"I did it of my own will, Yukinoshita miss,"
Kurosawa Eiko quickly gave an answer.
She absolutely had to protect Lin Ye.
This life of hers had been saved by Lin Ye. Even though in the end, by fleeing one step ahead of him, she had surely offended Lin Ye, he was definitely not a person she could afford to provoke.
Therefore, she would rather offend this somewhat young and tender girl before her than ever provoke Lin Ye.
That was the female yoga instructor's thinking.
Yukino Yukinoshita knitted her brows slightly.
Could it be that Hypnosis had been used on her?
Could it be that Lin Ye truly liked a woman of Kurosawa Eiko's type?
"Are you certain? Miss Kurosawa,"
"I'm very certain."
She nodded.
At this point Haruno immediately added, "I recall Miss Kurosawa was also going to introduce your pretty students to Lin-kun, right!"
With that single sentence, the already abnormal atmosphere grew even more silent.
Although Kurosawa Eiko was prepared to accept everything, she still wanted to dodge whatever she could—but this woman Haruno mercilessly shattered that fantasy of hers.
Too much.
It really was too much.
Kurosawa Eiko realized this was Haruno's revenge against her.
At that final moment, she should not have dared to go first.
Now that she had calmed down, she regretted it. The one she feared was not Haruno but Lin Ye.
But at the time the desire to survive had seized her body and mind entirely, leaving no room for any extra thought; all she had wanted was to get into the safe zone first.
Kurosawa Eiko pressed her lips together slightly, deciding she could only make it up to Lin Ye in her own way and beg his forgiveness.
She was a yoga instructor, after all, and could do many poses—she could strike many positions.
She thought Lin Ye would be satisfied.
Facing Kurosawa Eiko's silence, Yukino Yukinoshita realized what her sister had said was true.
She felt it must be that Lin Ye had used Hypnosis—otherwise, how could a perfectly normal person accept Lin Ye's unreasonable behavior, and even offer to actively introduce her pretty students?
If word of such a thing got out, it would cost her her livelihood.
"Thank you, Miss Kurosawa. If there are problems in the future, I may come to ask you again,"
"..."
Please don't!
"Sorry to have bothered you this time,"
Yukino Yukinoshita continued.
She politely said her goodbyes and turned to leave first.
Haruno deliberately lagged a step behind. "The matter between us isn't over yet,"
Kurosawa Eiko: ???
"Remember to contact me,"
Haruno stuffed a little slip of paper into Kurosawa Eiko's hand.
On it was her contact information.
"If you don't contact me, you'll bear the consequences yourself. A woman's vindictiveness—I think you understand it better than I do,"
With that said, Haruno left with a smile,
leaving behind a Kurosawa Eiko whose heart had gone cold.
She had overlooked the revenge coming from Haruno Yukinoshita.
She had underestimated Haruno Yukinoshita.
This was even more dangerous than Lin Ye!
She sensed it instinctively.
In the end, Kurosawa Eiko let out a sigh.
At least she had already made it back alive. Compared to the male High School Student, and to that man who had been killed by the monster at the very start and had his body occupied, the fact that she could come back alive was already the luckiest of lucky outcomes.
"We'll see,"
"As long as I don't die, it's fine,"
She didn't know how Haruno would deal with her either.
In any case, if she couldn't fight it, she would just accept it.
And if worse came to worst, she would weep and plead to Lin Ye.
That man was, at his core, a gentle man—otherwise, how could he have repeatedly stepped in to save people!
Kurosawa Eiko returned to the rest room, and drowsiness welled up once again. She lay on the bed and closed her eyes to rest, and soon the faint, steady sound of her breathing rose once more.
...
After Haruno walked out of the yoga studio, she saw Yukino waiting outside, who had not abandoned her and left alone.
At once she broke into a happy smile.
"Haha, Yukino really didn't abandon me. I thought Yukino would get angry and just leave outright."
"Sister, tell me—what on earth happened between you two?"
Yukino still couldn't fully accept it. She was quite certain her sister and Kurosawa Eiko had definitely concealed some important information.
Otherwise, things shouldn't be like this.
"Go ask Lin-kun yourself! Anyway, I've already said everything I can say; what I can't say I really can't say. If I anger Lin-kun, I have no idea how I'd be punished,"
Lin Ye would punish her sister?
Were these two on such good terms? Had there been something similar between them before?
Yukino couldn't help but think.
"I'll go ask. At the same time, I hope you, Sister, will keep your distance from my fiancé."
"Whoa!"
Haruno exclaimed, her eyes showing a touch of surprise.
