The cornfield outside the hut whispered softly as the morning breeze brushed against the stalks. Ye Lin stood on the threshold, eyes watching the golden pulses hanging between green leaves. They looked like tiny hearts, each one glowing faintly casting strange shadows on the ground.
Sometimes, the shadows looked like her.
Sometimes like her mother.
And sometimes… like the brother who had long disappeared.
"You can't stay here forever."
The voice came from inside the hut.
Ye Lin turned.
A small shadow—about the size of a five-year-old child—sat on the wooden table, its transparent legs swinging back and forth. In its hand, it held a bone knife, cracked and ancient.
"I know," Ye Lin whispered.
But her steps were always heavy.
Each time she tried to leave the hut, golden roots would crawl up from the ground, wrapping around her ankles like pleading hands.
On the damp wooden walls, seventy-nine paintings of her own face suddenly changed expression.
All of them… crying.
In the Real World:
Amid the ruins of the Venomous Leaf Sect, Ye Lin's body lay cold and lifeless.
But from her chest, glass flowers had begun to bloom.
A small child—the only one brave enough to approach—reached out to touch one of them.
Crack.
Its petals shattered. But what came out was not shards alone.
"Don't trust memories that are too beautiful."
It was a voice.
The child screamed. But it was too late.
The flower had pierced into his hand, like a thorn injecting something into his veins.
Instantly, his eyes changed—
Now, a golden light gleamed in his pupils.
Back in the Inner World:
Ye Lin raised her hand, attempting to summon her new power.
But what emerged was not black blood or roots
It was words.
They floated in the air like living smoke:
"Loneliness."
"Regret."
"Longing."
The small shadow leapt off the table, grabbed one of the words—"Longing"—and devoured it.
"Tasty," it murmured, eyes glinting.
"Now I understand why they want to eat us."
Ye Lin wanted to protest, to ask who they were. But suddenly—
The hut's door creaked open.
Outside, the cornfield had changed.
Its stalks were now made of bone, and its fruits were no longer corn, but miniature skulls.
At the end of the dirt path stood a familiar figure:
A woman in a red kebaya.
Her mother. Or so it seemed.
But the smile was far too wide. And her eyes… didn't blink.
"Lin'er," she called sweetly.
"Mother made you some soup."
In her hands was a bowl—
Inside it, a black liquid roiled on its own, as if alive.
The small shadow grabbed Ye Lin's arm tightly.
"Don't look! That's not her!"
But Ye Lin had already stepped forward.
Because behind the red kebaya,
She saw a single strand of white hair...
Exactly like her mother's once was.