Chapter 1625: Venture Capital

When flowers, fruits, or wheat begin to ferment but haven"t fully transformed into wine, they often release a scent that"s hard to describe: a deep and rich base note, soft yet p.r.i.c.kly, as if filled with tiny, invisible needles that both please and offend the senses.

Xie Feng had encountered a similar smell once when her mother brewed plum wine. But that batch, with its added rock sugar, had been too cloying—nothing like the strange scent now surrounding her. This new smell was delicate as it entered her nose, but it made no effort to hide its intent to invade and conquer.

The scent wrapped itself around Xie Feng"s mind, pulling her consciousness along like a broken plank floating through a hazy, turbulent dream.

She felt herself moving, drifting in and out of nausea and dizziness. She wanted to wake up, but her eyelids wouldn"t cooperate. "Where am I? Did I fall asleep on my way to school? Did I miss my stop on the subway? I just want to go home—or no, school"s fine too," she thought, the confusion thick in her mind.

"Ah, crying," a woman"s voice, unfamiliar and distant, remarked. The voice carried the same strangeness as the scent that clung to her senses.

"Who"s crying? What"s happening?"

"Sister Dong Luorong, are you really planning to take her with us?"

A man"s voice, sharp with an imperial accent, cut through the haze like a knife, triggering a wave of panic inside Xie Feng. A jolt of awareness cleared her head slightly, though she fought the urge to open her eyes. Instead, she remained still, feeling sweat gather on her skin, quickly cooled by the air conditioning. "Right, I"m in a car," she realized.

"I mean, look at her. Dressed like that, she doesn"t even seem like a girl. She might be one of those dangerous types. Wouldn"t it be safer not to take her with us?" the man continued, unease creeping into his tone.

The woman he called "Sister Dong Luorong" must have been the one who brought her into the car. But Xie Feng couldn"t tell if she was being rescued or if she had escaped one danger only to fall into another. "Why did she take me? Where is she taking me?"

The woman didn"t respond right away. For a few seconds, the car filled with heavy silence.

Then, as if the man"s concerns had never reached her ears, she suddenly asked, "Do you prefer streetlights or fortune trees?"

"Huh? What does that mean?" The man sounded baffled. After a moment, he gave a hesitant answer. "Uh... fortune trees, I guess?"

The woman responded with a detached tone. "I don"t like either."

"What is she even talking about?" Xie Feng wondered, her head swimming with confusion.

After that peculiar exchange, the man didn"t press further. The silence returned, and with it, the haze in Xie Feng"s mind. She drifted off again, consciousness slipping away into the unknown.

When she next woke, she opened her eyes to dim surroundings and reached out to feel the s.p.a.ce around her.

"You woke up in the car a few times, didn"t you?" the now slightly familiar voice complained. "So why are you acting like a sack of potatoes now that you"re here?"

Xie Feng pushed herself up, still groggy and disoriented. She blinked hard, trying to clear her vision.

Her clothes were soaked through from the rain, clinging uncomfortably to her skin after being blasted with cold air from the car"s AC. Someone had thrown a heavy blanket over her, making her feel like she was being buried alive. She shoved it off and sat up, her bare toes pressing against the cold floor, sending a s.h.i.+ver through her body.

Her shoes were gone.

Directly in front of her was a large floor-to-ceiling window, but the light coming in was so dark that it seemed like it was covered with gauze curtains. Outside, the uneven skyline of Tear City loomed, shrouded in sheets of rain and fog. Here and there, a few early lights flickered on, only to be swallowed almost instantly by the thick, oppressive mist, as if they had violated some unspoken rule.

By the window sat a figure. Her bare legs stretched out from beneath a silk robe, resting on a footstool. The dim light barely traced the curves of her silhouette, casting an eerie s.h.i.+mmer over her smooth skin, making her look like a figure sculpted from metal.

The room was cold and dark, devoid of any trace of human warmth. Even the half-full gla.s.s of wine on the table, a dish with leftover sauce stains, and a crumpled napkin looked more like artifacts from an ancient past than the remnants of a recent meal—lunch, maybe? Dinner? What time was it now?

Xie Feng sprang to her feet, but the sudden rush made her head swim, and she almost fell. She quickly grabbed onto the coffee table, steadying herself until the stars in her vision faded. In imperial dialect, she asked, "Wh-where am I? Did you... bring me home?"

"No. This is my hotel room," the woman replied, turning her head slightly. The faint light hitting her cheekbones and jaw gave her face a pale, plaster-like quality. "You couldn"t afford the hospital if I took you there, right?"

"I"m not sick," Xie Feng said immediately. "I just fell... Thank you, but I"ll leave now."

"I"m not kicking you out," the woman said with a small smile.

"I-I know... Sorry. I just have something I need to take care of," Xie Feng added, realizing her abruptness wasn"t exactly polite toward someone who had helped her.

"Where are you going?" the woman asked casually.

"What?"

"You said you need to go. Where to?"

Xie Feng opened her mouth. This should have been an easy question to answer, yet she stammered for a moment before finally saying, "I... I"m staying at a hotel."

