Chapter 65: I Loathe Myself

Luo Linglan knelt with a rag in hand, her movements deliberate as she scrubbed the wine stains from the floor, each swipe a quiet act of erasure. 

She gathered the empty bottles, their clinking a hollow echo in the stillness.

Her silence was heavy, her grip on the aluminum can so tight it trembled, the metal crumpling under her fingers, veins pulsing beneath her skin. 

With one last, lingering glance at the man sprawled in drunken slumber, Luo Linglan slipped back into the shadows, her silhouette dissolving like a ghost.

The scene flickered out, abrupt as a severed thread.

How familiar it felt, this tableau of ruin.

A faint resentment lingered in Su Mu’s heart, though she couldn’t tell if it belonged to Luo Linglan’s memories or her own shadowed past. 

One thing was certain: the Luo Linglan who gathered those bottles harbored the same bitter scorn as Su Mu did for the reckless, careless figure in their lives.

The tin can in Su Mu’s hand wasn’t sharp, but she flung it away all the same, letting it roll across the floor with a dull clatter.

Luo Linglan’s memory of the labels on those bottles was razor-sharp, etched deep by her disgust for them.

Was it her imagination, or did the rolling bottle leave a trail of wavering words scrawled across the floor, slanting and unsteady?

Su Mu rubbed her eyes, but the words remained. 

Tilting her head, she read them.

“After Mother left, Father drowned himself in drink. He used to call our family his shackles, never imagining what he’d become once they were gone. He thought without Mother and me, he could chase some fleeting dream of a martial arts title, unburdened. But we all knew—him, me, everyone—it was just an excuse, a way to dodge the truth of Mother’s death, just as he hid in his bottles.”

‘Thank the stars my own father’s still kicking, or I’d be just as pathetic.’ Su Mu thought the words, but no relief came. 

After all, seeing him once a year or not at all felt much the same.

The words on the floor vanished as if they’d never been, snapping Su Mu back to herself.

“Su Mu, keep looking for anything like that. I’ve got a hunch,” Tang Nai said, her voice cutting through the haze.

Had she seen the words too?

Su Mu nodded absently, moving through the martial arts studio, sidestepping the memory-soaked wine stains on the floor. 

She headed toward where the punching bags should’ve been, but the space was barren.

Her gaze drifted to the inner room Luo Linglan had emerged from, its door sealed shut. 

What lay behind it?

“Come to think of it, I haven’t seen Ning Xi,” Su Mu said.

“Why would she show up in Luo Linglan’s memories? She’s probably stuck in the first layer of the dream, tangled in some fabricated combat squad memory or bits of Magical Girl Ning Xi’s past. It doesn’t mean much,” Tang Nai replied.

“How do you know everything?” Su Mu shot back.

“Don’t worry, I always know more than you,” Tang Nai said, her tone brimming with confidence.

Su Mu rolled her eyes. 

‘Yeah, right.’

She stepped over the threshold into the inner room, the scene unfolding for the first time.

A small bedside lamp cast a warm glow across the room. 

The walls were a gallery of awards and photos—Luo Linglan, the middle-aged man, frozen in moments of triumph and togetherness.

On the table sat a shattered mirror, its cracks stained with dried blood. 

When Su Mu looked into it, it wasn’t her face staring back but Luo Linglan’s, breathtaking even in its torment.

Su Mu’s heart lurched, and she couldn’t help stealing a few more glances.

‘Damn, she’s gorgeous.’

“Didn’t peg you for the mature type, Su Mu,” Tang Nai teased.

“Shut up, I’m just looking,” Su Mu snapped.

The mirror’s jagged cracks unsettled her, and she shifted angles to avoid Luo Linglan’s reflection. 

But the fractures seemed to converge at the corner of her right eye, like a bleeding scar.

Or perhaps, beneath the splintered glass, it was that cross-shaped scar.

Su Mu set the mirror down, her eyes tracing the bloodstains to a small carving knife in the corner. 

Its bent blade told of brutal force, its edge perfectly sized to fit the mirror’s wounds.

Instinctively, she pressed the knife into the crack. 

It fit seamlessly, but as she stared into the mirror, it was as if the blade pierced Luo Linglan’s reflection. 

A wave of disorientation swept over Su Mu.

Another memory?

A sharp, searing pain exploded across her right cheek.

Her vision drowned in red, and she reached to staunch the warm flow, but her hands moved on their own, savagely deepening the wound.

At last, she saw herself clearly.

In the mirror, a dark-haired girl wept blood from the corner of her eye, the crimson stark against her face, both haunting and tragically beautiful.

Luo Linglan was crying—tears for the last of her kin, now gone.

‘I loathe myself.’

She hadn’t foreseen that the man who vowed to “keep trying” yet drowned in drink would die so senselessly.

She had challenged her father to a duel.

She wanted to claim the dojo, to save it from his ruinous hands.

Luo Linglan won her inheritance, but not because of her victory alone.

“Severe cerebral hemorrhage. Chronic alcoholism weakened his cardiovascular system. It’s likely too late to save him.”

The mats were padded. 

The fall shouldn’t have been that bad. 

So why…?

Luo Linglan signed the critical condition notice with eerie calm, walking familiar streets in a daze.

The city’s clamor felt distant, as if it belonged to another world.

In the dead of night, she woke on time, as always, but no clinking bottles greeted her.

She wasn’t ready to lose her father.

He’d been a good father, once.

How many times had nightmares torn her awake? 

She’d lost count. 

Each time she dreamed of him, a voice whispered relentlessly: ‘He’s dead. You killed him.’

Unable to bear the torment, Luo Linglan snatched the carving knife from the drawer.

A horizontal slash, a vertical one—her skin tore easily, but the pain and self-destruction did nothing to ease her guilt.

The mirror reflected her bloodied face, the face of her father’s killer.

‘Is that me? Don’t make me laugh.’

With a feral cry, Luo Linglan drove the knife into the mirror, shattering it. 

The blade warped under the force, and she hurled both into the corner.

Photos lined the walls, her and her father in every frame, their eyes seeming to pity the broken girl before them.

She picked up the mirror, staring at the weeping figure within, tears spilling unchecked.

‘Yes, it’s me.’

‘I loathe myself.’

The memory ended in a torrent of pain, and even as Su Mu was pulled free, its weight clung to her like damp fog.

She’d wanted to flee that memory countless times, but she’d forced herself to see it through.

Now, the aftermath hit like a tidal wave.

“Su Mu, you’re crying your eyes out. Want me to snap a pic?” Tang Nai said, her voice light but not unkind.

“Hey, don’t you dare!” Su Mu shot back, wiping her face.