Chapter 4: Getting Better

Will we have a next time?

Xing Yue hadn’t prepared the night before, and she couldn’t possibly carry those things on her person. She was dizzy and drunk on the way to the hotel. Only when it was time to get down to business did she realize the issue.

Actually, it was fine not to use them; the mucus on a snake’s tongue has a cleaning function. She used them purely to add a bit of spice.

Conveniently, the hotel room had items you could buy by scanning a code, so Xing Yue bought the hotel’s. In the past, considering Bu Yao’s young age, she rarely played with fancy things. She hadn’t expected that the first time she used them, there’d be a latex allergy, which meant all finger cots were unusable.

Xing Yue felt a bit speechless. She picked up a strawberry from the nearby porcelain bowl and bit off half its tip. The red juice lingered on her fingers. Though it was an icy touch, it felt like she had been burned by fire.

What to do now…

Xing Yue submerged herself in the bathtub, her dark hair soaking wet. She wanted to calm down, but her phone rang again with the sound of a friend request notification.

In less than thirty seconds, Bu Yao had initiated another friend request.

Even if the Eldest Miss Bu’s temper had improved somewhat, this behavior of pressing to add as a friend still rather exposed a bit of her obsessive personality. At this rate, if Xing Yue didn’t agree, Bu Yao could keep sending requests endlessly.

If she just blocked her… that seemed a bit scummy. Last night, she had been the one who, in a moment of impulse, willingly went to the hotel with Bu Yao. Now the other party was having an allergic reaction, and she just up and blocked them? That was unjustifiable no matter how you looked at it.

After an inner mental struggle, Xing Yue clicked the green “Accept” button.

As soon as she was added, Bu Yao sent a picture over. The underside of a snake tail, among the fine, small scales, mingled with several spot-like red marks, starkly contrasting with the smooth, semi-arched snake scales. It was slightly swollen. One look and you’d know it was sick.

Although it was just one picture, it was highly evocative, as if Bu Yao was holding her ill tail in her arms right before Xing Yue’s eyes, her mouth aggrievedly saying: “See, I wasn’t lying, it really is an allergy, right?”

Xing Yue: [Send me your address. I’ll order medicine online for delivery.]

Bu Yao: [You come over in person.]

Xing Yue: [NO.]

She refused crisply and decisively. Two minutes passed. Bu Yao didn’t reply to the message again.

Judging by how things were going, the Eldest Miss Bu was probably angry. Xing Yue didn’t plan on pestering her further for the address. She could ask Bo Wuxue, she’d know.

Just as she was about to message the Green Stone Snake, Bu Yao, perhaps suppressing her temper, actually compromised. She didn’t demand Xing Yue come over anymore, only sent a location pin.

Xing Yue stared at the location, shocked, for a few seconds. It was hard to believe that Bu Yao just let her off like that?

In the past, whatever Bu Yao wanted her to do, she wouldn’t stop until she got her way. It was like the whole world had to answer to the Eldest Miss Bu’s beck and call. That mouth of hers was only there for scolding people or bossing them around.

Xing Yue was very unaccustomed to the Bu Yao of now. This sudden concession stirred a tiny, subtle trace of guilt within her. It was a very subtle feeling.

After placing the order to buy the medicine, Xing Yue couldn’t help herself and sent Bu Yao a few reminders: [Use a cotton swab to pick up the ointment. Put it on the tail and then use your finger to gently rub it in. Don’t dig into the ointment directly with your hand, or else it might get infected next time you use it.]

Bu Yao: [Okay~ Will we have a next time?]

It was then that Xing Yue realized her words had an ambiguous meaning, as if she was implying they would hook up again.

Looking at the little tilde on the screen, she could guess Bu Yao’s mood seemed rather good.

Sensing the Little Fire Snake was trying to flirt with her.

Xing Yue smiled meaningfully: [What do you think?]

Soft, pure silk bedding half-covered the snake tail pressing down on it. The tail emerged from another corner of the blanket. Its small red tip, like a tiny flame, flipped and curled atop the bed.

Bu Yao was still too unsophisticated. When the question was thrown back at her, she gripped her phone, her heart rate skipping around nervously.

Soon enough, Xing Yue poured a bucket of cold water on her.

[Last night I had a bit to drink and lost my composure. We can be friends.]

Looking at the second half of that sentence, she only found it ironic. Did Xing Yue roll in the sheets with her friends too?

Bu Yao burrowed into her blanket. Her tail coiled into a ball, and she hugged it to herself, feeling a bit sad.

Not long after, a servant knocked and entered, carrying a tray with a glass of warm water and a few pills: “Eldest Miss, it’s time.”

Bu Yao covered herself with the blanket: “Just leave it.”

The servant didn’t leave. Standing in place, she relayed the instructions Madam Bu had given her: “The Madam said she must make sure you’ve finished your medicine before I can leave.”

