Tonight was different from other nights.
Inside the White Tiger Duke Mansion, alongside the cries of those still tormented by nightmares, another kind of madness could be heard.
From the courtyard where the Duchess lived came her shrill cries and curses from time to time. Her voice was heart-wrenching and carried a touch of the uncanny, sending chills down anyone who heard it.
Inside the room, the Duchess sat collapsed on her brocade-covered bed. Her luxurious robes had been torn to shreds, her hair was disheveled, and her face was covered in hideous scratch marks. Her once well-kept, captivating features were now as pale as paper, and her eyes were wild.
She dug her hands into her own skin, her nails sinking deep into her flesh. Blood dripped from her fingertips and stained her robes, but she seemed unable to feel the pain. She only kept screaming and clawing at herself.
"It itches! It itches so much!"
The Duchess's voice was hoarse and broken, filled with endless torment.
"My bones itch! Who did this? Who's behind this?!"
Her once well-manicured fingernails were caked with her own flesh and blood.
But ordinary scratching could do nothing to stop the itch coming from inside her body. She clawed harder and harder, her nails becoming the sharpest of weapons as they tore open her flesh.
She scratched her cheeks, then her arms; her arms, then the soles of her feet.
Her mind was clear. She knew she shouldn't scratch herself, or at least shouldn't scratch so hard.
But when the itch came over her, her body no longer obeyed her mind.
Already fragile from the nightmares she had suffered before, the sight of herself tearing her own body apart nearly drove the Duchess to the brink of collapse.
"Dai Hao! You useless man!