"Do you really think it was just an accident that Ye Ling saved you back then?"
"Or do you wonder why your memories of the past became increasingly blurred after Ye Ling saved you? Was it really the Emperor who erased your memories, or is there some other reason?"
"Right, I forgot to tell you. It was me who orchestrated that massacre of your family back then, but it wasn't your real family that was destroyed."
"You were so good at acting back then. You were so calm, but when Ye Ling showed up, you cried so bitterly."
The memories of the past were slowly being stirred up.
Xia Wanning's head began to throb. She was thinking, pondering.
However, that memory was extremely fuzzy. The face she had seen countless times in her dreams was still out of focus.
"Do you still remember where you grew up?"
"It was in the Ghost Domain."
"Do you know why you ended up in the Ghost Domain?"
"You don't know, do you?"
Mo Yan's laughter was especially terrifying. Throughout this period, Xia Wanning had been lost in her memories and hadn't said a single word.
"Back then, you were just a discarded pawn of my Ghost Domain. I found you, a child, from the Sea Spirit Kingdom. Your identity, family, and experiences were all fake. I prepared them all for you."
"Originally, I planned to take you back from the Sea Spirit Kingdom and torture you slowly. Whenever I saw you, I would think of your grandfather. Just thinking of him made me want to tear you to pieces."
Mo Yan's words now.
Every single one of them was so strange.
Xia Wanning had never encountered this side of Mo Yan before.
"Do you still remember the nightmare you mentioned? In the dream, the person who brought you so much humiliation, who whipped you even when you were covered in wounds and still didn't give up?"
Xia Wanning gasped and said, "Do you know who he is?"
"Of course I do, and I'm going to tell you that it wasn't a dream. That was your childhood."
Mo Yan took off his purple-gold black robe, revealing a face that Xia Wanning found extremely familiar. As time passed.
The face of the man in front of her merged with the man in her nightmare.
Xia Wanning was scared.
She was terrified.
She let out a scream.
She wanted to escape from here.
"It's you, it's you! You're the executioner!"
"What on earth did you do to me? What happened to me when I was a child?"
Mo Yan said, "All you know is probably that your family was massacred and then Ye Ling saved you. At that time, in your impression, wasn't your family a very powerful sect?"
"You..."
"Yes, all of that was the result of my forced hypnosis on you. In fact, you're not from the Eastern Ze Wilderness. That Ye Ling really had an overabundance of compassion. I just took advantage of her compassion, and she easily took you under her wing."
"So, everything you told me was a lie. You said that if it weren't for Ye Ling, with the glory of my family, I would have been the female emperor of the Eastern Ze Wilderness, and the Emperor's favor would have been mine alone. You lied to me."
"Who asked you to be so gullible back then? Don't forget, for those in the Ghost Domain, simple hypnosis was so easy for you back then. It was us who dragged you into hell. Look, Ye Ling finally took you to the human world, and you finally got to live a normal life, but we still managed to turn you against her with just a few words."
"Why did you do this to me? I only believed you because you showed me the evidence from the past!"
"Evidence? Don't forget, you were just a baby in swaddling clothes when you came to my Ghost Domain. So those pieces of evidence were so easy to fabricate, just by matching your fuzzy memories. But then again, it's also your fault. You believed it so easily and even betrayed your savior to us."
Xia Wanning's expression.
At this moment, it was especially complex.
Anger, remorse, and disbelief were all clearly written on her face.
However.
Mo Yan didn't plan to let her off so easily.
He continued, "Xia Wanning, I'll tell you what's real right now."
"You were originally the daughter of a noble family in the Sea Spirit Kingdom. You were supposed to live a carefree and happy life. But unfortunately, your eyes looked too much like hers. This was both your fortune and your misfortune. Your grandfather's life was saved by her at the cost of everything she had. Why should your family be able to live a worry-free life from generation to generation while she was buried in the loess because of you all?"
"Who are you talking about?"
"Who? You're not worthy of knowing her name."
Mo Yan then continued, "So, I went to the Sea Spirit Kingdom specifically to take you back and made you live in the Ghost Domain. Every day of your life was filled with suffering, humiliation, ridicule, and beatings. That was just an ordinary occurrence. Do you know that every time I saw your eyes that resembled hers, I wanted to dig them out."
"But you still had some use. You had a special constitution and were actually an alchemist. At that time, Ye Ling was already the female emperor of the Eastern Ze Wilderness. She was going to pass by that villa. I knew the opportunity had come. Maybe you would be our first pawn to infiltrate the Nine States Continent. So, I hypnotized you and made you think that you had a happy family. Everyone in your family loved you very much. Your parents were kind and powerful. That night, I had those people killed and staged a tragedy about you. That Ye Ling actually believed it. Hahaha - She believed it and took you, an orphan, back with her and took good care of you."
"Xia Wanning, how was your life by Ye Ling's side? You should know best. So, how does it feel now when you think about it?"
Xia Wanning's head ached terribly.
It hurt so much that she could hardly breathe.
The things from her childhood slowly came flooding back into her mind, bit by bit.
Beatings, scoldings.
Hypnosis.
Then, the scene shifted. It was the young her, standing among the pile of dead bodies, when she met Ye Ling.
Ye Ling took her back.
She comforted her gently.
Ye Ling told her that she also had a younger brother who was lost, and she was also an orphan.
Ye Ling also said that she shouldn't be afraid. From then on, this would be her home, and Ye Ling would be her family. No one would dare to hurt her anymore.
At that time, Xia Wanning was lying in bed, looking at that woman, feeling so at ease.
However, later on, as Xia Wanning grew stronger and met Mo Yan in the purple-gold black robe, everything changed.
Temptation and ambition began to swell.
"So, it was all fake. Everything was fake. It was all carefully fabricated by you—"
"No, at least your surname is real."