The temperature inside the room suddenly plummeted. Bu Yao threw off the blanket, reached out, grabbed the tray straight off, and flung it into the servant’s face. The water glass hit the floor and shattered. Pills and glass shards mixed in a chaotic mess.

That servant was clearly shocked dumb. She collapsed on the floor, trembling.

The woman’s face was cold, her complexion incensed. She was vigorously restraining an anger about to erupt, and in the end, just shouted firmly: “Get out.”

The servant dared not say more, immediately bending over and scrambling out of the room on all fours.

Running out, her heart still pounding with lingering fear, she patted her chest directly and muttered as she walked: “No wonder she eats piles of bottles and jars of medicine. She really is seriously ill.”

The housekeeper, who had served in the Bu family for decades, happened to catch the new servant’s muttered words. He grabbed her and marched her to the back courtyard: “Do you want to die? Watch your mouth! Be careful, or the Master and Madam will kill you!”

The Little Maid grinned sheepishly and quickly changed the subject: “Uncle Li, what exactly is the Eldest Miss’s illness? If you won’t explain it properly to me, I won’t understand either. What if I mess up again next time?”

All those pills were portioned out by Madam Bu herself. She only knew that in Madam Bu’s room, cabinets full of bottles and jars were all medicine for the Eldest Miss Bu. What exactly the medicine was for, what it treated, she was completely in the dark.

Butler Li’s face was full of worry. He couldn’t explain it clearly either: “This illness is very tricky. I think it’s called something like ‘Love Obsession Sickness’, a mental illness. Just don’t provoke the Eldest Miss. Do whatever she says. In this household, the one with the highest status is the Eldest Miss. After her comes the Madam and the Master. Don’t mix up the order.”

It was because of this illness ten years ago that the Eldest Miss got divorced. In the interactions between the wife and wife, Xing Yue’s negative emotions formed a kind of erroneous feedback.

To put it simply, Bu Yao ordered Xing Yue to help her put on shoes in a public place. Even if Xing Yue already showed she was unwilling, even got angry, these emotions were transmitted to Bu Yao. Affected by her illness, Bu Yao would mistakenly perceive them as Xing Yue really liking it, really willing to do it, really loving her, really doting on her.

No matter what Xing Yue did, what she said, how much she resisted, in Bu Yao’s eyes, she thought Xing Yue was testing her, that it was proof deepening their relationship.

Remembering the changes in the Eldest Miss after the divorce, Uncle Li felt deeply pained. After all, he had watched her grow up since she was small.

Even though the Fire Snake is the only snake in the world possessing tear glands, most Fire Snakes still never shed a tear in their lifetime. After Xing Yue left, perhaps because Bu Yao couldn’t accept that the wife she’d always believed loved her deeply actually didn’t love her at all, her eyes nearly went blind from crying. That first year after the divorce, she cried every single day.

Madam Bu couldn’t bear it and said: “You get better, become outstanding, and Yueyue will come back.”

No one would like a girl with a furious, explosive temper, a Missy Temper, and princess syndrome all over. Everyone liked the gentle, pleasant, outstanding, and excellent ones.

It was precisely what Madam Bu had said. Bu Yao dropped out of her first year of university. She retook the exams, got into law school, the most difficult school. She passed the bar exam. It was as if only this could prove she was an extremely outstanding woman.

She was getting better. But Xing Yue still hadn’t come back. She even moved house, switched jobs, deleted her WeChat, terrified of being found by Bu Yao…

–

After finishing her bath, Bu Yao’s takeout delivery happened to arrive right on time. She started eating like crazy.

Different types of snakes have different mating durations, basically all starting from several hours. Therefore, after they get intimate, regardless of male or female, opposite or same sex, they all need a significant increase in calories.

Last night, Xing Yue and Bu Yao were entangled for a full twenty-three hours. Right now, Bu Yao should be eating too.

While eating, she chatted with Bo Wuxue over voice call: “What kind of thing is this, you tell me? Bu Yao is twenty-eight already and still randomly flings her tail around. If she hadn’t seduced me, I wouldn’t have walked into her trap.”

Bo Wuxue laughed exaggeratedly. Over the mic, you could hear the sound of pounding a table: “She seduced you, and you just couldn’t resist?”

Xing Yue’s eyes flickered, a bit guilty: “Speaking of which, wasn’t she studying finance in university? How’d she end up becoming a lawyer?”

With such a huge business empire in the Bu family, and Bu Yao being the only daughter, she had been groomed as the heir since childhood. For the Bu family to actually support Bu Yao not going into business… that meant they truly, truly doted on Bu Yao a lot.

Looking across all families of some status, there wasn’t a single daughter more free than Bu Yao.

Bo Wuxue clicked her tongue: “Wasn’t it all for you!”

These words spoken, the tableful of delicious food before Xing Yue instantly lost its taste. She secretly tightened her grip on the Western cutlery in her hands, her heart sinking—

As expected, the Eldest Miss Bu was here for revenge against her.