“Alright,” Catherine shrugged with a playful air, realizing her attempt at intimidation had failed. “Impatient beauty.”

“Our Animal Town was originally just a place where we raised all sorts of animals. Cows, sheep, horses… You name it. Every family kept them, to varying degrees.”

Catherine offered a nostalgic smile. “We were all very content in those days.”

“Until an unexpected plague hit,” Catherine’s expression turned somber, her eyes losing their spark. “That dreadful illness affected only the animals and spread with alarming swiftness, incredibly fast.”

“Before long, all our livestock had perished.”

“The sheer volume of animal carcasses poisoned our environment. The land reeked, the water became a lethal toxin, and all the vegetation withered and died.”

“Then came the natural disasters, an unrelenting onslaught of scorching temperatures and devastating drought.”

“Our children!” Catherine’s voice trembled with deep emotion; her teeth clenched and her eyes filled with tears. “My own child, so young, had barely seen the world, and she was about to succumb to thirst!”

“I could offer her my blood, but she was starving for more. She cried, she pleaded with me, telling me she was hungry!” Catherine roared, squeezing out every ounce of resentment that festered within her.

“The town’s children were the first to succumb, unable to endure the suffering any longer.” Catherine’s shoulders slumped in utter despair. “For the sake of our children, we were prepared to undertake any sacrifice.”

Ding Yi pursed her lips, her gaze momentarily drifting to the faint scars that lined the inside of her arm. “What did you do?”

“The goddess Ophelia possessed boundless magical power. Legend held that her tears could purify all defilement and stimulate the rapid growth of plants. We went to her, to beseech that lofty and powerful goddess, to beg her to deliver us from our plight.”

“But she was unwilling. She merely regarded us as bothersome insects and drove us away without a second thought!”

Yan Ming frowned, a knot of discomfort twisting in his gut. “So… you murdered her child?”

“How else were we to make the proud and formidable goddess Ophelia weep?” Catherine offered a strange, unsettling smile. “Naturally, by taking the life of her precious child.”

“For the sake of our children, I would gladly descend into the deepest pits of hell.”

Thinking of the town’s seemingly miraculous abundance of fruits and grains, Ding Yi’s expression turned cold and hard. “It appears your desperate gamble succeeded.”

“Indeed,” Catherine’s full, crimson lips stretched into an exaggerated, almost grotesque smile. “The haughty goddess searched in vain for her offspring and wept bitterly. Her tears cleansed our blighted land and water, and our town was miraculously restored to life.”

“But soon, the truth of our heinous act—the kidnapping of her child—was exposed.”

“The enraged Ophelia unleashed a terrible curse upon our town. The children within its borders all transformed into grotesque animals. They all contracted that accursed plague and perished swiftly and agonizingly.”

Catherine’s expression grew somber, a deep gloom settling over her features. “The children born in the aftermath suffered the same fate. They were born with human bodies marred by animalistic features, and they all succumbed to death before long.”

“Our children… our poor, innocent children…”

“Your children’s fate is undeniably tragic, but was Ophelia’s child not equally deserving of pity?”

“That was Ophelia’s fault as well!” Catherine retorted, her teeth gritted in renewed fury. “As a goddess, she wielded limitless magic. What possible harm could have come from her agreeing to save us? We pleaded with her, begged her with all our might, yet she remained obstinately unwilling! Do you have any comprehension of the utter despair my child endured in those final moments?!”

Qin Yuan, his patience wearing thin, saw no point in prolonging this morbid recounting. “If that is the sequence of events, how did she ultimately become your revered guardian deity?”

“Because she sought to keep you ignorant outsiders trapped here indefinitely!”

“She has no desire to leave,” Catherine spat out, her brow furrowed in disgust. “She cannot find her child’s remains, so she refuses to depart. And the food nourished by her tears has cursed us with the torment of eternal life.”

“Do you grasp the sheer cruelty of this curse? She forbids us from leaving. Every six months, she unleashes a brutal massacre. Our brothers and sisters are slaughtered mercilessly by her hand, yet we cannot truly die. Even decapitation is a temporary inconvenience. The curse of eternal life ensures our perpetual confinement within this accursed realm.”

“We require replacements, fresh victims to become Ophelia’s new hunting targets.”

