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ArabicHonkai Star Rail: My Death Feeds Their Madness — Chapter 36
Chapter 36: Neither Owes the Other
This was not a punishment.
It was a one-sided abuse, a cold-blooded torture that tore through the physical, the mental, and the spiritual. Nothing was spared.
He should have resented her. He should have hated her to the very marrow of his bones… yet he did not.
Kagashi had attributed every fault to himself. He had stripped away his own memories in the most agonizing manner, sealing them away at the bottom of an unreachable, suffocating deep sea. He did it all just so he could once again become her favorite, her most satisfactory student.
Ruan Mei could not stop the question from clawing at her mind. Did Kagashi live his entire life this way, only remembering everything at the very last moment… or did he die without ever recalling this past?
Emotions she had never experienced before surged from the darkest depths of her being, violently striking the heart within her chest.
It hurt. A suffocating, crushing ache.
Yet, perhaps this pain was not even a ten-thousandth of what Kagashi had endured in silence.
Another unrecognized emotion clawed at her, driving a singular, desperate impulse to the surface of her mind again and again.
She wanted to go back. She wanted to return to the past, back across several Amber Eras.
To stop the youth from tearing away his own memories.
To stop herself from inflicting such a merciless punishment upon him.
But she could not do it.
She could not reverse the flow of time, could not return to those lost days, and could not change a single cause and effect that had already been set in stone.
“A’Mu… do you hate me…”
Ruan Mei whispered to the empty air, her eyes flashing with a chaotic, indescribable grief.
She wanted to know. She wanted to know so desperately that her reason began to fracture.
She hoped that Kagashi had remembered everything before he left this world, that even a sliver of hatred for her had finally taken root in his heart.
If he hated her, she would feel so much better.
Clinging to this dark obsession, Ruan Mei explored deeper, plunging into the trailing currents of his past memories.
“In the future, you shall use this Ruan.”
“Thank you, Teacher!”
The youth held the traditional lute she had given him, his face beaming with pure joy.
“And this lab coat. The size was made a bit too large and does not fit me, so you take it.”
She did not tell him that it had been specially tailored for her student.
“Teacher, watch out!”
An accident occurred during an experiment. Contact with high-risk substances triggered a violent chain reaction of energy, detonating with a deafening roar.
At the critical moment, the student, who had already grown taller than her, threw himself in front of the blast, taking the massive impact head-on.
The young man’s upper body was mangled beyond recognition, his chest a bloody ruin with organs visible, half his face stripped down to the bone…
“A’Mu, why do I not see you making that soybean cake anymore?”
“That soybean cake?”
The young man scratched his head, furrowing his brows as he thought carefully, suppressing the heavy confusion in his mind.
“I am not sure which one Teacher is referring to. Is it Sujian, Taoyin, or Lingyue?”
“…If you cannot remember, then forget it.” Ruan Mei said indifferently.
It was merely a passing craving.
Although the taste of that pastry had left a deep impression on her, it was not indispensable.
“Drink it, A’Mu.”
Kagashi did not know what the glowing potion in his teacher’s hand was for, but he drank it without a second thought.
He firmly believed his teacher would never harm him.
Ruan Mei did not explain that the liquid was meant to suppress the sequelae of his sensory loss.
As long as his body did not enter a state of senile decay, the medicine would not fail.
“Teacher, the genetically mutated species you required, I have successfully cultivated it.”
“Well done. Just place it in the designated petri dish. You will move on to another project next.”
“You have not closed your eyes to rest for a week, Teacher. Go to sleep. I will take care of the observation period.”
“Very well. The points of attention are written on the sticky note.”
“I guarantee there will not be any mistakes.”
“Happy birthday, Teacher. I have prepared a dinner. Please stop your research for now and continue after eating.”
“There is no need.”
“There is Plum Blossom Wine.”
“Oh? Where did the plum blossoms come from? The ecological environment has been harsh in recent years. Plum trees should not be able to survive.”
