Dream of the Red Chamber

The response of Lu Jiao to Lanâ€s explanation of her hair was…not ideal for the blonde Chinese woman. First, the girlâ€s eye twitched. Then, she began breathing through her mouth. Lan felt a few small beads of sweat forming on her brow, as she began to get more and more nervous the longer the other woman went without replying.

Her trepidation would prove entirely warranted when she found herself grabbed by the collar of her shirt and pulled closer by the suddenly much angrier Jocelyn. Still, the darker-haired Chinese girl would not respond to what Lan had said, instead looking over her shoulder and furiously addressing Allison. Lan bit her lip and took a few deep breaths, waiting for the spa owner to step in and save her. When Allison did nothing of the sort—when she instead merely instructed Lan to try to connect with her aggressive countrywoman—Lanâ€s eyes nearly bulged out of her head.

“Ahh…w-wha!?” Lan stammered, dumbfounded. Allison wasnâ€t going to help? She expected Lan to try to resolve this on her own? But Allison obviously had some control over Jocelyn…why wouldnâ€t she help?

Suddenly even more terrified, she would swallow hard and turn her gaze back to the girl holding her by the collar. <Umm…c-could we please try to work this out peacefully? I h-have no idea what I did wrong…I would really like to be friends,> she said meekly in Mandarin.

Jocelyn's eyes widened and she faltered for a split second when Lan spoke. She did not understand the words that were coming out of the blonde's mouth. It was as if Lan was still speaking a foreign language. There was no possible way that Lan would want to be friends with her. Not after the way she was treating Lan. Not after Lan heard her choice and knew about her muddled blood. It HAD to be some kind of trick. Jocelyn gave the girl absolutely no reason touse a word like friend .

The Chistralian turned her head to face Lan once more. She tightened the grip on Lan's shirt and leaned forward so their foreheads almost touched. Jocelyn pushed herself up on her toes to get a height advantage as she stared angrily at Lan, probing her with her eyes to try and find the deception hidden within. Her nostrils flared and she snorted hotly against Lan's face.

After a long moment of heavy breathing and deep staring, Jocelyn gave Lan a shove so that she fell back into the plush chair. She then swiveled on her heels and glared daggers at Allison. But her cheeks remained deeply flushed. What was the catch? What was Allison up to? She ached to leave but she also ached to stay. What if this really WAS an opportunity to connect with one of her own? But NO ONE was like her. THAT was the entire problem.

Allison laughed softly and began clapping for the girls. "Excellent! You see, Yi Lan? You've connected with this girl, and tested your will against hers."

She remained seated and showed no signs of getting up any time soon. She was enjoying the show too much to interrupt. Watching the different stages of anguish and indecision on Jocelyn, the fear on Lan and the resolutely angelic mind beneath. She wanted to see them clash. She wanted to one against the other, and she had already picked a winner. She just had to stack the odds against her chosen loser a bit.

"What we've learned, Yi Lan, is that you are without a doubt the better woman. You're stronger, though that's no great accomplishment considering Jocelyn's total lack of will. How does that feel?"

She cursed Violate for goading her into this. In her own place of business. Oh, well, she'd deal with it. And Violate.

Lanâ€s words did not seem to have any sort of effect on the furious Jocelyn. The girl said nothing. She did not release her shirt. In fact, she pulled Lan closer, close enough that their foreheads touched. The blonde Chinese girlâ€s mouth hung open, trying to form something placating, but no sound came, and she just mumbed incoherently as the other Asian woman stared angrily into her eyes, as if trying to pluck some dark secret from the depths of Lanâ€s soul.

Finally, with a snort, the girl pushed Lan back down into her high-backed chair. The blonde Chinese girl breathed heavily, watching as her darker-haired countrywoman swiveled and turned back to Allison. Silently, Lan was pleading with the spa owner to save her, to explain everything, to try to talk some sense into Jocelyn, But, no. Instead, Allison turned to her and started talking about how she was the better woman. Lanâ€s jaw dropped. Wasnâ€t that just going to make Lu Jiao even angrier!?

“N-n-n-n-no!” Lan stammered, twitching like a cornered animal. “P-please, I, ah, I r-really donâ€t care i-i-i-if Iâ€m stronger…or not…or…” She looked from Allison to Jocelyn and back, pleading desperately with the former to stop talking crazy and help, and with the latter to understand that those words were the British womanâ€s, and were not her own. She was absolutely terrified right now. She couldnâ€t take it anymore. She leaped to her feet, arms shaking, lip quivering, and said, very quietly: “I r-really just want to go home now.”

She turned to Jocelyn, then, in Mandarin: <I r-really donâ€t w-want you to be, uh, mad at me. Please understand…>

Jocelyn turned to look back from Allison to Lan when the blonde Chinese girl began to speak. Her eyes widened. The girl was so audacious that Jocelyn could barely contain herself. That fake humility was sickening. But... was it fake? The girl had been meek and sincere sounding the whole time. Just kowtowing to Jocelyn's ire. The Chistralian was utterly confused. Especially at Lan's last words.

"Bloody fucking arseholes!" Jocelyn spat in Lan's direction She reached out and grabbed the girl's collar again and held her at arm's length. "So, you just KNOW you're so much stronger than me that you don't even care, huh? HUH!?"

