Chapter 39: I am not greedy, I just want a little bit of love
In the room, Liang Lai stroked Iluci’s head with tender affection.
“Really, you have to be more careful when walking from now on—look at this fall, all that blood… You’re already so skinny; how much good food will it take to make up for it?”
She said it with eyes brimming with heartache.
Iluci merely curved her lips faintly, grasping Liang Lai’s stroking hand and guiding it to her own cheek.
Liang Lai always felt there was something indescribably sickly in the child’s gaze, but she dismissed it as her imagination.
How could such a self-loathing, sensitive, cowardly little thing ever flash a twisted look like that?
Just like that, Liang Lai stayed glued to Iluci’s side for a full two hours.
Because during that time, Iluci kept weeping, murmuring things like “My body hurts so much” and “Mom, I can’t breathe from the pain” and “What do I do? Am I going to die?”
It left Liang Lai no choice but to hover, watching over the child.
Seeing Liang Lai so frantic on her behalf, Iluci’s satisfaction swelled fuller and fuller; she itched to let out a soft laugh each time, but bit it back every go.
Truth be told, her body did ache for real—but the soul-deep thrill drowned it out entirely…
Probably tied to all the abuse she’d weathered before; she figured her pain threshold ran higher than most.
“This turned out to be a good thing, huh.”
Iluci mused to herself.
Before this, she’d never dreamed of drawing eyes through self-inflicted harm.
But now she’d done it—and felt no regrets.
Only when her satiation crested did she finally—reluctantly—let Liang Lai go.
“Mom, I think… it doesn’t hurt as bad now… Go keep the sisters company with their practice—they’ve got that assessment, right?”
Iluci didn’t know what green tea meant, but she served it up anyway, all coy and insinuating.
Liang Lai poured Iluci a cup of warm water and held it to her lips.
“I already checked on their progress today—more than enough for the assessment. No need to worry about that; focus on yourself now. Once you’re healed, no more carelessness, okay~”
“Mm!”
Iluci beamed a smile of pure, contented bliss.
But come evening, Liang Lai had to leave after all—Duoluosa and Asteris had wheedled her into more guidance.
“It’s fine, Mom—go on. I can handle being alone, really.”
This time, Iluci meant it; she’d gotten her fill today, so she decided to ease off for now.
Before departing, Liang Lai slipped two color-changing candies into Iluci’s palm and reminded her to take her medicine without fail.
“If it’s too bitter, pop a candy~”
Liang Lai ruffled Iluci’s hair, then slipped from the room.
Watching Liang Lai leave, Iluci dragged her gaze back with longing; she stared blankly at the candies in her hand, her lips curving up bit by bit, brows drooping in a dreamy sag.
“Candies from Mom…”
She drew out the words.
“I told you, I’m not greedy… Just two hours a day with the saintess is plenty~ As for the others… doesn’t matter, so long as the saintess stays by my side.”
Iluci clenched the candies slow and tight, pressing her fist to her chest, eyes shimmering with joy as she gazed at the pristine ceiling.
“My whole world is just the saintess…”
She whispered, tears glinting at her eyes’ corners.
“Saintess, please… never abandon me… Without you, I’d die.”
Iluci didn’t crave total monopoly like Duoluosa, nor worship-fusion like Asteris and Delucia.
She just saw herself as one of Liang Lai’s possessions—so long as those eyes fell on her for a spell each day, that sufficed.
Such an easily pleased, pitiable child…!
Meanwhile, after wrapping up Duoluosa and Asteris’s lesson, Liang Lai ushered them back to their rooms, doling out goodnight kisses one by one before finally stealing a moment for her study and her own tinkering.
“Whew~”
Her head throbbed faintly as she stared at the diary left by the original saintess.
“What am I overlooking…? Why can’t I grasp the essence? That shouldn’t be—I feel like my emotions run deep enough… What did I miss… or maybe misread…?”
Liang Lai’s fingertip traced the diary’s edge absently—then snagged on a translucent petal tucked in the title page’s fold.
The moment she brushed it, the petal dissolved into motes of light, weaving in the air into a shimmering line of text:
‘The emotion most easily overlooked is self-compassion.’
Her breath hitched; memories flooded in like a tide.
Every ability use, she’d poured thought into shielding the children, battling foes—never sparing a shred of kindness for herself.
Those splintering crystals at her fingertips, the backlash she forced down—they were the power rebelling against its caster’s self-flagellation.
“So that’s the key to resonance?”
She pressed her palm to her chest, feeling her heartbeat’s rhythm for the first time with true intent.
The ignored weariness, fear, and loneliness—all transmuted now into warm rivulets spilling from her heart.
A second pair of golden pupils snapped open in the dark; Liang Lai saw silver threads unfurling from her core, linking to the children’s bedrooms, to distant chapels… even to some presence in the void.
When she formed crystals next, the crimson dread softened to rose quartz—no more coiling black fog within, but lazy-swirling nebulae instead.
Her heart no longer stabbed on manifestation; instead, soothing ease washed over.
“This is… true resonance?”
Liang Lai tested it tentatively on the desk.
The wood grain held its warmth post-crystallization; a wilted rose at the corner, dusted by the shards, bloomed instant emerald sheen.
She noticed—even the crystallized patch on her pinky had regrown supple flesh.
Moonlight outside surged brilliant; tiny motes bobbed up from Liang Lai’s shadow.
She spread her hands, letting two hues of crystal mingle in her palms.
Gold for protective zeal, silver for self-acceptance.
On collision, rainbow crystal rain pattered down across the study—each speck mirroring Liang Lai’s smiles from eras past.
“The true form of emotional crystallization…”
She caught a flake on her lash, peering through to see Duoluosa curled fetal in dreams, the black mist in Asteris’s teddy bear eyes finally thinning.