Gradually, the sky grew dark, with only a faint glow from the setting sun illuminating the earth. The dimly lit streets were now filled with a dense array of lights, casting a soft warmth upon the people.

Shi Liuli wandered for a long time but couldn't find a good way to make money. She considered selling her own collection and even took action, but as she had anticipated, the remote small town had no one who recognized the value of her treasures. Instead, they mistook her "sky-high prices" as troublemaking and drove her away.

It seemed she would have to go hungry for a day, but at least she wouldn't die...

There was no choice. Shi Liuli simply didn't have the money. She couldn't possibly resort to robbery, right?

She couldn't bear to lose face.

Just as she was planning to find a place with no one around to spend the night and check the situation at the guild tomorrow, she felt a soft impact beneath her.

What was that?

Before Shi Liuli could lower her head to look, she heard a hurried apology.

"I'm sorry! I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to. Please, please don't hit me! I really didn't mean to!"

When she looked down, she saw a young beastman girl sitting on the ground, looking bewildered as she frantically waved her hands, her voice trembling.

The beastman girl was covered in dirt. Judging from her white fur, which wasn't particularly dense, and the pair of white fox ears on her head, she seemed to be from the fox tribe and looked to be about ten years old.

Her clothes were tattered, barely covering her sensitive areas. Fortunately, she was so dark all over that no one had targeted her for certain reasons.

But what caught Shi Liuli's attention the most was the layer of white gauze wrapped around her eyes—she seemed to be unable to see?

——————

Because her younger sister, Cui'er, fell seriously ill, Yu'er, with no one else to rely on, had to do whatever it took to nurse her back to health—even if it meant her own eyes being "blinded."

Her mother had deliberately blinded her.

So everything had to be done by herself.

The fox tribe was born with white hair and blue eyes due to their genetic makeup, but Yu'er was born with red eyes. On the day she was born, her father passed away due to certain circumstances, and her deranged mother blamed everything on Yu'er, believing her arrival brought disaster upon the family.

But that was only the beginning. Her mother hadn't been heartless enough to blind her eyes at that time. Instead, she had struggled to raise her with great difficulty.

It was when Yu'er turned three years old—

That year, her sister, Cui'er, was born. The gestation period for different races varied, and her sister was already conceived before their father died. On that day, their mother, full of anticipation, once again fell into despair because—

Her sister didn't have blue eyes, she had golden eyes.

This plunged their mother into madness once more. Due to limited resources in the habitat of the beastman race, the white fox tribe only provided assistance to their own kind. Additionally, Yu'er's father had died, leaving the family without reliable labor, so her mother had to worry about raising Yu'er.

Initially, she had placed her hopes on the unborn sister, but reality dealt her a heavy blow once again.

After giving birth to her sister, her mother's heart was filled with despair, and all reason had vanished. She conceived a terrible idea—let's pretend this child never existed.

She immediately tried to kill the newborn Cui'er, but Yu'er desperately intervened. Her mother had already lost her sanity, and seeing Yu'er triggered her—

It's all because of this disaster, those red eyes! They brought this family to ruin!

Then, her mother disregarded everything and pounced. How could three-year-old Yu'er resist? A horrifying scene unfolded.

In the end, it was her mother who woke up from her bloodlust, realizing what she had done, and in despair, she took her own life, leaving behind three-year-old Yu'er, who was now blind, and newborn Cui'er.

---

TLN: Well... that's just.....