The silhouette by the window suddenly straightened. The woman bent over and picked something up from the other side of her armchair—Xie Feng"s backpack.

"You"ve only got three coins left in your wallet," the woman said, placing the backpack on the floor. "What kind of hotel charges such friendly prices?"

"You... you went through my stuff?" Xie Feng"s voice rose, though no anger accompanied the words. Somehow, she couldn"t muster even a trace of it.

"I brought you in. I had to know who you were," the woman replied with a sigh. "If something happened to you, I"d need to know who to contact. But... just as I thought, there"s no one."

Xie Feng pressed her lips together, staying silent.

"I ate your apple."

"Huh?" Xie Feng froze. Why was this woman"s style of speaking so spontaneous and jumpy?

Wait. Her apple!

"But... that was my only apple..." Xie Feng whispered, dismayed.

The woman stood silently for a moment, then lowered her legs from the footstool and rose from the chair. The backlight swallowed her features in shadow, revealing only her height—tall, about five foot seven, a head taller than Xie Feng"s more compact and athletic frame.

"I"m Dong Luorong," she said evenly, as if Xie Feng had asked. "Call me whatever you like."

At that moment, Xie Feng hesitated. She wasn"t sure if she should introduce herself. She didn"t want to lie, but she also didn"t dare give her real name to an imperial citizen.

"You have no home, no money. Other than your body, you have nothing." Dong Luorong"s voice was husky but soft, but her words were brutally blunt. She gestured toward the floor-to-ceiling window behind her. "So tell me, which is safer: here or the world out there?"

Xie Feng stayed.

She told herself it was only temporary, that she stayed because Dong Luorong had made some valid points—and also, because Dong Luorong had ordered room service for her. It didn"t seem realistic to turn down a warm meal in the name of integrity. When the food arrived, Xie Feng nearly buried her face in the plate. With every bite of lamb, she bit down as if testing whether her teeth were tougher than the fork.

Dong Luorong looked amused, sipping cold wine as she watched her eat, as if Xie Feng were some kind of entertainment. Xie Feng had never been stared at while eating before, and halfway through the meal, the discomfort finally caught up with her. Wiping her mouth, she said, "Um, even though I"m staying here for now, I can still keep working side jobs... I"ll pay you back for the food."

The expression that crept across Dong Luorong"s face could only be described as disgust. As her brow furrowed ever so slightly, a thought crossed Xie Feng"s mind—one so strange it unsettled her: she could almost understand why people developed m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.tic tendencies.

"Don"t pay me back. Stop trying to save money. Order whatever you want—anything at all. Consider it repayment for the apple," Dong Luorong said, as if the mere mention of money was as revolting to her as seeing a c.o.c.kroach. "If it makes you happy, you can cut up the bedsheets, the bathrobes, and the pillows. Smash the lamps, plates, and cups. I"ll cover the cost."

Her tone was so nonchalant that Xie Feng felt like she had done this sort of thing before.

"Do you have a grudge against money or something?" Xie Feng asked. Not knowing what to say, she could only force out a joke.

Dong Luorong looked at her, and under the light, her eyes s.h.i.+mmered with the hazy glint of wine.

"Yeah," she replied seriously. "Do you want some? My wallet, jewelry, watch—you can take them. Even my clothes are expensive. The secondhand luxury stores would buy them."

"This woman is seriously strange," Xie Feng thought.

It wasn"t just that she encouraged theft. She never asked who Xie Feng was or why she had collapsed on a rainy street. She didn"t even ask about the man who had chased and yelled after her. Instead, she seemed oddly curious about Xie Feng"s life on the streets, her school, and her experiences in Tear City. To Xie Feng"s surprise, she found herself trusting this strange woman—perhaps too easily. She realized, with some embarra.s.sment, that it might have had something to do with how captivating Dong Luorong looked. Somehow, she didn"t believe Dong Luorong was trying to fish for information about student protests.

After setting down her utensils, Xie Feng hesitated for a moment, then finally asked, "Why are you helping me?"

Dong Luorong rested her chin on the edge of her now-empty gla.s.s, her eyes drifting aimlessly, the look of someone clearly not built for drinking. Tilting her head in thought, she eventually murmured, "Because I feel like it."

"It"s impossible to have a normal conversation with this woman,"

She naturally didn"t believe the answer, but she knew better than to press further.

Then, unexpectedly, Dong Luorong continued, "And because you"re a girl."

Xie Feng"s head snapped up.

"Because you"re a girl, I knew you wouldn"t get any ideas about me." Dong Luorong pushed a stray lock of black hair behind her ear, her expression s.h.i.+fting once again to that mix of disgust and weariness. "It"s revolting to think of those scholars who fantasize about the fox spirit falling in love with them."

Xie Feng didn"t fully understand—had a man harbored such thoughts about her before? She couldn"t imagine what kind of person would think a woman like Dong Luorong could fall for them.

Before she could dwell on it further, Dong Luorong spoke again.

"The third reason," she said softly, tilting her head slightly, eyes fixed on the rainy, pencil-gray cityscape outside the window, "is that I"m investing in you. What if you evolve?"