Chapter 301: [Unswerving Devotion] Fumbling with Rules
Question: If a woman who looks identical to your long-missing mother gouged out her own eyeball and handed it to you, what should you do?
Bai Cha found her current mood rather difficult to describe.
The woman before her looked just like her mother, albeit an albinistic version of her. She raised her hand.
Bright red fingernails tipped those pale, bloodless hands.
Without warning, she thrust her finger directly into her own right eye.
The muscle at the corner of Bai Cha’s eye twitched slightly as she watched the woman scoop out her own eyeball.
Blood instantly gushed forth, streaming down her pale face.
In the palm of her hand, the eyeball squirmed twice, adjusting its position so that it was facing Bai Cha directly.
Then, she proffered the eye to Bai Cha.
Bai Cha watched with her own eyes as the woman’s hand passed right through Taisui’s barrier. Startled, Taisui scattered rapidly and shrank back into Bai Cha’s palm.
This fact alone proved that Bai Cha was by no means a match for her opponent.
Fortunately, it seemed the other party had no intention of harming her.
Bai Cha stared at the eyeball.
The eyeball stared right back at her.
The surrounding fog began to swirl, and an indescribable sense of peril welled up in her heart.
Bai Cha reached out her hand and grabbed the eyeball.
The woman before her instantly dissolved into white fog. Then, as if a whirlwind had risen from the flat ground, the mist was swiftly blown away.
Everything seemed to return to tranquility. Bai Cha lowered her head to look at the eye.
Before she could observe it closely, feeling only a cold, ice-like touch that was as soft as jelly in her hand, the eyeball suddenly leaped into the air and shot straight toward her own eye.
Instinctively, Bai Cha closed her eyes.
Yet the eyeball melted on contact, transforming into an extraordinarily frigid power that drilled right into her eye.
Bai Cha’s right eye turned a crimson smear on the spot.
She subconsciously looked around, realizing that no matter what she looked at through her right eye, everything was covered in a bloody haze. Only the vision in her left eye remained normal.
A bursting pain throbbed from her right eyeball, feeling as though it were about to explode.
Agonized, she covered her right eye. Her hand was cold, barely managing to alleviate the pain even a fraction.
As the agony intensified, however, Bai Cha found herself unable to ease it by any means whatsoever.
She collapsed painfully onto the snow, her consciousness gradually sinking into a swoon.
Meanwhile, on Xu Taotao’s side.
After entering, she discovered that this place was actually the Xu estate.
Turning around, the main gate of the Xu residence stood right behind her. Everything around her was virtually identical to her memory.
Rather than entering the Biyi Building, it felt as though she had traversed space and returned to her own home.
Yet at the same time, she was keenly aware that this world was completely different from what she had imagined. Perhaps something had gone wrong with her memories; perhaps she wasn’t Xu Taotao at all.
Otherwise, she should be standing outside just like her family, her eyes having turned bizarre.
She knew what she looked like. That girl who called herself Xu Shengsheng clearly only shared a resemblance with her, rather than being identical.
Yet when others looked at the two of them, their gazes didn’t seem like they were looking at similar-looking sisters at first glance. Instead, they would freeze and scrutinize them carefully.
Which meant they ought to look identical.
Was the other girl like her, or was she like the other girl?
They were the same person—so why were they divided into two?
If they wanted to combine back into a single person, how should they go about it?
Feeling the dodder vine tugging, she glanced down.
Actually, she knew.
She could perform a sacrifice.
If she could give all her power to the other person, that would count as forming a single entity, wouldn’t it?
However, Xu Taotao didn’t know if doing so truly counted as becoming one person.
How had they been separated in the first place?
“What are you standing dazed at the door for?” Madam Li’s voice pulled her thoughts back.
Xu Taotao looked at her parents before her.
“Hurry up and come inside. Someone is coming to view you for marriage in a moment. You’re not young anymore; it’s time you got married.”
As Madam Li spoke, she stepped forward to pull her.
Xu Taotao took a step back, dodging Madam Li’s hand.
Madam Li froze, her expression turning peculiar.
The sky had turned red at some unknown point, resembling the blood-colored sky back when Biyun had knocked on the door.
This coated everyone in a layer of red, making them look like creatures made of blood.
Madam Li’s eyeballs swiveled inside their sockets, rolling around like marbles.
She opened her mouth and asked, “Taotao, are you trying to rebel?”
Father Xu was in the same state. His expression was even more contorted compared to Madam Li’s, as though he were flying into a rage.
“Xu Taotao, do you want to rebel against us? We gave you your life! We gave birth to you and raised you—how dare you disobey us?”
Xu Taotao felt the suffocating tension in the air. It was extremely dangerous, as if something would explode at the slightest touch.
Her heart rate accelerated, but her face remained composed. “I’m not trying to rebel. I just wanted to tell you that I already have someone I like.”
Madam Li and Father Xu’s eyeballs stopped swiveling, fixing their gazes dead on her.
“Who is it?”
“Who have you fallen for?”
Xu Taotao vaguely grasped a certain rule. She said calmly, “Someone who looks just like me.”
“We forbid it!” Madam Li and Father Xu barked loudly on the spot, their expressions hideous.
“How could you fall in love with a woman?”
“I said, I fell for someone who looks just like me,” Xu Taotao said, neither rushed nor slow.
Madam Li and Father Xu fell silent.
“Then where is she? If she doesn’t pass our test, we will never agree to you being together!”
Xu Taotao said, “She said she would come to propose very soon—today, in fact. I plan to go make some preparations first, and you two should prepare as well.”
Madam Li and Father Xu agreed, temporarily letting Xu Taotao off the hook.
The red in the sky persisted. Biyun walked over, intending to follow Xu Taotao.
Xu Taotao glanced at her and said, “From now on, you’re not allowed to follow me. I’m afraid you’ll seduce the person I like.”
Biyun stared at her fixedly and said, “Miss, I would never do such a thing.”
“No, I won’t allow even the slightest risk. I won’t allow any woman to get close to the person I like,” Xu Taotao rejected her resolutely.
Biyun could only nod, a hideously contorted smile spreading across her face.
“Well then, Miss’s words actually make me look forward to it. The person you like must be very outstanding indeed!”
Xu Taotao ignored her.
Since this place had transformed into the Xu estate after she came in, she would likely have to leave the Xu estate first.
However, given how bizarre and eerie all these people had become, leaving wouldn’t be an easy task.
Meanwhile, on Bai Cha’s side.
She was pulled into a strange dream.
She found herself high up in the sky, looking down at the ground below.
Yet everything before her eyes was a sea of crimson, and her vision was extremely blurry.
This made her try very hard to open her eyes and take a closer look.
She was indeed exerting effort to open her eyes, but her eyelids felt as though they were stuck together with glue. After trying for a long time, she managed to open only a sliver of a slit.
