Chapter 284: Willing to Sink

Elias said it at the perfect volume.

Not loud enough to sound deliberate.

Not soft enough for Giselle Frost to miss.

After the word left his mouth, he kept walking. His pace was fast, almost brisk, as if he were afraid something dirty might brush against him if he stayed there too long.

After he had gone more than a dozen yards, Elias’s face filled with confidence.

’Did she follow?’

System Theta hesitated.

[System Theta: Um... no. She did not follow. She is still standing where she was.]

Elias’s confident expression froze.

’?’

That was beyond his expectations.

He had assumed that after Giselle stepped in like some icy heroine saving the beauty, she would use the moment to entangle herself with him. He had not expected her to simply stand there and watch him leave.

That made no sense.

After the kind of shock Giselle had taken in the Maldives, she could still maintain her original pure-hearted restraint? She was willing to stay hidden backstage as some tragic second woman?

Elias kept walking anyway.

He did not care what Giselle was planning. In his mind, she had long since been stamped with the label of devoted simp. She could forget about making him turn back for her.

Playing hard to get?

Heh.

She could go play that with someone else.

Elias ignored Giselle completely and went to class.

After missing class for several days, Elias actually found himself missing the classroom atmosphere a little. He listened seriously through the whole lecture, even answered a few questions from the professor, and ended the period in a good mood.

When he left the classroom and prepared to head to the dining hall, System Theta spoke.

[System Theta: Host, someone is following you.]

Elias’s footsteps paused slightly.

’Giselle?’

[System Theta: No. Someone unknown.]

The corner of Elias’s mouth moved.

’Then it’s Giselle.’

He could not help sighing inwardly.

The little untouched ice queen had not disappointed him after all. She really had grown quite a bit. She even knew how to send someone to follow him now.

So Elias became even happier.

With great cheer, he walked to the dining hall under Giselle’s loving surveillance.

System Theta asked humbly, [System Theta: Why are you so sure Giselle sent someone to follow you?]

Elias smiled brightly.

’Because right now, only she would do this.’

Then he added, ’For both her and me, this is fresh.’

’This is the necessary road from girlhood to womanhood. Of course I have to help her grow well.’

Listening to the excitement in Elias’s tone, System Theta held back one sentence.

If possible, would Giselle perhaps prefer not to have this growth?

At that moment, somewhere else on campus, Giselle looked down at the photo on her phone.

The angle was clearly偷拍 style, taken from a distance by someone trying not to be noticed. Yet the person being photographed still looked like the center of the image. Even framed by passing students, brick buildings, and tree shadows, Elias drew the eye first.

Giselle stared at the photo in silence.

Her face showed nothing.

In the end, she had still become what she hated most.

There was nothing she could do about it.

From the moment she called Victoria Frost, she had handed over her freedom.

Why had Giselle refused all this time to call Victoria, no matter what happened, no matter how badly she needed power?

Because once she asked Victoria for help, she had to listen to every command Victoria gave and accept every arrangement Victoria made.

That was the deal between them.

Of course, Giselle could violate it.

Victoria would not force her. Not truly. She would probably only smile in that patient way and let Giselle feel the weight of her own dishonor.

But if Giselle broke the bargain after taking help, she would become even more despicable than Victoria.

So Giselle could only choose this road.

During the days Elias had spent being sweet with Serena, Giselle had stayed at Victoria’s side as her daughter and appeared with her at various events.

Victoria had even taken her to gatherings among the highest level of the wealthy, letting her properly "see the world."

During that time, Giselle saw things she had never touched before.

Filthy things.

Filthy enough to make the stomach turn.

Every smile seemed to hide malice. Every polite greeting contained a calculation. People praised one another with clean hands while already choosing where to press the knife. Deals were made in lowered voices. Children were weighed as investments. Illnesses became negotiation points. Men’s faces, women’s names, family secrets, academic futures, corporate seats, all of it could be traded if someone powerful enough decided the price was right.

And Victoria had only laughed softly and told her, "This is the adult world."

To Giselle, it was not impressive.

If she wanted to learn it, she could learn all of it easily.

Even before some people opened their mouths, before she had been formally taught where the knives were kept, she could already see what kind of flesh hid under their skin.

She was a genius in every sense.

She had only always disdained these things.

She had thought they were dirty. She had believed the real world should not be like this. So she had pressed her talent down and refused to use it.

Until now.

If avoiding these things meant she would not have the strength to take Elias back...

Then she did not mind sinking into that dirty mud.

She did not mind becoming one of them.

Her phone vibrated faintly.

Giselle unlocked the screen and saw a message from the person she had sent to follow Elias.

He’s coming.

Giselle put the phone away and lifted her head.

Sure enough, Elias appeared at the far end of her vision.

In the morning, there had been too many people on the road. No matter what she wanted to say to him or do, it had not been convenient.

So she had deliberately chosen a place where very few people came at this time.

A tree-lined path.

After eating his fill, Elias stepped into it.

He did not need to think much to guess that even after growing into an adult, Giselle would choose a place like this to meet him.

Sure enough, the moment he lifted his eyes, he saw Giselle slowly walk out from behind a tree.

"Why is it you again?"

Elias stopped. His brows drew together immediately.

