Silence filled the room, even heavier than before.
Hearing Ange recount such a cruel and sorrowful past in such a calm, emotionless tone made Huayin feel as if something was lodged in her throat.
She wanted to speak but hesitated.
She wanted to say something comforting, yet she felt that any words would be pale and powerless in the face of such facts.
She wanted to change the subject immediately to escape this suffocating atmosphere, but she also felt that doing so would be a slight and a sign of disrespect toward Ange’s past.
Just as she was agonizing over what to do, it was Ange herself who took the initiative to pull the conversation back, as if she had only mentioned a trivial matter.
She waved her hand, and her face returned to its usual expression — one tinged with a bit of decadence and indifference.
“Alright, alright. It’s an old story. Why bring it up? My past is in the past; it has nothing to do with you.”
Her purple eyes turned toward Huayin.
“Let’s discuss something more realistic. Why did you drink that bottle of wine last night? And why did you drink yourself into such a state?”
Her attention was abruptly yanked back to her own more “realistic” and “humiliating” problem, and Huayin instinctively lowered her head.
The pride engraved in her bones urged her to look up, look Ange in the eye, and argue her case with confidence.
However, the moment she saw her own blurry reflection in Ange’s pupils, those crazy, absurd, and completely uncontrollable scenes from last night came rushing back into her mind.
Her cheeks burned, and her heart began to race.
Ultimately, this habitually proud Eldest Miss turned her gaze away for the first time in her life during a confrontation.
Clearly shy, she stared at an innocent shard of the wine bottle on the floor, her voice as thin as a mosquito’s buzz.
“I… I… thought I wasn’t so… pathetic…” she admitted with difficulty, her voice filled with unwilling resentment and annoyance.
“Down after one cup?” Ange raised an eyebrow, her tone carrying undisguised mockery.
“With that kind of tolerance, you actually dared to drink straight from the bottle? Who gave you the courage?”
“The alcohol content of that bottle was too high! I didn’t know it would be so strong!”
Huayin seemed to find an excuse, and her voice rose slightly as she tried to regain some dignity.
“Many of the wines in our family’s cellar have a very mild taste!”
“Heh.” Ange let out an ambiguous chuckle. Her gaze swept over the messy bed, and her tone sharpened.
“Take a look at my bed, Miss Huayin. It’s filthy.”
“Stop talking about it!” Huayin snapped, reacting as if her tail had been stepped on.
She jerked her head up, her face so red it looked like it was about to emit steam.
She lowered her voice in a mix of shock and anger.
“What! What if someone hears you!”
“Heh,” Ange sneered again, sounding as if she had already given up on any sense of propriety.
“If anyone could hear us, that scream of yours earlier was enough to wake the dead. We would both be completely famous by now.”
Huayin’s face turned pale instantly. She suddenly remembered an even more terrifying fact, and her voice began to tremble.
“Sa… Sakika! She lives right next door to you! The soundproofing here… shouldn’t… be that bad…” she stammered, clinging to a final shred of hope.
Ange heartlessly shattered her hopes, pointing at the mottled walls and the old doors and windows.
“Don’t hold your breath, Eldest Miss. This is the cheapest dormitory in the Academy. It was built specifically to save money. Soundproofing? It doesn’t exist.”
“NOOOO!!!” Huayin let out a wail of despair, clutching her head with both hands as if she could already see a future of social death.
“I don’t want to be seen as a degenerate pervert like you! I’ll… I’ll hire Director Rita! Yes! No matter how much it costs! I’ll have her use her memory modification ability on everyone! We’ll erase last night completely!”
“Regrettably,” Ange said, spreading her hands with a look of feigned helplessness, “For someone like me, who has the Blood of Beelzebub flowing through her — an heir to the Seven Demon Kings of Hell — Rita’s memory modification ability, which originates from Leviathan, is far less effective. It might even be completely useless. If you’re hoping to use that to hide the truth, I’m afraid it won’t work.”
“Fuck!” Driven by extreme shame and despair, Huayin finally couldn’t help but blurt out a curse that was entirely inconsistent with her status as an Eldest Miss.
“Watch your grace, Miss Hua~yin~” Ange drawled intentionally, the teasing in her voice growing even thicker.
“It’s all your fault!” Huayin stomped her foot in anger, pushing all the responsibility onto Ange in an attempt to cover her shame with rage.
“Everything started because of you! Ugh! It’s all your fault! If you had just told me at the beginning! Then… then…”
Her voice grew smaller and smaller, and her momentum weakened.
Deep down, she knew that back when they first met, she was the one who had stopped Ange from going to the restroom and forced her to answer.
The bitter fruit was, in the end, of her own planting. She gave up on herself completely, standing there looking as wilted as a defeated rooster.
“Alright, stop just standing there.” Ange sighed and pointed to the glaring stain on the bed.
“There’s no point in talking about this now. Start washing. There’s still some time before morning classes. If the two of us work together to wash it and then use your Phoenix Flame to dry it, we should still make it in time.”
Huayin looked at the stain that represented last night’s madness and her current extreme embarrassment.
Her face wrinkled in total internal resistance.
But she also knew this was the only way to salvage the situation.
She gritted her teeth and, with a tragic expression as if she were about to cut off her own arm, stepped forward and began to clumsily strip the bedsheet.
“Hmph… then hurry up and start!” she snapped, still trying to maintain a shred of dignity with a harsh attitude.
Ange shook her head and stepped forward to help.
Two people with completely different backgrounds, personalities, and life experiences were now forced to bury their heads together in this difficult and awkward cleaning task, all because of a single bedsheet stained with wine, bodily fluids, and absurd memories.
In the cramped room, only the sounds of running water, scrubbing, and the occasional muffled grunt from Huayin — a mix of shame and effort when she hit a stubborn stain — remained.
“Can’t you dehydrate it?”
“You’re the one who needs dehydrating!”