Scarlet shards of light came crashing down through the gaps between the leaves, like a dense shadow that could never be dispelled.

A blood-red dusk followed them like a shadow.

Ci’an set the black box aside and gently brushed away the covering leaves. On the still-green grass, several bright scales lay scattered among the densely packed white skeletons, wrapped around the remains of insects.

She took the small shovel that Kai Xin handed her and dug into the earth. As the hole split open, the insects' dwelling place ceased to exist.

By the time Jiayan arrived, the black box had already been carefully placed inside the pit. Ci’an crouched beneath the tree without moving, as though waiting for something.

“Miss Ci’an, were you waiting for me?”

The cheerful voice came from beside her. Ci’an looked at her.

“I thought you wouldn't come.”

“I have no reason to leave.”

“She was right. You should leave.” Ci’an looked away and spoke calmly.

Jiayan merely repeated, “I have no reason to leave.”

“Is this a curse?” Ci’an murmured.

Under her bewildered yet resolute gaze, the black box gradually twisted into countless writhing threads. Tentacles swayed and reached outward, probing for the truth of this world.

Jiayan spoke softly. “How is a person supposed to survive inside a curse...?”

“When I was brought back home, I was initially raised by the Old Madam. Mother probably guessed who I was, but she simply chose to ignore me.”

“I don't blame her. I think I love her. After all, before I even came into this world, the name I heard most often was Mother's.”

Sticky tentacles clumsily climbed up her ankle. Their cool touch was like that of the female ghost, though the ghost's fingers had been cold and hard, as if they had crawled out of a grave. The threads, by contrast, were soft and ticklish, occupying the body that had once belonged solely to her, driven only by the instincts they possessed.

Innocent and pitiful.

Ignorant and greedy.

“But I forgot. A child born inside a curse is born carrying all kinds of curses. If you want to survive, you have to turn yourself into a monster, too. Otherwise, you simply cannot live.”

“The end result is being devoured.”

Black threads climbed up her thighs, leaving winding, glaringly wet trails across her snow-white skin, like sutured wounds that had been licked.

“After I was eaten, I was dazed, yet I watched everything happening before my eyes with perfect clarity. I couldn't tell which one was really me.”

“Sometimes I was a fish, except I wasn't in a fish tank—I was on a bed. More often, I was a little bird, except I wasn't in the sky—I was hanging suspended in midair.”

“Mother's appearance was like a ray of light. She led me out of the nest and let me stand on the earth again, telling me that I was still a good child.”

The tentacles whipped through the air and tore open a gap. Black threads rushed into her chest, overcoming obstacle after obstacle until they reached her crimson heart, where they reverently asked:

“But am I really a good child?”

“I couldn't cry, and I couldn't laugh. Before I was born, all I ever heard were curses. After I was born, the monster stood inside the nest and pointed at me, declaring that I was a disobedient, bad child.”

“If I'd been a bad child from the very beginning, it would have been better.”

“But Mother said I was a good child. I believed her, and so I was born into this home.”

“I came into this home, locked the monster's nest away in another world, and told myself that I was a good child. I really did become a good child.”

“If the female ghost had never come, I would have remained a good child forever.”

“I finally remembered—I inherited the female ghost's last wish. I was born to love Mother.”

“She wanted to turn me into a monster. I don't hate her. She only wanted me to survive.”

“She was pitiful, too. Born into a family of monsters, she gave birth to a monster, and even now she still hasn't escaped the curse of her bloodline. But fortunately, she still has me.”

“I will love her, just as Mother promised to love me. I promise to love her.”

The crimson heart was wrapped layer upon layer in black threads. Their surging, dying force was almost like an embrace between two versions of the same self, as though desperate to strangle itself to death against another corpse.

Breathing in the faint scent of blood and the sound of the wind, Ci’an laughed lightly.

“This is good. This is very good. I will love her forever.”

An indescribable sorrow welled up inside Jiayan. The rumors from years ago, so seemingly true and false at once, appeared to be confirmed at this very moment.

After a long silence, Jiayan said, “After the Master and Madam married, they never had children. Some people said Madam couldn't conceive... Ten months later, the Old Madam brought home a baby girl from outside and publicly claimed that she was adopted.”

Jiayan smiled, unable to tell whether what she felt was satisfaction or sympathy.

“It seems the rumors that Miss Yu Xin was sent to the sanatorium for another reason were true. I heard that, at the time, her belly had already begun to grow...”

She glanced at Ci’an. Seeing her calm expression, Jiayan suddenly felt a chill run through her.

After a pause, she continued:

“She was forced.”

“I know.”

“Family interests, a business marriage...” Jiayan remained lost in her own thoughts. But halfway through her sentence, her voice suddenly died.

Her pupils contracted sharply.

That inexplicable sense of dread transformed into tangible terror at that moment, pointing directly at the girl named Ci’an.

Jiayan's eyes trembled violently.

“Jiayan, people cannot lie in dreams,” Ci’an said.

“So... you live in a dream?”

That short sentence sliced at Jiayan's throat like a blade, leaving her almost incapable of forming a coherent response.

“I heard it in the dream, so I know.”

“But you were clearly... you were...”

Jiayan could not finish.

The shaking of her understanding was like an arrow striking her, forcing her to painfully question whether this world was real.

“Inside her womb.”

Ci’an finished for her. Her voice was calm and peaceful, guiding Jiayan's crumbling consciousness.

“She forced someone else, and then someone else came and forced her. That's fair, isn't it? Only, she went from being the perpetrator to becoming the one who suffered.”

“Someone else... who?”

Reason and chaos intertwined. Jiayan clutched her increasingly painful head and could not stop herself from asking.

“Jiayan, do you want to live in a dream?”

“No!”

Jiayan pressed a hand against her head. Her other hand reached out of control and grabbed Ci’an's arm, pulling her around.

“I don't want to!... Tell me... who was that person?”

“Jiayan, people cannot lie in dreams.”

“Tell me!”

“I cannot lie.”

Ci’an seemed to be saying it to herself. She raised her head, looked directly into Jiayan's eyes, and answered:

“Mother was the witness to that suffering.”

“I am the bitter fruit born from it.”

“Before she died, Mother's final wish was to return to her mother. I was born carrying that mission.”

“After her death, she returned as a female ghost.”

“The female ghost is my mother.”