The word again was very accurate.

From Giselle’s "first" meeting with Elias, the one on the plane, to now, this was already the third time. Elias’s attitude toward her had indeed grown worse each time.

Seeing the disgust on Elias’s face, as if she were some piece of trash in his way, Giselle’s expression still shifted faintly despite her preparation.

These past days, what she had done for Elias was not limited to sending someone to follow him.

She had also investigated what had happened in the Maldives. Something there had turned Elias into this. She needed to know what.

Of course, Giselle could tell that Elias had only forgotten her.

His attitude toward her had worsened step by step.

She had seen this kind of personality before. A young man from a family background close to hers had been exactly like this. Spoiled, arrogant, and careless with people beneath his liking. As long as someone displeased him once, he would immediately throw that person onto his blacklist.

The current Elias behaved almost exactly like that young man.

But that young man had been born into his arrogance.

Elias was different.

How could Elias have developed this kind of personality out of nowhere?

No.

Not developed.

Changed.

Abruptly, completely, into something opposite from his original self.

When all other conclusions had been disproven, the remaining result, even if it seemed the least possible, had to be the truth.

Serena Blackwood had really brainwashed Elias.

She had tampered with his memories.

Even though more than a day had passed since Giselle investigated it, the thought still made her hands clench hard.

Elias was a living person.

Did Serena understand what she had done?

Elias’s eyes were sharp. He caught the movement at once.

His gaze chilled, and his voice snapped out coldly.

"What are you doing? Do you want to hit me?"

His expression turned sharper, full of spoiled contempt and warning.

"Try it if you have the guts. Touch one finger of mine, and I’ll make sure you get thrown out of this school."

The words struck Giselle harder than the threat itself.

Thrown out of school.

This was Westbridge University. Once, Elias had treated this place like a stage he had to survive carefully, hiding his beauty behind glasses, moving through campus with practical caution. Now he said those words as if the school, its rules, and everyone inside it should bend around his displeasure.

That was not Elias.

Or rather, it was Elias after someone had cut him open and stitched another boy’s arrogance over his nerves.

Giselle’s fingers slowly loosened.

She looked at him without moving closer.

"I won’t hit you."

Elias sneered. "Then move."

Giselle did not move.

Her silver hair fell over one shoulder, pale against her dark coat. The tree shadows crossed her face, but they did not hide the exhaustion in her eyes.

"Elias," she said, voice low, "do you really not remember me?"

Elias’s face showed open irritation.

"I told you already. I don’t know you."

The impatience in his tone was real enough to make the lie taste worse.

Giselle’s throat tightened.

She had imagined many ways this meeting might go. She had imagined Elias mocking her, avoiding her, pretending not to care, using that shameless smile of his to slice open every weak place she had. She had even imagined him admitting everything, telling her directly that he had used her and telling her to crawl if she still wanted him.

She had not imagined this.

A stranger wearing his face.

No.

Not a stranger.

A version of Elias shaped to hate everyone except Serena.

Giselle took one step forward.

Elias immediately stepped back, the warning in his gaze becoming clearer.

"Don’t come closer."

Giselle stopped.

The order was childish, arrogant, and cruel.

She obeyed anyway.

That obedience made something bitter spread through her chest.

So this was what she had become.

Someone who sent people to follow him. Someone who hid behind trees. Someone who obeyed when the boy she wanted to save looked at her like she was dirty.

But if this was the price, she could pay it.

If sinking into the mud was the only way to reach him, then she would stop pretending her hands could stay clean.

Giselle looked at Elias quietly.

"I’m not here to hurt you."

Elias gave a short laugh. "Then what are you here for? To keep disgusting me?"

The words were ugly.

His face was beautiful.

That contrast was almost unbearable.

Giselle’s hands were now relaxed at her sides. Her nails no longer dug into her palms. Her expression had settled back into its usual coldness, but something inside her had already crossed a line.

"I just wanted to see you," she said.

Elias’s lips curved, full of contempt.

"I don’t want to see you."

"I know."

"Then why are you still standing here?"

Giselle looked at him for a long moment.

Because the person in front of her was Elias.

Because even if this Elias had been rewritten, even if he hated her, even if the first thing he did was threaten to drive her out of Westbridge, the one trapped inside this twisted shell was still the boy she had failed to protect.

Because if she turned around now, then all her disdain for Victoria, Serena, and the adult world would become meaningless.

She did not say any of that.

She only lowered her eyes slightly.

"Then I’ll leave."

Elias stared at her, as if surprised she had agreed so easily.

Then his face turned even more impatient, as if even her obedience annoyed him.

"Good."

Giselle stepped aside and made room for him on the path.

Elias walked past her without looking back.

As he passed, the faint scent of clean soap and expensive fabric brushed by, mixed with something warmer that did not belong to campus at all. The trace was brief, but Giselle still caught it.

Serena’s world was on him.

Giselle’s eyes lowered.

Her phone buzzed again in her pocket, but she did not check it.

Behind her, Elias’s footsteps moved farther away.

She stood under the trees, in the place she had chosen herself, and watched the path empty little by little.

A few minutes ago, she had still wondered whether she could pull him out without becoming like the people she despised.

Now she had the answer.

She could not.