Qin Yuan’s expression remained impassive, Catherine’s impassioned words failing to elicit even the slightest reaction. “Why not simply return the child’s remains to her?”

“Return them to her?! She would reclaim her child, yes, but what of our children?! Were they meant to perish simply?!”

“The high and mighty goddess declared that she would never forgive us for our actions, and that upon her eventual departure, this land-this twisted paradise created from her tears and the blood of the little monster—would devolve into a living hell!”

“We have lost everything. She should not be allowed to find solace either.”

Jiang Xianqing exclaimed, her voice trembling with outrage, “You are all utterly insane!”

“Insane? As long as I can ensure the survival of my child, what does my sanity matter!”

Ding Yi fixed her gaze on Catherine, who was now teetering on the edge of maniacal laughter. “How did you kill that child?”

Catherine, her laughter abruptly ceasing, her mouth still slightly agape, paused. “At first, we did not intend to take its life.”

“But it possessed the same arrogance as its mother, which made it utterly loathsome.”

Ding Yi’s eyes darkened, a flicker of something cold and dangerous within them. “So you murdered it.”

“We severed its head,” Catherine’s eyes widened, as if the gruesome scene were playing out before her once more. “It’s blood soaked the parched earth, and instantly, fruit trees sprang forth, laden with large, crimson apples.”

“Then you buried the child beneath the apple tree.”

Catherine’s gaze drifted into the distance, then snapped back to meet Ding Yi’s with unsettling intensity. “Oh, my beauty…”

She swayed slightly, as if intoxicated, and took a step towards Ding Yi, but before she could close the distance, Qin Yuan’s hand shot out and gripped her neck.

Catherine, despite the constricting pressure on her throat, seemed unperturbed. Her gray-blue eyes curved into a disturbing smile, and her full, red lips emitted an unpleasant, gurgling laugh. “Beauty… such exquisite beauty…”

“If my own child had been allowed to grow, she would undoubtedly have blossomed into a beauty such as yourself.”

“Was the little monster buried beneath the tree by our hands?” Catherine shook her fingers dismissively from side to side. “Beauty, clever beauty, have you not already deduced the truth?”

Ding Yi gently patted Qin Yuan’s arm, signaling him to release his grip. “Let’s go. We need to go to the apple orchard.”

Catherine, sensing that Ding Yi would be in danger if she allowed her to get close, abruptly seized her wrist, her smile now stiff and strained. “Not in the apple orchard,” she said.

Ding Yi looked directly into Catherine’s unsettling gray-blue eyes and responded calmly, “Yes, not there.”

Catherine, of course, recognized the perfunctory nature of her agreement. Regret for her earlier slip of the tongue flickered across her features, and she tightened her grip on Ding Yi’s hand. “Do you not have family?”

“You have family too, people you cherish dearly!”

“You must understand our desperation, surely,” Catherine pleaded, her voice taking on a desperate edge. “If your kin were on the brink of death, would you not be willing to do anything to save them?”

“It is all Ophelia’s fault! You cannot possibly—”

Qin Yuan, his patience with Catherine’s persistent entanglement finally exhausted, but intrigued by her veiled reference to Ding Yi’s personal life, shifted his grip from her neck to her wrist.

“I believe you have fundamentally misunderstood something,” Ding Yi said, lowering her gaze to the hand that was still clamped around her wrist, then slowly raising her eyes to meet Catherine’s. Her voice now blended a chilling mix of gentleness and cruelty. “I am not a good person.”

“I am not here to pass judgment on your actions.”

“In the grand scheme of things, none of us is particularly virtuous.”

“But I do not possess the inclination to harm others proactively. My sole desire is to leave this place.”

“If you are incapable of heeding my words, I can certainly devise alternative methods to ensure your compliance.”

Ding Yi forcefully yanked her wrist free from Catherine’s grasp. Catherine, visibly shaken by the sudden intensity in Ding Yi’s eyes, stumbled forward uncontrollably.

Just as she was about to regain her balance and close the distance, she dug her toes into the ground, regaining her footing. Raising her eyes once more, she locked her gaze with Ding Yi’s dark pupils.

There was no flinching, no evasion; only a chilling indifference in her unwavering stare. “Now, can you release me?”