Chapter 12
Ruan Mei's parents had failed to keep their promise to her grandmother. That was a betrayal.
She too had failed to keep her promise to protect her parents. That was also a betrayal.
Only science… would never betray her.
Yu Qingtu listened to Ruan Mei's words, her delicate brows unconsciously furrowing.
Reviving her deceased parents in her own way, that kind of love was difficult for her to judge.
"What exactly did Kanzaki Tomomu say and do at the time?"
She no longer even called him "the little guy," using his full name directly. It showed how serious Yu Qingtu was right now.
"He deleted my research data without permission and tried four times to persuade me to stop the research."
Ruan Mei lowered her gaze, her tone calm as if she were describing something insignificant.
She raised her slender hand and drew it across the air, pulling up a glowing screen out of nowhere.
"Teacher, this is a taboo research that is a blasphemy to life itself and even more so, its a blasphemy towards your own parents!"
"Even if you succeed in the end, it would be easy to lose yourself because of it and lose many things!"
"Some Pandora's boxes… must never be opened."
Ruan Mei lightly tapped the screen with her finger. The image froze on Kanzaki Tomomu's deeply furrowed brow.
She looked at Yu Qingtu and simply blinked once with an indifferent expression. The meaning was obvious.
"Ruan, short-lived species and long-lived species think differently." Yu Qingtu could somewhat understand why Kanzaki Tomomu had done what he did.
She also had to admit that his advice wasn't without reason.
As a genius, no one understood the truth better than she did —
When you gain certain things, you inevitably lose other important things.
"What does your version of love for family look like?" Yu Qingtu quickly asked another question before Ruan Mei could speak.
Ruan Mei stared at the frozen face on the screen, her thoughts drifting far away.
Even when she was very young, she could sense that love came in subtle differences and carried distinct scents.
Her grandmother, with her silver hair, loved listening to those lilting old tunes.
Her father loved wearing those fluffy, heavy boots.
Her mother and father loved each other, even though they often argued.
As for herself, she treasured the delicious pastries her mother would reward her with every time she returned from a research expedition.
Aunt Arlise was even closer to her than her elders and would buy her extra snacks. Aunt Arlise's love felt like the best kind.
Because of that, she understood that everyone's love was different and existed on different levels.
To her, keeping a promise and following through was the kind of love that would never betray anyone.
But her parents had broken their promise. Her grandmother had vanished without a trace.
She too had broken her promise and failed to protect her parents.
During one research expedition, her parents had fallen into a desperate situation and never returned.
She could only watch helplessly as everything she loved slipped through her fingers. There was nothing she could do.
She reached out, but she could grasp nothing.
Seeing Ruan Mei fall silent, Yu Qingtu sighed quietly to herself and did not press further.
A person's experiences shape every aspect of who they become.
Without having lived through it herself, she had no right to judge.
Kanzaki Tomomu had meant well, but he had committed the exact taboo that Ruan Mei could not forgive.
The love he understood and the love Ruan Mei understood were fundamentally different.
"I'll drop the question. I just wonder if the punishment you gave him was too harsh?"
Yu Qingtu changed the subject.
"With your mind, even without a backup, the data should have been deeply etched in your memory. His deletion had no real effect."
"Letting him leave was not a punishment."
Ruan Mei's tone remained flat and calm.
"Kanzaki Tomomu's illness had already been cured. As his teacher, I taught him everything I was supposed to teach. I owe him nothing."
"Before his illness was cured, he never complained about becoming my test subject. After he recovered, he took care of my daily needs for decades without fail. He owes me nothing either."
"Our ideals were different. It was better for both of us to part ways. We were never indispensable to each other. From that day on, we were even."
"Even? Then what about that thing?"
Yu Qingtu straightened her arm and pointed at the… thing approaching them while carrying a tray of pastries.
It looked eerily familiar, with Kanzaki Tomomu's exact build, clothing, and even his face.
No matter how perfectly it imitated him, it was still a soulless substitute.
Yu Qingtu finally understood why one of Ruan Mei's earlier remarks had felt so strange.
Fresh pastries ready in ten minutes?
She hadn't thought much of it at the time. Only now did she realize why Ruan Mei could so casually soak in the hot spring with her, she had created a "replacement" to handle everything.
If she had to guess, this replica possessed the same skills as the real Kanzaki Tomomu. Otherwise, even with Ruan Mei's picky standards, she would never have made it.
"You drove the little guy away, then turned around and made a substitute modeled after him. And you still say neither of you is indispensable to the other?"
"I needed to finish the research sooner. This way I could save a lot of unnecessary time."
Ruan Mei explained softly, yet she did not deny Kanzaki Tomomu's value.
"I admit he was an excellent student. But I only need the version of him that follows the rules."
"You! ... never mind."
Yu Qingtu's instincts told her that Ruan Mei was being stubbornly defensive.
If it was truly only about saving time, why would she bother shaping the "tool" responsible for daily chores to look exactly like Kanzaki Tomomu?
It was clearly her subconscious at work.
But then again, Ruan Mei had always been like this. It was possible she had never even realized her true feelings toward Kanzaki Tomomu.
—If those feelings truly existed.
"Since letting the little guy go wasn't a punishment, then what was it? You mentioned you had punished him before. There must have been a reason."
…Hm?
The moment the words left her mouth, Yu Qingtu caught a rare flicker of emotion on Ruan Mei's face.
It was very slight, easy to miss if one wasn't paying attention.
It was not easy to make this usually expressionless person show such a look. Whatever this matter was, it seemed even more serious than stopping the forbidden research.
Ruan Mei remained silent for an unusually long time.
"Is it something you'd rather not tell me?" Yu Qingtu refused to let it go this time.
Sensing that her friend was determined to get to the bottom of it, Ruan Mei finally spoke with a blank expression.
"Kanzaki Tomomu was too presumptuous."
"How exactly?"
"When he was eighteen, on my birthday, he touched my feet."
At the time, she had never expected Kanzaki Tomomu to suddenly do something like that. Her mind had gone blank for a brief moment.
When she came back to her senses, her first reaction was not anger, but that it was inappropriate.
"…Touched your feet and… wait—"
Yu Qingtu had initially thought little of it, but her eyes suddenly widened.
"You're not seriously following that outdated, feudal idea from thousands of years ago that a woman's feet can only be touched by her partner, are you?"
"No."
Ruan Mei denied it outright.
"When something is done correctly, there is a reward. When it is done wrong, punishment naturally follows."
"I am Kanzaki Tomomu's teacher. His action crossed the boundary of the teacher-student relationship. It was a mistake that needed correction."
"Considering I had never taught him about male-female physiology or the proper etiquette between teacher and student, once the punishment was over, the matter was settled."
"How did you punish him?" Yu Qingtu pressed.
"Five days of confinement. During that time, his medicine supply was cut off."
"I see…" Yu Qingtu fell into thought.
But she still felt something was strange.
Matters between men and women were something most men could figure out on their own, especially with so many ways to learn.
Even if Ruan Mei had never taught him, understanding the difference between men and women was not difficult.
Besides, with the little guy's personality, he really didn't seem like the type to act on improper impulses.
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Bonus chapters
200 Stones - 1 chapter
400 Stones - 2 chapter
600 Stones - 3 chapters
And so on