At the border of Xilan.
On the very top of the mountain, white clouds piled thick in every direction. A thread of morning light broke through the clouds, but it brought no warmth at all, only a faint, cutting chill.
A figure in red stood at the edge of the peak, lonely and worn to the bone. She was slender, so slight that under the wild mountain wind, it seemed she might be swept straight off the cliff at any moment and vanish without even a body left behind.
Her robes had once been white. Now they were soaked through with blood, dyed so completely that not a trace of their original color could be seen. There was only that glaring red, as if she had just crawled out of a sea of blood. And still the blood kept flowing, as though even that was not enough, running down the hem of her clothes little by little before dripping into the earth and staining the ground beneath her feet.
At that moment, one hand was clamped tightly over her abdomen. Her knuckles had gone white, like she was forcing herself to endure pain so fierce it could split a person apart.
"Why? Why!"
The blood-covered woman stared at the people approaching her, her eyes filled with hurt.
The first question came out trembling. The second was almost a broken cry.
A group of people was making their way toward her at an unhurried pace. At the front stood a young woman in a pink dress.
She looked gentle and refined, with clear features and an almost ethereal grace. She walked forward calmly, like some fairy untouched by mortal dust. Her eyes were bright and lovely, yet the venom inside them was impossible to miss.
"Why?" she said. "In this world, where do so many whys come from? But if you insist on an answer, little sister, do you understand this saying—an ordinary man commits no crime, yet treasuring a jade invites disaster?"
As she spoke, she stepped closer, one step at a time. Her eyes were full of mockery, cold and playful all at once.
The woman covered in blood looked at the pink-robed lady in utter disbelief.
What had happened yesterday was still vivid in her mind. Even now, every scene was clear as day. But how could she ever have imagined things would turn into this?
Until last night, she had treated the woman before her as her own elder sister. She had never held anything back from her. Whatever that woman wanted, she would go after it for her, even if it meant staking her life.
Three years ago, that woman had fallen gravely ill. No medicine, no remedy, nothing had worked.
So she had fought her way through blood and danger and gone to the Dragon-Taming Bone Cavern, where she killed a Biluo Viper and took its inner core to use as the catalyst for medicine.
That time, she had nearly died. She had dragged herself out by sheer will alone, carrying wound after wound across her body.
Later, after taking the spiritual medicine, the woman's health truly improved. She still looked frail, though, and her face remained pale.
Not long after, another letter arrived, said to be from a divine physician. The letter claimed that if she was to recover fully, then the only way was to use the blood of someone with abundant spiritual power and a sincere heart as the foundation, combined with rare medicinal herbs.
She had kept feeding her blood, little by little, to nourish her, because all along she had truly treated her as family.
Even yesterday, in broad daylight, the moment she got up, she had cut open her own scar-riddled wrist and offered up a bowl of fresh blood. It was because of those three years of constant bloodletting that her body had grown frail and thin, and even her spiritual power had barely improved.
Now, looking back, all of it felt painfully ridiculous.
What nourishment? What healing? In the end, it was only to make that woman’s body better suited to taking her spiritual root.
Last night, she had drugged her. Her whole body had gone limp, unable to move, yet her mind had stayed cruelly clear. She had lain there on that freezing stone platform, fully conscious, watching with her own eyes as the woman dug out the spiritual root that had grown inside her for fourteen years.
That pain cut into the bone and shook the soul.
But what hurt more than her body was her heart.
Was it that she had hidden herself too well all these years, or was Seraphina Voss simply too stupid?
Beside the woman in pink stood a strongly built middle-aged man with a face that looked upright and honorable.
He wore a dark blue robe, and at his waist hung a golden flame token, the mark of the Ashford family head. He looked kind and gentle on the surface, but in his eyes was a trace of venom and disgust. He swept a cold glance over the blood-soaked girl and said, “Why waste so many words on her? My Ashford family picked her up and raised her all these years. Naturally, she ought to repay us.”
At that, the woman covered in blood suddenly burst into laughter, wild and sharp, almost mad.