“I mean, Daisy—never mind Uncle Sean—why do you trust me this much? We’ve known each other for less than half a day, right?”

Ye Weibai had asked that once, while the chestnut‑bobbed girl hugged a big white bear like a cloud.

“Why?” The little girl tilted her head like a sparrow, then smiled, shy as dawn mist. “Two reasons. First, Brother Bai carries Mom’s scent, like wind through laundry.”

“Second, even if it’s our first meeting, this scene feels familiar, like a dream rerunning under the same moon. So I’m used to it.”

“A dream?” Ye Weibai chuckled, startled, like a candle caught by a breeze.

“Mhm! I feel I’ve seen Brother Bai somewhere, probably a day like today, like footprints under fresh snow. Some details shift, but it’s a replay of a dream.”

“So?” Ye Weibai looked over like a tide turning, and found her asleep mid‑sentence, curled around the bear like a cub.

He couldn’t help a soft smile, warm as lamplight on paper walls.

Truth is, it wasn’t just the girl; Ye Weibai felt it too, faint as a bell beyond fog.

Somewhere, sometime, he had lived this scene before, like leaves caught in the same eddy.

Not once or twice, but again and again—broken dream shards softened like rain, gathered, and overlapped the present.

Candlelight wavered; a black‑haired, black‑eyed youth sat beside a chestnut‑haired girl hugging her white bear, asleep like snow.

Beautiful as a dream, yet fragile as frost on a window.

Why did that surface now?

Ye Weibai snapped from memory like a bowstring, unease rising cold as a tide in winter.

In front of him, the little girl still scribbled and sketched, pen rustling like a cricket in grass.

By now the scene should’ve reached the last page—the Monstrosity turned back into Owen, sat in the rocking chair, and closed his eyes like nightfall.

Too slow. The word struck like a pebble in a still pond.

Even with its foot torn by my trap, it should’ve reached here already, like a wolf to blood.

My plan was rushed, but not fatally flawed, like a net with tight knots.

Hit without warning, and knowing I’d threaten Filia, Owen should’ve raced back like thunder after lightning.

Even if bloodlust spurred it, the breath of the Exorcist’s coffin would cow it like iron before a beast.

And to Owen, Filia should matter most, like a lantern in endless dark.

Ye Weibai narrowed his eyes, combing the steps again and again, like fingers through tangled silk.

In truth.

Ye Weibai wasn’t wrong; with so little to go on, he’d missed something, a truth veiled like a moon behind sea‑mist.

Time edged backward, beads on a string sliding to the start.

Ravenous, Owen sniffed the tender scent in the air, like a dog on a warm trail, pushed a door, and reached the next room—the door to Daisy’s bed.

He moved to push it, but scorched shavings on the wood stopped him, black as cinders after rain.

Those charred flecks carried the same stench as the splinters needled into his palm, a reek that braided disgust with fear like thorn and vine.

His bleeding palm throbbed, a red pulse tapping danger like a drum.

“Ah…” Hunger gnawed, but instinct hissed away from that wood like a snake from fire.

He shook his head, agitated, his gaping maw opening and closing, thick drool dripping like resin.

His huge feet scraped the floor with a knife‑edge squeal, sparks of sound in the dark corridor.

In the darkness, it hesitated like a beast at a cliff.

Sense said turn away; only the living get to feast again, like rivers that return with rain.

No need to risk its life for one mouthful, like a moth diving for a fading flame.

But hunger burned like wildfire, fiercer than before, flames licking bone.

Yet… didn’t it just eat a leg, warm as fresh prey?

Huh? Did I eat? Why can’t I remember, like fog swallowing a path?

Heat seared its gut, mind blurring like ink in water.

It quit thinking; if not here, then elsewhere, like a wolf circling the herd.

There was plenty of food in this house, laid out like a field before harvest.

It began to turn away when a hand stopped it, pale as moonlight on porcelain.

A woman’s hand—long fingers, even bones, skin smooth as carved jade, a craftsman’s miracle under shadow.

To a Monstrosity, beauty meant nothing; it cared only if the meat was tender, like ripe fruit to a knife.

Yet its first reaction was fear, sharp as ice against the spine.

It flinched back, body shrinking like a scorched leaf.

It knew this woman, and it feared her, like a hound before the lash.

Hidden in the dark, the woman spoke; her voice was hoarse and ugly, as if she’d swallowed hot coals from a brazier.

“Eat her.”

It glanced at the door, wary as a fox of a snare.

“Afraid of that?” She laughed softly, a sound like a sack of gravel grinding.

She brushed the burned shavings from the wood like dust from silk, then pushed the door with a quiet hand.

The hinge breathed a thin creak, a moth’s wing in the dark.

On the bed, Daisy lay on her side, hugging her big white bear like a round snowball, a sweet smile blooming like a bud.

At the sight, the Monstrosity’s eyes reddened like fresh blood; the next breath, it stared at Daisy as if it remembered, and forced its coiled body to halt like a bow held taut.

“Aren’t you hungry?” The woman’s gaze skimmed it like a blade across ice.

“N‑no. Can’t eat.” It panted, eyes locked on Daisy, greed swelling like a tide, fighting to drown a storm inside.

“Filia and she are very good friends,” it rasped, words rough as stones.

“Eat her, and Filia will be sad,” it said, voice small as ash.

“Oh. That reason.” The woman’s lips curved under her hood, red as a cut, a smile breathtaking and lethal like a poppy.

“She won’t. Because after tonight, everything ends,” she murmured, words cold as dew before dawn.

“Everything… ends?” It looked at her, dazed, like a child lost in snow.

“Yes. We’re about at the limit,” she said, smile stretching, warping into something sick and twisted like a mask in warped glass.

She laughed without sound, and the dark turned colder, like a well with no bottom.

“So—”

Abruptly she stilled her smile, the calm before a blade leaves its sheath.

“If you won’t eat, then I’ll feed you.”

She smiled again, now cruel and cool, frost on steel, and flicked her right hand forward.

A strand of white silk lanced out like a streak of light, whipping toward the sleeping girl, and swept past the wrist that hung off the bed like a drooping branch.

Snick—

Blood sprayed, red as a torn banner in wind.

The little girl’s right hand left her wrist and spun up into the air like a severed bird.