A figure slowly rose from the shadows—first came the messy white hair, then eyes the same color as Asterys’, but with six-pointed stars in her depths, and finally, a slender body identical to hers.
But this girl’s gaze was completely different.
In her pupils, a certain fanatical flame burned.
“Delucia!”
Asterys cried out, her voice shattering like broken glass.
The newly appeared girl lunged straight at Liang Lai, moving so fast she left afterimages behind.
Liang Lai was knocked backward, her silver hair spreading out across the examination table.
Delucia clung to her arm like an octopus, her star-shaped pupils dilating until they nearly filled her eye sockets.
“You smell like Mama!” Her voice was piercing and shrill, with a metallic echo that grated on the ears.
Her smile was a little unsettling.
Unlike the timid Asterys, her attitude toward Liang Lai was frighteningly enthusiastic.
“Deluci—”
Asterys hurried to pull her sister away, but her wrist was suddenly ensnared by Shadow Tentacles.
Those dark threads left faint red marks on her skin.
Liang Lai chuckled softly and reached out to ruffle Delucia’s wild hair.
The movement made the sleeve of her Saint’s Robe slide down, revealing Crystalline Scars on her wrist that hadn’t fully healed.
“You two have a wonderful relationship.”
Suddenly struck by a whim, she recalled the time she found Dolosa—she’d teased that child, asking her to call her “Mama.” What about these two? If she asked them to call her Mama, what kind of reaction would she get? Would they be too shy to say it, too?
Thinking this, Liang Lai went ahead and asked: “So from now on, I’m your Mama? Let me hear you call me that.”
“Mama!” Delucia shouted immediately, so loud that the glass on the nightstand shattered.
As the shards flew, Dolosa saw Liang Lai instinctively use her body to shield the two girls.
Asterys’s cheeks flushed faintly.
She bit her lip, but after hesitating for only a few seconds, she whispered so softly it was almost inaudible: “Ma… Mama…”
Her gaze grew more fervent as well, though she didn’t seem to dare leap into Liang Lai’s arms like Delucia.
After hearing those two calls of “Mama,” Liang Lai’s smile froze on her face.
She’d only meant to joke, just like she had with Dolosa, but her ears couldn’t help turning red.
The silver-haired Saintess fumbled to sit up, only to be held tightly by Delucia.
“Wait, I meant—”
Liang Lai’s voice was drowned out by Delucia’s excited cheer.
“Mama smells so nice!”
Delucia buried her face in the hollow of Liang Lai’s neck and took a deep breath.
“It’s nothing like those bad people!”
Her shadow spread across the floor, like tentacles, like vines, wrapping around Liang Lai’s smooth, fair ankles.
Asterys, though shy, quietly grabbed the corner of Liang Lai’s clothes.
The longing in her eyes was obvious, as if Liang Lai were a lighthouse suddenly appearing in the darkness.
“How old are you two, anyway?”
These two children looked especially small and thin—though a little taller than Dolosa, they were even skinnier, clearly malnourished.
As for their age… they seemed to be about fourteen or fifteen? After all, they were so short—maybe one and a half meters tall, only up to her collarbone.
Upon hearing the question, Asterys and Delucia exchanged a knowing glance.
In the end, it was Asterys who smiled and gently tugged at Liang Lai’s sleeve.
“Mama, we’re fourteen this year~”
Delucia nodded along beside her.
The two of them had lied.
Liang Lai had only read a bit about the Twinborn of Shadow in encyclopedias, but there hadn’t been any mention that some of them could communicate telepathically.
Just now, Delucia had asked Asterys: “Should we tell her our real age? Tell her we’re already twenty-one?”
Asterys hesitated briefly, then refused outright: “No, the younger we say we are, the more she’ll pity us, want to care for us, and let down her guard… She’ll think of us as her children and want to build a bond with us from a young age, growing closer to us.”
Delucia considered this. “Then what age should we say?”
Asterys replied, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll tell her, you just go along with me.”
“Okay.”
And so, the poor Saintess was kept completely in the dark.
She affectionately patted the two girls on their small heads.
“Poor children, you’ve suffered so much, haven’t you? So skinny, so small. It’s all right, I have plenty of money and more food than you could ever eat. I’ll make sure you both grow up big and strong~ You’re still young, you can still get taller! If you ever get bored, you can come play with me and Dolosa. Oh, right, you have a big sister—her name is Dolosa.”
The two girls exchanged another glance, their expressions hard to read, but when they looked at Liang Lai, their eyes turned crystal clear.
“All right~” they answered in unison, looking very well-behaved.
Outside the door, there was a soft “click.” Dolosa’s ears twitched, catching the familiar footsteps, and she hurried away.
Liang Lai opened the door and looked out, but saw only an empty corridor—Dolosa had already hidden in another room.
“That’s strange, I’m sure I heard something just now… Was it Dolosa?” Liang Lai muttered, closing the door again.
“So where did she run off to?”
Liang Lai shook her head and sighed, assuming Dolosa was bored and had gone off to play somewhere else.
She didn’t think much of it.
However, in the other room, Dolosa crouched against the wall, feeling a blaze of anger burning in her chest.
“What the heck…? How can they call her Mama so easily?”
She suddenly recalled a word her teammate had taught her—Green Tea.
Those two kids obviously aren’t normal, right? And Liang Lai actually took them in…
“She must’ve been fooled by those two…! They’re definitely pretending to be pitiful! First time meeting and they can call her Mama so naturally, with such fawning smiles…”
Dolosa didn’t even realize how sharp her tone had become.
“Liang Lai probably doesn’t notice. She’s so dumb, so kind, she’s definitely been tricked by those two pretending to be pitiful. No way…” Dolosa’s eyes grew determined.
She stood up from the corner, clenched her fists, and struck a pose to encourage herself.
“I just have to reveal their true colors to Liang Lai. Let’s see how long they can keep up the act…!”
She’d made up her mind.
“But it looks like this will be a long battle—after all, Liang Lai is so dumb and so easy to trust others.”