"But you were lucky."
"She needed time to claim everything you had as her own, which spared you from being reduced to ashes in an instant."
Ruan Mei looked at Tingyun inside the life-support pod and slowly said,
"There is only a thin line between coming back from the dead and narrowly escaping death, yet they are worlds apart."
"If you had died completely, no one could have done anything."
"So that's wh—hiss." Before Tingyun could finish a few words, a stabbing pain spread through every limb and bone.
"My body... feels so strange..."
"Actually, you have already recovered," Ruan Mei explained.
"But I..."
"You are not much different from a normal person now."
"But..."
"Is there anything you want to eat? There are still some plum blossom cakes left here."
"..."
Tingyun lowered her head slightly and looked at her feet—or, more precisely, the soles that resembled hands. Panic rose in her heart.
"Benefactor... could you tell me why this young lady's legs have become so strange?"
"..." Ruan Mei glanced at Tingyun's feet, then turned to Yan Huan.
"Didn't you say she was born like this?"
Yan Huan pinched the bridge beneath his nose, then turned to the female researcher.
"Didn't you say she looked like this when Ruan Mei brought her back?"
The female researcher rubbed her cheeks, then looked up at Ruan Mei.
"Ms. Ruan Mei, wasn't the blueprint you gave me like this?"
Ruan Mei: "..."
"Perhaps this is the downside of outsourcing."
Helplessly, Ruan Mei walked to the life-support pod, pressed a button, and injected Tingyun with anesthetic.
"Wait here for a moment. I may need to communicate with them."
Half an hour later.
Tingyun woke up in the solution once more.
Her eyes were hazy as she looked at the three people nearby