Black ink oozed from between the boy’s fingers, spreading across the floor and even trickling onto the cheek of another person sprawled face-down nearby. The man’s mouth hung slightly open, his eyes vacant and lifeless, as if the ink had been retched up from the depths of his guts.
Tong Yuwu shifted her foot aside, dodging the pool of thick blackness.
With elegant poise, she screwed the cap back on and glided over to the boy’s desk. She placed the now utterly empty ink bottle back in its precise original spot, not a fraction off.
Then she returned to her seat at the very back of the classroom.
Every tool and bottle of materials on her desk lay in ruins, warped and destroyed by that rampage of otherworldly fire—just like the three bodies crumpled on the floor.
She lifted her right hand. The lower half of her mage robe’s sleeve dangled in tatters, held together by a few stray threads. With her left hand, she ripped off the ruined half-sleeve and used it as a rag to sweep the mess of debris from the desk into the waste bin.
Once the surface gleamed clean, she dabbed at her hands with the sleeve’s last unsoiled patch. The Noble Miss kept her hands impeccably groomed—fingers pale and slender as spring onions, nails smooth and flawless, their white half-moons trimmed into delicate curves that hinted at a soft rosy flush.
At last, she released her grip, letting the scrap of cloth fall away into the bin.
Dusk hung heavy in the sky, silently herding everyone homeward.
As Tong Yuwu walked past two boys chatting idly at the stairwell landing, they gawked at her arm—minus half its sleeve—until her figure vanished from sight.
The boy perched on the stair railing hopped down to the floor and smacked his lips. “What, those three going all soft and chivalrous on her now?”
He gestured along his own right arm. “This little scratch enough to make her quit school on her own?”
His companion jabbed him with an elbow. “Quit jumping to conclusions. Maybe that prissy little miss just lost her nerve the second Aorsi made his move.”
The boy let out a sly “hehe.” “You got it. Should’ve ‘talked her into it’ myself yesterday.”
He whistled sharply and sauntered toward the classroom at the end of the corridor, tossing over his shoulder, “C’mon, let’s head back to the others.”
His companion shot him a glance, then peered back at the now-deserted stairwell. His heart stuttered, skipping a beat.
He shook it off with a deep breath and hurried after the other boy, the pair heading back to the classroom together.
Both the front and back doors stood firmly shut. Sunset light flooded through the windows, bathing the neat rows of desks and chairs in a bloody orange glow.
From outside, the room looked deserted—no sign of life, no sound at all.
The boy in the lead tugged open the back door, muttering under his breath, “What’s the deal? Where’d they go?”
In the next instant, the door swung wide. He took a step forward, and his foot squelched down onto something soft and pulpy.
Two sharp gasps of horror sliced the air, followed by the frantic clatter of desperate aid.
~~~
Tong Yuwu came home a touch later than usual, and the Little White Cat—starving—had taken to gnawing at her own front paws.
The moment she heard the key scrape into the lock, the cat shot off the bed in a blur, heedless of the damp fur on her paw pads from her own saliva, and bolted for the door.
Her plaintive “meows” of hunger had barely begun when Meng Yiran looked up and spotted Tong Yuwu’s bare right arm. The cries jammed in her throat.
The Doll Lady, serene as ever, bent to scoop her up like always. Meng Yiran recoiled with a yowl, leaping aside in a panic. She arched her back and hissed fiercely at Tong Yuwu.
There, on the Noble Miss’s right forearm just above the wrist, sat a glaring blemish amid her porcelain skin—a waxy red scar, unmistakably from a scalding burn.
Meng Yiran remembered it crystal clear: when she’d left, Tong Yuwu had been pristine, without so much as a thread snag on her clothes. How, in a mere hour or so, had her perfect Doll Lady wound up hurt?!
In stark contrast to Meng Yiran’s frenzy stood Tong Yuwu herself, the picture of calm.
She glanced down at the wound that had set off the Little Kitten so badly, twisted her arm to tuck the scar on the inner side out of view, and cooed like she was fooling a child, “All gone.”
Meng Yiran seethed until her head swam. She whirled and sprang onto the room’s long table, glaring at Tong Yuwu from a safe two or three meters away.
Tong Yuwu furrowed her brow in honest puzzlement and even lifted her arm for another look.
The burn was puffy, roughly egg-sized, flushed an ugly red, and dotted with intact blisters.
She eyed Meng Yiran with the patience of a parent facing a fussy toddler. “See? No blood.”
Meng Yiran bared her fangs. “Meow-meow-meow!”
Tong Yuwu let it drop without further prodding. Once inside, she set down the dinner she’d fetched for Meng Yiran in the Little White Cat’s bowl.
Meng Yiran spared the steaming bowl of meaty goodness not a glance. She shadowed Tong Yuwu right into the bathroom, planting herself in the doorway to block the door from closing.
The Noble Miss took one look at the situation and gave up immediately. She turned and walked over to a basin of clean water, submerging her right forearm in it. The Little White Cat hopped up onto the counter and peered down at the wound, a low, rumbling purr vibrating in her throat.
Tong Yuwu watched her, even more fixated on that dinner than Meng Yiran was. “Aren’t you hungry?”
“Let’s eat first,” she said.
Meng Yiran, uncharacteristically, didn’t respond.
Tong Yuwu had a slender build, her forearm as smooth and pale as a lotus root segment while it soaked in the water, looking crisp and delicate.
The pampered Noble Miss had never done a day of rough labor in her life. Her hands were free of calluses, her skin so thin that the blue veins beneath were clearly visible.
Yet on the arm of this noble, fragile girl was an egg-sized burn scar. Meng Yiran shuddered involuntarily at the mere thought of the agony she must have felt—the searing pain as her skin and flesh were charred.
