"It wasn’t me. I really didn’t touch her..."

"Mom, you have to believe me... You raised me yourself. You know what I’m like better than anyone. Why would I do something bad..."

The voice came thick with tears, like she was explaining herself, but the tone sounded more like wheedling than crying.

Then another voice rose in Elara’s head, a child’s voice this time.

"[Mom, this new beginning... you have to live well...]"

"[This time, listen to your own heart. Don’t marry Dad, and don’t give birth to me either...]"

That fake sobbing, the little girl’s fading words, and the weaker and weaker beeping of the heart monitor all tangled around Elara’s ears. Her head throbbed so hard it felt ready to split.

And that woman’s voice just kept going on and on.

"It really has nothing to do with me. I honestly don’t know how Sister Elara fell..."

With great effort, Elara forced her eyelids open. Through the blur, she saw two people sitting by the bed.

One looked to be in her early forties. She wore a short-sleeved blouse with tiny flowers on a beige background, and her hair was cut neatly to the ears.

The other was a young girl dressed fashionably, wearing a goose-yellow dress, with two braided pigtails and matching butterfly bows tied at the ends.

Elara blinked hard a few times, thinking she had to be dreaming. Otherwise, how could she possibly be seeing Fiona Ainsley and Crystal Barlow looking twenty years younger?

But even in a dream, Crystal’s way of talking was still just as unbearable.

How to put it?

In the words of her daughter Cecily Davenport, it was pure posing, every word dripping with that fake sweet "green tea" air.

Elara curled her lip, muttering inwardly that her luck was rotten. If she had to dream, why dream of the two people she hated most?

She shut her eyes again, fully intending to kick both of them out of her dream.

But the moment she closed them, Crystal’s sticky-soft voice floated over again.

"Mom, I think Sister Elara opened her eyes."

Elara couldn’t be bothered to respond.

"Sis? Sister Elara?"

"Sis, you're awake. Why won't you open your eyes?"

Crystal Barlow's voice suddenly dropped, soft and aggrieved. "Elara, are you annoyed with me? If you're refusing to wake up because I'm here, then fine, I'll go, all right..."

Before she even finished, her voice had already gone thick with tears.

"..."

Elara rolled her eyes inside her head.

There she went again, crying and putting on a show.

Pushing forty, and the tears still came the second she wanted them to.

She was bad enough in real life.

Now she had to run into her even in a dream. What rotten luck.

Elara lifted her leg and kicked out, shoving her away at once. "Why are you bawling? Since you know I can't stand you, why don't you hurry up and get out!"

Crystal hadn't expected her to actually strike. The kick landed right on her knee. Pain shot through her leg, and it gave way beneath her. She dropped straight to the floor on her knees.

She froze, eyes wide, staring at Elara in disbelief. "Sis!!"

"What sis? What kind of relation do I have with you?"

Crystal's tears fell at once. She turned toward Fiona Ainsley and complained in a choked voice, "Mom, Elara, she... how could she do this..."