Strange.
Was I perhaps overdoing the performance a little?
The Pink-haired Girl looked like she was about to cry, which was odd she was usually a pretty tough kid.
After all, I only drew a turtle on her face in front of the Arbitration Knights. It’s not like I threw her into a Goblin Nest.
Vyea’s hesitation vanished in an instant. Since this was her first time playing the villain, she had to deliver a flawless finale!
She couldn’t come off as a half-hearted villain, or worse, as someone who was neither villain nor hero—such an awkward state would fail to evoke the terrifying despair needed for the finale…
“Sis, I lost.”
The suppression field was lifted, and Huā Shīyǔ immediately admitted defeat, softening her stance. She looked pitiful with her tear-filled eyes and helpless expression.
Vyea ignored her and, under the angry gazes of the Arbitration Knights, dragged her away.
While abducting her, Vyea deliberately weakened the gravity field’s suppression so that the knights could speak.
What they said shocked her.
“Damn witch! Don’t abduct Minister Hua to the monster lair! She’s still young only turning 18 next month!”
“Quack! If you’re going to kidnap someone, kidnap me! What’s the big deal about taking our minister? You evil witch!”
“Stop! Demon woman, don’t shake Minister Huā around! She’s still a child!”
Hua Shiyu’s face went pale, her expression drained of color like a gray-white stone statue.
Vyea couldn’t be bothered to respond.
What good is kidnapping you lot?
Even goblins know to take special care of the Saintess and Princess Knight. As a High-intelligence Slime Girl, how could she be less prioritized than goblins?
“Minister Hua…”
Vyea lifted the Pink-haired Girl by the back of her collar, making her limbs dangle. In the weakened gravity state, Hua Shiyu weighed about as much as a sheet of paper, so lifting her was effortless.
After leaving the corridor, the enraged Arbitration Knights suddenly froze as if struck by lightning, then collapsed heavily to the ground.
These knights had survived countless battles and undergone rigorous selection to reach this point, yet now they were as fragile as dominoes toppling over.
Silence engulfed the place.
The tearful Pink-haired Girl trembled in Vyea’s grasp, unsure whether it was from humiliation or anger.
“What—what did you do to them?”
“You’re not calling me ‘sister’ anymore? Minister Huā?”
Vyea raised an eyebrow and reached out to brush aside the pink hair stuck to Hua Shiyu’s cheek, her tone tinged with regret. “Wet? Is that sweat, or tears?”
“What did you do to them…” Hua Shiyu turned her face away, repeating her question.
She understood after all, she was just a scholar.
She had never wielded a sword since childhood, had always been physically weaker than others, often teased and pushed around for her small stature…
So while others her age ran around playing heroes fighting monsters, she never dared to join. Instead, she would find a quiet corner to read.
The books said that among those evil and powerful monsters, strength reigned supreme. The weak submit to the strong, the strong to the stronger.
But to her back then, humans were the same just less direct and raw than monsters.
Monsters were hateful, but some humans were even more so, more hateful than creatures bent solely on destruction and slaughter.
When Hua Shiyu was six or seven, she was invisible in her family, bullied outside, and too afraid to tell the adults at home.
Her parents were pure elitists in her memory.
She feared being labeled a failure by them, afraid of losing the “home” that was her refuge.
Her older siblings were healthier, better, smarter, bringing honor to their parents. Naturally, they received their parents’ full support.
Her only role was to be a backdrop, to provide adults with disposable emotional value.
Ha. What emotional value could a little kid possibly offer?
Yet, back then, Hua Shiyu managed to do just that.
Taking care of others’ feelings was often much easier than trying to excel oneself.
The former just required suppressing one’s own needs, while the latter was impossible for the talentless no matter how hard they tried.
For a time, Hua Shiyu thought she would always timidly hide in the safety of “home,” living a humble and stable life.
Until the day her eldest sister died at the hands of monsters. Her parents then pinned all their hopes on her second brother.
She remembered her brother as a quiet boy who liked collecting Brave posters to decorate his room. He dreamed of becoming a Hero, but after their sister’s death, he seemed to have stopped collecting them.
The day her brother committed suicide, it rained.
He came to Hua Shiyu’s room, his face full of loneliness, said one sentence to the eight-year-old, then left never to return.
“I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”
That was the first time in years her brother spoke to her voluntarily. Sadly, she only understood the meaning after growing up.
After her brother’s death, her father cheated on her mother, and the refuge collapsed completely.
Hua Shiyu followed her mother.
With no home left, her elitist mother became somewhat unhinged, living off the meager alimony sent by her father, drowning herself in alcohol. During that time, Hua Shiyu not only took care of emotions but also learned the extra job of caregiving.
At ten, her father stopped sending money.
Her mother began bringing different men home. Hua Shiyu hid in the stairwell, curled up in a corner reading, deaf to everything inside the house.
The world inside books was vast, the stories interesting, the knowledge tempting it let her forget reality.
At fourteen, Hua Shiyu dreamed of studying further at the continent’s First Academy Academic Tower.
Her mother forbade it; Hua Shiyu quietly put away the Invitation Letter from the Academic Tower. Life continued unchanged for two more years until she turned sixteen.
Her mother’s new boyfriend turned his sights on her.
One day, the man approached her alone, offering to take her away and abandon her mother. Hua Shiyu felt sick, smiled, and brushed him off. She wanted to tell her mother so they could agree to leave and go to the Academic Tower together.
But that day, her mother found out and slapped her, her eyes filled with deep malice:
“You think you’re better than me?”
Hua Shiyu clutched her stinging cheek, staring in disbelief at her mother.
“Mom…”
“Don’t call me that in such a dog-like flattering way, you bitch. You disgust me!”
After being kicked out, Hua Shiyu strangely felt no sadness or pain. Instead, a sense of relief filled her heart.
The road ahead grew darker.
A lonely, pitch-black room.
Click.
Vyea dropped the limp Hua Shiyu to the floor, then squatted down to look into her pink eyes.
Hua Shiyu closed her eyes, resigned, silent, praying in her heart that Rāniyā outside would soon sense the abnormalities within the Arbitration Office and bring the other Hero along.
“Minister Hua, do me a favor. In exchange, I’ll tell you a secret.” Vyea said with a smile, gently squeezing Hua Shiyu’s soft cheeks.
“For example, don’t you care whether those knights live or die? Oh, so you’re truly an unfeeling woman at heart?”
Hua Shiyu: #!