Yu Qingtu let it go for now.
Ruan Mei only stated facts without elaborating on details. No matter, she'd just ask Rrakavasha next time she visited him.
For now though...
"Make that thing leave. Standing here makes me quite uncomfortable."
Regarding the replica version of Rrakavasha that Ruan Mei created, Yu Qingtu didn't spare any of her disdainful looks.
What did it matter if the exterior was identical? A thing without a soul.
"It doesn't possess life. It's a puppet." Ruan Mei said.
"If that fellow himself were here, I wouldn't drive him away. I'll be blunt, you creating this thing is an insult to your own student."
Yu Qingtu's delicate brows furrowed, her expression far from pleased.
"Imagine if that fellow created a puppet identical to you, programmed with his favorite behavioral logic to keep by his side forever. How would you feel?"
"That wouldn't be me, so I wouldn't have any feelings about it." Ruan Mei's face remained calm.
Despite saying this, after receiving the pastries from the puppet's hands, she had it leave.
Yu Qingtu stared at Ruan Mei for a long while, trying to find traces of duplicity or stubborn denial.
Found nothing.
That was fine too.
Not long ago, Rrakavasha had said he'd never harbored any romantic feelings for Ruan Mei.
He'd answered candidly, answered without hesitation, showing no signs of deception.
Yet this didn't prevent a genius's sixth sense from telling her: something's off.
She just couldn't pinpoint exactly what was wrong at the moment.
The feeling Ruan Mei's words gave her now was identical to the feeling Rrakavasha's words had given her then.
A frustrating teacher and a frustrating student, both of them.
Placed in those old tragic romance novels, they'd be a pair of star-crossed lovers at minimum.
"So can I tell that fellow you made a substitute of him?"
"As you wish." Ruan Mei looked completely indifferent.
"You're absolutely impervious to reason."
Yu Qingtu rolled her eyes, her chest rising and falling slightly as she directly snatched the entire plate of pastries.
Grabbing one piece and biting down, she immediately spat it out after barely two chews.
She offered no explanation afterward, simply staring at Ruan Mei like that.
Ruan Mei found this rather baffling, thinking something was wrong with the pastry, so she took a piece and tasted it.
Seemed fine.
Then why did she spit it out?
"If you're dissatisfied with something, you can speak plainly, Qingtu."
"Aruan, you have a huge probllem right now, I don't even know what words would be appropriate to describe you. Do you understand?"
Yu Qingtu's expression was beyond words.
"Where's the problem?"
"That thing does have that fellow's technique, but I never imagined it would be at a skill level from who knows how many years ago!"
Yu Qingtu no longer maintained her usual classical, dignified demeanor, her tone rarely colored with disbelief.
"Eighty years? Ninety? A hundred years ago? Did you create this replica just days after driving him away?"
Yu Qingtu recalled that decades ago when she'd visited Ruan Mei, the latter had coincidentally emerged from her laboratory just like today.
The difference was, that time she'd had urgent business. After leaving behind some rare research materials, she'd departed.
Therefore, she hadn't known Ruan Mei had made a Rrakavasha replica.
Never would have thought...
Over a hundred years ago, Rrakavasha was still a bashful, sunny young man who could spend years of effort on a casual remark from a stranger.
He'd respectfully held out a plate of fragrant, visually perfect pastries, his face bearing traces of anticipation and nervousness, earnestly requesting her to taste and critique them.
Honestly, the pastries he'd made that year weren't enough to conquer her discerning palate.
But that fellow's smile, and his unwavering sincerity maintained over those years, moved her far more than those pastries.
So she'd shown satisfaction against her true feelings, promising to unconditionally help that fellow accomplish one thing in the future.
From that year onward, Rrakavasha's skills never regressed, instead they grew better and better, thoroughly conquering her picky tastes.
Whether long-lived or short-lived species, humans all have limits, and people differ from one another.
Many things remain futile no matter how much effort one invests, one might die without ever seeing the finish line.
But if one lacks even the courage to embark on the journey, the future loses all possibility entirely.
Knowing something is impossible yet doing it anyway, still taking practical action, steadily improving until transforming the impossible into something possible.
This was why Rrakavasha, despite being an ordinary short-lived species with nothing particularly special about him, pleased her.
Over these years, the pastries Rrakavasha made had continued steadily improving in flavor.
Why?
Because that fellow's teacher loved them!!
So he never stopped researching and refining.
Though it was irritating, Yu Qingtu had to admit the flavor suited to her own tastes was merely incidental.
People change, and tastes do too.
After years of having her palate spoiled by that fellow, the thing this replica produced was practically an insult to her taste buds.
Compared to the pastries that fellow had served her not long ago, the gap was so vast that comparing fireflies to the full moon wouldn't suffice to describe it.
Yet Ruan Mei had been eating this stuff for over a century?
In an instant, Yu Qingtu both envied her friend's place in Rrakavasha's heart and felt sorry for her friend.
And felt it wasn't worth it for Rrakavasha.
This is the teacher you respect as your life-saving benefactor... that fellow...
Thinking of it like this, Yu Qingtu could only sigh inwardly while feeling helpless about it.
Where there's cause, there's effect. No matter what Ruan Mei became, she remained the person who saved Rrakavasha.
She had neither the right nor the qualification to criticize. The current situation was the choice both teacher and student had made themselves.
Seeing Ruan Mei's gaze lower as if tacitly acknowledging this, Yu Qingtu lost her mood to continue relaxing here for the first time.
She produced a small bag and casually tossed it toward Ruan Mei.
"The experimental materials you wanted are all inside, along with the ten jars of plum blossom wine Rrakavasha sends you every year. I brought them along on the way."
"For the foreseeable future, I'm going to cause trouble for Society member #64. Don't look for me before I'm done."
"Thank you. Wishing you smooth travels." Ruan Mei nodded lightly without making polite attempts to persuade her to stay.
Yu Qingtu left the bath pool, clothing automatically materializing to cover her alluring curves.
Reaching the doorway, her steps paused. Without turning her head, she added:
"Remember to maintain regular hours and eat properly."
"That silly fool asked me to tell you this. There's no harm telling you now, every reminder before came because he opened his mouth to ask."
"Aruan, as a friend, I'll give you one extra warning: don't continue doing things that might make your future self regret them."
"That's all I have to say. See you next time."
Ruan Mei remained silence for a long while, staring at the petals floating on the water's surface.
A face gentle as jade, bearing a soft smile, slowly took shape through the water.
Her consciousness wavered for just an instant before that face vanished without trace.
"..."
She slowly rose from the water, droplets sliding down her skin, continuously creating faint ripples.
"I did nothing wrong. Why would I have regrets?"
Ruan Mei murmured softly, donning a pure white bathrobe as she walked toward the laboratory.
Once she obtained her research results, she'd consider meeting her student.
As for now, time was better prioritized for continued research.
After all, she'd instructed Vash, they wouldn't meet until her research concluded.