisters? They both love wrapping tentacles around people’s necks.’
Shiye, who had experienced the sensation of suffocation before, didn’t want to go through it a second time. She hurriedly said, “I’m telling the truth, please, please believe me…!”
“Heh…”
The blonde girl let out a disdainful sneer. The tip of the tentacle wrapped around her neck quivered twice, wriggling like a small snake to tilt her chin up, forcing her to look up.
“Are you saying you stole the Elder Sign from that ‘S-Queen’? Do you think I’ll believe that?”
As she spoke, the grip tightened. Shiye’s small face turned bright red, but with her limbs bound, she couldn’t even struggle.
‘Who is the S-Queen? She couldn’t be talking about me, could she?’
Shiye’s head was spinning, and her focus seemed to drift. She spoke with difficulty, “But it’s the truth. Believe it or not… please… loosen up a bit. Even though my race has good recovery, being strangled like this twice in a row… will, cough cough cough! It will leave lasting effects…!”
Hearing her words, the grip loosened slightly. Huang Xiaoyi leaned down and pinched her face, kneading it like dough.
It wasn’t that she was worried about Shiye getting hurt. It was just that as her research subject, Shiye would lose her value if she suffered permanent trauma, which would be a great loss.
It was rare to find material that piqued her curiosity; it would be a shame if she died so easily.
“Talk,” Huang Xiaoyi said coldly.
“I… cough cough…”
Shiye coughed twice. Her neck burned with pain, but it wasn’t as unbearable as it had been yesterday.
‘Did I somehow gain some strange resistance?’
Her long, thick eyelashes fluttered, sparkling with tiny tears. The corners of her eyes were red, making her look like she might cry at any moment.
“Since that teacher is famous, I heard the news when I went to school today… about how Susu was… by the teacher…”
Shiye looked as if she were hesitating.
“Go on,” Huang Xiaoyi urged.
“I thought… if I stole the Elder Sign, maybe that teacher wouldn’t be able to restrain you anymore. Maybe I could help you guys?”
The little girl spoke with deep sincerity, occasionally checking the other girl’s reaction with her cherry-colored eyes. This timid yet gentle attitude somehow made Huang Xiaoyi feel a bit irritated.
She stopped kneading and instead stared seriously into Shiye’s eyes. “So you went and stole this… ‘Elder Sign’?”
Her eyes were still full of distrust. “Setting aside how you did it, why do you know the name of this thing?”
‘Crap, I let it slip…!’
‘I haven’t been on a mission for too long. My skills are getting rusty.’
Shiye’s gaze drifted, and her small mouth pursed. She stammered, “…Be — Because… mmmph!”
Her face was pinched again, her pink lips forced into a pout, cutting off her excuses.
“Forget it, don’t bother. Anything else out of your mouth will just be a lie anyway.”
Huang Xiaoyi tilted her head slightly. “You have such an innocent-looking face, yet your mouth is full of lies… As expected, I still hate you.”
Curiosity and hatred were not mutually exclusive.
“Muu…!”
Shiye let out a dissatisfied grunt.
‘I hate sharp kids like you the most!’
“To still be able to talk big in this situation, you really are something else, Shiye,” Sensibility teased.
‘Shut up.’
Huang Xiaoyi stared at her face thoughtfully and spoke slowly. “Since you have an unspeakable connection with the Elder Sign, then can I assume…”
Before she could finish, Shiye felt the gravity of the world flip. A gust of wind brushed past her cheeks, followed by a chilly sensation between her legs.
“Eeeek!?”
The confused little Cherry Dragon looked around nervously, only to find that everything in front of her was inverted. Even Huang Xiaoyi was standing upside down before her.
‘So Huang Xiaoyi must be performing acrobatics… like hell she is!’
The sharp pain in her ankle made her grit her teeth, telling her that Huang Xiaoyi was holding her upside down by her ankles with a tentacle.
“Huang Xiaoyi, you… let me down!”
Her face was flushed pink from the blood rushing to her head. Shiye cursed weakly, then suddenly realized Huang Xiaoyi wasn’t looking at her face. Instead, she was looking above her — or from Shiye’s perspective, Huang Xiaoyi was staring at her lower body, specifically where her panties were…
“Huh?”
Shiye froze.
Another cold breeze blew past, causing the skirt that had flipped up due to gravity to ripple. She snapped her head down and saw a glimpse of pink surrounded by snowy white. In an instant, her small face turned bright red.
It was now impossible to tell if her red face was due to a lack of oxygen or sheer embarrassment.
“Huang Xiaoyi!”
Shiye used her tail to grab the hem of her skirt with lightning speed, covering her lower body. Embarrassment and anger overwhelmed her fear. She yelled out, “You pervert! You big pervert! You look all proper on the outside, but you’re actually a super perverted closet h — mmph!”
Before she could finish venting, her small mouth was stuffed shut.
“Mmm-hmmm! Mmm! (You big pervert!)”
Shiye whimpered indistinctly in protest.
“Cough… so noisy.”
Huang Xiaoyi coughed, turning her head away into the shadows, but Shiye clearly saw the blush on the girl’s face.
‘She really is a big pervert!’
Unlike Ke Susu’s blatant perversion, Huang Xiaoyi’s perversion was deeply hidden. Perhaps she hadn’t even realized it herself.
We generally call this kind of person a “closet pervert.”
This further deepened Shiye’s stereotype of artistic people.
Once the slight heat on her face faded, Huang Xiaoyi turned her head back and raised Shiye’s head to her own level.
Seeing those pink eyes filled with tears from the discomfort casting a pleading look, Huang Xiaoyi finally retracted the tentacle.
“If you didn’t want to suffer, wouldn’t it have been better to tell the truth from the start?”