Chapter 38: Harmless Self-Deprecating Yandere

“Mom hasn’t come to sleep with me in days—her attention’s been pulled away by the others too much. It can’t be split so thin… Iluci isn’t greedy; just, just a little more focus on me would do. Just a tiny bit…”

Her words dragged slower and slower, her pupils growing slack and unfocused.

“So, if Iluci ends up covered in wounds again—like the first time Mom saw me—would she turn her eyes back to me once more?”

With that, she rose slowly to her feet, staring dead-on at the stairs before her.

“Falling from here… it’d hurt so much, wouldn’t it? I’d get hurt real bad, for sure…”

After saying that, a strange smile tugged at the corner of her lips.

Iluci’s left foot edged out, hovering in midair as she gazed down the long flight, something flickering in her eyes.

“I just… I just tripped by accident, okay…? Yeah, that’s right—I only fell by accident…”

Her smile widened at the words; she eased her eyes shut, never planting that left foot on the step—instead, with it still dangling, she thrust out her right.

Inside the room, Liang Lai was mid-critique.

“Great control, but the energy flow’s not steady enough yet.”

Before the words even settled, a hairline crack spidered across Duoluosa’s crystallized pillar, flecks of crystal dust pattering loose.

Asteris whipped her head around at once, fingertip flicking—and those plummeting shards hung suspended midair, morphing into tiny crystal butterflies that fluttered back, slotting perfectly into the fissure.

Liang Lai arched a brow, her grin blooming wider; she was just about to lavish praise and follow with head pats when…

“Thud!!”

“Gahhh!!!”

“Crash!”

A heavy thump echoed from beyond the door, chased by a girl’s agonized scream—clenching hearts all around.

“What was that?!”

Liang Lai bolted first.

The kids behind her didn’t hesitate a beat, surging after.

Out in the hall, Liang Lai saw nothing amiss—but the sound hadn’t come from there; it rang from farther off.

So she hiked her skirt and dashed to the stairs.

“Iluci!!!”

Liang Lai’s cry pierced the air.

Iluci lay curled at the landing’s bend, her left leg twisted at an impossible angle, blood trickling down the crystallized steps in serpentine trails, refracting an eerie rose-madder glow under the sun.

Her forehead was gashed open, a crimson thread snaking from the brow bone to mat her lashes in tiny blood crystals that quivered with her faint breaths.

Her skirt hem hung in ragged tears from the stair edges, her bare calf scraped raw—subdermal veins faintly aglow with crystalline threads, uncontrolled overflow from a surge of raw emotion.

Most chilling of all was the sweet smile still clinging to her lips, bloodied fang nipping the lower one like she’d just pulled off a prank.

But the instant her eyes met Liang Lai’s, Iluci’s face crumpled into raw agony—moaning, weeping.

“Iluci!”

Liang Lai blanched bone-white with shock; she dropped to a crouch, hands shaking as she cradled the child’s cheeks.

Iluci’s glazed pupils mirrored Liang Lai’s frantic face; her blood-smeared fingers twitched, reaching for something—settling only to tug lightly at Liang Lai’s skirt hem.

“M-Mom… my…” She coughed up bloody froth, gazing piteously at the saintess before her. “I-I… sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt you all. Just now, I… I tripped by accident… Caused you trouble—really, really, really sorry…”

Her abject, wretched pity tore at Liang Lai’s heart; she scooped the girl up in a bridal carry at once, bound for the infirmary.

“M-Mom, you… you won’t blame me, right?”

Even cradled in her beloved saintess’s arms, Iluci’s heart fluttered with dread—she couldn’t tell if this ploy would draw care, or just breed disgust.

Liang Lai glanced down at the child, heartache spilling from her eyes.

“Blame you for what? It was an accident… You’re just too careless, that’s all. I’m aching for you already—how could I blame you?”

Iluci’s tension melted away in a rush; she exhaled shakily, clutching Liang Lai’s sleeve, lips parting for more woebegone words—but Liang Lai shook her head.

“Little Xi, no more talking—you’re hurt bad enough as it is. No apologies; this isn’t on you. It’s my fault for not watching closer…”

At that, Liang Lai’s face even creased with guilt.

Seeing that look, a twisted thrill surged in Iluci’s chest—edged with quiet ecstasy, the satiation of finally earning love and concern.

The cocktail swaddled her tight, like tumbling into a vat of honey; she savored the plunge, craving more, ever more…

Iluci nuzzled into Liang Lai’s soft chest, flashing the victor’s smile.

Behind them, Duoluosa scowled at the unfolding scene.

Something felt off—terribly off—but she couldn’t pin it.

Iluci’s fall looked so real, so brutal… yet it screamed play-acting to her.

“Spot anything?” Asteris asked out of nowhere.

The words snapped Duoluosa from her trance.

She wasn’t keen on chit-chat with these phony twins, but that nagging dissonance from Iluci won out; she swallowed her irritation and replied:

“Don’t you think the newbie was putting on a show just now? Gut feeling…”

She couldn’t swear to it, really—deep down, she loathed every kid Liang Lai adopted, so maybe it was just bias twisting her sense.

But Asteris traded a glance with Delucia at the words.

“So you felt it too~” Delucia said, leaning over the railing, craning to watch Liang Lai carry Iluci into the infirmary.

“You think… she really faked it?”

But to stage a charade like that—shattering her own leg, splitting her head, flirting with disfigurement—worth it?

Duoluosa couldn’t quite buy it; she just wasn’t capable of that kind of self-harm.

She was a taker, not a masochist.

“Maybe,” Duoluosa said, shooting the infirmary a deep look before turning away. “Needs watching, but she’s no fragile waif on the surface.”