"Daddy!" She touched her face and her shrunken body in horror. "How did this happen? Why?"
In the secret passage of the royal capital, her father held tightly the white clothed and black-haired little girl in his arms, and she, after swallowing a pill given to her by her father, had turned into this appearance, looking exactly like the little girl in his arms, the Snow Butterfly King's daughter.
Outside the secret passage, the howling of the spider demons grew increasingly louder, and the thick stone door was being struck with powerful force, teetering on the brink of being breached.
"The Snow Butterfly King's daughter is hiding in there!"
"Hurry! We must catch her!"
Amidst the booming sounds of the rammed door, a fine layer of dust fell from above, creating a choking thick fog in the secret passage. Her father walked up to her, his familiar face devoid of any expression. He only said, "Just pretend you don't have a dad like me."
She stared blankly at the man who had been by her side since her birth, the man who loved lifting her and spinning her in circles while humming songs, the man who wished he could hold the entire spring and give it to her as a gift.
At that moment, she suddenly didn't know this person anymore.
Her father cared for another, this "daughter" who had no blood relation to him whatsoever, hugging her as he walked to the wall on one side of the secret passage and opened a small door with a mechanism. It revealed a small space with food and water inside. He walked in with someone else's daughter in his arms and unhesitatingly activated the switch inside.
The hidden door slowly closed, and through the final chink, she vaguely saw her father behind the door, closing his eyes and turning away, no longer looking at her. In this way, she was left abandoned by her own biological father in the face of peril.
The stone door of the secret passage collapsed with a resounding crash, and the group of repulsive and vile spider demons, with disgusting saliva dripping from their mouths, rushed in, baring their fangs and brandishing their claws. They had barbed limbs that firmly wrapped around her body, and those poisonous spikes pierced her skin and flesh. It hurt terribly.
She was hauled out of the secret passage amidst the excited roars of the enemies. "The King has already captured the Snow Butterfly King and Queen; all that's left for a family reunion is this girl!"
"I heard that as long as the vitalities of their entire family are gathered together, a treasure can be refined!"
"What kind of treasure?"
"How should I know! In short, we'll have done a great service handing this girl over to the King!"
Bound tightly by spider silk, she clenched her eyes shut, gritted her teeth, and told herself fiercely not to be afraid, not to cry, that at worst, it was just death.
But in the end, she survived. It was her mother, the High Priestess of the Butterfly Clan, who, at the cost of her vitality and her entire body's blood, cast a blood spell that trapped this group of mortal enemies within an illusion created by the magic skill, unable to break free.
Although this magic that'd completely exhausted her mother's body and soul was nothing to those formidable enemies, the brief chaos it caused gave her a chance to escape.
Following her mother's dying instructions, she hid in Knowing Cold Valley, waiting for the pool of black water to turn white, before making her escape to the human world.
That pool of water was as bone chilling as ice. Yet, no matter how cold it was, it couldn't compare to the way her father had looked at her. To this day, she couldn't forget the horrific sight of her mother's beautiful body withering and shriveling like fallen autumn leaves, disintegrating into countless fragments in the air before she passed away.
What she couldn't forget even more were her mother's last words to her, which turned out to be — don't hate your father!
Could she not hate? Was it possible?
He protected someone else's daughter but sent his own biological daughter to her death, indirectly causing the demise of his wife of many years, who had accompanied him through humble times.
She could not forgive. She could never, ever forgive!
Mo was struggling in a nightmare. For so many years, she had always had the same dream — she and her mother trapped in the scorching flames, while just a few steps away, her father stood outside the flames and coldly gazed at the mother and daughter, ignoring their outstretched hands and watching them turn into ashes…
"Daddy! Save me!" she screamed, jolting up from her bed, cold sweat soaking her forehead.
She got out of bed, ran to the liquor cabinet barefoot, grabbed a bottle of red wine, and started drinking straight from the bottle. The mellow and rich liquid flowed into her body, gradually calming her.
A thousand years were indeed very long. She was just a Snow Butterfly, like her father, without any offensive capabilities. The only thing she could do was to search for her father's whereabouts throughout this long thousand years, and then, using every bit of power she could muster, make this man pay the due price for his actions back then.
But she always failed. He was too adept at hiding his trail, and every so often, she would lose his whereabouts. It always took her a long time to find the wandering him and his "daughter," along with those useless monsters he so absurdly protected. Moreover, none of the assassins she hired fulfilled her wish. They either failed or abandoned the mission halfway.
She no longer had the patience for this. She wanted a way to put an end to it all. Although she had ultimately found Ku Yue, he could only fulfill half of her wish.
What she wanted to destroy wasn't just the man who had abandoned her but the entire Moon City. She knew that it was his life's work, a home he had painstakingly built for those monsters. Home... every time she thought of that word, she sneered. He built a home for those inferior demons but destroyed his own true home with his own hands.
However, when that group of "scientists" with the purpose of "contributing to human scientific progress" appeared, Mo smiled. She knew that the genuine opportunity she had been waiting for had finally arrived. Humankind's greed is the most formidable and destructive weapon in history.
Three days, three more days, and everything will be perfect. Mo tilted her head back and downed the remaining wine. At the end, she licked her lips but unexpectedly tasted a hint of saltiness.
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