Tong Yuwu reached out with her uninjured left hand and gently stroked her back. “I’m fine.”
“Meow.”
Meng Yiran nuzzled her palm with her head, partly to comfort her and partly to vent her own pent-up worry.
In that moment of affection, Tong Yuwu felt a dampness on her left hand as well. She narrowed her eyes and lifted the Little White Cat’s chin. Sure enough, two glistening teardrops welled in Meng Yiran’s eyes.
A bit embarrassed, Meng Yiran raised a front paw to wipe at the corner of her eye, trying to erase the evidence.
She had no idea why she was crying. Perhaps her emotions had simply overwhelmed her. A cat’s body wasn’t well-suited for expressing concern, so in her desperation, a couple of tears had been forced out.
Tong Yuwu gazed at her and suddenly said, “Starved, huh?”
Meng Yiran thought she was teasing her and shot her a fierce, milky glare.
She opened her mouth and let out a playful “Rawr!”, capturing Tong Yuwu’s left index finger between her teeth—but without any real force, just gently holding it to vent her frustration.
Tong Yuwu withdrew her finger and explained very seriously, “You can’t eat this.”
Meng Yiran suspected she wasn’t being treated like a cat at all, but like an idiot.
In her huffed state, she wasn’t sure what possessed her. By the time she came back to her senses, she had stuffed her own front paw into her mouth.
Tong Yuwu frowned. “You can’t eat that either.”
She reached out to extract the Little White Cat’s paw, but Meng Yiran wouldn’t cooperate. When she’d bitten Tong Yuwu’s finger, she’d been careful not to hurt her and hadn’t used any strength. But her own paw? She chomped down without mercy, holding back just enough not to draw blood.
Tong Yuwu didn’t dare yank too hard. After struggling for a bit, she could only watch helplessly as drool leaked from the corners of the Little White Cat’s mouth.
The girl and the cat stared at each other for several seconds. Meng Yiran was the first to crack under the sheer silliness of it all. She yanked her paw free, then—almost humanlike—scooped up a pawful of water and meticulously cleaned both her paw and her mouth, pretending as if nothing had happened.
Cold water was the right way to treat a fresh burn, but Tong Yuwu’s wound was clearly not new anymore; the optimal window for treatment had long passed. The two of them lingered in the bathroom for ages. The skin on Tong Yuwu’s forearm had turned pale and pruny everywhere else, but the burn showed no sign of swelling down. They had only just moved into the dorms and hadn’t prepared any seldom-used supplies. There was no burn ointment or anything like it on hand.
Seeing that the wound wasn’t improving at all, the Little White Cat tugged at Tong Yuwu’s left sleeve with her mouth, pulling outward in an attempt to urge her back to Rose Street.
Jenny and Meili were still there. With them around, the injury could be properly dressed.
Tong Yuwu dried her arm with a clean towel first, then scooped the Little White Cat into the crook of her arm with her left hand.
She left the bathroom, either deliberately ignoring Meng Yiran’s suggestion or simply not understanding it. She carried the cat straight to the food bowl and set her down beside it. “Eat.”
Meng Yiran eyed the burn scar and tried to reason with her. “Meow meow—”
Tong Yuwu nudged the bowl closer to her mouth. “Hurry up before it gets cold.”
Meng Yiran’s heart felt utterly exhausted.
With no other choice, she lowered her head, opened her mouth wide, and vengefully crunched down on a huge mouthful of meat chunks. She chewed with exaggerated force, the “crunch crunch” echoing loudly.
Tong Yuwu hadn’t even finished saying “slow down” when Meng Yiran coughed and choked a chunk of meat right back out of her mouth.
Meng Yiran sighed. When luck was against you, even a sip of water could get stuck in your teeth.
Tong Yuwu cleaned up the scraps, then dumped out the rest of the food in the bowl. She prepared to head out and buy a fresh portion. The Little White Cat circled her feet with insistent “meows,” clearly trying to stop her. But after two calls, she abruptly changed her mind for some reason and obediently perched on a chair, watching Tong Yuwu bustle about.
The reason was actually very simple. Meng Yiran figured that once Tong Yuwu stepped out, she could slip over to Ling Ge and ask if there was any ointment for treating burns.
But neither the girl nor the cat anticipated that Tong Yuwu’s outing wouldn’t go smoothly this time. The moment the Noble Miss swung open the door, she found Ming Yi planted right outside, his hand already raised to knock.
It had been a few days since they’d last seen him, and the young master of the Ming Family still wore that easy smile. He was dressed in a simple, form-fitting outfit that made him look far sharper than he had during their encounter in the Illusion Realm.
Spotting Tong Yuwu, Ming Yi waved. “Fancy meeting you here?”
Tong Yuwu had no intention of inviting him inside. “Something you need?”
Ming Yi arched a brow, his gaze dropping to her right forearm.
“You tell me?” He tsked, leaning against the wall and nodding toward the burn with his chin. “Don’t you have anything to say to me?”
Peering through the gap between them, Meng Yiran spotted two figures behind Ming Yi, clad in the same uniforms—the members of the Inspection Team they’d glimpsed outside the Art Studio that day.
The pair hung back, lingering quietly about ten meters away, their eyes locked intently on Tong Yuwu in the doorway.
Tong Yuwu missed his hint entirely and shook her head. “Nope.”
She added bluntly, “Excuse me, I need to head out.”
“Hey now, I’m just going through the motions here, but play along a little, won’t you?” Ming Yi ruffled his hair, shook out his leg, and straightened up.
His expression grew a touch more serious. “Mind chatting about what went down in that classroom on the Second Floor?”
