Chapter 35: Transition
The bathroom was very damp.
There was water everywhere.
Without opening the window, the ventilation of the old castle was practically zero. The steam couldn’t dissipate, clinging to the walls, and then liquefying and flowing everywhere.
Wet.
A sensation that could easily stir human nerves.
A rainy day, a classroom, wet shoes, and still forty minutes until class is over;
Summer, a subway, an empty seat, but the butt print left by the previous person is still steaming;
Evening, a sofa, the lover in your arms, the slightly sweaty temples as they sleep soundly…
Wet.
It can always easily make one restless.
The temperature in the bathroom gradually dropped. The steam dissipated, and water began to trickle down all four walls.
The wet sensation also appeared on her fingertips. Adele’s wrist stiffened.
She subconsciously looked up.
Was the ceiling leaking?
The fifteen-degree sloped ceiling channeled all the water to the drain.
It wasn’t the ceiling that was leaking.
Adele’s two temples throbbed. Her wolf ears always popped out with a “poof” when she was emotional. Under the snow-white fur were ear tips that were rapidly filling with blood.
She knew.
She had tasted it.
She had a deep impression.
Lop-eared rabbits are actually very delicate. Just like with clothes, a slightly rougher material, the moment it’s put on, at most three minutes, and her skin would turn red, and even break out in a dense rash.
This kind of constitution shows injuries very easily.
Fragile and beautiful things always easily arouse a person’s desire to torment. Otherwise, the original book would not have been so popular.
Bullying a weak and beautiful lop-eared rabbit, watching her teary-eyed, covered in wounds, and unable to resist—that pitiful appearance perfectly satisfied the hobby of a certain group of people.
At this moment, Adele’s breathing quickened. The slap that had not yet fallen almost hit her own face.
She was not like those people, but she was also a scumbag.
A big scumbag.
The light in the bathroom left nothing to hide.
Adele saw her “masterpiece.” In just a few short moments, she did not feel pity for Lina, but rather a twisted sense of satisfaction.
At this moment, she was in complete control of Lina.
No.
It was absolute control.
The pretense of decency could deceive others, but not herself.
She had to admit to herself that her ever-increasing desire to control the rabbit ball was, at this moment, strangely satisfied.
The restraint that made the roots of her teeth ache when their breaths mingled was entirely because she couldn’t bear to bite and injure the delicate rabbit.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to.
Perhaps it was the territorial instinct of a top predator, or perhaps it was her nature.
She just wanted to mark the prey that belonged to her.
She wanted it like crazy.
For the countless time, Adele touched the dark side of her heart.
They say that if you love someone, you should give them freedom, let them explore the vastness of the world, feel the boundlessness of the world, the changes of the four seasons.
Sorry, she just wanted to lock the person in her own home.
What world? What seasons?
Her life could only have her.
Only.
Adele couldn’t continue anymore. Her already broken order, at this moment, was completely shattered into dust.
After the thrill that made her scalp tingle, pain followed.
She couldn’t accept that she had such thoughts, and she certainly wouldn’t allow herself to really hurt Lina.
At this moment, Adele was like a thief who had broken into a pharaoh’s tomb. She had found a priceless treasure. Just as she was enjoying it for two seconds, she stepped on a trap. The scarab beetles guarding the tomb swarmed out, and in an instant, they had devoured her from head to toe.
Fear and pain took the upper hand.
Adele was worried that she had really hurt Lina, so she stopped her movements. She wanted to call a halt to this absurd lesson, to wash her fingertips clean.
But Lina didn’t want to.
Her drooping head was slightly congested with blood. She had counted to the tenth hit and was starting to feel dizzy.
Her memory went back to when the two of them first met.
Because of the first rule, she had been disciplined for the first time.
What did it feel like then?
Reassurance.
It was as if being disciplined by Adele had truly made her her student, one who could be protected by her.
A warm, sheltering harbor was full of temptation for a little rabbit who had been bullied and had no one to rely on.
From the very beginning, Lina had been infatuated with this feeling.
She just liked being disciplined by Adele.
Lina didn’t dare to voice such thoughts. Only that repeatedly damp piece of clothing knew what she had done.
Before the window paper was completely pierced, she would always imagine:
Adele catching her doing something bad, lifting her onto her lap, and disciplining her harshly, just like now.
Lina was no longer the naive and ignorant young girl she once was. She knew that what she truly craved was not the discipline itself, but the protection and doting love hidden behind it.
She could distinguish between them; she wouldn’t mistake violence for love.
