Honkai Star Rail: My Death Feeds Their Madness — Chapter 12

Chapter 12: Kagashi Was Too Presumptuous

Her parents failing to keep their promise to her grandmother was a betrayal.

And her failing to fulfill her promise to protect her parents was likewise a betrayal.

Only science… will not betray.

Yu Qingtu listened to Ruan Mei’s quiet, measured words. Her slender brows unknowingly furrowed, casting a faint shadow over her eyes. She found it difficult to pass judgment on this twisted manifestation of love—the desperate, clinical desire to use one’s own methods to resurrect deceased parents.

“What did Kagashi say and do at the time?” Yu Qingtu asked. She deliberately avoided using a casual nickname, opting for his name to highlight the gravity of her question.

“He deleted my research data without authorization and tried to dissuade me from continuing my research four times,” Ruan Mei replied. She lowered her eyes, her tone so perfectly steady it was as if she were narrating the weather. Raising a fair hand, she swiped her fingers through the air, pulling a holographic screen out of the void.

The projection flickered to life. Kagashi’s deeply furrowed expression filled the display.

“Teacher, this is a taboo research that profanes life and, also, profanes your parents!” his recorded voice echoed, laced with a rare, desperate intensity. “Even if you eventually succeed, it will be easy for you to lose your true heart and lose many things because of it! Some Pandora’s boxes… must never be opened.”

Ruan Mei’s slender finger lightly tapped the screen, freezing the image on his pained face. She looked at Yu Qingtu and merely blinked, her indifferent gaze making her stance self-evident.

“ARuan, the way of thinking for Short-Life Species and Long-Life Species is fundamentally different.” Yu Qingtu could somewhat understand why Kagashi would take such drastic measures. She also had to admit that his warnings were not without merit. As a genius herself, no one understood the universe’s cruelest law better than she did. When you obtain something miraculous, you will inevitably lose something equally important.

“What is your understanding of love for your family?” Yu Qingtu quickly threw out another question, not giving Ruan Mei the chance to deflect.

Ruan Mei gazed at the frozen face on the glowing screen, her thoughts drifting far beyond the confines of the room. When she was very young, she could perceive the subtle, complex differences and the various scents of love. Her grandmother possessed a head full of silver hair and loved listening to those chirping operatic songs. Her father loved wearing fuzzy leather boots. Her mother and father loved each other deeply, even though they often argued. And she herself loved the delicious, sweet pastries her mother rewarded her with every time she returned home from a scientific expedition. Aunt Aris was closer to her than a typical elder, always buying her extra snacks; her aunt’s love was the warmest, the best.

Therefore, everyone’s love was different. It existed in rigid hierarchies. For her, keeping a promise and doing exactly what was said was the purest kind of love—the kind that would least fail someone.

But her parents broke their promise. Her grandmother’s whereabouts became unknown. She had also broken her promise, failing to protect her parents well. They had fallen into a desperate situation during a scientific expedition and never returned. She could only watch helplessly as everything she loved slipped through her fingers, entirely powerless to stop the bleeding. Reaching out to grab the fading warmth, she caught absolutely nothing.

Seeing Ruan Mei remain enveloped in her silent reverie, Yu Qingtu sighed inwardly and decided not to press for more agonizing details. A person’s past experiences deeply shaped every facet of who they became. Without having walked through that specific hell, one had no right to judge. Kagashi’s starting point was rooted in genuine care, but he had trampled upon her absolute taboo. The love in his perception and the love in Ruan Mei’s perception were fundamentally incompatible.

“Pretend I never asked,” Yu Qingtu said, smoothly changing the subject. “It’s just… is the punishment for him too severe? With your mind, even if there was no backup of the data, it should have been deeply engraved in your Remembrance. His act of deletion had no actual impact on your progress at all.”

“Letting him leave was not a punishment,” Ruan Mei answered. Her tone remained devoid of fluctuations, a placid lake without a single ripple. “Kagashi’s illness was cured long ago. As his teacher, I have taught him everything I should. I owe him nothing. Before his illness was cured, he had no complaints about being my test subject. After he recovered, he looked after my daily life for decades. He owes me nothing either. Our philosophies differ, so separating is good for both of us. It is not as if we cannot live without each other. From now on, we are square.”

“Square? Then what is that thing?” Yu Qingtu straightened her arm and pointed toward the doorway.

