A complicated bitterness settled over Winnie's face when she heard Xilos's words.
Though she herself had no fondness for Mia, the main body who had once severed her away as contaminated residue and abandoned her—she was even deeply resentful—after experiencing the complete recovery of her memories and the reshaping of her soul, along with the memories Mia had transmitted earlier, she had no choice but to consider more things.
She steadied herself. Her golden eyes swept over Xilos, then Shen Yi, and finally landed on Hilat, who looked somewhat displeased at being questioned. Her voice returned to its usual calm.
"Because if those things just now—about the Void Domain, about the Boundary Land, about the black mist—had been told to you by her own mouth, no matter how sincere she sounded, how much would you have believed?"
She paused, then continued.
There was no need to wait for an answer to that question. The answer was already written in everyone's slightly furrowed brows and flickering eyes.
"You would have instinctively doubted her. You would have thought it was only an excuse she had woven to take me, this split soul, away."
A trace of self-mockery colored Winnie's tone.
"After all, in your eyes, she and I stand in complete opposition."
"But if I'm the one who says these things, it's entirely different."
Winnie's gaze turned deep.
"When these memories come from my mouth, I have no reason—and it would be almost impossible—for me to fabricate a lie in Mia's favor when my soul has only just finished being reshaped and I'm still under Hilat's protection."
"My words are more credible than hers."
"And by having me relay this information, it also lowers your resistance to the greatest extent and makes you truly begin to think about why she... or rather,