Chapter 43: Mark

The smell of cheap lipstick, a mixture of perfume and plastic, approached irresistibly.
The smell that should have attracted her now smelled so disgusting.
Then, the gaudy rose-red cream was pressed hard against Wen Xuelan’s lips.
The force was so strong that it almost broke her lips.
“Don’t move, little orchid, I’ll draw you a better picture.”
A girl’s laughter came faintly as if through a layer of water film.
Wen Xuelan was pinned to the tree trunk, unable to move.
Her vision was limited, and she could only see the smiling girls surrounding her, and the rosy red color that was freely moving on her face.
Lipstick was roughly smeared on her lips, creating a funny bloody mouth.
She tasted the waxy bitterness.
“Tsk tsk, now that we’ve finished the mouth, it’s time to draw something else, right?”
“Tear!”
There was a sharp sound of cloth tearing.
Her collar was roughly torn open by a hand.
The cool evening air instantly touched her sensitive collarbone and shoulders, bringing an uncontrollable shudder.
“Your skin is quite white.”
The blond girl smiled and applied the cool cream on her exposed collarbone, rubbing it vigorously, leaving behind several messy red marks that imitated kisses.
Wen Xuelan closed her eyes tightly.
She felt her soul being pulled out bit by bit from this body that was being used as a canvas.
She was like a ghost floating in the air, watching all this coldly, with a blank heart.
“And this, this is the most important!”
The other girl smiled and lifted the hem of her T-shirt, revealing her flat, fair belly.
The lipstick strokes, with cold malice, wrote those words above her belly button, stroke by stroke:
“Lin Xiaomei’s dog.”
“Hahahaha! They’re such a perfect match!”
“Hey, let me do it, let me do it!”
Another follower excitedly grabbed the lipstick, squatted down, and wanted to lift up the trouser legs of Wen Xuelan’s school uniform pants, preparing to continue “creating” on her exposed calves.
“How boring…”
A voice filled with boredom and coldness came from behind them.
Lin Xiaomei pushed away the girl who was blocking her way, grabbed Wen Xuelan’s hair, and dragged her up from the ground roughly.
“Hmm…”
The severe pain from her scalp finally brought Wen Xuelan’s wandering soul back to this painful body.
“Come with me.”
Lin Xiaomei ignored the stunned followers and just grabbed Wen Xuelan’s hair, dragging her out of the dark woods like a tattered piece of luggage, and dragged her to the secluded path leading to the riverbank that they were most familiar with.
Finally, she threw Wen Xuelan next to the smooth rock that carried all their summer memories.
Lin Xiaomei looked around.
The river still flowed, and the lights in the distance were the same as she remembered.
“It really hasn’t changed much here.”
Then she turned her head and looked at Wen Xuelan, who was lying on the ground, curled up in pain.
“You’re such a jerk! You know there’s someone this annoying who knows about this place, but why can’t you just find another place to hide your junk?”
She squatted down and looked at Wen Xuelan’s calves, whose trouser legs were rolled up halfway.
“Take off your pants yourself, or should I help you?”
Wen Xuelan took off her school uniform trousers with trembling hands without any hesitation.
Lin Xiaomei didn’t say anything, but used the lipstick she had just snatched back to apply a gaudy rose red color on her fingertips.
Then, she stretched out the colored finger and slowly extended it toward Wen Xuelan.
Wen Xuelan’s whole body stiffened, and she subconsciously closed her legs.
Lin Xiaomei’s fingers stopped just a few millimeters away from the skin.
She raised her head and looked at Wen Xuelan.
Finally, the pair of legs that were tightly pressed together slowly and slightly separated in silent trembling.
Lin Xiaomei looked at her submissive appearance, but a hint of disappointment flashed in her eyes.
She used the lipstick-stained fingertip to draw a long, straight red mark on Wen Xuelan’s skin with great force.
Like a wound that couldn’t heal.
“…Here,” she leaned close to Wen Xuelan’s ear, “this is the place that belongs to me.”
“Those beasts of theirs are not worthy of being touched.”
After completing all this, she looked at Wen Xuelan in front of her, who had no reaction and seemed to be dead, and felt unprecedented irritation and failure.
She pinched Wen Xuelan’s chin and growled in a tone mixed with pleading and anger:
“Resist! Why are you always like this?”
“You weren’t like this before! In the past, if someone dared to touch you, you would at least cry and glare at them! But now? You just act like a dead person!?”
Hearing these words, Wen Xuelan’s empty eyes refocused.
She slowly raised her head and looked at the face in front of her that was both familiar and unfamiliar, and full of disappointment.
“They are not you, Xiaomei.”
Lin Xiaomei was stunned.
“They wouldn’t want me to resist.”
Wen Xuelan looked at Lin Xiaomei’s stunned expression, and even a hint of sadness appeared at the corner of her mouth.
“Xiaomei, is this… really what you want?”
These words pierced Lin Xiaomei’s chest.
She looked at Wen Xuelan’s face, which was badly painted and stained with tears and dirt, and her body began to tremble uncontrollably.
She reached out her hand and gently, even tenderly, wiped away the lipstick mark on the corner of Wen Xuelan’s mouth with her fingertips.
Then, she dipped the lipstick again and added a lip line to Wen Xuelan’s lower lip, which was still gaudy but extremely neat.
Then she loosened her grip.
She stuffed the lipstick into Wen Xuelan’s hand.
Then she slowly pulled up the hem of her T-shirt, revealing the slightly wheat-colored skin on her lower abdomen.
Her movements were deliberately provocative, but her shoulders trembled slightly, as if she was hiding some uneasiness.
Her eyes were fixed on Wen Xuelan, a mixture of stubborn defiance, an almost self-destructive emptiness, and a hint of expectation hidden deep within that she herself was unwilling to admit.
“Come on, let me see what she taught you.”
Wen Xuelan’s fingers were tightly gripping the lipstick, and the plastic shell was hurting her palm.
She lowered her head, her eyes wandering between the lipstick and Lin Xiaomei’s defenseless belly, and her throat rolled unconsciously.
Her fingers trembled as she slowly brought the lipstick closer to Lin Xiaomei’s lower abdomen.
“…She would never do such a thing.”
“She…” She bit her lip, “She’s much gentler than you.”
Wen Xuelan’s movements stopped in mid-air, only a few centimeters away from the skin.
She gritted her teeth and suddenly stuffed the lipstick back into Lin Xiaomei’s hand.
Her fingertips trembled slightly when they touched the other’s palm.
Lin Xiaomei looked down at the lipstick that was stuffed back into her palm.
The corners of her mouth twitched, and she squeezed out a meaningless sneer, which sounded like crying, but also like self-mockery.
She turned around suddenly, grabbed the lipstick, and without looking back, threw it into the river in the distance with all her strength.
The lipstick drew an arc and fell into the water, splashing a small circle of ripples that disappeared in an instant.
Just then, a familiar voice came from the path they came from.
“What are you doing?”