After returning to the residence, Azalea stormed off angrily to find Lorebell.
As she opened Aurora’s room door, she saw the two of them intimately close by the bedside.
Lorebell had cut a piece of apple and was feeding it to Aurora, affectionately asking, “Is it good, sister?”
“It’s good.”
“I don’t think it’s good!” Azalea shouted furiously.
Her outburst finally caught the attention of the two, who turned to see Azalea standing at the door for some time.
“This is too much, Lorebell! You left me waiting for two whole hours and didn’t even remember me!”
Lorebell paused for a moment, raising her eyebrows as if pondering.
Thinking back, when she had been rescuing her sister, there indeed seemed to be something pink beside Aurora.
But in her rush to save her sister, she hadn’t taken a single glance.
“Ahem, Princess, Your Highness, you weren’t hurt, right?” Lorebell said with an awkward laugh.
“No injuries, but do you know I almost got sunburned?!”
The vines had wrapped Azalea tightly right in front of the window, and the sunlight was blinding her eyes. Closing them, she still felt like she could see the goddess.
If it weren’t for the flower spirits passing by outside the window, she guessed she wouldn’t have been rescued until morning.
“Ah, forget about that for now.” She waved her hand.
“More importantly, what did the apothecary say to you?”
“She told me to rest well at home and avoid strenuous exercise.”
“Nothing else? Like giving you some medicine or something?”
Whenever Azalea caught a minor illness at home, like a cold or fever, the apothecary’s medicine she received was piled up as high as a small mountain!
Seeing that the apothecary had only given Aurora simple advice, Azalea couldn’t help but feel a bit doubtful.
“She also said… to drink more hot water.”
“Drink more hot water…”
Azalea thought for a moment, then suddenly had a bright idea. “Hey! I’ll write a letter to have our family send you some medicine! I’ll say I caught a cold, so there will definitely be a huge basket of medicine coming your way 👍!”
Suddenly remembering something, she pointed her clear, bright eyes and shouted, “Right! Miss Aurora, aren’t you still worried about the materials for your pharmacology exam? Why not have our family send you some high-quality materials directly? 👍”
“No need, no need!” Aurora quickly shook her head to refuse.
“That would be unfair to the other students. It’s more reassuring to find them myself.”
Besides, Saka and Mo, both nobles, didn’t rely on their families but gathered their own materials—so why should she depend on others?
“But didn’t the herbs you collected fall off?”
“That’s true… Actually, I’m still figuring it out. Once school starts in a few days, I’ll ask Saka and the others.”
“Saka is the girl who sends us messages, right?”
“Mm, yes.” Aurora nodded in reply.
“Oh, Miss Aurora finally made friends, though it wasn’t the happiest process.”
“Ha, haha.”
“In any case, Miss Aurora, you must take good care of yourself! Even though Misha hasn’t visited you much, you should know that during the days you were unconscious, Misha actually came out of the lab to see you once—that’s rare! It’s practically a miracle… No, more like terrifying! Surely the goddess is hoping for your speedy recovery!”
Azalea said this while clasping her hands, praying towards the sky.
“Please tell Misha thank you for me,” Aurora smiled softly.
“Got it, I’ll go to the basement to find Misha then.”
“Okay, goodbye.”
She waved goodbye to Aurora and left the room.
“Oh, right!”
Suddenly, she poked her head back in and pointed at Lorebell angrily. “I’m going to write to my father to withhold your pay!”
After saying that, she smiled and waved farewell to Aurora again.
“…..”
In truth, payment no longer mattered. She had already saved enough money to live extravagantly with her sister for hundreds of years.
The only thing troubling her now was how to break the familiar’s contract on her sister.
“Sis, have another piece, ah~”
“Ah~ mm.”
Looking at the bright red apple, Aurora recalled the blood-colored night.
Though that night was almost completely black, with barely any color visible, the strong scent of blood at her nose and the sticky liquid on her fingertips made Aurora instinctively feel as if everything around her was red—even the heavy rain outside was red.
It wasn’t that she had become afraid of red things because of it; rather, it made her think of the miraculous things that happened that night.
Like time reversing, and even in a daze, she had seen time come to a complete halt.
Whether it was a dream, she wasn’t sure—but the very real sense of death kept telling her that everything she experienced was real.
She suddenly remembered what the apothecary said that morning.
“End-stage magic… maybe I really can use it, just kidding.”
“Sis really wants to learn end-stage magic? I can perform it for you!”
“That’s not a magic for performing tricks…”
“I’m just… a bit curious. That night, I seemed to hear a voice, and it sounded a lot like mine…”
“I chanted what she told me to, and then I actually saw time reversing and stopping—but maybe that was just an illusion.”
Lorebell’s hand feeding her suddenly paused for a moment, then resumed as if nothing happened, saying casually, “Magic that reverses and stops time can’t really exist, it’s probably just your imagination.”
“That’s true, haha.”
After feeding her all the apple slices on the plate, Lorebell reminded her to rest early, then left the room.
Click.
She slowly closed the door, but then suddenly slumped weakly against it, sliding down.
“Sis… your consciousness is still there.”
She hugged her head, burying her face in her knees.
“If the consciousness of the old sister is still inside the body, that must be very painful…”
She had experienced that feeling—being trapped like a mere spectator, watching the body move and do things that didn’t align with her own will.
A clear consciousness only brought more pain. Even seeing the intimate moments with her sister felt like it wasn’t herself, but another person.
Jealousy and resentment tangled within her heart, wrapping around it until her whole personality became twisted like this.
Anyone who approached her sister without reason would be killed, those who disturbed her life with her sister would be killed, and those who approached her sister with ill intentions would be killed even more fiercely.
Unconsciously, the trapped self had already issued such orders.
But now, the one hurting her sister seemed to be herself—the one imprisoning her sister inside the body, making her feel the same pain she did, was herself.
“What… should I do…”