For Yukino to so seriously tell her to keep her distance from Lin Ye—this was a first.
"Is Yukino worried I'll steal Lin-kun away?"
"..."
"Worried that something might happen between me and Lin-kun?"
"..."
Haruno shook her head and patted Yukino's shoulder. "If something really were going to happen between us, if Lin-kun really had feelings for me, there wouldn't be any part for you in it at all, Yukino."
Yukino pursed her lips, and a possibility surfaced in her mind: her sister and Lin Ye had probably truly had something happen that she didn't know about.
Haruno stepped closer, looped her arm around her sister's shoulder, and came to the side of the glass railing of the corridor. She gazed off into the distance, then leaned in and lowered her voice. "Lin-kun and I have gotten a room together, you know! A single big-bed room."
Yukino's eyes went wide.
A single room.
They'd gone and gotten a room—how could nothing have happened?
"I even let him do whatever he wanted."
Yukino: ???
"It's true, truer than pure gold,"
Yukino's heart sank to the very bottom.
"But he stubbornly didn't touch me—it made me wonder whether he was even a man."
In that instant, a glimmer suffused Yukino's eyes—a glimmer of surprise and delight.
Lin Ye had actually not accepted; he had actually resisted the temptation.
Though she didn't want to admit it, deep in her heart she was inferior to her sister, especially in figure—this had always been a sore point for her—and yet Lin Ye had even resisted the temptation coming from her sister.
"Many times afterward I hinted at it, I even threw myself at him, but he refused every time. I was so heartbroken!"
Haruno even dabbed miserably at the corners of her eyes—though there was no telling whether these were tears of genuine grief or feigned ones.
"And just now, he would rather take advantage of that female yoga instructor—pinching, groping, even smacking… her bottom. I really don't understand why he guards against a great beauty like me and won't touch her, yet goes off to find wildflowers outside! Could it be that because I'm too proactive and throwing myself at him, he's lost interest?"
Haruno shook her head and sighed.
Yukino listened, her feelings complicated and miserable.
No matter how you put it, when her own fiancé and boyfriend engaged in intimate physical contact with other women, her mood was definitely not going to be anywhere near good.
"Let's go back,"
Yukino left, not wanting to stay here any longer.
"Back home?"
"Downstairs,"
She still had to wait for that man.
That man had sneaked off to do who-knows-what unmentionable thing, but she still couldn't bring herself to leave without a word. Even though she could send a message, she didn't want to do that either.
She would wait until Lin Ye came back, and then question him to his face.
Yukino Yukinoshita wanted to see just what Lin Ye had done.
"All right then. I thought Yukino would get angry and go straight home! This way, Lin-kun has once again dodged a disaster."
Sure enough, Yukino still cared a great deal about Lin Ye. Though she was angry about his contact with other women, this still fell within the range of what she could tolerate.
How wonderful.
If things went on like this, Yukino would likely truly come to tacitly accept Lin Ye's ambiguous relations with other girls—so long as the number wasn't very large, she would accept them all.
Such a future was something Lin Ye could only wish for.
But for Haruno, in Haruno's view, for her little sister it was the beginning of suffering.
She truly hoped her sister would keep her distance from Lin Ye, ideally separating from him right now—but the difficulty had already grown so high that even she couldn't find a way to resolve it.
Before, there had still been opportunities and methods; she could use Yukino's inability to tolerate Lin Ye's philandering and promiscuity to resolve it. But now, but as things stood now, with that method having already failed, Haruno could no longer find a better way.
"Or maybe…"
That might just work.
Have her little sister witness with her own eyes Lin Ye and another woman making passionate love in bed.
If that were the case, her little sister ought to give up too!
If even that didn't work, then she really would have to give up.
She really would be of no avail.
The two sisters, shoulder to shoulder, took the escalator down to the third floor and soon returned to the spot where they had first waited.
Lin Ye still had not appeared by now.
Because of her sister's return, Yukino had one less worry; to her, since her sister had come back, Lin Ye's return couldn't be far off either.
Haruno, meanwhile, trusted Lin Ye—it was just that with him still not appearing even now, her heart couldn't help but worry, and she subconsciously wondered whether something had happened to Lin Ye, whether he had yet to return from that dangerous instance.
"I'll go buy some drinks."
Saying so, Haruno walked toward the milk-tea shop in the distance and bought three cups of lemon water.
In this weather,
a refreshing, sweet-and-sour lemon water was the best choice.
"Three cups of lemon water."
"Certainly, customer. Please wait just a moment,"
The server smiled in attendance.
Haruno waited quietly.
This time she had personally experienced a Strange event, recalling the entire process from beginning to end.
