Ye Lin stepped forward. The wind in the bone field hissed, carrying the scent of dry earth… and something rotting. Her crimson eyes locked onto the figure in the red kebaya.
She knew it wasn't her mother.
The small shadow clinging to her chest trembled, gripping tighter.
"Lin'er," the voice called again, like a broken melody from a song once beloved.
In the figure's hands, the bowl gleamed with thick black light.
The liquid inside writhed—like tortured life.
"You're not my mother," Ye Lin said, her voice hoarse but steady—holding a new kind of strength.
The figure laughed.
What once sounded sweet now cracked into the chirping of a thousand insects.
The red kebaya fluttered, revealing black roots coiled around the figure's body like restraints.
The white hair Ye Lin had seen… was now nothing but writhing black silk threads.
"Of course I am your mother," the figure hissed, stepping closer.
"Your mother who waited for you through every death, through every rebirth. In every cycle, Lin'er."
The butterfly tattoo on Ye Lin's arm burned—hot, like forged iron.
"IT'S A LIE! DON'T TOUCH HER!"
The whisper came sharper than ever before.
Ye Lin didn't answer. Her gaze locked onto the figure's eyes.
They weren't her mother's.
They were mirrors—of the seventy-nine weeping faces on her hut wall.
Eyes filled with Loneliness, Regret, and Longing.
"You gave me false memories," she said, pain curling tight around her chest.
Not just heartbreak—this was a wound filled with lies.
"You tried to trap me in the past."
The false "mother" extended the bowl.
"This is the warmth you've longed for.
The embrace you've missed.
Drink it, and we can stay here forever.
Free from the cycle.
Free from suffering."
Ye Lin looked down at the bowl.
Inside it, she saw a vision—her mother's smiling face, feeding her warm corn soup, laughing softly.
Her hand trembled… slowly reaching out.
"No!"
The small shadow screamed—leaping from Ye Lin's chest.
Mid-air, it transformed into a single golden corn kernel, shining like the last light of a dying sun.
It shot forward
and pierced the black liquid in the bowl.
The bowl screamed.
The liquid inside began to boil, vomiting golden worms, each one shrieking in pain as they evaporated into smoke.
The false "mother" staggered back.
Her face began to crack, like parched earth before a storm.
"You can't destroy my memory!"
Her voice fractured—splitting into a thousand others.
Ye Lin raised her right hand.
In it, the golden corn kernel—the small shadow—now shone with pure light.
She aimed the glow at the cracking figure.
"This isn't memory," Ye Lin said, her voice now like tempered steel.
"It's poison. And I will purify it."
The golden light surged
blasting through the fractures in the red-kebaya figure's face.
The thing screamed
no longer sweet, no longer insectile
but a howl of raw, aching torment.
The cry of thousands of souls, consumed by memory.