But sometimes, she didn’t want to distinguish them so clearly.
Because she was in too much pain.
She also craved violence.
Her spirit craved liberation. The unresolvable pain could only be transferred to her body.
Using one kind of pain to soothe another.
It wasn’t a good method, but it was one of the only two useful means at the moment.
If she carved a shocking wound on her flesh, would the festering on her spirit heal?
No.
It was just drinking poison to quench a thirst.
Just like tumbling through the night, from the bed curtains to the window, then rolling into the bathroom, until the sky turned a fish-belly white, and finally passing out in the bathtub.
Extreme indulgence could only bring a brief mental blankness. She was just made muddle-headed, with no energy to think, not made amnesiac.
When she woke up, it would still hurt.
But she had no other way.
If she could get a moment’s respite, then she would relax in this crevice.
Otherwise, she would really go mad.
Lina needed Adele’s discipline because she needed the love behind the discipline, and she also needed the pain brought by the discipline.
She liked it so much.
But Adele was too fond of her.
A person who has been enlightened is not easy to satisfy. Once you’ve tasted it, you want to push your luck. The burning skin gradually cooled. Lina waited for a long time, but Adele didn’t continue. She let out a dissatisfied whimper, completely forgetting how all this had started.
“Lina.” Adele was made to tremble by her call. “What are you doing?”
Lina turned her head to look at her in a daze. “I’m…”
Only then did she realize, how had she started to enjoy it?
The water in the bathroom had not been completely wiped clean. At this moment, it had flowed to the feet of the two of them.
Adele touched the wetness and spread it out for Lina to see.
“Give me an explanation.”
“Ah!” Lina saw it clearly. Her brain shut down. A moment later, she let out a scream, covered her face with her ears, and tried to play dead like an ostrich. “I don’t know…”
Adele wickedly lifted a corner of her long ear and said, “It’s your own thing. You don’t know?”
Help.
Lina felt that Adele had gone bad.
She suspected that Adele had also been secretly “studying.”
Lina was so ashamed her heart was pounding. She couldn’t form a complete sentence. In her whimper, her entire face was on fire.
Adele’s zero self-control once again failed to work.
Tonight was destined to be a sleepless one.
Adele said, “Alright, I see it’s hungry.”
Lina’s breath hitched.
The person feeding her didn’t give her time to prepare mentally and fed her directly, scooping a large spoonful, stuffing her full.
*
“Yo.” Haia ran into Lina as soon as she left. The bad rabbit’s two legs were trembling. “Why are you shaking like that?”
Lina leaned against the wall, her eyes darting away. “I did five hundred squats.”
Haia smiled without a word, knowing that only the words “I did” were true. What kind of squats would leave bite marks on her jaw?
She had clearly been eaten clean.
Lina stopped in her tracks and suddenly lowered her voice. “I have a friend…”
Haia gave a “Mhm.”
What a classic opening.
A non-existent friend, the standard line of a guilty patient.
Lina cleared her throat and said, “This friend of mine, she seems to have… an addiction. Is it a sickness?”
Haia got straight to the point. “What addiction?”
She already had a guess in her heart, but she still wanted to tease the rabbit.
For some reason, this fluffy little thing just made her want to bully it.
The rabbit was.
And the fox was too…
The moment Haia thought of Herlkin, of the harsh words that night, her expression changed slightly. She pushed up her glasses, hiding the sadness.
“Mhm…” Lina stammered, “I’m not… not clear about her either. It’s just… that aspect…”
“You suspect you have a sex addiction?” Haia blurted out, without a trace of shame or coyness. As a physician, she had no colored glasses for this kind of thing, let alone any taboo.
Everyone has desires. What is there to be ashamed of?
Lina nodded, then shook her head violently. Her two hands and two ears swayed in refusal together. “It’s not me, it’s not me.”
“Oh—” Haia dragged out the end of the word, teasing her a little, then instantly retracted her smile. “I’ve seen plenty of dishonest patients. Don’t lie to me. Give me your hand.”
Lina instantly became honest. Her two rabbit ears were like they were stuck on a red apple. She obediently gave her hand to Haia, the tips of her ears so red they could drip blood.
“Your heart is beating so fast. Are you nervous?” Haia became very serious. “Take a deep breath first.”
After a moment, she frowned directly. “Is there something on your mind?”
Lina answered a question with a question. “What’s wrong?”
Haia gripped her wrist and continued to ask, “Have you ever thought about suicide? Or, do you have any self-destructive tendencies?”
