When Jing Ye opened his eyes, both Ruan Mei's gentle plum-blossom fragrance and Herta's elegant, mysterious scent were clearly mingled into the sea-breeze tang in the air.
Ruan Mei, having just finished "practicing tai chi," was still lying limp, recovering her strength. As powerful as those long legs were, once Jing Ye got even one percent serious, her composure crumbled.
Now, with a rope in his hand, he brought Ruan Mei a "good friend" to share her burden—her dear partner and close sister, Herta.
Because of the blindfold and her weakness, Ruan Mei didn't seem to realize Herta had arrived. She only faintly caught a whiff of a familiar scent, but didn't quite dare believe it.
Jing Ye shushed her gently with a soft "shh," telling her to be quiet, while also making Herta press her lips together.
After all those experiments, during which Jing Ye would always "invite Ruan Mei to help," Herta had developed a habit of obeying his orders—
Because if she didn't, she might really be exposed in front of Ruan Mei.
But soon, that wouldn't matter anymore.
Jing Ye pushed Herta down as well, and the experiment with her began at once.
This time, the experiment was completely different from the past. Before, even when Ruan Mei was involved, she'd always been kept at a certain distance. Now, for the first time, the two were this close to each other.
Jing Ye placed Herta right beside Ruan Mei; with just a single roll, Herta would run straight into her.
At the moment, thanks to Jing Ye's "help," Herta couldn't turn over. But as the experiment went on and grew noisy, both of them began to sense something was off.
Because Herta's stamina was always so pathetic, Jing Ye had previously eased her into experiments little by little. This time, he started at full throttle.
If the previous sessions were like adding reagents drop by drop into a test tube, this one was like throwing open the floodgates.
The result was that Herta's precious young-lady physique couldn't handle such high intensity; the test tube overflowed on the spot.
Ruan Mei, blindfolded and tied down, slowly realized something was wrong but couldn't break free. Listening to the commotion, confusion spread across her face.
She might have heard Jing Ye describe a "leaving someone to rest" method before, but she had definitely never heard of an experiment that involved such violent shaking and a whole bucket of "water" being splashed around.
Especially when Jing Ye started pushing Herta to work at even higher intensity—
Even with all her practice at keeping quiet, the delicate young lady couldn't maintain the usual "silent experiment principle" anymore. She couldn't help turning the "experiment speakers" on.
And it was exactly that "speaker" being turned on that froze Ruan Mei in place.
Blindfolded, Herta had no idea that every little detail of her experiment—every sound—was reaching Ruan Mei's ears from no more than an arm's length away.
Because Jing Ye had whispered to her:
"Ruan Mei isn't here. You don't have to worry about the noise."
"Just let the sounds of the experiment come out. It's fine."
Maybe because Jing Ye had always invited Ruan Mei to be "nearby" during experiments but never once torn through that last layer of paper, a misconception had formed in Herta's mind:
She'd come to believe that Jing Ye was a man of his word. That he really wouldn't let Ruan Mei find out what was going on between them.
So when he told her she could let the experiment be as loud as she wanted, Herta finally stopped holding anything back.
Her voice rose and fell like a song and a sobbing wail combined, echoing around the room with every "reaction" in the test tube.
In that moment, Ruan Mei's body went rigid.
She finally, completely, believed what she had been afraid to confirm:
The person right next to her was indeed Herta.
And Herta, still oblivious to her friend's presence, only realized how bad things were when the experiment reached its peak and Jing Ye suddenly tore off her blindfold.
"?!"
The abrupt return of vision startled Herta right when the experiment was at its most critical point.
The restoration of sight gave her a moment of relief—but deep down, something dropped with a heavy thud of dread.
After so many days of experiments, she knew perfectly well Jing Ye was a complete villain. A man like him wouldn't suddenly grow a conscience and show mercy mid-way.
So this sudden removal of the blindfold was extremely suspicious.
And just as she feared, the scene that appeared in front of her made her heart stop.
When Jing Ye pulled off her blindfold, Herta finally saw that all-too-familiar figure right in front of her—
Even though Ruan Mei wasn't wearing her usual gentle cheongsam, Herta recognized her at a glance, even blindfolded she'd have known.
But the sight of Ruan Mei right now tore at Herta's eyes.
Was this really the same Ruan Mei she knew? That quiet, refined woman, so proper and serene…
Why did she look like this now?
Shock and disbelief exploded into rage.
"You… you scum—!! You said—you said you wouldn't touch Ruan Mei?!"
But Herta's fury was useless. The ropes didn't loosen, and Jing Ye's overwhelming advantage didn't shift.
Clenching her teeth, Herta stared in panic at Ruan Mei's blindfold, at her unmoving body, horror filling her gaze.
"S-she's… asleep, right?"
"She didn't hear… she doesn't know, right?!"
To that terrified question, Jing Ye's answer was—
"I'm not really sure. Why don't you take a look?"
He laughed softly in Herta's ear, pretending to play dumb while fully aware of what he was doing—his old familiar brand of malice, but never before had it made Herta this nervous, this afraid.
Even knowing full well what Ruan Mei's presence here meant, Herta still clung desperately to a shred of hope.
Hoping he might keep at least one last bottom line. Hoping he wouldn't cross the boundary that would completely destroy her.
Maybe… maybe this was just another of his twisted games. Maybe he'd only knocked Ruan Mei out and brought her here to scare Herta as a little prank?
Even though everything Ruan Mei had just suffered had already shattered that fragile hope, Herta still couldn't help clinging to it.
Hands shaking, she edged closer to Ruan Mei, finally reaching out to take off her blindfold—
Ruan Mei's eyes snapped open beneath it, wide and disbelieving.
The two best friends stared at one another, each seeing herself reflected in the other's pupils, frozen in utter shock.
-------
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