Awooo!!

Vivian felt as though she had had a very long dream.

In the dream, she relived her entire life.

It began when her mother gave birth to her. A plump baby girl came bawling into the world, while her young, strong father held her and playfully rubbed the tip of her nose, grinning foolishly. Her gentle and kind mother lay on the bed, her face filled with happiness.

After those wonderful days had passed for some time, one night when she was a few years old, she happened to get up to use the bathroom and overheard her parents talking in their room.

That was when she first learned that having only a girl in the family would make people look down on them. A girl could not inherit the family business or help with farm work. No matter how well a girl was raised or how dearly she was loved, she would eventually marry and benefit someone else's family.

Her father wanted a boy.

So it was not long before her little brother was born.

It should have been a happy occasion, but the dream suddenly dimmed.

The scene seemed familiar, but the people in it were completely different. Her father sat blankly in a chair as if he had lost his soul, letting the newborn baby boy beside him wail in his swaddling clothes, while her mother—

Her mother.

Her mother lay motionless on the bed. Perhaps the large patches of blood on the sheets were the only indication of what had happened. It was the first time Vivian had ever seen blood, and also the first time she had ever seen—

A corpse.

People were this fragile.

In the dream, Vivian saw a shadow standing behind her younger self. It had facial features similar to hers—no, more precisely, they were exactly the same, as if they were one and the same person.

The shadow pressed close to her back and pointed at the baby still wailing in his swaddling clothes, as though whispering in her ear.

"It's all his fault."

"He killed Mother. He ruined this family. It's all because of him."

"No."

"That's not true!!" Her young self clutched her head in anguish and screamed.

"He's my little brother. He's the only boy in the family. I—I have to take good care of him. I have to be a good big sister who won't disappoint Mom. Big sister..."

"..."

The scene shifted again.

This time, time moved much faster, and many scenes flashed by in an instant.

Vivian saw herself washing her little brother's urine-soaked bedsheets by the stream in the dead of winter. She saw herself dragging her father, drunk to the point of becoming a pile of sludge, home on her slender back. She saw herself bending over in the blazing sun to cut grass in the fields, one stalk at a time. She saw herself staying up all night mending clothes for others to earn money and repay their debts.

The only difference between these scenes and the earlier ones was that ever since her mother's death, the shadow had always floated in midair behind her, following her constantly and never leaving her side, as if they were one.

While she washed the bedsheets, the shadow would constantly complain about her stupid little brother. While she dragged her father home, it would float over and kick him fiercely twice. While she cut grass beneath the scorching sun, it would grumble about how hot and tiring it was. While she mended clothes late into the night, it would yawn repeatedly, lie across her back, and doze off.

Even so, the two of them were like parallel lines, never intersecting.

Until—

That rainy night.

The memories that were meant to come would always return, even if you buried them deep inside and thought you had forgotten them.

When the sickle easily sliced through her neck and scarlet blood once again filled her vision, fear and remorse nearly drove her to collapse.

She became the shadow behind her, and the shadow behind her became her.

Right after that, a voice rang out.

"Hehe."

"You're really hopeless."

That was the first time Vivian had heard the shadow's voice. Hearing it in reality, her first impression was that it sounded somewhat like the daughter of a landowner, with an affectedly disdainful tone.

But it was beautiful.

Her voice was truly beautiful.

Perhaps because their hearts were connected, that voice rang out once more in the dream, which should have been silent and still.

"Hey."

"Wake up!"

"Stop sleeping!"

Vivian opened her eyes groggily.

She found herself half reclining beneath a large tree, with Little Black lying in her arms.

The first thing the girl did after waking was summon her courage and nervously look back toward the empty air behind her. But after staring stupidly for a long while, she saw nothing there.

Perhaps Vivian herself did not even notice it.

A trace of unmistakable disappointment appeared on her face.

"What's wrong, Vivian?" Liao Zixuan, who was lying in the girl's arms, naturally noticed her small movements after she woke up.

However, he had made an agreement with Second Personality when they had bet.

He could not directly tell Vivian about Second Personality's existence in any way. Otherwise, the wager would be void. That was why Liao Zixuan was asking a question he already knew the answer to and pretending not to understand.

Incidentally, whether Second Personality slept or not depended on the size of the darkness within Vivian's heart.

And fortunately, thanks to a certain Wolf Cub's tireless efforts to tempt her into corruption, Second Personality could now remain awake without needing to sleep. She could do whatever she pleased inside Vivian's mind—cracking melon seeds and sitting on a stool like a spectator while sharing Vivian's various senses and learning everything happening in the outside world.

"N-no, it's nothing. Thank you, Little Black, for staying by my side the whole time. How long was I unconscious?"

"About half an hour." Liao Zixuan estimated it inwardly. He did not say anything unnecessary, merely following Vivian's words without mentioning the strange events that had occurred while she was unconscious.

"Half an hour... Oh no! We have to hurry and get back on the road!"

The girl's face quickly filled with anxiety when she heard his answer. But just as she was about to stand, she suddenly froze.

Vivian's gaze came to rest on a weapon lying beneath the shade of the tree to her left.

It was a—

Blood-red sickle.

"Don't rush off yet. Take a look at this, Vivian." Liao Zixuan's Telepathy pulled Vivian's complicated thoughts back to reality.

Wolf Cub picked up an envelope and a small purple plant from the side with his mouth. They had been taken from Luo Er's corpse.

"Th-this is!?" The girl's attention did not fall on the envelope. It was completely drawn to the purple plant.

"Purple Crystal Grass," Liao Zixuan answered honestly.

Then, afraid she might forget, he added:

"It's the medicinal herb we've been working so hard to find—the one that can treat your little brother's illness."

A look of delighted surprise flashed across Vivian's face.

Just as she was about to think of taking the herb home as quickly as possible, the girl's gaze shifted to the envelope she had unconsciously ignored.

When the girl opened it and read its contents, Vivian's expression changed again and again.

The letter explained that her little brother's strange illness was not an isolated case. Quite a few similar cases had already appeared in Huodian City, and Purple Crystal Grass was currently the only medicinal herb capable of suppressing it.

At the same time, the letter revealed the evil secret activities the Fire God Cult had been carrying out in Claw Forest. It explained why their group had been ambushed and killed—to stop them from venturing deeper into the forest.

To force Purple Crystal Grass to grow, they had not hesitated to help monsters evolve and grow stronger.

If they were allowed to continue, the monsters of Claw Forest would grow wildly in power, fall beyond control, and perhaps even go berserk.

And once the monsters of Claw Forest went berserk and formed a monster tide, the first to suffer would be the villages in the countryside—like theirs.

So Vivian now had two choices before her.

First, take the Purple Crystal Grass home at once, and leave the village with her little brother and father before the Fire God Cult's growth ritual ended. The farther away, the better.

Second—

Vivian's gaze drifted once more to the sickle on her left.

Second—

Continue deeper into the forest, find Terror Claw's nest, destroy every member of the Fire God Cult, end the growth ritual inside, and "by the way" take away the countless stalks of Purple Crystal Grass they had cultivated there.

If this had been in the past, Vivian would not even have needed to think. The "second" choice would never have existed.

But now—

After taking a deep breath, the girl seemed to summon immense courage as she reached out and gripped the sickle lying quietly on the ground.

Then—

"Little Black, are you afraid?"

Her answer was a wolf howl filled with arrogance and disdain, disdain and provocation, provocation and unparalleled confidence.

Awooo!!