Chapter 51: The Cracks in the Ice

The door softly closed behind her, sealing away the room filled with intense emotions and unresolved conflicts. The cold, empty air of the corridor enveloped Xia Yue, yet it did nothing to quell the unfamiliar, scorching heat still coursing beneath her skin.

She did not leave immediately. Instead, she leaned her back against the frigid wall and slowly slid to the floor, just like the girl she had left behind in the room. Her usually straight spine curved slightly for the first time, as if bearing an invisible weight.

Her fingertips still trembled faintly.

She lowered her gaze, looking at the hands that had just moments ago lost control, pressing that person against the wall with such force. They were slender, pale, with clearly defined knuckles—hands that had always been steady enough to grasp the most precise instruments, to wield the most cutting ice swords. But just now, they had lost all control because of a few… illogical, emotionally charged words.

‘Why did I lose control again?’

This question, like a cold needle, pierced her brain, which had abruptly ceased its rapid calculations.

Her last loss of control had been at the school gate, when she saw Jin and Yu Niannian together and heard Lin Wan’s jibe about ‘money.’ The dark, surging emotions that had instantly breached the dam of her rationality remained vivid in her memory. She had attributed it to an instinctive reaction to her ‘possession’ being coveted, and swiftly found a solution.

She would use more formidable resources and stricter rules to construct an inescapable cage, ensuring the absolute stability of her ‘ownership.’ She had believed that was a return to reason.

Yet, just now, when that weak witch—who had always been passively enduring—looked at her with tear-filled, stubborn eyes, declaring, ‘What you give is never what I want,’ and even made that absurd request… wanting to hear Xia Yue say, ‘I need you’…

That rational defense, which she had considered so robust, crumbled once more. It was more complete, and more… unsightly, than the last time.

Was it anger? Yes. To be rejected, to have her meticulously calculated ‘optimal solution’ denied, undoubtedly infuriated her.

But what lay beneath that?

It was a kind of… panic.

The dread of a meticulously constructed, supposedly perfect logical model collapsing before reality. The dread of her vaunted ‘problem-solving’ ability proving utterly useless in a certain domain.

And… the shame and helplessness of having her facade stripped bare, forced to confront the hidden desires deep within her.

‘I do need Jin.’

This realization, like an iceberg emerging from the darkness, was cold, hard, and impossible to ignore.

What did she need her for?

Did she need those eyes, always a little timid, yet revealing a stubborn resolve at peculiar moments, to look only at her?

Did she need that pitifully weak magical fluctuation that, inexplicably, stirred her emotions?

Did she need the ‘sense of life’ that only existed in her small apartment when Jin was there—a feeling so different from the cold order of the student council office?

These needs were unquantifiable, impossible to integrate into any mathematical model, and immeasurable by ‘resources’ or ‘efficiency.’ They were emotional, vague, and full of uncontrollable variables.

And for her to admit such a need?

‘That would be tantamount to showing weakness, to proving my incompetence.’

To show weakness. To expose her own needs to others, especially to that seemingly frail witch who could so easily disrupt her composure, was to surrender the initiative. It was to acknowledge a ‘weakness’ that could be exploited. This violated all her principles of conduct.

It shouldn’t be. Emotions were superfluous, needs were inefficient, and relying on others was outright foolish. She had always firmly believed this, building her entire world upon such tenets.

Why?

She closed her eyes, forcing herself to calm down. Like analyzing anomalous data, she began to retrace every ‘small detail’ related to Jin.

Not as a ‘witch specimen’ to be monitored, not as a ‘possession’ bound by contract, but… as Jin herself.

She recalled first noticing the transfer student in class—always sitting in the corner, with mediocre grades and poor physical ability. Back then, she had merely found her so ordinary as to be worthless, even a bit of an eyesore. An overly weak existence, after all, would inherently disrupt the balance of its environment.

She recalled that subtle displeasure when Lin Wan clung to Jin as if she were a new toy. It wasn’t concern over Jin’s witch identity, but rather… the instinct of a disturbed territory.

She recalled the absurd afternoon they were forced to bathe together, Jin’s flushed cheeks and rigid body amidst the misty steam. What had her own feelings been then? It seemed… not entirely the thrill of control, but also a hint of an inexplicable… tremor?

She recalled Jin’s look of utter despair when Lin Wan pressed her onto her lap to play games, an incident that later made the news. Besides finding Lin Wan’s antics ridiculous, was there also… a flicker of irritation at being excluded?

She recalled the uncontrollable fury and… worry?… when Jin didn’t come home and was with Yu Niannian.

She recalled her own uncontrollable, urgent protectiveness when Ouyang Na tried to take Jin away at the organization’s base.

And she recalled just now, as Jin stumbled under the weight of Huo Hualan, her face streaked with scrapes and dust, yet loudly refuting Huo Hualan. In that moment, a strange emotion had flashed through her. It wasn’t disgust for a witch, nor anger at a defiant subordinate, but a tremor akin to admiration?

These fragmented images and emotions, like scattered data streams, raced through her mind. She tried to interpret them with logic, to categorize them, but found they resisted all rational analysis.

She had always believed she was ‘raising’ a special pet that required strict management. She provided shelter (the apartment), fed it (resources), established rules (the contract), believing this would ensure its loyalty and dependence.

But only now did she vaguely realize that ‘pet’ might never have truly belonged to her. Jin had her own independent thoughts, a fragile yet stubborn will. She would wag her tail for someone else’s ‘bone’ (Lin Wan’s intimacy, Yu Niannian’s pocket money), yet she disdained Xia Yue’s carefully prepared ‘premium kibble,’ and even… bit back.

What was even harder for her to accept was that she, herself… seemed to want to be more than just a ‘caretaker.’

What was that intense impulse—that desire to completely control, to monopolize all of Jin’s attention, to have her depend only on her, to reveal her true emotions (even anger and rejection) only to her?

Was it envy of Lin Wan’s straightforwardness? Disdain for Yu Niannian’s childishness?

No, it was more than that.

It was her own… yearning for that illogical, inefficient, chaotic yet… warm connection.

A yearning so profound that the moment she found she couldn’t obtain it through her usual methods (calculation, rules, resources), she would lose control, erupt in fury, and commit childish, crude acts she couldn’t even comprehend.

Xia Yue slowly raised her head. In her ice-blue eyes, the perpetually frozen tundra seemed to crack with more fissures, revealing the bottomless darkness beneath, swirling with unknown emotions.

She understood.

It wasn’t that Jin had rejected her offered ‘optimal solution.’

It was that she, herself, had misunderstood the true nature of the problem.

What she needed, perhaps, was never a cold ‘Resource Provision and Behavioral Code Agreement.’

It was…

The answer was on the tip of her tongue, yet it brought an unprecedented pounding in her chest and… fear. Admitting it would be a thousand times harder than facing an army of shadow beasts, a thousand times harder than devising the most intricate battle plan.

She stood up, smoothed the hem of her clothes, which showed not a single wrinkle, and resumed her usual composure and detachment.

Her slightly curled fingers, however, betrayed the tumultuous emotions far from settled within her.

She turned and left the empty corridor, her silhouette still tall and solitary.

But some things, once introspection began, could never return to the starting point.

An entirely new, unsolvable variable had been introduced into the equation of her heart.

Its name was—Jin.