In an instant, the stairwell became so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
“No, I have to tell your teacher.” Haia already had the answer. She turned to find Adele.
“Don’t!”
Lina grabbed her arm. The next second, she felt something like gauze.
Haia let out a “hiss,” her lips trembling in pain.
“Sorry.” Lina abruptly let go. “Are you hurt? I have some elven ointment. It will heal faster if you apply it.”
“I’m fine.” Haia’s eyes darted away, changing the subject. “You must accept psychological intervention. Relying on self-harm or sexual indulgence will not truly provide relief.”
“Who should I find for psychological intervention?” Lina took half a step closer. “You?”
“What do you mean?”
“The taste of unfulfilled desire is not good, is it.” Lina said softly, “I finally understand where I showed a flaw in the clinic that day. In a way, we are the same kind. You can see my desire for my teacher, and I can also…”
She paused. “Do you want your teacher to know all your thoughts? Do you dare?”
Haia pondered for a moment. “I respect you. I don’t have to tell Adele. But as a physician, I have a responsibility to remind you that you can’t let yourself be carried away by your emotions anymore. Some things, you have to let go when you have to. I can tell you clearly that sex itself is not addictive. But if it can temporarily relieve your pain, then it is possible to become addicted. Over time, if the stimulation is not enough, you might even pursue more excessive methods… You should grasp this limit yourself.”
Lina nodded, then said, “On the night of the full moon, the night-watch maid saw your teacher vomit blood by the flowerbed. You should take a closer look at her body.”
Haia covered the arm that had just been pinched by Lina and acted nonchalant. “She’ll be fine.”
*
After replacing the profit-driven butler and the head maid who had her eyes on the top of her head, Lina also kicked out those who loved to form cliques, to isolate and bully others.
After Dilys took office as the butler, she replaced all the servants in the manor with women, eliminating harassment to the greatest extent. At the same time, she hired twenty percent more people to distribute the original individual workload.
Now, the manor had a new look. Everyone was cheerful.
Adele walked into the kitchen and asked casually, “What are we eating today?”
“My lady, we have braised pork trotters today.” The head chef said, “It’s about to snow heavily. This stuff is very nourishing.”
Adele counted her two arms, from her wrist all the way to her shoulder.
She should indeed nourish herself.
“We also have stew today.” The maid who was plating the food had just said this when she let out an “eh.” “Where did this blood come from?”
She suddenly saw a drop of blood by the stove where the stew was placed.
“It’s probably chicken blood. We just killed a chicken.”
No one took this matter to heart.
During lunch, Adele was fiercely eating pork trotters. Lina was fiercely drinking water. Herlkin was eating a sausage with one bite and a pork trotter with the next, completely captivated by the aroma of the meat.
The trio of foodies ate with abandon. Haia, on the other hand, calmly ate her vegetable salad. She used her peripheral vision to lock onto Aomo, who was drinking soup, until she saw her drink the soup with her own eyes.
The soup, which had been spiked, with just one sip, awakened the devil in Aomo’s heart.
The hand holding the spoon trembled uncontrollably, and the fine lines at the corners of her eyes disappeared in an instant.
There was blood in the soup!
The blood of a young, pure-blood woman!
She wanted to leave her seat, didn’t want to rely on this method to prolong her life anymore. But the desire in her heart had reached its peak.
Aomo’s hand trembled. She raised the bowl with vacant eyes and drank all the soup inside.
Haia smiled and put a piece of salad in her mouth, chewing nonchalantly.
Teacher, I’ve been by your side since I was little. Some secrets, I know them all clearly…
*
Tomorrow, they would set off for the monastery. Lina was packing her clothes, but Adele was restless.
“Teacher?” Lina took the initiative to straddle her. “What’s wrong?”
Adele thought of that nightmare again. The uneasy feeling made her chest feel tight.
“I want to kiss you.”
Lina feigned refusal. “No.”
Adele wrapped her arms around her waist and pulled her forward. “No? Then why aren’t you running?”
“Mmph—”
Lina’s words of explanation were all blocked.
“I know you don’t like it gentle at this time.”
/
“I often think, maybe back then, I shouldn’t have gone to the monastery after using Huaguang’s hand to deal with Herte.”
“That was the beginning of the deterioration of my relationship with Teacher.”
“I didn’t understand then that power can be tempting, and I was no exception.”
“As I write these words, Teacher has already left me. I regret my choice back then very much. I have everything now, but I also have nothing. I know where she is. Should I go and see her? Do I still have a chance to make it up?”
