Chapter 55
Zhuang Chi felt restless.
She looked at the computer screen in front of her. Even though she had mentally prepared herself several times, she still felt a sense of unreality about watching the recording of her punishment with Gu Ximian.
Actually, Zhuang Chi had initially hesitated about doing this. After all, no matter how you looked at it, the recording wasn't something that would be pleasant to watch. Not to mention, the person who wanted to see it was Gu Ximian, which always made her feel strange. But Gu Ximian had told her that Lily said they had to watch the recording to find out about the jacket, which piqued Zhuang Chi's curiosity, making her hesitate to give Gu Ximian an immediate answer.
And the one who delivered the final blow was, of course, Gu Ximian. Her protagonist seemed to have been absent-minded ever since meeting Lily, but she was exceptionally serious about the surveillance footage. Faced with Zhuang Chi's hesitation, she showed a hint of disappointment and asked softly, ‘Is it really not okay?’
Zhuang Chi thought it over and over, finally giving in and replying to her: ‘…If we watch it on fast-forward, then it's okay.’
That sealed the deal. Zhuang Chi, whose willpower was never very strong in front of Gu Ximian, changed her mind on the spot, accompanied her to the police station, and got a copy of the recording.
The process was surprisingly smooth, probably because Zhuang Chi was the person involved, so the police were quick to hand over the recording. The result was that Zhuang Chi felt like everything was settled in a flash. It wasn't until now, sitting in Gu Ximian's home, that she had time to blankly wonder if it was a bad idea for the two of them to be watching this kind of thing alone in Gu Ximian's house.
…But there was no other way. It wasn't the kind of recording you could openly invite friends over to watch. The only convenient private spaces they could find were Gu Ximian's home and her dorm room, and it was hard to say which was better. Although there was the option of letting Gu Ximian watch it alone, which would have allowed Zhuang Chi to avoid her current predicament, but…
It's no use hiding from it temporarily, Zhuang Chi thought silently. Besides, my memory of that time is rather hazy. Heaven knows if I did anything strange. It's better to supervise. If something really happens, I can at least press pause in time.
“Are you ready?”
Gu Ximian came over with a glass of water, handed it to her, and sat down beside her, asking this question. Zhuang Chi silently took a deep breath and nodded gravely, as if facing a great enemy.
“…Let's start.”
She found the recording for the corresponding day and opened it. At Zhuang Chi's request, she set it to double speed. Gu Ximian watched the screen quietly.
The first long segment showed Zhuang Chi alone. Based on the timeline, Zhuang Chi had already been held captive by Lily for two days, but she had been unconscious for one of them due to being drugged. At this point, she had only been awake for a day. She was probably looking for anything useful, carefully searching and rummaging around the room.
Gu Ximian watched the small figure on the screen. The surveillance camera was on the ceiling, and the top-down angle didn't capture things clearly. The video quality was also poor. Only the audio recording was good, likely specially modified. Yet, it was still enough to make her stare without blinking, her heart clenching slightly.
It was a very strange feeling. Even though Zhuang Chi was sitting right beside her, perfectly fine, Gu Ximian still felt a stuffiness, as if a tide was rising to her neck. The faint rustling sounds of searching in the recording were enough to make her heart tremble and her fingers curl tightly.
“…Should I skip this part?”
A voice came from beside her. Gu Ximian blinked in a daze and saw Zhuang Chi reach for the mouse, pausing it over the progress bar and turning to look at her. “This is just me rummaging around. There's nothing useful.”
Gu Ximian stared at her, etching this much clearer and more vivid Zhuang Chi into her eyes, then replied softly, “…Mm.”
Zhuang Chi quickly dragged the progress bar forward. When Lily appeared on the screen, she clearly hesitated, wanting to skip again, but Gu Ximian swiftly stopped her. Gu Ximian glanced at Lily on the screen and frowned with slight annoyance. “What did she want with you?”
Zhuang Chi thought hard for a long while but couldn't come up with a summary. She only stammered, “…Nothing much. Just finding an excuse to punish me.”
Gu Ximian looked at her hesitant expression and reached out to set the video back to normal speed.
And so, next to the restless Zhuang Chi, she watched the entire incident unfold. As anger surged within her, she also found it absurd. “Asking you to speak ill of me… How could she even think of that.”
Zhuang Chi gave a bitter smile and leaned over to drag the progress bar again. Gu Ximian was quiet for a long moment, then suddenly said softly, “If you had listened to her and done it back then, would the things that happened later have been avoided?”
