I save a pathological girl with a twisted love story.

Perhaps it's a sense of relief? Perhaps it's happiness?

Or perhaps it was anxiety, or perhaps it was sadness.

She thought: She had finally received Xia Wuzhao's application to join the horticulture club; he had finally joined. From now on, she would not only be able to see him during lunch breaks, but also after school.

I should be happy, I should be joyful.

"But how long can this joy last?"

"Yajima Risa..."

Aoi Asahi hadn't forgotten the threat from Risa Yajima; she muttered to herself, her eyes twitching.

She thought of the handkerchief that Risa Yajima was holding.

A throbbing pain shot through my head, and I desperately wanted to snatch it back from Risa Yajima's grasp.

But Asahi just lowered her eyelids, unable to come up with a good solution even after racking her brains.

He leaned on the table again, looking at the application form in front of him.

It's like numbing yourself.

She ran her fingertips across it repeatedly, making a clicking sound.

As her fingers occasionally brushed past Xia Wuzhao's name, she recoiled as if she had touched a branding iron.

He furtively looked around, trying to see if Xia Wuzhao was still asleep there.

Seeing that Xia Wuzhao was still asleep, she felt a sense of relief.

But when she saw the application form, her cheeks flushed red.

She was momentarily at a loss and couldn't calm down for a long time.

The long second hand of the clock on the wall ticked away, making Asahina feel anxious.

"The sound is like a countdown."

She thought this way because she was waiting for the lunch break to end.

All of this will vanish like a dream.

She looked out the window, her panic and fear growing with each tick of the clock.

What will my future be like? It'll probably be bleak, probably hopeless.

"But since that's the case, I might as well do something now. Seize the moment and grasp something."

Amidst the escalating panic and despair, she finally decided to do something.

She folded the application form and put it in her skirt pocket, then tiptoed to the door and locked it from the inside.

After taking all the safety measures she could think of, the girl finally stood before Xia Wuzhao.

Asahi squatted in front of the folding bed, gazing intently at the sleeping Natsugiri Kai in front of her.

He clenched his fingers tightly and pressed them firmly against his chest.

The girl felt her strength draining away, being evaporated by the sun, as she thought about what she had to do.

With my heart pounding so hard, I was so weak that I couldn't move.

In the past, she probably would have fainted.

But the sumptuous lunch today finally restored some of her mobility.

"Perhaps, this is the last intimate thing I can do."

She laughed self-deprecatingly.

Chapter 31: A Flower Entangled in Love is Rotten

When you stand at a fork in the road, what should you choose?

Is it better to bravely choose a path, or to carefully consider it before making a decision?

After you make your choice, you'll see the road hidden at the edge of your vision and in the fog.

Regret always fills my heart quietly.

By then,

Courage has become recklessness, and caution has become cowardice.

As Aoi squatted there, a sense of hesitation arose in her heart.

But when he thought about the future, this hesitation turned into a resolute decision.

—If I miss this opportunity, I hope I'll have another chance in the future.

She asked herself this question more than once in her heart.

But the answer will never change, no matter how many times you try.

—That probably means no.

Overwhelmed by despair over a bleak future, Aoi Asahi, as if driven mad, desperately wants to do this.

Even Aoi herself didn't understand why she did it.

He just clenched his fists tightly, unwilling to give up.

She looked at Xia Wuzhao, closed her eyes, and slowly moved closer.

But because I thought about it for so long, my legs unexpectedly went weak.

He swayed and almost fell to the ground.

He hurriedly opened his eyes and quickly braced himself with his hands.

In this way, Xia Wuzhao was able to avoid falling, making a sound, or waking up.

"I'm such a failure, I can't even do something like this right."

Aoi chuckled self-deprecatingly, then turned her head away, wanting to continue.

But all I saw were a pair of indifferent eyes.

"What are you doing?"

Xia Wuzhao looked at Asahi Aoi, ignoring Ai's words that kept echoing in her mind.

"Getting something."

Asahi frantically tried to find an excuse, pointing to the cardboard box containing the folding bed.

She didn't know if this reason would fool Xia Wuzhao, but Xia Wuzhao only glanced at her.

They didn't say anything more.

He sat up from the folding bed, preparing to wash the lunchbox.

Aoi Asahi finally breathed a sigh of relief after he opened the door to the department office carrying his lunchbox.

