What I'm Willing to Do

From the moment she awakened the Dark Phoenix martial soul, the way her family looked at her changed.

The gazes that had once been filled with anticipation and pride turned into worry and wariness.

The elders who had once been kind and gentle began scrutinizing her with those appraising eyes, as though she were a powder keg that could explode at any moment.

The conclusions reached by the family elders were like knives, stabbing into her heart again and again.

"Although this child is talented, it's a pity her martial soul has a dark attribute..."

"We must keep a close eye on her. We absolutely cannot let her stray down an evil path..."

"The greater her potential, the greater the danger. The family must be prepared..."

She had heard those words far too often. So often that she began to doubt herself, so often that she began to feel there truly was something wrong with her, so often that she began to believe she might really be destined to fall.

Even her own sister had thought so.

Leng Yaozhu had never said anything harsh, nor had she ever looked at her with that wary gaze.

Yet Leng Yulai could sense that her sister was cautiously avoiding something.

Her sister did not dare discuss martial souls with her, did not dare bring up dark attributes in front of her, and did not dare let her come into contact with anything that might "trigger" her fall.

That caution hurt more than outright rejection.

Yun Ming was merely the final spark.

Decades ago, at Shrek Academy, Leng Yulai had finally escaped that suffocating home. She escaped her family's strange looks, escaped their definitive judgment that she would fall in the future, and escaped the "special care" that left her unable to breathe.

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