Jocelyn let go of Lan and panted softly, staring at the girl. <How?> She said, returning to Chinese. <How could you be stronger than me when you're quivering like a shaking leaf?>

Jocelyn turned her body to step fully towards Lan. It angered her that the girl was a few inches taller and she raised her eyes up. <What, exactly, am I supposed to understand?> She said as she tilted her head. "Mate." She put a point on what she was trying to say with a single English word cloaked in thick Australian and sardonicism.

Lan flinched and tried to shrink away as Jocelyn swore at her, but there was nowhere to go, and the Chinese-Australian girl caught her by the collar once again, rattling her, screaming at her. Lan squeezed her eyes shut and turned her head away from Jocelyn, as if, by not looking at the other woman, she could make her disappear, and give herself a chance to retreat to someplace nice and quiet.

<I-I d-d-d-didnâ€t s-say th-that!> Lan stuttered, trying desperately to convince Jocelyn that the words that she said were all sincere. <I d-donâ€t want t-t-to f-fight! P-please!>

Something seemed to change in the dark-haired girl, for she let Lan go again, and when she spoke, her voice was a little quieter. It was still venomous, however, and it stung Lan terribly to be mocked like that, and abused like that, and to have things demanded of her. A girl with a stronger resolve might have started a fight then and there. But Lan just couldnâ€t. Her eyes welled up with tears. All of a sudden, this unexpected little haven had become hell on Earth, and she needed to escape and get back to her apartment, or else sheâ€d snap like a twig under the pressure of Lu Jiao Jocelynâ€s verbal assault.

<You…y-you…I just w-want you to under…understand that I r-r-really donâ€t want you to b-be mad at me,> Lan pleaded, a few stray tears beginning to run down her cheeks. <I would…if you wanted…I would want to be f-friends. R-r-r-really!>

Jocelyn's eyes widened as she saw real tears come from Lan's eyes and well up at the corners. She took a step back and looked at Allison. Suddenly her heart sank. It wasn't a game? Lan was exactly what she claimed to be? A nice girl who was well mannered and grateful to have found another Chinese girl. That was Jocelyn, minus the manners. Jocelyn's head swiveled on her neck as she slowly shook her head no subconsciously.

"I..." She struggled to get the word out and tried again. <I...> The result was the same in any language. Did she just spoil a chance of a lifetime? A second chance, perhaps? She stared at Lan as the tears rolled down her face. her mind ached to reach out and wipe away the tears but all her body could do was ball up her fists. By the time she realized, she was shaking and had a sneer on her lips. Her head snapped towards Allison.

"You're a cunt! A dishlickin' old hag!" She barked. "P-Polecat... map of tassie!" All she could think of were swear words right now. "Slager! Rowl!" Jocelyn couldn't help herself and switched over to Chinese as she continued to fling epithets at the cruel blonde Brit. "Xia bi Tian Po! Gan ni niang de pi yan!"

Jocelyn was finally able to stop her overflowing diarrhea of the mouth and stood there panting. She lowered her head and flashed an apologetic look to Allison. She then tilted her head as her cheeks reddened and spared the quickest meek glance at Lan in the half a second she turned before inhalling deeply, releasing the breath and swiftly exiting the room.

Allison unwaveringly stared at Jocelyn until she had completed her tantrum, and the glare that followed told her that she wasn't going to let Jocelyn off the hook that easily. She waited until the ill-tempered half-Chinese girl had left, and then turned back to Lan with a look that was a calculated mix of warm, apologetic, and and pleased.

"Darling, what a rich, complex experience you've had," she said, in a low, husky voice like a whisper. "Please don't let it go to waste. There's so much to learn about yourself, if you're willing to look closely enough, about the sort of person you are. Where your strengths lie, and where they do not." She picked up the bottle of wine and set if on the table next to the chair Lan had sat in. "One thing you are not is a fighter, so to speak. It's a shame, really. I think you could be."

She let her gaze linger on the shaken young girl for a moment. "Well, I'll leave you to reflect. Please stay if you'd like, I'll send Sukiyo for you when she's available." She smiled, and let herself out to leave Yi Lan by herself.

Lan could not stop the tears that rolled down her face as she saw the change in the other Chinese girlâ€s expression from furious to despondent. Before she could say anything to her, Jocelyn had already wheeled around and turned on Allison, letting loose with a string of Australian curse words that Lan could not recognize—and then, a number in Chinese, which caused Lanâ€s eyes to widen a little as she heard the filth spewing forth from her countrywomanâ€s mouth.

When Jocelyn had left and Allison had turned a sweet, apologetic, slightly condescending face to her, Lan froze for a second, her lips quivering as she tried to form the words that she wanted to say to Allison. “I…” she began, then trailed off. She had begun to figure Allison out, and what she was seeing in the blonde British woman was terrifying her. She felt like she couldnâ€t breathe—like she had to get out of the spa right away. Maybe catch up to Jocelyn, if she could, and try to talk to her. Or maybe just run back to her apartment. Lan didnâ€t really know.

“I…d-donâ€t r-r-really know…w-what I learned from, uh…from that,” she managed to get out, standing up and dusting herself off a little. “I think…I think I w-would just like t-t-to…” She hesitated, closed her eyes, then took a deep breath, preparing to finish the thought; but, when she opened her eyes again, Allison was already gone. Lan wondered if the woman had head what she said.

“I…am a fighter,” she muttered to herself, waiting a few seconds before opening the door and making for the nearest exit. “Y-you donâ€t know everything…” she said silently, looking back at the scene of what had ended up being a rather terrifying experience.