As for herself, even if she had known the method to solve it, she really had no idea whether she could have successfully passed.
Her teammates were unreliable, unable to work in unison.
And even if they could work in unison, in the end competition would still come.
Had it not been for Lin Ye, she was quite certain she basically would not have made it back.
"Phew,"
Haruno caught sight of that white lucky cat in the milk-tea shop, and her heart instinctively trembled.
As for the final return item, she understood that this Strange event and the lucky cat had an inevitable connection.
She did not reach out to touch it, and even averted her gaze, so as to avoid any possible misfortune for herself.
On the other side,
after Lin Ye returned, he first changed into a fresh set of clothes—the new outfit the Yukinoshita sisters had picked out for him.
"I hope Yukino's still in a good mood."
With this much time having passed, without even a single message, he knew it would leave the girl waiting in anxiety and worry.
Lin Ye took the elevator up to the third floor of the mall.
Soon,
Lin Ye reached the third floor and stepped out of the elevator, walking step by step toward his target's direction. Before long he spotted the girl with long black hair waiting by the glass railing.
She stood leaning sideways, her eyes gazing into the distance, the faint flow of air stirring her long black hair, making her look elegant and light.
But Lin Ye did not see Haruno.
"She didn't come back?"
That should be impossible.
After entering the jewelry store, even the least clever person would know to touch that lucky cat, right!
If she hadn't even done that and was still in that Strange world, Lin Ye could only express his regret—he had no way to enter that Strange world again to look for Haruno and bring her back.
"Yukino,"
After Lin Ye stepped closer, he spoke with a smile.
The girl with long black hair acted as if she hadn't heard, maintaining her original posture, without the slightest reaction.
"Yukino?"
Lin Ye drew nearer, and even came right to Yukino's side.
His gaze fell on the girl's exquisite profile—a face that stirred the heart, that made one unable to resist curving the corners of one's lips.
This was his girlfriend; this was his fiancée.
"I apologize to you—for being away for such a long time,"
This single sentence finally drew a reaction from the girl. She turned her head slightly, her dark navy-blue eyes reflecting Lin Ye's face.
Soon the girl's cherry-colored red lips moved gently, her voice cool and clear, like the ice and snow of deep winter, "And what else!"
That single sentence left Lin Ye stunned for a moment.
What else?
"What else?"
"The matter of apologizing."
What else could there be?
Yukino's gaze, full of cold intent, met Lin Ye's, and in a moment it dropped lower to rest on Lin Ye's cheek.
"You didn't even wipe off the lipstick. Do you take me for someone with something wrong with her eyes?"
Lin Ye instinctively raised the back of his hand to wipe, and his eyes quickly caught the red mark on the back of his hand.
It was lipstick.
It was the mark left from Haruno's kiss that one time.
But how was he to explain this?
Say it was your sister who kissed me?
Wouldn't he be cursed to death by Yukino?
"Sorry, I apologize to you. But please rest assured, I really did nothing to wrong you."
"Oh!"
Hearing this, Yukino almost laughed.
Nothing? Groping and pinching and even kissing, and that's still not wronging her?
It seemed Lin Ye's definition of 'things that wrong her' was quite narrow indeed.
"Really nothing?"
"Nothing?"
"Who is Kurosawa Eiko?"
The moment Lin Ye heard this, he knew Haruno had already come back, and had said quite a lot of things.
"Who was it that took advantage of Miss Kurosawa Eiko?"
She smiled, but very coldly.
"Who did the rubbing, who did the pinching, and the smacking too? Don't you dare tell me you didn't do it."
He really hadn't.
It was Haruno who did it.
"I can explain,"
"Fine, I'll listen to your explanation,"
She gave Lin Ye the chance to explain.
"Let's go back first, and I'll explain to you then,"
Some things, Lin Ye felt, were not appropriate to say here.
Yukino was about to agree, but the moment she thought that if she did agree, Lin Ye would probably come kiss her to solve the problem, she instinctively hesitated.
"Right here is fine. There aren't many people around anyway,"
No people?
There were quite a few scattered passersby, and what's more, your looks have drawn a fair number of them. Lin Ye had already noticed several gentlemen—if Yukino stayed a while longer, there'd probably be someone coming up to chat her up and ask for her contact number.
Such a thing, he thought, would be the most normal thing in the world.
"Let's go back! We were planning to head back anyway."
"Oh my, oh my!"
At this moment,
Haruno's voice came over. She appeared carrying three cups of lemon water.
In that instant, a faint, mischievous smile hung on the face of the shoulder-length-short-black-haired girl.
...
...
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