“I took some time to travel to another world to cultivate and harvest them. Although this jar of Plum Blossom Wine is only two years old and not at its peak flavor, it is still quite good.”
“You are thoughtful. Then I shall do as you say.”
Countless memory fragments replayed before her eyes, and Ruan Mei gradually fell into a daze.
In those decades that passed like a single fleeting day, there were accidents, there was mundane routine, and there were quiet, small surprises.
In her life, Kagashi’s shadow was everywhere.
Reviewing the past from this distant, third-person perspective, she suddenly realized a terrifying truth. She had long since grown accustomed to a life with him in it.
Until that fateful day began.
“That data seems to be related to Teacher’s parents…?”
“What about it?”
“…Nothing.”
“Why did you take it upon yourself to delete that data?”
That was her most important possession, the very obsession that drove her endless research forward.
Although the data was perfectly imprinted in her mind and deleting the physical copy made no difference, she had not been angry.
But this action had ultimately broken her rules.
She wanted to know what possessed her student to dare overstep his bounds after decades of perfect obedience.
The young man frowned deeply, his tone heavy and solemn.
“Teacher, this is a forbidden research that desecrates life and, also, desecrates your parents! Even if you eventually succeed, it is easy to lose your original heart and lose many things because of it. Some Pandora’s boxes… must never be opened.”
“Is that your reason?” she asked.
“Teacher, I…”
Kagashi did not finish his sentence. He hesitated for a long moment and finally let out a secret, heavy sigh.
“Starting tomorrow, you have completed your apprenticeship.” She spoke without any warning, her voice devoid of warmth.
Even though Kagashi had long prepared himself to be punished, hearing these exact words drained the color from his face, leaving him stained with absolute shock.
“You are driving me away? Teacher… you can punish me however you like, just do not drive me away, okay? This is the only punishment I do not want…”
“This is not a punishment.”
Ruan Mei turned around calmly, leaving behind her final, absolute judgment.
“I have already taught you everything you can learn. Staying here is just wasting your time. It is meaningless.”
“Teacher—!”
The young man grabbed her sleeve, his eyes pleading with a bitter, raw desperation.
“I will say it one more time. You have completed your apprenticeship. Leave. I will not see you again until the research is finished.”
Ruan Mei pulled her sleeve from his grasp and delivered one last, devastating sentence.
“If I have not contacted you in a hundred years, then forget about me. I do not owe you, and you no longer owe me.”
Kagashi’s expression went entirely dull. He stood frozen in place for a long time, the light dying in his eyes, before finally lowering his head and bowing deeply.
“Yes… Teacher…”
In the student’s memory, her image was forever frozen at this exact scene.
When Kagashi left back then, she had remained completely indifferent.
Now, however, she watched him until his figure disappeared into the horizon.
From that departing back, Ruan Mei read a deep, suffocating sense of loss and absolute desolation.
Kagashi left alone. He returned to the planet where he had stayed while being treated, returning to those quiet mountains and fields, and built a simple Bamboo House not far from her old home.
“In those last one hundred and eleven years, did you live well…” Ruan Mei murmured.
The tone of Kagashi’s remaining life did not have many ups and downs.
He planted plum trees all over the mountains, ensuring an endless supply of winter plums to harvest so he could brew Plum Blossom Wine of perfect quality. Nothing was more important than this task each year.
He would regularly clean that old home of hers, a place that had long been covered in dust yet remained brand new under his care, and he regularly trimmed the mountain path that led straight to the front door.
He sent out jars of Plum Blossom Wine without a single letter of disturbance, maintaining his silent vigil until he quietly left this world, leaving behind a lifeless puppet that remained exactly the same as ever.
The rest of the time, he would stay in the Bamboo House, going nowhere.
His good friend Yu Qingtu would occasionally visit to enjoy his warm hospitality.
Aside from that, his quiet life only consisted of the scattered patients who sought him out from time to time.
A hundred years passed like this, flowing by like still water.
Then, a purple-haired girl named Clarice appeared.