Chapter 12: Bad Children Should Be Punished
“Mommy! Mommy!”
As a small bundle lunged toward her, Bai Zhou coldly raised her right hand, pressing firmly against Ling Qingli’s shiny forehead, stopping her in her tracks.
“Ugh… Why is Mommy rejecting me?”
That hand felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. No matter how hard Ling Qingli tried, it was like cotton hitting stone. Giving up, she started to throw a tantrum, flailing her arms as if trying to whip up a tornado to wreck a parking lot.
Bai Zhou remained unmoved, her molten gold eyes beneath the veil calmly studying the little junior calling her “Mommy” without a trace of emotion in her voice:
“Who are you?”
Ling Qingli’s flailing slowed. She took half a step back, her purple double pupils brimming with dependence and trust, trying to peer through the veil’s mystery.
She failed.
Pouting, the girl unleashed her full charm:
“My name is Ling Qingli, Mommy. Don’t you recognize me?”
Bai Zhou narrowed her eyes, issuing a final warning:
“Though it’s my first time seeing double pupils, if you keep pretending to be ‘Ling Qingli’ while talking to me, I won’t mind helping you find a new master.”
“Really?”
Expecting the other to back down at such a blunt warning, Bai Zhou was surprised when an unprecedented spark of excitement burst in the depths of those double pupils:
“Mommy wants to merge me into one? That’s awesome! Come on, do it!”
“…”
Bai Zhou fell silent for a moment, then a kind smile appeared beneath her veil:
“Such a disobedient child. You need to be punished.”
Her gaze fell on the fresh corpse in the alley. Moments later, it erupted into flames, turning to ash in an instant.
The double pupils jolted, sensing something bad was coming.
Bai Zhou grabbed Ling Qingli by the back of her collar, like a cat pinched by the scruff, and dragged her deeper into the alley.
Finding a relatively clean stone step, she lifted her snow-white hem and sat elegantly.
Ling Qingli was unceremoniously pressed face-down across her knees.
The frail body stiffened instinctively, then relaxed, even showing a faint trace of anticipation as she gently nuzzled.
“Mommy? Are you going to play with me?”
The double pupils let out a laugh tinged with eerie excitement:
“Like other kids play with their moms?”
Bai Zhou said nothing. She raised her hand and delivered a measured slap to the taut, tattered-clad backside.
Smack!
The sound was crisp and clear.
The laughter stopped abruptly.
Ling Qingli’s body trembled, not from pain but from an unprecedented jolt.
“Uh…”
A confused syllable escaped her throat.
The double pupils flickered violently, their excitement fading, replaced by bewildered astonishment.
Smack!
The second strike followed closely.
This time, the sensation was sharper.
A hot, tingling thrill spread from the spot, not unbearable pain but a strange, flustered feeling.
“Wait… hold on!”
For the first time, her voice carried unease and instinctive embarrassment:
“What is this? It feels… so weird!”
She began to squirm, trying to break free.
But Bai Zhou’s hand on her back, though casual, was immovable.
Smack! Smack! Smack!
Bai Zhou ignored her, continuing with steady rhythm and perfect control.
“Wuu…”
Ling Qingli’s struggles weakened, her body trembling uncontrollably.
The purple glow in her double pupils flickered, and the emotions of the true “Ling Qingli,” long suppressed in the depths of her soul, began to awaken.
“Don’t… keep hitting…”
Her voice took on a sobbing tone, not purely pleading but mixed with a craving she couldn’t comprehend.
It was as if, deep down, she yearned for this forceful attention, even in such a humiliating form.
“It’s itchy… and numb… wuu… Mommy… stop…”
Her words became incoherent, the mask of glee shattered, revealing a core that craved love yet hid behind a facade out of fear.
Bai Zhou finally stopped, her voice still calm:
“Can you talk properly now? Tell me, what’s going on with you?”
Ling Qingli lay across her knees, panting slightly, cheeks flushed, eyes red-rimmed. The madness in her double pupils faded, leaving behind a mix of grievance and reluctant dependence after being thoroughly disciplined.
She was silent for a long while, struggling to process the unfamiliar, overwhelming sensation.
Finally, a more normal voice, still tinged with awkwardness and a hint of a sob, emerged:
“I’m ‘her,’ but not entirely ‘her’…”
She paused, gathering her words:
“Ling Qingli… she’s too tired. Alone since she was little, starving, beaten, robbed… she had to make herself tough, cold, to survive. The urge to act spoiled, to be naughty, to cry or throw a fit—she buried it all deep inside, so deep she almost forgot it existed.”
The double pupils’ glow shimmered, reflecting countless cold, hungry nights where a frail figure curled in a corner, biting her lip to stifle her sobs.
“When she was about to die just now, all those things she cast away found an outlet and rushed out with me.”
Her tone grew complex:
“So, I became like this. She stuffed the part of herself she didn’t dare show into me.”
Bai Zhou mused:
“A second personality bearing all her suppressed nature and emotions, twisted and amplified by the awakening of double pupils?”
“…You could say that.”
The double pupils tried to climb off Bai Zhou’s knees, movements clumsy and tinged with sulky defiance.
“Mommy, you hurt me!”
Bai Zhou raised an eyebrow:
“You learned to call me Mommy so quickly. Did she teach you that too?”
“No.”
The double pupils shook their head:
“It’s my own instinct. As the daughter of fortune, my mother must be a being of immense luck, so you must be my Mommy!”
The words made Bai Zhou loosen her grip. She watched as Ling Qingli stumbled to her feet, fingers nervously tugging at her tattered hem, her double pupils sneaking glances with timid probing.
Divine artifacts have spirits, which is why Bai Zhou was certain the earlier Ling Qingli wasn’t truly herself.
Her words reminded Bai Zhou of something. Her eyes could see others’ fortune but not her own—she’d never known her own future.
So far, it seemed promising, or she wouldn’t have survived this long.
Speaking of eyes, Bai Zhou recalled the marks deep in her molten gold pupils, awakened when her strength reached a certain level.
When those marks appeared, she briefly thought she was some “most evil elf” from an anime in her past life, only missing twin ponytails.
She believed it was inherent to her body, perhaps the reason her clan was exterminated—someone feared these eyes.
Thankfully, her puppet body differed from her true one. The marks were constant in her true form but only appeared in the puppet’s eyes when using specific abilities.
“Will you disappear?”
The double pupils froze, then shook their head and nodded:
“I won’t disappear. When her soul fully awakens, I’ll merge with her, and there’ll be no ‘you’ or ‘me’ anymore.”