"What do you want me to say?" The girl refused to yield to Mu Anxiao and deliberately retorted.
However, Mu Anxiao had long anticipated such a perfunctory response from the girl. With a smile that conveyed, "I've seen it all before," she met the girl's gaze.
Seeing Mu Anxiao's smiling face, the girl felt uneasy. She took the opportunity to shift her gaze and then picked at Mu Anxiao's words, "You asked me to make a choice, but your words..." she began, "I really didn't understand."
"You're not replying because you didn't understand," Mu Anxiao countered, parrying the girl's retort.
The girl had assumed Mu Anxiao would be speechless after hearing her words, but to her surprise, she had miscalculated. Thus, she could only go along with Mu Anxiao. "Yes, I didn't understand. To be honest, your expressiveness is problematic." She said this earnestly.
Mu Anxiao was not angered. Instead, she lowered her eyes and smiled. "Is that so? My words..." she paused, repeating 'life and death' in her mind before smiling, "What I said seems indeed rather profound." In truth, she had realized her own words were somewhat awkward but had maintained them to preserve her dignity.
The girl smiled.
Then, Mu Anxiao cleared her throat and began again, "I will give you two choices." Her gaze was firm.
The girl remained unmoved, her expression blank.
Unbothered by the girl's reaction, Mu Anxiao cleared her throat again and continued, "You simply need to choose between life and death."
"Of course, I choose life," the girl stated without hesitation.
Mu Anxiao had anticipated such a reply from the girl. She smiled and said, "Since you choose life, then matters are simple."
"What do you mean?"
"To be honest, you've been hiding incredibly well. I've been in this general's mansion for so long and hadn't noticed you were a monster," Mu Anxiao said, using the girl's position in the mansion to presumptuously guess her thoughts. "It seems you desire a new life."
"..." The girl's heart was struck by Mu Anxiao's words, and she was suddenly at a loss for a reply.
Seeing the girl's silence, Mu Anxiao then glanced at Ouyang Ye, who was quietly standing by. She smiled again and said, "It appears I've hit the mark." She turned her gaze back to the girl.
A shadow fell over the girl's eyes, and she looked towards the dirty-faced man.
Startled by the girl's sudden stare, the dirty-faced man hurriedly averted his gaze, thinking she was surely going to scold him.
"Men are all good-for-nothings, including him," the girl said through gritted teeth.
The dirty-faced man, too weary to defend himself, simply lowered his head.
"Why do you want his life?" Mu Anxiao asked.
"He deceived me, and also..." the girl narrowed her eyes, "He refused to accept me."
"Refused to accept you?" Mu Anxiao found it unbelievable. She had assumed they had known each other for a long time, and it was from that acquaintance that their discord arose, ultimately leading the girl to want the dirty-faced man's life. To her surprise, it was merely because the dirty-faced man refused to accept the girl.
At this, Mu Anxiao found herself at a loss for words.
The next moment, tears welled up in the girl's eyes. "Why is it that ugly women have men who dote on them? Why do they turn their backs on me for those women? What did I do wrong? Is it just because I'm a monster, because humans and monsters cannot be together? I only want to live a quiet, honest life. Why..." Her voice cracked with disappointment, "Why is it so difficult?" As she spoke, tears began to stream down her face.
Seeing this, the dirty-faced man grew even more fearful.
Ouyang Ye lowered his head, his gaze fixed on Mu Anxiao's face.
Mu Anxiao completely ignored them, instead continuing to gaze at the girl who was crying sadly before her. "Before those people met you, did they know..." She hesitated, not wanting to crush the girl's spirit, and her tone became cautious, "Did they know you were a monster?"
"Yes."
"They knew?"
A person only acts to protect themselves when they are most afraid. Before this, she had encountered many men and women, male and female monsters, who chose to leave after learning of another's identity. Based on this experience, she harbored doubts about the girl's words.
However, to avoid provoking the girl, her entire demeanor softened.
"They..." The girl became uncertain under Mu Anxiao's questioning, "They definitely knew."
"Is this your assumption, or..."
"I always clarify things before getting involved with them."
"What did you say?"
"I said..." The girl paused, straightened her back, and declared with righteous indignation, "I asked, no matter what I am, will you still love me? They all said yes, even saying that no matter what I turned into, they would never abandon me. But in the end... they all broke their promises."
"It's because they broke their promises that you want to kill them?" Mu Anxiao asked softly.
"Breaking promises isn't just about that; it's also about verbal and physical harm," the girl said, walking up to Mu Anxiao. She rolled up her sleeves, revealing her fair arm. "Look." She then tapped her finger on her arm, and the wounds fully appeared.
Mu Anxiao lowered her head, scanning the scars on the girl's arm. A chill ran down her spine. "What are these?" she asked, suddenly feeling a pang of sympathy for the girl before her.
A flicker of fear crossed the girl's eyes, and she slightly hunched her shoulders. She explained simply, "They were all beatings. They said I was troublesome, and then... then they used whips, feather dusters, to hit me. They dragged me by my hair, and my head hit the pillars again and again, leaving me dizzy. There wasn't a single spot on me that was alright. If I didn't fight back, I would have continued to be tortured. That feeling..." She choked up, "You can't possibly understand."
"Was this all done by one person?" Mu Anxiao felt even more sympathetic towards the girl.
The girl shook her head.
"Not by one person?"
"Different degrees of harm, from different people. Am I very foolish? Even after being hurt so badly... I still chose to believe men." The girl sneered. "Thinking about it now, I wish I could strike my past self to death with a single palm."
Mu Anxiao knew that the experiences of monsters were often ten thousand times more painful than those of humans, and that pain often stemmed from their own kind. She had never encountered a female monster like the girl, who had been repeatedly injured and scarred by various mortals.
Looking at the girl, Mu Anxiao didn't know what to say.
She simply fell silent, watching the girl quietly.
The girl looked at Mu Anxiao, who had suddenly fallen silent, with a calm expression. She grinned and smiled.
Mu Anxiao was utterly bewildered. Pushing aside her confusion, she asked, "What are you laughing at?" She truly couldn't understand the girl anymore.