“…No, she would have just found a new excuse. She was determined to use me for her experiment.” Zhuang Chi shook her head slightly. This time, without even asking Gu Ximian, she decisively skipped a large chunk. “This part is quite long, so there's no need to watch all of it. I was conscious for the first few hours, just sitting there idly. The main thing is to see what happened later—huh?”
As she spoke, she suddenly paused, looking at the screen in confusion. Gu Ximian followed her gaze and saw that the paused frame showed Zhuang Chi standing in front of the room's wardrobe.
Outside the screen, Zhuang Chi herself looked completely blank, frowning slightly. “…Did I open the wardrobe that day?”
Gu Ximian's breath hitched, a premonition rising in her heart. She took the mouse from Zhuang Chi's hand, rewound the video a little, and pressed play again.
Then, she and Zhuang Chi watched as the Zhuang Chi in the recording opened the wardrobe, took out the school uniform jacket, and held it in her arms.
From the moment the jacket appeared on screen, she held her breath. Gu Ximian stared at the screen without blinking. The Zhuang Chi beside her made no sound. The room was very quiet, with only the faint rustling of clothes from the video. The ripples seemed to emanate from the screen, stirring the air around her until it became thick, as if time itself was being stretched and stuck, making it hard to breathe.
In this indescribable silence, she watched the Zhuang Chi on screen suffering, hesitating, and finally, with no other choice, giving in. She slowly lowered her head and carefully bit a corner of the jacket's sleeve.
The moment her teeth closed, Gu Ximian subconsciously shivered, as if a faint numbness was climbing up her spine, spreading to the back of her neck, bringing an unfamiliar tremor.
Pa.
The stagnant silence in the room was finally broken at this moment. Zhuang Chi had suddenly reached out and slammed the laptop screen shut. Gu Ximian's gaze, still fixed there, hadn't had time to retract and followed, landing on the hand Zhuang Chi had pressed on the computer. It was easy to see that she was trembling, her knuckles slightly raised from unconscious force, revealing faint blue veins.
Gu Ximian watched for a few seconds before slowly turning her head. The scene from just now was still imprinted in her mind, subtly overlapping with the Zhuang Chi she saw before her now.
And Zhuang Chi's expression at this moment was somewhat similar to her own in the recording—startled, dazed, and at a loss.
Gu Ximian saw her slowly turn her head to look over, her eyes welling up with a moist sheen, as if she might cry at any second.
…What on earth had she done?
Zhuang Chi stared blankly at Gu Ximian, a lump in her throat making her unable to speak.
The scene in the recording stirred up a strong sense of shame. Zhuang Chi had never imagined she would see such a thing beforehand. It was as if, subconsciously, she knew what she had done was strange, so she had buried it deep in her memory. Now, its sudden exposure was like ripping a poorly applied band-aid off an unhealed wound, revealing the messy inside.
This is terrible, Zhuang Chi thought, it's like… like a pervert. She couldn't even think of an explanation. She couldn't understand why she unconsciously harbored such a despicable side, and now it had been blatantly exposed in broad daylight, right in front of Gu Ximian.
She tried to recall the situation at that time, and a vague impression did surface in her mind as expected. But before any concrete images, the first thing she remembered was Gu Ximian's scent, causing a sharp pain in her glands. Zhuang Chi hissed unexpectedly, startling the silent Gu Ximian, who immediately reached for the back of Zhuang Chi's neck. Zhuang Chi flinched instinctively, hurriedly shuffling two steps away from Gu Ximian, and finally stood up altogether.
“…I'm sorry.” Even though it had come to this, she still had to apologize properly. Zhuang Chi lowered her head, feeling her mood plummet. “I dirtied your jacket… I'll buy you a new one to compensate. As for this one—ah, of course I won't keep it myself. I'll wash it and then return it to you… but that seems…”
You'd probably find it disgusting, right? Bubbles of self-loathing rose in her heart. Zhuang Chi didn't know what else she could say to defend herself. She was sad and at a loss. Before she could finish her sentence, she lowered her head dejectedly, looking so downcast you could almost wring water from her.
Gu Ximian's outstretched hand met empty air. She slowly retracted it, took two deep breaths without showing any emotion, and managed to calm her racing heart a little.