A figure was walking over, carrying a tray of fresh pastries. It looked hauntingly familiar. It possessed Kagashi’s exact build, his precise style of clothing, and even his gentle face. But no matter how flawlessly lifelike the craftsmanship was, it was a soulless substitute.

Yu Qingtu finally realized why a certain passing comment Ruan Mei made upon her arrival had felt so confusing. Fresh pastries coming out of the oven in ten minutes? She had not thought much of it at the time, but the truth was glaringly obvious now. No wonder Ruan Mei could leisurely accompany her in the hot spring; she had created a flawless replica to handle all her domestic affairs. If Yu Qingtu was not mistaken, this artificial creation possessed the exact same culinary skills as the real Kagashi. With Ruan Mei’s extreme fastidiousness, she would never have settled for anything less.

“You drove him away, but then turned around and carefully crafted a double based on him. Is this what you meant by not needing each other?” Yu Qingtu challenged.

“I need to complete my research sooner, and this can save a lot of unnecessary time,” Ruan Mei explained softly, though she did not outright deny the contradiction. “I admit that Kagashi is a very good student, but I only need him to be obedient and follow the rules.”

“You… never mind.” Intuition told Yu Qingtu that Ruan Mei was being incredibly stubborn. If she only needed to save time, why bother making the mindless tool responsible for her daily life look exactly like Kagashi? It was clearly her subconscious screaming out, forcing her hand. But on second thought, Ruan Mei possessed such a detached, analytical personality that it was entirely possible she did not realize her true feelings for her student at all.

Assuming those feelings truly existed.

“Since letting him go wasn’t the punishment, then what was?” Yu Qingtu pressed, leaning slightly forward. “You said earlier that you had punished him, so there must be a reason.”

As soon as the words left her mouth, Yu Qingtu keenly noticed a shift. For the first time during their conversation, Ruan Mei’s emotions actually fluctuated. It was incredibly slight—a microscopic tightening of her jaw, a fleeting shadow in her eyes—easily ignored if one was not paying absolute attention. It was truly a monumental task to make this woman, who perpetually wore a mask of scholarly indifference, show such a crack in her armor. It seemed this hidden transgression was far more serious than him sabotaging her taboo research.

The duration of Ruan Mei’s silence reached a historical high, stretching the tension in the room to a breaking point.

“Is it inconvenient to tell me?” Yu Qingtu asked, refusing to let her off the hook this time.

Sensing her friend’s unwavering determination to get to the bottom of the mystery, Ruan Mei finally spoke. Her face was entirely expressionless.

“Kagashi was too presumptuous.”

“In what way was he presumptuous?”

“In the year Kagashi turned eighteen, on my birthday, he touched my feet.”

At the time, she had never expected Kagashi to suddenly act in such a manner. Her consciousness had briefly stalled, unable to process the sensory input. Her first reaction upon coming to her senses was not fiery anger, but rather a deep, clinical feeling that the action was highly improper.

“…Just touching your feet… wait—” Yu Qingtu did not think much of it at first, but her eyes soon widened in sheer disbelief. “You aren’t rigidly following some archaic and outdated feudal idea that a woman’s feet can only be touched by her partner, are you?”

Ruan Mei flatly denied the accusation. “There are rewards for doing things well, and naturally, one must accept punishment for doing things wrong. I am Kagashi’s teacher. His behavior severely overstepped the boundaries of the teacher-student relationship. It was a mistake, and it needed correction. Considering I had not taught him knowledge related to male and female physiology, nor the correct etiquette for teacher-student interactions, after the punishment, the matter was settled.”

“How did you punish him?” Yu Qingtu pressed, a sense of unease creeping into her chest.

“Five days of solitary confinement, during which his medicine supply was cut off.”

“I see…” Yu Qingtu fell into deep thought, her gaze drifting toward the soulless replica standing quietly in the corner.

But she still felt something was fundamentally wrong with this picture. In matters of gender and attraction, most men could figure things out without needing a teacher to draw them a diagram. Not to mention, there were countless ways to acquire such basic knowledge in the universe. Even if Ruan Mei had neglected to teach him, understanding the inherent differences and boundaries between men and women would not be difficult for a bright student.

, given Kagashi’s gentle, philosophical personality, he really did not seem like the type of person who would have the audacity to offend his superior out of base lust.