‘She’s crazy! Truly insane!’
Ange screamed silently in her head; her very brain seemed to tremble.
She had indeed considered that Huayin might follow through on her word; after all, she had experienced the Phoenix Eldest Miss’s vengeful nature firsthand.
But she never imagined that Huayin would be such a lightweight who would collapse after a single glass.
Even less did she expect that this surging intoxication would drive the girl to such a paranoid extent that she actually decided to use that “exact same” method to dirty her bed!
‘What is this? An eye for an eye?! These are two completely different things, damn it!’
Ange was completely stunned, her mind a total blank.
Watching Huayin’s hazy gaze and unsteady steps as she moved with a stubborn determination to not stop until her goal was reached, Ange hurriedly stepped forward in a final struggle.
“Huayin! Huayin, calm down! Listen to me!”
She tried her best to make her voice sound soft and persuasive.
“You’re the Eldest Miss of the Phoenix family! You’re high and mighty, a noble lady! Why bother lowering yourself for a decadent, useless, and dirt-poor older sister like me? It’s beneath your dignity, right?”
She quickly belittled herself, trying to awaken whatever remained of the girl’s noble reserve and pride.
“It’s not worth it for one bed! It’s really not worth it! Look, I’ll definitely wash your sheets tomorrow until they’re cleaner than new! Or… or I’ll pay you back! I’ll pay in installments!”
The thought of paying her back made Ange’s heart bleed, but she couldn’t care about that now.
However, Huayin, now completely dominated by alcohol, had entirely lost the reins of her reason.
Only a simple, crude logic remained in her head: Ange had dirtied her bed, so she had to dirty Ange’s bed in the exact same way.
Fair! Reasonable!
She turned a deaf ear to Ange’s desperate pleading, even finding the buzzing noise annoying.
Staggering, her steps uneven, she stepped onto Ange’s cramped single bed, the soft mattress sinking under her feet.
“Stop… stop talking!”
She scolded incoherently, and her hands actually reached for the edge of her skirt as she tried to pull something off.
“I’ll do… what I said!”
Ange: “!!!”
Seeing this, the last spark of Ange’s desire to communicate was completely extinguished.
She looked at Huayin’s face, flushed from the alcohol and written with stubbornness and absurdity.
A deep sense of helplessness and… an indescribable guilt welled up.
‘Forget it… forget it…’
She remembered the harm she had caused Huayin, the marriage contract that was likely already set in stone, and the future where Huayin was forced to be tied to her… compared to those, one bed really seemed like nothing.
She let out a deep, helpless sigh, as if all her strength had been drained in an instant.
She stopped trying to prevent it and made no further sound.
She merely turned her gaze away — which might have otherwise shown shock or dissuasion — with a silence that bordered on resignation.
She turned around and quietly, light-footedly exited her own room, gently pulling the door shut behind her.
Kada.
The faint click of the latch was exceptionally clear in the silent corridor.
With her back against the cold door, Ange slowly slid down to sit on the floor.
The corridor was empty, save for the dim light from the old bulbs that stretched her lonely shadow.
The soundproofing was not great, but she forced herself not to listen for any sounds from within.
‘Truly… what a sin…’
She rubbed her aching temples, feeling that her performance as a Teacher was truly unprecedented and would never be surpassed.
Suddenly, she shuddered as a much more serious problem occurred to her.
‘Sakika! Sakika lives right next door! With that child’s extraordinary keenness… if…’
Ange didn’t dare think any further. It was fine if her own reputation was ruined — she hadn’t had much of an image to speak of anyway — but she absolutely could not allow Huayin’s voice to be heard by Sakika!
If that happened, she would be like a man with yellow mud in his pants: even if it wasn’t crap, everyone would think it was! Both of them would be finished!
She immediately pulled out her cell phone, fingers flying as she prepared to text Sakika.
She needed an excuse to send her away, like an emergency tactical discussion or the discovery of a suspicious Demon trail requiring immediate investigation.
However, before her message could be sent…
Creak —
The door to Sakika’s room next door opened on its own.
The black-haired girl stood calmly in the doorway wearing neat pajamas. Her pitch-black eyes appeared exceptionally deep in the dim light.
She looked at Ange sitting on the floor and asked in her characteristic, monotonous tone.
“Teacher, were you looking for me?”
Ange nearly dropped her cell phone in surprise and snapped her head up, her face filled with shock.
“H-How… How did you know?”
Sakika pointed a finger at her own ear, her tone as flat as if she were stating the fact that water is wet.
“I heard you. Your footsteps stopped at the door for a long time, and there was the sound of sighing.”
Ange: “!!!”
‘She heard it?! I moved so quietly, and my sigh was so soft, yet she heard it?!’
Ange instantly realized that Sakika’s hearing likely far exceeded that of ordinary people; her previous worries were certainly not in vain.
Her sense of crisis hit the roof! Ignoring everything else, Ange leapt up from the floor almost by reflex, grabbed Sakika’s slender wrist, and dragged her toward the exit of the dormitory building without a word of explanation.
“Eh? Teacher? What are you doing this late at night?”
Sakika stumbled as she was pulled along, a rare look of confusion surfacing on her face, though she did not struggle.
Ange didn’t look back.
Her pace was rapid as her mind whirred, trying to find a reasonable excuse to cover up her true objective.
After struggling for a long while, she finally squeezed out a dry, subject-changing question.
“Well, that… uh…”
She cleared her throat awkwardly, trying to make her voice sound natural.
“Sakika, when… when exactly did your Bloodline awaken?”
Sakika: “…?”
Forcibly pulled out of the dormitory building into the cool night air, Sakika looked up at her eccentric Teacher, her dark eyes full of bewilderment.