Chapter 28: Do you know why I want to play this bullying game with you?

Bai Linlin subconsciously blurted out these words. 

Her voice came out soft and shaky, sounding somewhat foreign even to herself.

She felt Xiran, who was pressing down on her, suddenly freeze.

The hand resting on her shoulder halted in mid-air.

Bai Linlin’s heart skipped a heavy beat.

Had she said the wrong thing?

Or was Xiran unhappy with her reaction right now?

What should have been just a few seconds stretched out like an entire century in the frozen silence.

Then, surprisingly, Xiran did not continue her oppressive movements.

Instead, she withdrew her hand, slowly turned to the side, and gently lay down beside Bai Linlin.

The next moment, Bai Linlin felt herself being pulled into a warm, tender embrace.

Xiran held her tightly—so tightly that Bai Linlin’s face was pressed into the crook of her neck, making her breathing unstable.

Her nose was filled with Xiran’s familiar scent.

She could feel Xiran’s heartbeat. It was steady, yet slightly faster than usual.

“Linlin.”

Xiran’s voice suddenly came from above her head. It was low and deep, without the usual soft, sweet pretense.

It also lacked the cold tone she used when giving orders. 

Instead, it was light, as if she were asking both herself and Bai Linlin.

“Do you know why I want to play this bullying game with you?”

Bai Linlin was stunned.

The question was too sudden.

“W-Why?”

Bai Linlin’s voice was muffled against Xiran’s shoulder, laced with caution.

She genuinely wanted to know.

What exactly was going on inside this pervert’s head?

Was she simply a natural-born sadist?

Or did she have some other kind of sickness?

But Xiran did not answer right away.

She loosened her arm around Bai Linlin a little, allowing her to breathe more comfortably.

Then that hand slid downward, her palm resting on Bai Linlin’s back and pressing gently.

“…P-Pervert.”

Bai Linlin muttered in an extremely small voice, her face growing warm.

Xiran either didn’t hear it or simply didn’t care.

Her fingers gently caressed Bai Linlin through the fabric as she spoke in a calm voice, as if stating a simple fact.

“Because Linlin has no self-awareness at all.”

She said.

“You always attract all kinds of inexplicable people. They revolve around you, treat you well, and try to get close to you.”

Bai Linlin’s mind spun for a moment.

Inexplicable people?

Who?

Didn’t she… barely have any friends?

“No self-awareness… inexplicable people?”

She repeated in confusion.

“What do you mean?”

Xiran did not explain.

She simply tightened the arm around Bai Linlin’s waist, pulling her even closer into her embrace until her lips were nearly pressed against the top of Bai Linlin’s head.

“So I want to turn Linlin into a little villain.”

Her voice was soft, yet carried an unquestionable obsession.

“Make everyone afraid of you, so they won’t dare approach you or like you.”

She paused.

“That way, Linlin can only belong to me.”

Bai Linlin’s brain short-circuited for several seconds.

What?

She had imagined countless possibilities.

That Xiran was born a pervert, or that she enjoyed the thrill of sadism, or that she wanted to treat her as a toy or a scapegoat… but she had never expected the reason to be this… simple?

No, how was this simple at all!

This was clearly the most perverted kind of perversion!

There were obviously so many other ways to possess someone!

You’re so damn beautiful. If you just treated me normally, protected me when I was being bullied, and let me slowly depend on you until I couldn’t leave you—that would be the proper way to monopolize me!

So why did you choose the most torturous, most perverted, and most terrifying method instead?!

She stared at Xiran’s chin, which was so close, her mind full of question marks.

Even though she now knew the “why,” she still didn’t understand “why.”

What happened in Xiran’s past? Where did her obsession with “possession” come from? Why this method?

And… why hurt her?

Wasn’t the goal to possess her?

But hurting someone would only push them further away, wouldn’t it?

The more Bai Linlin thought about it, the more confused she became.

Her brain felt like a ball of yarn mauled by a cat—nothing but tangled knots.

“…What about you before then?”

She asked almost involuntarily, her voice so soft it was as if she feared waking something dangerous.

“Did something… happen in your past?”

The moment the words left her mouth, Bai Linlin suddenly felt a bone-chilling coldness.

Even though she was being held by Xiran, even though their bodies were pressed tightly together.

That coldness shot up her spine like she had been plunged into ice water.

Xiran did not speak.

Her entire body stiffened, and her breathing stopped for an instant.

Then, without warning, she gripped Bai Linlin’s waist and back with far greater force!

The strength was almost enough to snap her bones!

“Linlin!”

Xiran’s voice cracked. It was no longer calm or disguised, but filled with near-hysterical fear.

“Don’t even think about running! You’re not allowed to run!”

“Ah! It hurts, Xiran!”

Bai Linlin could barely breathe under the pressure, feeling as if her ribs were about to be crushed.

“Run? Run where?! I’m not trying to run!”

What answered her was an even tighter restraint. And then—

Xiran became like a wild beast driven mad by fright, completely losing all reason.

Bai Linlin tried to push her away, but that familiar, despair-inducing sense of restraint descended once again.

Magical power, like invisible chains, pinned her limbs to the bed.

It was happening again.

She couldn’t move again.

Bai Linlin endured the punitive kiss that carried a terrifying aura with great discomfort.

She could taste a faint metallic rust—the flavor of her own split lip bleeding.

Then Xiran flipped her entire body over.

Bai Linlin’s back pressed against Xiran’s soft chest.

Xiran buried her face into the pink hair at the back of Bai Linlin’s head, inhaling deeply like a drowning person clutching the only remaining piece of driftwood.

Just when she felt she was about to be overwhelmed and destroyed by this strange and terrifying emotion—

Without any warning.

A cold, sharp fragment of memory, like a rusty iron nail, suddenly pierced through the haze in her consciousness!

Finally, there were the voices of her classmates from the hotel calling for her, growing closer, along with Xiran’s low whisper beside her ear, carrying warm breath and cruel regret.

“Linlin is really lucky, huh.”

“Remember your place… Linlin can only ever, ever belong to me.”

The sensations of reality collided violently with the pain and fear from the memory!

Bai Linlin’s eyes snapped wide open, her pupils contracting sharply!

A despair far older and deeper than her fear of Xiran surged up from the depths of her soul. 

It crashed over her like billions of tons of icy water!

Those were not her memories.

They belonged to this body—the original Bai Linlin—and represented the most extreme fear and pain she had ever experienced!

Had that girl disappeared?

Or… was she her?

She didn’t know.

She only knew one thing: right now, she was lying in this demon’s arms, experiencing the exact same thing.