“…Although I don't have personal experience, I've heard,” Zhuang Chi, who was standing before Gu Ximian like a student waiting to be scolded for wrongdoing, was startled to hear her speak. Gu Ximian's tone was calm as she said, “that many people in the world have this kind of instinctual reaction. When their pheromones are unstable and their partner isn't around, they'll unconsciously seek out clothing or belongings that carry their partner's scent—”
She paused, quietly raising her eyes to look at Zhuang Chi. Her dark eyes held countless unspoken words. Finally, Gu Ximian asked softly, “…Do you see me in that position?”
“…”
Her mind practically exploded at Gu Ximian's words. Zhuang Chi could feel her face heat up rapidly. She thought dazedly, So this is a common thing in this world? Other people do this too? That means I'm not a pervert, I'm just, just—
…A partner.
Just thinking of that word sent an unprecedented wave of panic through her, as if someone had suddenly revealed a side of herself she had been completely unaware of. Zhuang Chi fell into immense confusion. “…Unstable pheromones… Although mine were probably really unstable back then, but I…”
Her thoughts and words were a mess. Zhuang Chi didn't dare to look at Gu Ximian's expression. The drastic emotional fluctuations in such a short time had nearly robbed her of her ability to think. In the end, she helplessly lowered her head.
“…I don't know,” Zhuang Chi answered softly, choosing to be honest. “I don't have any memory of that time. At most, I only remember that the smell in the room was very strong, annoying, and made me very uncomfortable, and then…”
“I can only say that, before today, I had never thought about… what you said.” In the end, she couldn't bring herself to say the word “partner.” Zhuang Chi paused. She hesitated for a long time before finally saying, “…But if, if it's true that you only do that when you see the other person as a partner…”
Gu Ximian watched her quietly, seeing the countless complex emotions mixed on Zhuang Chi's face as she hesitated, wanting to speak but stopping herself several times.
She didn't wait for Zhuang Chi's conclusion. In the end, she lowered her eyelashes, her tense shoulders silently relaxing.
“…It's not necessarily that situation. Perhaps my jacket just won out over hers in terms of your scent preference. That's also plausible.” Saying this, Gu Ximian spoke in a calm tone, “After all, that is your favorite scent. It's not strange that it won.”
There seemed to be a subtle shift in her mood. Gu Ximian's tone seemed to be somewhere between “indifferent” and “a little unhappy.” Zhuang Chi looked over cautiously, unable to figure out what Gu Ximian was unhappy about. After some guessing, she thought it was most likely about her biting the school uniform jacket without permission, so she mustered the courage to apologize again. “…I'm really sorry. Anyway, I'll compensate you with a new uniform first, I—”
“I'm not angry.” Gu Ximian cut her off before she could finish, looking at her with a cool gaze. “And you don't need to compensate me with a new one. It's not broken. What would I do with so many uniform jackets?”
“…” She says she's not angry, but she's clearly more unhappy than before. Zhuang Chi couldn't figure out what she had done wrong to provoke Gu Ximian this time. Now she could only go along with whatever she said, stammering, “…Then I'll wash it and return it to you?”
Gu Ximian looked at her for a long moment, then turned her head away and said in a low voice, “As you wish.”
…They parted on bad terms for an unknown reason.
Leaving Gu Ximian's home, Zhuang Chi walked towards St. Blaisedon in a daze, clutching the school uniform jacket. Her mind was restless the whole way, her thoughts drifting. One moment they drifted to her unreliable subconscious, the next they lingered on the word “partner.”
Why on earth did I subconsciously reach for Gu Ximian's clothes at that time? Zhuang Chi wondered.
…It couldn't be… that she really had improper designs on Gu Ximian, could it?
In the living room, Gu Ximian sat alone on the sofa, looking at the laptop that Zhuang Chi had closed and not reopened. After a long silence, she reached out, opened it, moved the progress bar back to when Zhuang Chi took the jacket, and watched it again by herself.
Watching it for the second time gave her a bit more mental composure. Gu Ximian watched it meticulously. And this time, without Zhuang Chi there to interrupt, she was able to see the part after Zhuang Chi bit her sleeve.
Gu Ximian heard Zhuang Chi's voice, softly calling her name.
“…”
Her breathing faltered for a moment. When Gu Ximian came back to her senses, she was startled to realize she had unconsciously moved closer to the laptop screen, close enough to touch it.
She silently watched the person on the screen and slowly reached out her hand.
“…When I asked you, you wouldn't admit it.”
Gu Ximian murmured, tracing a circle around Zhuang Chi's outline on the screen as if in a fit of pique.
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