Volu 2, Chapter 31
“In short...”
Summarizing what she had just heard, Leticia said haltingly, “Everything you’ve done was only to satisfy your own... uh... wish?”
Actually, she should have used another word—one much simpler, much more fitting, and much more in line with so-called human nature.
However, in this world, that word mostly carried a derogatory aning, and very few people would use it. In truth, it was also because it would be censored if this word had been used instead...
According to Ilo, her family relationship was not at all as harmonious as described. It had even, in a certain sense, reached a level of “harmony.”
Naturally, everyone knew that this “harmony” itself was not a good word. It was a cover-up, a canopy that hid filth and ugliness, a gorgeous and dazzling skin draped over sothing rotten.
Ha. It was like the black gauze lightly covering a beauty’s body. The balance had to be exact. One fraction thicker, and it would simply be clothing used to cover the body. One fraction thinner, and it would only make people feel that it was in the way, an eyesore, sothing vulgar that made them want to tear it off and throw it away.
Only when that balance was grasped exactly would the lightly draped gauze beco like the venom of a black snake mixed into red wine, like the dazzling flower grown by a carnivorous plant to lure its prey. It could stir up the deepest and truest interpretation of instinct within human nature.
When done perfectly, it was art.
However, this topic had already drifted rather far from where it had started.
Leticia shook her head slightly, put away so of the aningless thoughts in her heart, and focused her attention once more on the conversation with the girl before her.
Ilo had not been born in the territory of the poor.
That could already be considered great fortune. However, she had never received the thing she longed for. That thing was warmth.
Her mories of childhood had also blurred. The warmth of her mother’s hands as they stroked her had gradually cooled. She could no longer even rember her mother’s face clearly, only recall a tiny shadow, like a bubble.
There was no need to doubt it. After so more ti passed, Ilo would probably place everything from the past into the black pool called “life.”
Her father was indeed the support Ilo sought. However, unlike the rumors among the neighbors, unlike the half-hearted explanation she had given before—no, it should be said that her explanation had been a gentler concealnt—he was different from all of those.
That man seed never to have regarded this place as his ho, and he never seed to care that in that cold ho, there was still a lonely young girl waiting for him.
Precisely because of that, she yearned. She yearned for the warmth that should have belonged to her. She yearned for that white moonlight within her sight, the one thing only she could not obtain.
“Mm-hm. That’s right.”
Ilo half-narrowed her eyes and said aningfully, “I think my father may never have regarded my birth as a happy thing.”
Perhaps he even found her annoying. A hindrance.
“So, in Ilo’s eyes, is chasing after his back an interesting thing?”
A child whose mother had died young and whose father treated her coldly had already been unfortunate simply to be born into such a world, hadn’t she?
And for her to survive in such an environnt through the kindness of the people around her could not be called anything but a miracle.
But Leticia would never ignore what ca before the fact of the miracle: the misfortune that made that miracle happen. “I keep feeling that you’re planning sothing very dangerous.”
“How could that be?”
Ilo widened her eyes rather exaggeratedly. “Evelyn, you suspect people way too easily. Why would you think I’m going to do sothing bad?”
Because you really don’t count as a good person.
Leticia almost said that, but then she thought again. Although this person always gave off the feeling of “not a good person,” in reality, she did not seem to have done a single bad thing.
Mm... Thinking carefully, other than the matter of almost dragging Leticia into a trap, and then excluding the fact that because of her, Leticia had to live like a stray dog for these seven days, she really had not done anything bad...
The more Leticia thought, the gloomier her mood beca.
Mm. Not only gloomy—she also wanted to beat this grinning little girl up.
But Leticia knew she had no capital at all. In other words, with her current physical condition, whether Ilo could knock her down in one move was still unknown.
So it was better to be kind...
“All right. I was wrong.”
Speaking very casually, Leticia glanced at Ilo. “Then let’s say you’re yearning for those things. But I still really want to know, why can’t you go look for yourself?”
Ilo’s explanation sounded quite real. Well, in truth, there was still the possibility that “everything is made up.” After all, “the longest road I’ve ever walked is the road of your sches.” Mm.
Whether it was true or false, Leticia wanted to know why this girl could not go by herself.
Perhaps she was being a little stubborn, but no matter what, she wanted to know.
Other people’s tragic experiences were worthy of sympathy, but Leticia also had her own circumstances. While Ilo was lost and seeking comfort, Leticia sat by the stream, listening to her pour out her heart, and at the sa ti, she saw beneath herself the shadow that did not belong to her, but was attached to death.
Sympathy offered without the ability to act was ultimately nothing more than hypocrisy.
Leticia knew she was very realistic, but that was also unavoidable.
Even so, in the softest place of her heart, she had still left room for pity.
Because she had listened. Because she had already lived into her second life. Because she was still human.
Wait, no... Why was she getting so sentintal? She still needed to draw out information!
“Mm...”
Ilo showed clear hesitation. “Do you want to know no matter what?”
“If you don’t want to say it, you don’t have to.”
At a ti like this, according to Leticia’s experience from the novels and shows she had watched, she could not show her interest. Otherwise, it would be very easy for the other party to seize the initiative or sothing.
“Is that so?”
Ilo blinked, then suddenly smiled. “Then I won’t say it!”
Shit.
That was the first thought that popped into Leticia’s mind after she heard Ilo’s words.
And also, with a mixture of laughter and tears: as expected, this was exactly the sort of thing she would say.
“All right, all right.”
Leticia stood, patted her backside, and nodded to Ilo. “If you don’t want to say it, then don’t. In that case, Ilo should also go do her own things now, right?”
The implication was naturally that she was seeing her guest off.
But Ilo added a line that was beyond Leticia’s expectations.
“However... If Evelyn is willing to keep company, then telling you is not impossible.”
Looking into Leticia’s black eyes, Ilo said with a smile, “Evelyn is an outsider too, after all. There are still many things you don’t know, aren’t there?”
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