Escaping from the Yandere Young Heiress - Chapter 22

The sound of water running in the bathroom was monotonous and hypnotic, yet it hung like a thin thread, suspending Jian Anji’s exhausted consciousness from sinking into oblivion.

The silk sheets beneath her were cold and slippery, a stark contrast to her burning, aching skin. Every slight movement brought uncomfortable friction.

In the silence, both new wounds and old scars awakened, their low growls declaring their presence.

She dared not move, stiffly maintaining the position she had been placed in, her gaze fixed blankly on the blurry play of light and shadow in the corner of the ceiling, cast by the bedside lamp.

Leng Tan’s presence permeated everything: the sheets, the air, even Jian Anji’s own skin.

The brief, forced closeness when she had been carried in felt like a brand seared into her chaotic memories.

The water stopped.

A moment later, Leng Tan emerged.

She had changed out of her robe into a dark gray silk slip dress. Her wet hair draped over her shoulders, water still dripping from the ends.

In her hands, she carried a soft white towel and a small silver box.

She walked to the bed, not looking at Jian Anji, and placed the towel and box on the nightstand.

Then, she lifted the covers and lay down beside Jian Anji.

The mattress dipped slightly, sending a faint tremor through the bed that tugged at the wound on Jian Anji’s back, causing her to wince almost imperceptibly.

Leng Tan didn’t turn off the light right away.

She turned to face Jian Anji’s back.

Without warning, her cool fingertips landed on a fresh whip mark on Jian Anji’s shoulder blade.

Jian Anji’s body jerked violently.

“Don’t move,” Leng Tan’s voice came from behind, calm and steady.

Her fingertips began to slowly press, knead, and massage the muscles and skin around the wound with deliberate force and rhythm.

This wasn’t affection; it felt more like… physical therapy? Or perhaps another form of treatment altogether.

The pressure was firm, working out the knots and stiffness caused by the whipping and tension, creating a complex sensation that mixed soreness with a strange sense of relief.

The faint, cool scent of ointment drifted through the air. Leng Tan’s fingertips were coated with it.

Silently and methodically, she began treating the fresh whip marks on Jian Anji’s back and sides.

From shoulder blade to waist, every red, swollen welt was covered with the icy ointment and patiently massaged.

Her movements were professional and detached, as if she were caring for a piece of leather that needed maintenance, or a work of art with a flaw.

The pain sharpened under Leng Tan’s kneading, then transformed into a deeper, almost numbing sensation under her deliberate touch.

Jian Anji bit her lip hard, burying her face in the pillow as her body trembled slightly from the dual stimulation.

Shame coiled around the pain like a vine, choking her until she could barely breathe.

Having her wounds treated with such meticulous care felt even more humiliating than simply enduring the lashes. It reduced her to an object, stripped of all dignity.

Leng Tan remained silent throughout.

The only sounds were the soft scrape of fingertips against skin, the gentle patting of ointment, and the mingled breaths of the two women, one light, one heavy.

Leng Tan’s breath brushed Jian Anji’s nape and earlobe, carrying the cool, damp scent of bathwater.

After tending to her back, Leng Tan’s hand moved to the back of Jian Anji’s thighs and the curve where her buttocks met her legs.

The welts were more numerous there, and the skin more sensitive.

When Leng Tan’s cool, ointment-slicked fingers touched the tender wounds, Jian Anji finally couldn’t suppress a soft, broken whimper, her body jerking violently.

Leng Tan paused for a moment.

Then she continued.

Her movements became even slower, more deliberate, as if punishing that moment of weakness, or perhaps asserting her claim over these most private parts of Jian Anji’s body.

Time seemed to stretch endlessly. When every fresh wound had been treated, Leng Tan finally withdrew her hand.

She picked up a towel from the bedside table, wiped her fingers, and switched off the lamp.

The room plunged into thick darkness.

Only the faint glow of the distant city, seeping through the curtain gaps, traced faint outlines.

The mattress beside her shifted as Leng Tan lay back.

Darkness and silence surged in like a tide, drowning her vision but sharpening her other senses.

On her back and legs, the treated wounds sent a continuous, icy sting, the ointment’s chill clashing with the burning heat deep within her skin.

Leng Tan lay so close she could feel the faint warmth radiating from her body and the steady rise and fall of her breath.

The icy fragrance, intensified by the darkness and body heat, grew sharper and more invasive.

Jian Anji lay stiff, afraid to move. Pain, cold, shame, exhaustion, and the undeniable presence behind her coalesced into a crushing pressure, squeezing the last shreds of her consciousness.

In the darkness, time lost all meaning. Each second stretched into an eternity.

Just when she thought she would shatter completely under this silent torment, Leng Tan, who was beside her, suddenly moved ever so slightly.

Then, an arm reached around from behind, loosely but with an undeniable strength, encircling her waist.

The arm’s owner didn’t move any closer, simply holding her like that, palm pressed against the uninjured skin of her side, fingertips cool.

This gesture, wordless as it was, sent a deeper chill through Jian Anji than all the whipping, restraints, and touches she had endured that night. It felt utterly absurd.

After the abuse came the tending of wounds. After the punishment came… an embrace (if this could even be called an embrace)?

This contradictory, fractured act completely shattered Jian Anji’s understanding of Leng Tan, obliterating the already blurred line she had tried to draw between pain and control.

She didn’t know what it meant. Was it another form of possessive declaration? A twisted form of comfort after the abuse? Or perhaps an unconscious expression of some complex emotion that even Leng Tan herself hadn’t fully understood?

She was as stiff as a stone, even holding her breath.

The hand at her waist felt more jarring than the whip marks on her back.

In the darkness, Leng Tan’s breathing remained steady and deep, as if she were already asleep.

But Jian Anji knew she wasn’t.

Despite the searing pain and exhaustion, despite the suffocating confusion and chill of the embrace behind her, the command to “stay awake” still held sway, in the cruelest way imaginable.

Outside the thick curtains, the city lights flickered silently.

The long night seemed endless. In this darkness woven with cold and heat, pain and touch, Jian Anji stared blankly, feeling herself suspended at the edge of some abyss, unable to climb up or fall down.

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