That afternoon, three police cars stopped at the school gate.
When He Rou was taken away by the police, she looked extremely disheveled.
The clothes stained with ink and blood highlighted just how crazy she had been moments before.
She didn’t look at anyone.
Even as she passed the crowd of curious students, her eyes remained empty, without any focus.
There was no fear of the punishment to come.
He Rou had resigned herself to fate.
If normal methods couldn’t change anything, then she had to be extreme.
Sitting in the police car, He Rou didn’t know what to think.
But none of that mattered anymore.
Today, at last, He Rou had lived for herself, just once.
She felt as if she had been reborn.
There was no fear on her face. In fact, she was even smiling.
The usual emptiness in her eyes now held a glimmer of light.
Today, she tried to break free from the shackles of life.
Today was the day she transformed from a cocoon into a butterfly.
—
Hailin City Juvenile Detention Center.
The atmosphere here was extremely oppressive.
He Rou arrived with the staff.
The walls here were white as well.
This environment reminded He Rou of the punishment room in the villa.
He Rou walked down a long corridor.
The floor was rough concrete.
This detention center had been converted from a prison in the last century.
But because the government considered that it held children who had committed minor offenses, the necessary facilities weren’t too dilapidated.
He Rou mechanically followed orders, doing whatever she was told.
She was taken into a small bathroom.
There, she scrubbed her scalp hard.
The dried ink dissolved in the water, flowing like black poisonous snakes, twisting and spiraling across the floor before disappearing down the drain.
She washed for a long time, until her skin turned red and sore.
When she put on the gray, rough-textured detention uniform, she looked at herself in the mirror.
Her hair was a mess.
Her face was pale.
But none of that mattered anymore.
At that moment, He Rou felt her heart lighter than ever before.
She received her daily necessities at a certain area and was given a new name: “2502.”
Then she went to a solitary observation room.
Inside was only a hard single bed and a squat toilet.
He Rou sat on the edge of the bed.
Everything around her was quiet.
Even now, she still found it hard to believe that she had actually lived for herself once.
Even if the consequences were this severe.
She had lost her qualification for the Gaokao.
A black mark remained on her record.
College was now impossible.
And in a few months, when she turned eighteen, she would have to go to court for trial.
‘Who knows how many years I’ll be sentenced?’
Life in prison… would it be like this place?
He Rou didn’t know.
She was lonely now, with no one behind her, no parents to help her.
Even Luo Yun, the only person she could contact, might not care about her anymore.
She didn’t know how long she sat there.
Heavy footsteps came from outside the door.
“2502, come out.”
Upon hearing the command, He Rou stood up without hesitation and walked out of the cell.
The person standing outside looked at such an obedient He Rou, finding it a bit unbelievable.
A kid who looked this well-behaved… how did she end up here?
But that was just a passing thought.
After all, once you entered, you were a child who had made mistakes.
Mistakes needed to be corrected.
“Someone called for you. Follow me.”
Though the supervisor thought this way, her voice carried no emotion.
He Rou was stunned.
A phone call…
Besides Luo Yun, who would look for her here?
She followed the supervisor to a booth in the visitation area.
There was a black landline phone, the receiver resting quietly on the counter.
The supervisor gestured for her to sit, then stepped back to the door, watching expressionlessly.
He Rou took a deep breath and picked up the receiver.
“Hello…”
Her voice came out faintly. Her throat felt rough for some reason.
“Xiao Rou… we’ve only been apart for a short while, haven’t we? Indeed, Xiao Rou, your submissive personality was well hidden in front of me.”
“I’m sorry…”
“Mm… don’t apologize to me. You should apologize to yourself. This was your choice. You gave up everything in your future just for a moment of satisfaction, didn’t you?”
“I… I didn’t. I just wanted to protect myself. I just wanted to be like a normal… student.”
“But you messed everything up.”
“I’m sorry…”
“Then… does Xiao Rou understand the harshness of the outside world now?”
“What… do you mean?”
“How difficult your life will be once you leave me.”
“Will it be very miserable here…”
“No. The juvenile detention center only holds minors. The policies are clear. But… I remember Xiao Rou will soon have her eighteenth birthday, right?”
“… ”
“How about this, Xiao Rou. Right now… beg me. As your master, I might still help you. After all, prison and juvenile detention are two different places.”
He Rou was silent.
She didn’t know what to say.
Today, she thought she had broken free from the cocoon like a butterfly.
But now she realized she had only shattered her stubborn self, only changed her usual self.
It was as if she was placed in a completely transparent observation room.
After breaking through the first layer of the cocoon, there was still a cage imprisoning everything about her.
She had always been able to see it, so why had she never noticed?
He Rou felt her mind, memories, and thoughts getting confused.
She wasn’t herself.
It was as if another person in her head controlled her to do things she normally couldn’t.
Had she never been like this…?
No.
This was no longer the first time.
“Please… please…”
He Rou stopped trusting her brain and instead turned to instinct.
“Xiao Rou, don’t pick up the knife anymore. Because you don’t need to resist me.”
Luo Yun’s voice became exceptionally gentle, soft as if she were patting He Rou’s head.
“Beep, beep, beep—”
The call ended.
In that small booth, He Rou slowly closed her eyes.
So the process of metamorphosis wasn’t meant to fly into the sky.
It was to enter a larger, stronger cocoon.
Because she was weak, she needed protection…
She put down the receiver and stood up.
The supervisor came over and said, “Let’s go back.”
“Mm…”
Walking back, He Rou looked at the white walls of the open yard.
The sunlight had already disappeared.
This place really resembled that white room in the villa.
It felt as if Luo Yun had never left, and the shackles on her had never disappeared.
The invisible red thread still tightly coiled around her neck, tied in a knot that could never be undone.
She couldn’t quite understand whether what she was doing now was atonement…
Or something else.