Honkai Star Rail: My Death Feeds Their Madness — Chapter 13

Chapter 13: I Have Done Nothing Wrong, So Why Talk of Regret?You're reading this on the wrong site. This chapter was translated by Elysian Reads and posted for free at elysianreads.com — if you're seeing it anywhere else, it was copied without permission. Read it at the source so the people who actually did the work get the credit.

Yu Qingtu didn’t dwell on the intricacies of the situation for now.

Ruan Mei had merely stated the cold facts without expanding on the details, but that hardly mattered; she could simply ask Kagashi herself the next time their paths crossed. For now, her attention shifted to the immediate eyesore in the room.

“Make this thing go away. Its very presence here makes my skin crawl.”

Yu Qingtu didn’t bother masking the sheer disdain in her gaze as she glared at the counterfeit Kagashi standing quietly nearby. What did it matter if the physical dimensions were a flawless replica? It was a hollow, soulless shell.

“It possesses no life. It is merely a puppet,” Ruan Mei replied, her voice smooth and entirely devoid of inflection.

“If the Little Fellow himself were standing here, I wouldn’t be driving him away,” Yu Qingtu shot back, her slender brows knitting together in sharp displeasure. “To be perfectly blunt, Ar-Ruan, fabricating this thing is nothing short of an insult to your own student.”

She stepped slightly closer, her tone pressing. “Imagine it. Imagine if the Little Fellow constructed a puppet perfectly identical to you, programmed it with his preferred behavioral logic, and kept it trailing by his side all day long. How would you feel?”

“That would not be me,” Ruan Mei answered with absolute calm. “Therefore, I would feel nothing.”

Despite her dismissive words, she reached out, accepted the plate of carefully arranged pastries from the puppet’s hands, and waved her fingers. The counterfeit vanished into the shadows, dismissed from sight.

Yu Qingtu stared at her fellow Genius Society member for a long, heavy moment. She searched Ruan Mei’s serene, porcelain features for any micro-expression of duplicity, any crack of stubborn denial.

She found absolutely nothing. A perfectly placid lake.

It didn’t matter. Not too long ago, Kagashi had looked her in the eye and stated he harbored no romantic feelings for Ruan Mei. He had answered with candid grace, without a single stutter or hesitation, entirely devoid of deception. Yet, a genius’s intuition was rarely wrong, and her sixth sense screamed that something was fundamentally broken beneath the surface of this dynamic. She just couldn’t isolate the exact variable yet.

Ruan Mei’s current detached response gave her the exact same hollow feeling Kagashi’s confession had. What an utterly exhausting pair of teacher and student. In those cheap, old-fashioned tragic romance novels, they would at least have the decency to be star-crossed lovers.

“Then I’ll just tell the Little Fellow that you’ve gone and manufactured a double of him. How about that?” Yu Qingtu threatened lightly.

“As you wish.” Ruan Mei’s indifference was absolute.

“You are simply impossible to reach.” Yu Qingtu rolled her eyes, her chest rising and falling with a quiet, frustrated breath. She reached out and snatched the entire plate of pastries from the counter.

Plucking one from the pile, she took a bite. Barely two chews in, her face twisted, and she spat the mashed confection directly into a nearby disposal basin. She offered no explanation, merely turning a sharp, piercing glare back to Ruan Mei.

Ruan Mei tilted her head, finding the hostile gaze entirely baffling. Assuming there must have been a miscalculation in the synthetic ingredients, she picked up a pastry herself and took a delicate bite. The texture was adequate. The sugar levels were optimal. It seemed perfectly fine.

Why the dramatic rejection?

“If there is a flaw you are dissatisfied with, you may simply state it, Qingtu.”

“Ar-Ruan, you have a severe psychological problem right now. I don’t even know what vocabulary would be appropriate to diagnose you, do you realize that?” Yu Qingtu’s expression twisted into a complicated knot of pity and disbelief.

“Where exactly is the problem?”

“That puppet possesses the Little Fellow’s culinary skill, yes—but I didn’t expect it to be operating at a level from who knows how many decades ago!” Yu Qingtu’s voice lost its usual classical dignity, cracking with a rare, genuine shock. “Eighty years? Ninety? A full century ago? Did you create that counterfeit just a few days after you drove him away?”

Memories drifted to the surface of Yu Qingtu’s mind. She remembered visiting Ruan Mei’s secluded domain decades ago. Ruan Mei had walked out of her laboratory looking much the same as she did today. The only difference was that back then, Ruan Mei had been rushing to attend to an urgent cosmic anomaly, leaving behind a stack of rare research materials before vanishing. Consequently, Yu Qingtu had never realized her friend had secretly forged a replica of Kagashi in the aftermath.

Who could have predicted this? Over a hundred years ago, Kagashi had still been a shy, sunlit young man. He was the kind of boy who would pour years of agonizing effort into a single craft just because an outsider made a passing, casual remark.

She remembered him standing there, respectfully holding out a plate of pastries that looked, smelled, and tasted flawless to any normal human. He had worn a look of nervous anticipation, asking her to taste and critique his work. Truthfully, his culinary skills back then hadn’t been nearly refined enough to conquer her legendary pickiness. But the bright, hopeful smile on the Little Fellow’s face, driven by a sincere and unchanging heart, had moved her far more deeply than the sugar and flour ever could.