When everything is unknown, one feels both excited and apprehensive.

When everything finally settled down, I felt only peace, and a slight sense of regret.

She propped herself up and managed to sit up on the bed.

Looking at the bright sunlight outside, she squinted slightly: "As expected, it was still a failure."

While Xia Wuzhao was washing the lunchbox, Xiao Ai asked in confusion, "Just now, Xia Wuzhao-sama, you weren't asleep at all, were you?"

"I closed my eyes and rested for a while."

"Hmm?" Xiao Ai didn't quite understand Xia Wu's answer, but she knew that if Xia Wu didn't want to talk about it, she wouldn't be able to see through Xia Wu's thoughts.

She could only mutter, "Lord Natsugiri, didn't you say before that you planned to use desire to solve Asahi Aoi's first mental dilemma? That is, the bullying problem at school."

"Now, it seems like you're not doing that."

After listening to Xiao Ai's words, Xia Wuzhao simply said, "How can you make black even blacker?"

Xiao Ai was a little confused as to why Lord Xia Wu would ask such a question, so she could only say that she didn't know.

“Just stick the black on the white wall,” Xia Wuzhao replied.

Xiao Ai seemed to understand but not quite.

Xia Wuzhao didn't say anything more, only thinking about Yajima Risa.

—The handkerchief in Risa Yajima's hand was one that she had personally witnessed Keiko handing to her.

Huizi is a woman with a strong sense of social customs; such a woman may be short-sighted or foolish.

But they're not stupid.

—She deliberately slipped the handkerchief to Yajima so that Yajima Jiro's family would find it and stir up conflict between Yajima Jiro and his family.

Only in this way can she rise to power.

Keiko is a cunning woman, steeped in societal customs and having spent a long time navigating the complexities of society. Though tainted by her past, she certainly knows how to protect herself from harm.

—To avoid being entangled with Yajima's wife, she certainly wouldn't reveal her real name.

At least, it won't make others immediately associate it with themselves.

-----------------

When Risa Yajima cut the densely packed sewing threads with scissors in the bathroom, she felt a sense of exhilaration, as if she had discovered a treasure.

"Let me see who you really are, you slut."

With gritted teeth, she unfolded the corner of her handkerchief.

The words "Nomura" are embroidered inside.

Risa Yajima stared at those two words, momentarily at a loss for words.

She thought she was seeing that vile woman's name, but she only saw the surname.

It's still such an ordinary and unremarkable surname.

If you only search by surname, who can you find?

I'm just a student, I simply don't have that much time! But I don't dare tell my mother, if she knew, she would definitely break down.

—Only by finding her myself and driving that wretched woman away can I succeed.

Only in this way can the family return to its original happy state.

After much deliberation, Risa Yajima could only set her sights on the May Day holiday a few days later.

"I have ten days. I should be able to find that bitch."

As she said this, Risa Yajima gripped her handkerchief, intending to throw it forcefully into the trash can.

But I also felt that this was important evidence, and that I could rely on this handkerchief to find people when I was looking for them.

He could only angrily clutch the handkerchief in his hand and rub it fiercely for a while, turning it into a messy, torn rag with threads everywhere.

Only then was she satisfied and stuffed it into the pocket of her skirt.

After going to the sink outside, she wet her fingers, fixed her hair, and then returned to the classroom.

Her friend asked a few casual questions and then steered the conversation to sunflowers.

They all complained, "Aoi Asahi is really blind. I think she did it on purpose. She's deliberately getting back at us."

But Risa Yajima had no interest in paying attention to these people. She just said irritably, "Revenge? How dare she retaliate against us? You overestimate Aoi Asahi."

The girls paused for a moment, then laughed a few times and dropped the subject.

Looking at Risa Yajima's lunchbox, he said, "Risa, your meal is so plentiful."

Risa Yajima's mood improved when this topic came up, and she proudly said, "My mother made this especially for me; it took her a long time."

"I'm so envious," a girl said. "My mom can't make any of this; she can only make things like fish and shrimp."

The girls were all complaining about their mothers, wishing that it were really true.

They were all just using complaints to show off the meals their mothers prepared for them; these were proof that they were loved.

This competition finally ended when the lunch break was over.

As Aoi and Natsugiri Kai approached the classroom door, Aoi's pace slowed considerably.