So, she had swallowed her critique, forced a deeply satisfied smile, and promised to unconditionally help him with one favor in the future.and support the real translator.Read at elysianreads.com This is a stolen translation. You're reading this on the wrong site. This chapter was translated by Elysian Reads and posted for free at elysianreads.com — if you're seeing it anywhere else, it was copied without permission. Read it at the source so the people who actually did the work get the credit.

Since that distant year, Kagashi’s skills had never once stagnated. They grew sharper, more refined, eventually completely conquering her impossibly high standards. Whether they were Long-Life Species or Short-Life Species, mortals had their limits. No two individuals walked the exact same path. For most, no matter how much blood and sweat they poured into an endeavor, it remained an exercise in futility; they would die before ever seeing the finish line.

But if one lacked the courage to even step onto the path, all future possibilities shattered into dust. To look at an impossible summit, to step forward anyway, and to grind day by day until the impossible morphed into reality.

This was why Kagashi, despite being an ordinary Short-Life Species with no innate cosmic blessings, pleased her so deeply.

Over the decades, the flavor profile of Kagashi’s pastries had evolved into sheer perfection. Why? Because his teacher liked them. That was the sole reason he never abandoned his culinary research. Even if it bruised her ego slightly, Yu Qingtu had to admit that the flavors perfectly tailored to her own palate were merely a fortunate byproduct of his devotion to Ruan Mei.

People change. Tastes evolve. Having been utterly spoiled by the Little Fellow’s masterful cooking for years, the stale, century-old data the puppet relied on was nothing short of an insult to her taste buds. Compared to the warm, soul-infused pastries Kagashi had served her just recently, the difference was so staggering that comparing a firefly to the blazing moon would be an understatement.

Yet Ruan Mei had been eating this stagnant, artificial imitation for over a hundred years?

In a single, breathless instant, Yu Qingtu felt a suffocating wave of jealousy toward her friend’s irreplaceable throne in Kagashi’s heart, immediately followed by deep pity for Ruan Mei’s emotional blindness.

And beneath it all, a bitter ache for Kagashi.

‘This is the teacher you revere as a second parent, Little Fellow…’ Yu Qingtu sighed inwardly, her chest heavy with helplessness.

Every cause birthed an effect. No matter what kind of detached, obsessive entity Ruan Mei had morphed into, she remained the savior who had pulled Kagashi from the abyss. Yu Qingtu knew she had no right to interfere; this suffocating tragedy was the result of the teacher and student’s own intertwined choices.

Seeing Ruan Mei lower her gaze in what looked like a rare moment of silent admission, Yu Qingtu entirely lost the desire to linger and relax. She reached into her spatial pocket, retrieved a small, carefully woven cloth bag, and tossed it through the air.

“All the biological experimental materials you requested are inside. The ten jars of Plum Blossom Wine that Kagashi ferments for you every year are in there as well; I brought them along on his behalf.” Yu Qingtu turned away. “For the time being, I’m going to cause a little trouble for Genius Society 64. Don’t bother looking for me until I’m finished.”

“Thank you. I wish you a smooth journey,” Ruan Mei replied, offering a slight nod. She made no polite, empty gestures to ask her friend to stay.

Yu Qingtu stepped out of the steaming bath. As she crossed the threshold, her elegant garments manifested from thin air, wrapping smoothly around her alluring curves. Reaching the heavy wooden door, she paused, her hand resting on the frame. She didn’t look back.

“Remember to maintain a regular routine and eat on time.”

Silence stretched for a second before she continued. “That is what that silly boy begged me to tell you. There’s no harm in revealing it now; every single time I reminded you to take care of yourself in the past, it was only because he asked me to.”

She gripped the doorframe slightly tighter. “Ar-Ruan, as your friend, I will leave you with one final piece of advice: stop doing things that will make your future self drown in regret.”

“That is all I have to say. See you next time.”

The door clicked shut, leaving Ruan Mei alone in the quiet, humid expanse of the bathing chamber. She remained perfectly still for a long time, her empty gaze locked onto the bruised petals drifting aimlessly across the water’s surface.

Slowly, the ripples settled, and a reflection began to take shape in the water. A face as gentle as carved jade, wearing a soft, familiar smile.

Her consciousness wavered, a rare fracture in her absolute control, but the phantom face vanished in a flash of broken water.

Ruan Mei slowly rose from the bath. Warm droplets slid down her pale, flawless skin, dripping back into the pool and shattering the stillness with faint, rhythmic echoes.

“I have done nothing wrong,” Ruan Mei murmured into the empty room, her voice a soft, chilling whisper. “So why talk of regret?”

She wrapped herself in a pristine, snow-white towel and turned her back on the water, walking steadily toward the cold embrace of her laboratory. Once she finally reaped the ultimate results of her biological research, she would consider granting her student an audience.

As for now, her time belonged entirely to the pursuit of life’s ultimate equation.

After all, she had made a promise to Kagashi—they would not meet again until the research was complete.You're reading this on the wrong site. This chapter was translated by Elysian Reads and posted for free at elysianreads.com — if you're seeing it anywhere else, it was copied without permission. Read it at the source so the people who actually did the work get the credit.